A small note on Franco

Franco is in this music industry for past several years.The Thrissur-born singer has featured in a number of music albums in Indian languages as Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and also in English.
Nephew of well-known music director Ouseppachan, Franco now leads Band Seven, one of the most popular Indipop bands in Southern India. Their concerts have been telecast on 27 television channels, a sizeable number of them from northern India. Other members of the band are well-known key board artist Stephen Devassy and Sangeeth, an acknowledged guitar player. With his flawless performance on a local television channel Devassy has become a household name among music buffs in Kerala. Sangeeth passed out with top rank from London’s Trinity College of Music. The others are the illustrious Illayarajah (guitar) and mercurial A R Rahman (piano), Franco said.

Asked about his lack of interest in violin, an instrument that brought fame and name to his uncle in the south Indian film industry, Franco said even though he could not play violin, he did not miss any concert of phenomenal classical violinists like Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, Lalgudi Jayaraman and L Subramaniam, as and when they are held in Chennai. "In fact, my uncle had a great influence on shaping my music talent," he said. A graduate of Carnatic music from the University of Chennai, the singer said it was on the insistence of some music directors that he shifted to fast numbers. Some of them found that I could be more successful in western pop, he said. Franco has now established himself as a credible fast singer in the south.

"Music lovers’ responses to my songs in Jayaraj’s Vettayade Vilayadu, Leesa Leesa and Villam kelkannu, have been really encouraging," he said. In Telugu too, Franco has a number of projects at hand having come a long way since his debut Rakshasi in the film Nammal in 2002.