{"id":317,"date":"2018-06-20T07:17:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T07:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/?p=317"},"modified":"2023-04-05T19:47:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T19:47:02","slug":"exclusive-langston-francis-on-these-nights-and-hayley-kiyoko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/exclusive-langston-francis-on-these-nights-and-hayley-kiyoko","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Langston Francis on These Nights and Hayley Kiyoko"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By day, Langston Francis is your average high school student. By night, however, he is an on-the-rise singer\/songwriter booking shows with artists like New City and Hayley Kiyoko and getting airplay on the biggest radio stations in Canada. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His world changed in November 2017 with the release of&nbsp;\u201cFCKD IT UP,\u201d&nbsp;his bold debut single that is now nearing one million listens on Spotify. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Langston Francis - These Nights (Official Video)\" width=\"1140\" height=\"641\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pjGH3wZzqWQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Langston Francis, <em>&#8220;These Nights&#8221;<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>His early 2018 follow-up \u201cFall from Grace,\u201d an infectious track about giving into lust and the emotions that follow, continues to shine a light on the 17 year old\u2019s refined talents and maturity. There is certainly more success to come, making Francis a new artist to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RUTV News caught up with the Toronto-born artist to talk about new music, avoiding eye contact and why he\u2019s already looking forward to 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You just released a new single, \u201cThese Nights.\u201d How did that song come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I actually recorded that song when I was 14 and we kind of sat on it. It\u2019s interesting how a song can kind of grow with you, like now when I listen to the song it totally makes me think of different things than it did before. It\u2019s about people in my life that aren\u2019t even in my life now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You filmed the video here in Toronto. Did you have specific locations in mind, or did you just go out and look for what made sense?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was the most on-the-fly video we\u2019ve done. My friend Jan thought of the treatment that morning and we went out that night. I had school the next day so I didn\u2019t want to shoot late but we didn\u2019t start until 10 p.m. and ended around 1:30 a.m. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To put it in perspective, we shot the \u201cFCKD IT UP\u201d video over three days and \u201cFall from Grace\u201d was done in one day but it was a solid eight hours of shooting. This video was literally just like, let\u2019s go around my neighbourhood and have fun, and for three hours of shooting it actually ended up turning out pretty well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You often busked around Toronto when you were a young teenager. How did that help prep you for where you are today?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think that prepped me a lot with understanding how I can captivate people\u2019s energy who aren\u2019t necessarily there to listen to me. The funny thing is so many people used to take videos of me on their phones so I\u2019d love for someone to somehow make the connection or something if they did discover my music and DM me a video of me, because I actually don\u2019t have that many videos!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You\u2019ve talked about being interested in photography, filmmaking and other art mediums. How does that in turn inspire your music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I\u2019m creating music, sometimes I like to just do it not thinking about the finished product, but because I\u2019ve always been inspired by different art mediums I can envision in my head how I\u2019d want things to look overall. I think of what the video could look like and the artwork and whether we\u2019re going to do some type of poster and things like that. I\u2019m thinking about the whole package and that keeps it fun and interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Your debut single \u201cFCKD IT UP\u201d launched your career. Why did you decide to use that song as your introduction to the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coming out as someone who is 16 and especially being categorized as a \u201cpop\u201d singer, you can often get kind of pigeonholed. There are obviously these crazy talented singers like Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes and I think with those types of artists sometimes they sort of get put in a box and even if they\u2019re grown up there\u2019s sort of this feeling put on them like you\u2019re not allowed to cuss or you\u2019re not allowed to make adult music, or even if you can it takes you a long time to be able to break out. I feel like it just set the tone well for me being a new artist on the younger side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You recently opened for Hayley Kiyoko in Toronto the night before your birthday. How was that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was one of the most fun opening experiences I\u2019ve had. I literally woke up that day at like 11 a.m. and I had a birthday party the night before, so I was a little bit tired. I found out about the possibility around 2 p.m. and then at 3:30 p.m. they were like, \u201cCan you get here at 4:30 p.m. for soundcheck?\u201d I was like, \u201cGuys, I\u2019m an hour away!\u201d Obviously I was going to do it, but I literally had time to put clothes on and head out and then I was on stage at 8 p.m. Her fans are incredible and Hayley\u2019s a great person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Have you had any awkward on-stage moments?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s always super funny with those small intimate shows because the people in the front row, they either don\u2019t stop staring at you or it\u2019s kind of this weird thing where if you do make eye contact, one of you kind of looks off to the side. I think being a new artist maybe sometimes people think that I\u2019m like super experienced up there but I\u2019m nervous too. This is all a dream to me, so it\u2019s kind of cool when I see people letting loose and having a good time because that\u2019s really what I\u2019m trying to do too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You\u2019re still in grade 11 and continue to go to school while balancing performances, recording sessions, rehearsals and interviews. How do you do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s super hard! At the end of the day, I feel really blessed to be doing what I\u2019m doing and I have this crazy opportunity to be working with a major label at this age. I just tell people in my position to keep their priorities straight. Keep yourself surrounded with people that are keeping you focused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s next for you? Any plans for a tour or EP?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m playing shows in&nbsp;Montreal&nbsp;(July 5) and&nbsp;Sherbrooke, Q.C.&nbsp;(July 7) opening for Jain and playing at Festival d\u2019\u00e9t\u00e9 de Qu\u00e9bec (July 6). Otherwise, there\u2019s some stuff in the works that\u2019s the most exciting stuff that I\u2019ve ever even imagined being a part of and it\u2019s looking like this fall and forward is going to be a really exciting time. I\u2019ll also probably hopefully be doing my first shows in the States. 2019 is looking pretty great too. We\u2019re always thinking long term, but I also want to enjoy the journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Thank you, Langston!<\/strong>&nbsp;\u201cThese Nights\u201d&nbsp;is out now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20200815215533\/https:\/\/rutvnews1.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/06\/langston-francis-live-rutv-news.png\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20200815215533\/https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BjlYjmkgdG7\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Get to know Langston Francis in this exclusive interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rutvnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}