Artist Close- UP: James Franco & Timothy O’ Keefe Continue To Push Social Boundaries With “Daddy”

Call him weird, random, and spontaneous, and you would not be wrong, but the point is that James Franco does what he feels right and what he feels is himself. He uses the many forms of art like, acting, music, film, and painting, to push forward his own sociological experiments and questioning of humanity. His band, Daddy, with sound composer Timothy O’Keefe, is no different from what seems to be Franco’s personal initiative to awaken others’ to their time and space.

Why do we listen to certain genres? Why do we pick up certain lyrics? Why do we appropriate certain cultures? Whether our actions are sub-conscious or conscious, Daddy’s musical purpose is to awaken listeners to their choices and their meaning. In their new, NSFW video, I’m A Sword Swallower, now on youtube,  Franco pushes sexual boundaries through abstract images and dildos. Some may love it and see it as art, while others will think it heinous, and there will be a few that will not care. Yet, why do some choose to love it, others hate, and a few feel indifference? For Franco, Daddy is another notch in his exploration of identity, and the labels we choose to emotionally define/ confine us.

The motivation behind Daddy, the newly formed band comprised of artists James Franco and Timothy O’Keefe, is to push beyond the sonic space of music into the surrounding ecology. How does music cyclically form an environment to end up being formed by it, as well? Daddy uses music sampling, film/video, installation, and performance to study these connections. While sampling has been an established and prevalent method of modern music making, Daddy’s approach moves beyond the ‘art of sampling’ into the act of appropriation, and how history, itself, can be captured sonically to either be elevated or diminished.

Click Here To Buy Their Latest Album Let Me Get What I Want.