Frank Hood

Meet Frank Hood. When you listen to his voice, you can hear the pain of love and experience. You can hear the disappointment and trials he’s had to overcome to get to where he is now. Frank was born in Nashville and grew up in the north Nashville projects. He came from a tough neighborhood where the majority of the people he grew up with are either dead, in prison, or on parole. As a kid growing up, Frank learned to find a musical voice through playing drums, piano and singing in his mom’s church. Kids make irrational decisions growing up, and many adults are forced to live with the consequences of those decisions. Frank was one of those cases. He gave a friend of his a ride who turned out to be in trouble with the law, which Frank discovered when he saw the stolen police pistol the guy was carrying in addition to some drugs. As they drove through the neighborhood, Frank’s passenger began shooting the weapon into the air and Frank realized that they were outside the home of the guy’s ex-girlfriend who was now dating another man. The police began chasing Frank, who took off in his car in a moment of panic, realizing the implications of being caught in the company of this man. Frank’s friend was able to escape, but Frank was arrested for fleeing and resisting arrest. When Frank refused to give the name of his passenger, he was tried and sent to prison.

While in prison, Frank began writing songs for the first time; many of which are on this album. This time of isolation became a prime opportunity for Frank to work on his craft, uninterrupted by the distractions of day to day life. The song “I Can See My Future In Her Eyes” was written about a friend of his who was in love with a female guard at the prison. He spoke with Frank about how he could envision a life with her outside the prison, in a world he’d never been a part of, with “a white house and a picket fence”. Some nights the inmates would ask Frank to sing and these were some of his first opportunities at live performance. Frank was encouraged by his progress in songwriting and elected to stay in prison longer than he was required to so he wouldn’t have to report to a parole officer and could be completely free and focused when he got out. When Frank got out of prison, he began actively pursuing a creative outlet and joined a band called “The Zone” as their drummer/background singer. It was in this band that I met him while playing the same gig with another group. We recognized talent in each other immediately, and over the next several months crossed paths musically several times before we finally decided to start writing together. Frank and I have a rare type of musical chemistry, a mutual respect for each other, and the culmination of our efforts is this project that you’re listening to right now.

Warren Whitten
Collective Productions