ARTIST PROFILE: FRANCISCO JORGE
“When I did have that realization in my life of who I was and who I wanted to be, I started experimenting with anything I wanted. Aside from criticisms, I felt free.” -- Francisco Jorge
I first met Francisco when he served in the Marine Corps in Okinawa, Japan, back in 2017. Four years later, he has become a phenomenal producer, and of course, he has always been an inspired artist and a badass guitarist.
Like most guitarists, Francisco’s music expedition started with shredding some Angus Young from AC/DC and Jack White from the White Stripes on a used Les Paul in sixth grade. “I didn’t really see music being something I could make a living off. Really, it was more of something I really enjoyed at first,” Francisco commented.
Life wouldn’t be life without its teasingly twist. Behind the disintegrating world, it’s a new path to one’s destiny. We may not be aware of those changes until the encounter of something or someone that eventually divulge the undergoing. For Fransico, the wheel has already begun turning the moment he picked up that Les Paul, but it was two phenomenal teachers, Douglas Smiths and James Dalton, who unlocked the suppressed.
Growing up in Paterson, New Jersey, the early years weren’t that friendly for young Francisco, “It’s a pretty aggressive city. It was hard.” Being constantly put down for things he likes to do and who he is has left a scar that took him long to heal. “it put a haul on how I express myself. It dampened the way I express myself. I was afraid to express myself,” but the story didn’t end here. Instead, it was a painful birth into magnificence, “When I did have that realization in my life of who I was and who I wanted to be, I started experimenting with anything I wanted. Aside from criticisms, I felt free.”
The ecstasy that comes with striking upon an epiphany didn’t last long until reality strands the life out of it. Francisco soon faced his biggest hurdle: how will he afford this dream of his and make a living off? For most people, this is as far as they could go until thirty to forty years later, a mid-life crisis brings back the broken dream, but Francisco was determined. When you love something to the point that you’re willing to give it up, life finds its way:
“I joined the United States of Marine Corps in 2014. I was about nineteen years old. At nineteen years old, with everything I had done in high school – being in bands, doing all these musical events. My passion for it was really high, so taking the opposite direction and going into the military so that I can have the opportunity to do what I love. I had to give up four years of my life. Four years of not being super consistent with music in order to get to where I want to be. A lot of people thought I was taking a step back and giving up on it. The truth of the matter is, I was trying to be as smart as I can about it.”
Four years in the Marine Corps had taught him resilience and patience and gifted him the answer he was looking for: “when I was in the service, I started gravitating towards it because times I was trying to find to do these things, it would often end up being me on my laptop trying to record ideas. Then I started realizing, like wow, this is a good profession because not only can I produce ideas more fluently, but I can produce for others, and I can help other people find their way.”
He started to chronicle his life, pouring emotions into a compendium of the most daring ideas. Breakbeat lurches into a weary jazz chord escalates to penance, extricating from the past and misery. Espacios Oscuros, his first full-length record was born, “The way I write my music is very sporadic. One of the songs is called ‘Dissociation.’ And I want the song to be able to replicate what it feels like to be dissociated.” The release of this record is eagerly anticipated and will be worth the wait.
I asked him about the defining moment when he knew music is what he wanted for life; he said, “I knew from that day going into that academy that I’m gonna do something in this craft.” I then popped the question I asked every musician, “Did you ever have doubts?” For the first time, I heard someone say, “I don’t think I’ve ever had doubts.”
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