FRENSHIP Announces 'Base Camp' EP

James Sunderland and Brett Hite who record and perform as FRENSHIP are excited to announce the October 13 release of their new EP Base Camp. Having already shared the single “Copenhagen,” today they reveal another taste of the with the release of the lush and dreamy “Lover or an Enemy.” 

Lyrically the band revel in a certain newfound vulnerability; “This song actually started as a pandemic song, but we realized very quickly that general loneliness has become its own epidemic, so we didn’t have to change the lyrics from their original subject matter,” says Hite.

“We have more access to everyone than we've ever had before, and yet we’re as lonely as we’ve ever been,” he adds. “I'll take a lover or an enemy, just give me somebody.” The song is an aching ode to real, human connection, which the duo is hoping to capture on Base Camp.  

Frenship will head out on the road in support of Base Camp with dates kicking off October 5 at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC and concluding in Denver, CO at the Marquee Theatre on November 18. Along the way they play at New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge on October 21 and at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, CA on November 10. All shows are listed below and tickets are available here. 

Pre-order Base Camp here.

Frenship have experienced the enthralling highs and dejecting lows of life in the music business. The duo, who initially met while dreaming of ways to escape their day jobs at lululemon, quickly became the next big thing on the electro-pop circuit. In the post radio-ready anthem landscape, they were a hot commodity, but labels and important voices weren’t interested in their long term artistic development, leaving them to carve a path of their own. Having witnessed the highs and lows of the industry, FRENSHIP decided to approach their latest iteration with one goal, and one goal only.

They had felt the brilliant ecstasy of connecting with an audience, but also the almost tragicomic experience of being courted then lost in the major label system. The rollercoaster ride wasn’t worth the queasiness. “We’re going to make music for us, and none of the other s matters,” says Brett Hite. Sunderland says it more succinctly: “The only thing you can control is the song itself. The rest is up to the wind.”

On Base Camp, the duo dig into vulnerabilities they were previously hesitant to express, from their different lives (Sunderland remains in LA but Hite now lives in Washington State) to the fractured state of our nation. “Copenhagen” touches on the latter, using smooth R&B melodies and sleek, lounge-ready synths to offer clever resistance to the song’s urging thematic content.

They sing, “Too proud the American pride is getting dangerous/ Pack heat to protect a dream ’cuz words don’t do enough.” The chorus is massive but packs a punch, catchy but never veering towards saccharine. “We did a songwriting trip to Copenhagen in Denmark, and we left when there were a lot of shootings happening in the US and,” Sunderland explains, before Hite adds, “...and just as many when we returned.”

Perhaps you don’t expect your favorite electro-pop duo to take a stance on record, but FRENSHIP is the furthest thing from a typical band. They tried to take the commercial route, even charting some songs and landing hits on the radio. But there was no satisfaction, no sense of risk in this approach.

Now, they are putting their beliefs on record and looking for an audience to connect with them on a human level, in addition to keeping the tons of fans who love the way they write songs. “When we wrote ‘Copenhagen, we remember thinking, ‘f this place. f all of this.’ There was so much polarization, and that still remains, so it wouldn’t have been honest to ourselves to write songs that didn’t touch on the ways we were feeling.’”

Aiming to make timeless pop music, FRENSHIP tries to exist outside of specific eras even as it's influenced by the joys and hardships of modernity. “We have this thread of timelessness we try to infuse into everything we do. There's this goal for something to feel classic and to create something that can outlast us,” Sunderland explains. These are lofty goals, but FRENSHIP has seen every side of the music industry.

Though often painful, it has crystallized their reason for getting into the game in the first place, and for creating honest, brilliant records like Base Camp. “Hopefully we've whittled this project down more and more to who we are, and that shows on Base Camp,” says Sunderland. “We’re just making music, chipping away at it, getting better with each song we make.”

Frenship on tour

10/5 - Cat's Cradle - Carrboro, NC

10/6 - Center Stage - Atlanta, GA 

10/7 - Exit/In - Nashville, TN

10/10 - Dada Dallas - Dallas, TX

10/11 - Empire Control Room & Garage - Austin, TX

10/12 - The Secret Group - Houston, TX

10/19 - The Fillmore Philadelphia - Philadelphia, PA

10/20 - Black Cat - Washington, DC  

10/21 - Le Poisson Rouge - New York, NY

10/22 - Brighton Music Hall - Allston, MA 

10/25 - House of Blues Cleveland - Cleveland, OH

10/26 - Subterranean - Chicago, IL

10/27 - Shank Hall - Milwaukee, WI

10/28 - Appleton Beer Factory - Appleton, WI

10/29 - Fine Line - Minneapolis, MN

11/1 - The District Bar - Spokane, WA

11/2 - Nectar Lounge - Seattle, WA  

11/3 - Dante's - Portland, OR

11/4 - Wow Hall - Eugene, OR

11/8 - The Chapel - San Francisco, CA  

11/10 - Troubadour - West Hollywood, CA

11/11 - Quartyard - San Diego, CA

11/12 - Last Exit Live - Phoenix, AZ

11/14 - Soundwell - Salt Lake City, UT

11/16 - Black Sheep - Colorado Springs, CO

11/17 - Washington’s FoCo - Fort Collins, CO

11/18 - Marquis Theater - Denver, CO 

Photo by Alex Powell

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