This blog post marks a new segment of That’s What She Said. It’s called “From the Artist’s Mouth.” For these features, I’ll get real nosy and grill an artist about her songwriting, branding, music industry experience, life accomplishments and challenges, childhood, mortifying moments, scandalous secrets, and smoldering (or nonexistent) love life. (Ok, maybe not the latter few, unless she volunteers the information on the record. Neither artists nor careers will be harmed in the making of this segment.)
The goal of “From the Artist’s Mouth” is for an artist to explain––in her own words––what she and her work are all about. Without further ado, I present...
All photo credits: Franki Pineapple / Stephanie Carlisi
In her defiant debut single, “Fuck It Man!”, Franki Pineapple drops the f-bomb 36 times. “Fuck what they think / Let that one sink” she growls during the music video, flipping off the camera over and over again as she leans back against a speaker and kicks up her legs. Franki’s bright red nails and lips match the color of the explicit lyrics that flash across the screen, and she smiles smugly at the camera, ruffling her shaggy blonde hair.
When I sat down with Franki Pineapple via Zoom, I expected a badass, jaded, down-and-dirty rocker. Franki Pineapple––née Stephanie Carlisi––was a total badass, but instead of indifference or harshness, the singer-songwriter/author/podcaster radiated self-awareness, maturity, cautious optimism, and kindness. Confident in her hard-earned wisdom, she spoke quickly, thoughtfully, and at length. Franki was also, well, frank, but not necessarily in the “fuck it man!” sort of way––besides referencing the song title, she uttered precious few four-letter words during our 40-minute conversation. “Fuck It Man!” is actually an anomaly in the growing catalogue of Franki Pineapple/Stephanie Carlisi; her other compositions, which she sings with a voice resembling that of early 2000s Liz Phair, draw from Laurel Canyon-era folk-rock. Throughout the interview, Franki, who learned to sing and play guitar at age 28, was emotionally honest and unapologetically candid. As Franki Pineapple said a mere five minutes after meeting me, “I’m an open book...and I tend to go deep.”
Go deep we did. Seated in her studio and sporting a Blondie tank top, the almost-45-year-old Californian opened up about her father’s tragic passing when she was just five years old, how she learned to stop using men and her music as means of validation, the lawsuit she recently won against Apple Inc., and her experience with the music industry’s rampant sexism and ageism. We also chatted about the meal that inspired her stage name, her original novel (which she recently transformed into a podcast titled Father F*cker!), her days working with and writing music for major industry names like Kenneth Edmonds (AKA Babyface) and JD Souther (who co-wrote with Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, and James Taylor), and why she began creating songs for herself to record and perform.
How, when, and why did you come up with the name Franki Pineapple?
My [given] name is Stephanie Carlisi, and I was writing and performing under that name for quite some time. My boyfriend [Nataraj Tribino] who’s also my producer said to me a handful of years back, “You need to come up with an artist name. You need something that has snap and pizzazz.” I was very offended, like, “My name is Stephanie Carlisi. What are you talking about?!” He was like, “No, you just need a little edge, something that’s gonna penetrate.” Later that day we were eating Thai food, and [it was] pineapple fried rice. I just was about to take a bite, and I said, “Hey, what about pineapple?” He said, “It’s sweet on the inside, prickly on the outside. Perfect!” So I went by “Pineapple” for a couple years and started performing as that.
When I decided that I wanted to make it legit and trademark it, I wasn’t able to get the trademark for “Pineapple,” so my trademark attorney told me to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that was a little bit more original. Franki was the name of my dad, who passed away tragically of a drug overdose when I was five, so I decided to take on his name and add it to “Pineapple,” which became Franki Pineapple. I had the Pineapple Grenade logo created by John Pasche, who made the Rolling Stones’ Tongue and Lips logo, and then I was going through the trademark process, and Apple Inc. opposed my trademark just because it had the word “apple” in it [and it] appropriated a fruit. I had to go through a whole lawsuit with them, but I ended up winning, and here I am. I’m Franki Pineapple!
I’d love to hear more about that lawsuit and how, if at all, it affected both your art and your opinion of the corporate world?
It absolutely did. In the time that was going down, I was developing “Fuck It Man!” I had already created the demo, so the idea was there, but once this Apple Inc. thing started, it fueled the fire of “Fuck It Man!” Coincidentally, serendipitously, and synchronistically, the idea of “Fuck It Man!” [as in] “Fuck the man” really tied in well with it. I was in the studio with my producer at the time, and he had me extend the song and write a second verse, which is the anti-establishment “We don’t need their permission” and “We don’t need to sit or stand.” Like, “Let’s just be free, let’s be who we are.” The Apple Inc. situation definitely fueled me to be even stronger in my message.
Also, I use all Apple products as an artist. I’m constantly creating on [my] MacBook Pro and my iPhone. One of the things that I love about Apple is that they are there for the do-it-yourself artists. They give us these tools to become entrepreneurs and to think differently. Part of the irony of the whole Apple Inc. thing is that I love Apple for all the reasons that they were coming [at me] and kind of squelching the little guy and the entrepreneurial spirit. That was another thing that fueled me to be like, “Are you kidding me right now?! You’re here for the artist!”
Speaking of “Fuck It Man!”, to whom or what are you saying––or encouraging others to say––“fuck it man”? In addition, can you take us through the songwriting process for “Fuck It Man!”?
None of this comes from a place of resentment. I am not an “angry female,” but I've been trying to “make it,” I guess really share the music, for a long time. And I've faced a lot of rejection. Finally, in 2019, I was given the opportunity, funding-wise, to get some of my music produced professionally. I went on this journey of finding professionals to work with, and I got a lot of great responses. I did come to realize that money talks. I got involved in producing, songwriting, and collaborations during that period with name professionals that have worked with top-level artists...but I had this feeling inside, like, “I'm last on their priority list. Even though I have the money, I don't have the name.” No matter what, people respond to fame, to a track record, to artists that have a whole team of people and a label behind them, and I just don't have that. I was having great experiences with these professionals, but I was finding [that] they just weren't as enthusiastic as I was about the project.
One day, I was sitting in my studio, and I was about to start creating a track... I was stewing in the fact that somebody wasn't returning my call. And I was like, “Fuck this. I'm so sick of being a ‘nobody’ in a world of ‘somebodies’.” I started creating the track, and as I was writing it, I was like, “You know what? I'm just gonna create it and do what I do.” Then I stood up on the mic, and that's when I was like, “I don't know what I'm doing”––I literally meant, I don't know what I'm doing––and “I don't know who I am.” Like, I'm becoming Franki Pineapple. I don't know if they're gonna understand, cause let me tell you, they never really do. And then I was like, “Well, I'm just doing it cause ‘fuck it, man.’” And then the next line is, “I don't give a fuck if you know who I am.” That was literally me looking at my phone being like, “Why isn't he returning my text? Oh because I'm not Lady Gaga or Katy Perry or whatever.” I told myself, “Stop seeking validation through your music. Do what you would do. Be yourself. What inspires you? What might heal any other person?” And so that's what “Fuck It Man!” turned into.
Like you said, your given name is Stephanie Carlisi. Where does Stephanie begin and Franki end, and vice versa? Or are they both the same person?
As far as Stephanie Carlisi and Franki Pineapple go, they––I should say we––are completely separate, and we are also completely one. Growing up, I was always very insecure and seeking validation, and I had low self-worth and self-esteem problems, which was all related to my father’s death when I was five and the daddy issues that evolved out of that. As Stephanie Carlisi, I never could escape the shadow of myself. I turn 45 in December, and I’m proud to say that––I’m happy that I’ve made it this far, so I’m not wishing that I’m 25 or anything––and it literally has taken me ’til now, ’til the Apple Inc. thing, ’til releasing “Fuck It Man!” ’til becoming Franki Pineapple to be able to get out of my own shadow, the trauma of my childhood, and the seeking of validation. It’s a man’s world out there, and with the father issues, it created this dynamic with me and men where I was always seeking that validation. And creating Franki Pineapple gave me something, not to hide behind, but to get out of my own shadow and drop that broken little girl that came with me my whole life.
Stephanie Carlisi is still integrated into my art... I’m not trying to escape that grief, but integrate it into the wholeness of who I am. I met my partner and producer [Nataraj Tribino], the one who helped me come up with Franki Pineapple, in 2016. He as a man really applauded me blossoming, whereas I’d had a history with men of feeling like there was some kind of tension. I don’t want to say [that they were] threatened by me because that sounds resentful and egotistical, and that’s not what I mean. But I do feel that he’s helped [me] step out of the shadows and into myself, and become Franki Pineapple without slamming the door on Stephanie Carlisi.
I was going to ask you about this later, but I think I’ll ask now because you’re leading me right into it. You have a novel that you turned into a podcast called Father F*cker! The podcast follows a young artist grappling with the absence of her father, who passed away from a drug overdose when she was a small child. I know that the story is somewhat autobiographical, and I’m wondering where you found the strength to be so publicly candid and vulnerable?
I denied it and did not talk about it until I was in my 20s. I was the queen of denial, I was the queen of suppression, I was the queen of not looking at my pain, which led to a lot of self-medication and addiction issues. But then, in my 20s, I started practicing yoga, and I got to a point where I knew, if I don't face this and let this out of me, it’s gonna destroy me. My father passed away at age 30 of a drug overdose, so that is a real thing, and I do believe I was on a path heading in that direction. When this heart-opening happened, that was when I met a songwriter by the name of JD Souther who hired me to transcribe his lyrics for him. I was a writer at the time, but I was not a musician at all. In fact, I had been told in my childhood, “Don’t sing, don’t dance. You are not musical.” Of course I believed it because I had low self-esteem, but once I started working with his lyrics, he encouraged my poetry, which was becoming lyrical because I was working with his words, and he encouraged me to put my words to music.
I picked up a guitar for the first time at age 28. That was literally the opening that gave me the opportunity to start letting it out and be open with it... Something in me was like, “Share this,” and then I started writing the book, and it took me a long time to be comfortable with it, especially because it is tied in so deeply with the daddy issues and this relationship with an older man, but there just was no other way at that point. I couldn’t deny it anymore. And now it’s been 17 years since then, so it’s been a journey. It certainly did not happen overnight.
That’s really interesting because a lot of musicians talk about learning to sing, play, and write music when they were very young, but you began your musical journey as an adult. What has that experience been like for you?
I had never touched a guitar. I remember at the age of 28, asking somebody, “How do you know the difference between a guitar and a bass?” Like I literally did not know the 6-string guitar, the 4-string bass. That's how clueless I was. I didn't even know that time had anything to do with music, I didn't know what a measure was, I didn't know what a melody was. But I did have the words. I had the lyrics. And my very first songwriting partner [was] Tim Kobza, a brilliant guitarist [and] producer who also happens to be a guitar professor at USC. Lucky, right? He had probably 40 guitars. I picked one up one day, and he got out this USC guitar book, and he was like, “This is a G chord.” And literally, I was like, “Huh?” I mean, the first time you ever take your fingers and form them into a chord, it is not a natural thing to do. So he showed me a few chords, and I can honestly say that I spent the next two-and-a-half to three years just strumming, strumming, strumming, and changing chords and strumming, and getting into the flow.
I never picked up the guitar to become a guitarist. I picked up the guitar to sing my songs. And I literally was like, “So you mean, if I strum four times on this chord, and then strum four times on this chord, I can fit four words here, and then four words here?” And he was like, “Yeah, yeah. Just do that.” I'm like, “Okay.” And slowly but surely, it became [me] writing these songs.
Back to the podcast: You composed original music for it, and I’d love to hear more about that experience. Also, what made you decide to transform it from a novel to a podcast?
The songwriting began in 2004, and I just started the podcast in 2020. What inspired me to start the podcast was, when I was going through the lawsuit with Apple Inc., I was obsessing over it. Like, I couldn’t stop. I was resentful, I was angry, sending my attorney emails, googling it in the middle of the night. My attorney said to me, “Please let go. Trust me. This is what you hired me for. Find something else to focus on.” Now, at this point, I’d been working on developing the novel for 17 years. I’d gotten little excerpts published by this Hollywood journalist [Nikki Finke] who has a fiction website called Hollywood Dementia. I’d been in talks [with publishers], there’d been some near misses on it, stuff like that. By the time I had that conversation with my attorney, I had my studio, and I figured, “I’m a record producer at this point, and my own little music producer. I can figure out how to record the novel... He told me to focus on something else. I’m gonna dive into this and just see what happens.”
It was day by day. I just taught myself to record it, which is nothing compared to recording music. If I look back at the 17 years I’ve been trying to get the book out into the world, we didn’t have something like this at our fingertips, where everybody and their mother is doing podcasts. It was an aligning of stars, and I got so deeply into the recording of the book––and I am not even exaggerating––I forgot about the Apple Inc. lawsuit. So one day, I get a phone call, I look at the 917 area code, and I’m like, “Oh it’s probably spam,” so I push “end,” and then I get a text from my attorney saying, “You have to call me right now.” I call him, and he’s like, “We won.” Everybody had told me “You cannot beat Apple Inc., they’re gonna bankrupt you.” I think maybe it’s because I truly let it go. Like, the art of surrender. So that’s how the podcast started.
Oh! And the songs! I just had years and years of demos and songs that had been released by independent artists, plus the book is about the protagonist becoming a songwriter, and so I figured that this was the perfect place to put my own songs after years of trying to get my own music out and everyone being like no, no, no, rejection, rejection. I was finally like, “I’m gonna do it myself!” It’s literally a do-it-yourself story.
The diversity of your catalogue is striking. There’s the wistful and stripped-down “Ocean,” the soft rock ballad “Chance at Happiness”... And, of course, “Fuck It Man!” is straight up hard rock. What accounts for the impressive variety in your work? Right now, what are your favorite genres in which to write music?
Over the years, I’ve been told, “You need to focus. You are so all over the place. Nobody knows what to grab onto.” And I just can’t. That is not who I am. The songwriter who I worked for, JD Souther, wrote a lot of songs for the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor––he's very ensconced in the Laurel Canyon music scene, which was my training ground and remains my heart and soul. You know, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, the Eagles, all that. When I picked up my guitar and started playing, that's what came out of me. But I'm very empathic in that I pick up on and absorb the energy of what's going on around me, and I've collaborated with a lot of different songwriters and music producers over the years. That's when my work starts to veer and take on these different genres. Also, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 80s, when the rap movement was really big. We were driving around in lowered trucks with hydraulics, bumping this rap music. So that turned into this punk-but-rhythmic sort of writing that I also have inherent in me, and then I was also very influenced by Patti Smith, and she's got that punk-spoken word thing going on. And my producer/partner who produced “Fuck It, Man!” has a background of funk, soul, and dance.
I was very aware that I have “Evil Love,” “You Baby You,” and “Chance at Happiness,” which are more this classic, folk-rock sound, and I had to find a way to bridge it all with “Fuck It Man!” I wanted to start with “Fuck It Man!” because it's in your face. Love it or hate it––which, by the way, a lot of people hate it, a lot of people love it, whichever it is––you're not going to forget it. I just had a remix done of “Evil Love,” and I told the remixer, “Please bridge this ‘Fuck It Man!’ sound with these other classic, folk-rock songs.” That’s what I’m doing. I’m doing alternate versions of the songs that tie it all together. I love it all. I love to dance and be crazy. But I also love to play the acoustic guitar and get introspective. And every song is my baby. Like, whichever song I'm working on at the time is my “favorite of all time.”
You’ve collaborated with several male artists, including Shawn Jones, Tim Kobza, and John Torres. I know that a lot of your primary inspirations are women, from Stevie Nicks and Alanis Morissette to Madonna, so I’m wondering: What’s your dream collaboration with a female artist?
Oh my gosh. That’s so hard. Here's a good way to say it... Once [my producer and I] started developing “Fuck It Man!” he was like, “You need to get a guest vocalist on this to do a verse or a ‘fuck it man!’ or whatever.” And the person that came to mind was Debbie Harry. She might very well be the coolest lady that ever lived. And I love her music, but...she's not even [one of my] musical influences like Stevie Nicks and Joni Mitchell. [With] Debbie Harry [I love] the attitude and the “Fuck It Man!” and the punk aspect of it all. She's so feminine but yet she's also so strong. It's hard for me to maybe even dream in terms of collaborating with these idols of mine, but if I could think of the coolest person to guest star on “Fuck It Man!” let’s just say, it would be Debbie Harry. And hey, I happen to be wearing a Blondie tank top here, which I didn’t even realize!
From what I understand, you’ve also written songs for some of music’s all-time greats, including Alicia Keys, Celine Dion, and Toni Braxton––that’s amazing! What did you learn from having a hand in the creation of these songs?
We got close with some of these songs. None of them ended up going on their albums or anything, but there were some great collaborations. The number one thing that I learned is that the written word and the human experience is universal, regardless of musical genre. It was so amazing to do research and try to get into the heads of these different types of artists and have a lyric inspired by [them]. An amazing thing too would be [when] I had written a lyric where I played it acoustically in my folk-rock way. And then I’d hear that same lyric put to a completely different track or a different beat and be like, “Wow, the words can be really universal, and the words can come out as all these different types of music.” I would love to write or work with any type of musical artist. I don't discriminate in that way at all.
What do you think your collaborators, including famed hitmakers Kenneth Edmonds (Babyface) and Antonio Dixon, learned from working with you?
For me, I’m all about the words. And I would hope, or surmise, that my collaborators would have learned to go a little deeper, lyrically. Storytelling is a really important part of my musical journey, so I hope they learned to take a story and turn it into a lyric that touches deeply into the human experience and to turn that into music, instead of just writing a hooky lyric or something that sounds cool. It's [about] the meaning, the depth, and the story.
What prompted you to shift from writing songs for others to writing your own music? How does the experience of writing for yourself different from that of writing music for other artists?
I still love to collaborate with other artists, but I do think I needed to step away from it for a portion of time. I would be in the studio for hours on end, kind of sitting on my hands, and listening to the vocalist in the booth or developing the song vocally. And there was this itch inside of me where it was like, “I have to sing these words. I need to turn this into something physical.” Even though, honestly, as a songwriter, there is nothing more beautiful than another artist singing my words. I love that so much, the way that different artists interpret them differently. But I was an actress growing up. It was my first passion, and there's definitely a tie-in between a musical performer and acting. There was just this physical need inside of me to be vulnerable and open, and not keep it inside. Like there was this burning desire to vocalize it, and I just don't think that was ever gonna go away.
By the way, I always face tremendous stage fright. I have the worst stage fright of anyone. Like, my whole body shakes, and I can't breathe. But sometimes that's what we're passionate about. And that's what we need to face. Facing it, [and] having the guts to get up on stage and sing original songs [is] about as naked as you can get, other than maybe stand-up comedy.
What has your experience been like as a young woman in the male-dominated creative industry?
Oh my gosh. I'm [always] hesitant to sound like some angry, resentful feminist, but I think that also ties into the whole thing. I have, throughout the years, had this power struggle with men in the music industry. It's always subliminal, but there's this dance where I meet a man with power, with connections, somebody that has some perceived thing that I want as an artist to get my work out into the world. And then this dance begins where it's like, “Okay, but what does he want from me?” And there's this thing of, you know, the man wants what the man wants, whatever that is, and the woman wants what the woman wants. And I've never been somebody that was able to sell my soul, or sell out, or be like, “I'll do this, if you do this.” I know I'm talking in subtext. But I always felt there was this struggle of being seen and appreciated for the work I'm doing or what I'm contributing or what I'm inspiring, as opposed to being an object. That dance could go on forever, until, as a woman, I'm too old to be “desirable” or whatever. I finally got to this point where I was like, “If that dance is there, I'm not gonna dance. I'm not gonna play that anymore. I'm just gonna be me and be who I am and collaborate with people who are on the same page.” You know what it is? It's like a dangling carrot. I always felt like I was chasing this dangling carrot.
It was very challenging all the way up until I released “Fuck It Man!” because when I released “Fuck It Man!” that was me just being like, “Fuck it, man, I literally don't give a fuck.” And I took out this Facebook ad for “Fuck It Man!” [Let me] tell you [about] the anti-feminist, ageist comments that I got on this thing. I got comments that said, like, “Lie down and take a pill honey,” or “Somebody's grandma is trying too hard,” or “Courtney Love is off her meds again.” Things from men that probably don't even realize that what they're saying is sexist and ageist. At first I was like, “Oh my God, they're calling me Grandma!” and it was really alarming. But then I got to the point where I was like, “Yeah, but my song is called ‘Fuck It Man!’ and my song is literally saying, “I don't give a fuck if you know who I am. I think I'm okay with this.” And I got to the point of being like, “I'm going to do it anyway at my age, at the age of 45.” And that’s a huge thing for me. I believe that all of us should celebrate the age that we are at every age that we are because the whole goal of life is to age. Like, we want to get older. So why would I be sitting here trying to look 25 or be 25? I want to celebrate my age, experience, and wisdom until I die, and I feel that at this age, I have so much more to contribute to the world anyway than I did when I was 25.
*Note: For purposes of clarity and length, this interview has been edited and condensed.
Want to experience Franki Pineapple's work? Check out her:
"Fuck It Man!" Lyric Video
Father F*cker! Podcast
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