Andy Frasco & The U.N. with Ponder The Albatross

With curly tufts of a recognizable Jewfro peeking out from his omnipresent knit cap, Andy Frasco is a cross between John Belushi’s “Joliet” Jake Blues and Jimmy Buffett. He’s a band-fronting, songwriting party animal who turns into a swirling rock ‘n’ roll Tasmanian Devil onstage leading his U.N., not unlike Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band.

“We’ve dedicated our lives to doing this, so we want to give it 130% of our energy,” says the unapologetic leader of Andy Frasco & The U.N., which has grown from playing bars to touring more than 250 days a year all over the country. “We don’t chase the latest trend down the rabbit hole. This is who we are. You don’t have to be in the cool club to enjoy our music. We’re all in this together.”

Those experiences are summed up on Growing Pains, the group’s landmark 10th studio album (along with two live records), and first full-length effort since 2023’s L’Optimist, which showcases Frasco’s growth as a tunesmith in his own right.

“I wanted to show people how I’ve grown as a songwriter,” said Frasco. “That I wasn’t just a crowd-surfing party guy in a bar band. This record is about finding a balance in both music and life, focusing on the simple pleasures. It’s about living in the present moment and taking nothing for granted because there are no guarantees tomorrow.”

Produced by Frasco himself for the first time, the collection’s centerpiece is the anthemic “Try Not to Die,” a glass half-full anthem to seizing the day that combines country twang with an easy island breeze in its affirmative message (“Enjoy what you got/Forget what you’re not/Remember that love comes first”). 

“My goal as a musician and songwriter has always been to get people out of their echo chambers to grow,” says Andy. “You can’t grow unless you hear both sides. My hope is people break out of their depression and think of a different way to live life. I try to write optimistically depressing songs. I’m always looking for silver linings.” 

“Life is Easy,” featuring bluegrass superstar Billy Strings, Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country and co-writer/frequent collaborators Steve Poltz (Rugburns, Jewel) and Chris Gelbuda (Meghan Trainor), is a folk protest anthem, with under-the-radar tongue-in-cheek lyrics like “They’re selling us the blood/While they’re all bleeding us.”

“We’re all just consumers being sold something,” he explains. “We don’t see what’s being put in our McDonald’s burgers or our juices. It’s like they want to squeeze the lemon until it’s dry.”

Both “Tears in My Cocaine” and “How to Cure a Heartbreak” deal with addiction and getting sober, the former with great lines like “I’m texting all my exes,” the latter with the admission, “I try to fill my soul with substance/But my bucket’s filled with holes.”

“Why do we put these things in our bodies to cure the stuff that’s in our heads?” wonders Andy. “That’s not going to cure it, it will only suppress it.”

“Swinging for the Fences,” featuring cameos by G. Love and Eric Krasno (Lettuce, Tedeschi Trucks Band Soulive), is a Motown-flavored paean to dating someone out of your league. The playful “They Call Me Hollywood (But I’m from LA),” co-written with frequent partner Kenny Carkeet, features rapper ProbCause, while the title track is a sing-song, hip-hop-influenced rhyme about embracing change and taking it day-to-day. “These thoughts are nothing without action,” sings Frasco.

“Easier” takes a martial beat to an old-school folk anti-war protest sing-along with lines like “Why do we like to fight/When it’s easier to shine some light?” a reaction to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Having bought a home in Denver five years ago, Frasco wrote most of the new album in Nashville with his longtime guitarist Shawn Eckels, and frequent songwriting partners Chris Gelbuda, Steve Poltz, and Andrew Cooney, choosing musicians “for what was right on each song… I’m finally learning how to turn my thoughts into melody. That was the hardest part for me.”

Frasco’s entrepreneurial ability was meant for the music business from the time he was a teenager growing up in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley “stuck between rock ‘n’ roll and ‘Purple Haze,’” a fourth-generation Los Angeleno native poring over attorney Don Passman’s All You Need to Know About the Music Business and Guerilla Marketing. Starting his professional career by DJ’ing at his friends’ bar mitzvahs, Andy started booking and managing bands while still in high school, even going on the road as a tour manager. After stints working at Drive Thru, Capitol and Atlantic Records, Frasco taught himself to play piano, dropped out of college, then used the rest of his bar mitzvah savings to buy a van to tour on his own. He picked up a backing band at each stop in the tradition of Chuck Berry, emulating his own larger-than-life childhood blues heroes BB King, Dr. John and Buddy Guy.

Fifteen years later, Andy Frasco & The U.N. -- Ernie Chang (saxophone), Shawn Eckels (guitar, vocals), Andee "Beats" Avila (drums, vocals), and Floyd Kellogg (bass guitar) – have gone from a bar band to a festival, shed and theater attraction, regularly playing before sold-out crowds with a show that finds them segueing from a world-class soul review to a jam band to blues-busters, hip-hoppers and punk rockers (with covers of My Chemical Romance’s “Teenagers,” Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer/Life During Wartime,” Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” and Clash’s “Train in Vain” peppering the playlist), all in the same set. From switching instruments mid-song to Frasco stagediving into the crowd or kibitzing with them, an Andy Frasco & The U.N. show is a celebration of inclusivity and tolerance where “You do You” and “let us do us.”

“I came into this life wanting to write songs,” said Frasco. “It took 15 years, but I feel I’m starting to get credit for it. My cup is full. I’m really starting to see my dreams come true.”