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Franklin Jonas & The Byzantines: The Rubble, the Rise, and the First of Many
- SoundCheck Team
- 9 hours ago
- 7 min read
Article, Interview, & Photos by LJ Portnoy & Rebecca McDevitt
Franklin Jonas has been doing the work quietly, and the proof is in the rooms. Over the last few years, he and The Byzantines have grown from an exciting new project into one of the most talked-about rising acts in the Americana space, one believer at a time. Busking outside venues on the Greetings From Your Hometown tour. Sharing stages with Hunter Hayes, Boys Like Girls, and All-American Rejects. None of it was handed to him. All of it is still being earned.
But if you want to understand Franklin Jonas, the milestones are only part of the story. He does his best work in the space between two feelings. High and sad, devastate and celebrate, feeling good and feeling bad. To Franklin, that's not a contradiction. That's the whole point. No finish line, no final answer, and no interest in either. That's where he writes from, and that's where the music lives.
We met up with him in Hanover, Maryland, ahead of his dual sets and asked him to describe Franklin Jonas today. "I think I'm still figuring it out. I'm still trying to figure it out all the time. I hope I never know for certain because I like the process of figuring it out."
Most people spend a lifetime trying to arrive. Franklin would rather keep going. The man doing the figuring out is the story. And we've only just met him.
Looking for Himself in "Village Liquors"
"Village Liquors" is packed with references that reward a closer look. The opening image: August Belmont turning in his grave, a Playboy lighter with his name engraved. It has the ring of old money, some long-dead patrician. But the grandeur is a misdirection. The truth is much more personal.
The Belmont here is Belmont University, and Belmont, NC, where his dad runs Nellie's Southern Kitchen. The song is really about coming home: his college years, the kid he was, every expectation of who he was supposed to become. Those are the ghosts turning in the grave. The Playboy lighter is that kid, a little rebellious, a little reckless, still figuring himself out.
Then there's the word almost nobody has asked him about: "Recreance." An archaic term for cowardice or surrender, all but extinct since 1870, lifted from Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings. Franklin was reading it during a pivotal stretch of his life, and a character's journey resonated enough that the word found its way into the song.
"I've been waiting for somebody to ask me about this word. Nobody has," he told us, lighting up. The line says it plainly: Recreance, it taught me how to care. A word for giving up, repurposed to name the very thing that taught him to feel.
That detail is Franklin. The more time you spend with the music, the more layers turn up. At the center sits a line that may be the closest thing to a mission statement: "I'll be looking for myself my whole life." He doesn't fear that. He's made peace with never fully knowing himself, surrounded now by people who give him the grace to mess up.
Videography by LJ Portnoy
"Road Soda" and the Beauty of Being Human
One lyric from "Road Soda" always gets a reaction: "Nothing I love more than hating my life." Franklin laughed when we brought it up. The chorus came together on a rare day off during tour, while he was processing how overwhelming life had gotten. He sent the idea to his guitarist Tim, who got back to him fast.
"It might be my favorite line you've ever written," Tim told him.
"My friends believe in me, and that makes me feel so good," Franklin said, smiling at the memory.
Like much of his writing, "Road Soda" balances humor with honesty, digging into sobriety on the road and the tension between celebration and self-destruction. "If I am to celebrate, I will devastate," he says with a grin. It cuts to the song's core conflict: knowing he'll always try to mess up the good moments, and being grateful he gets to keep messing up anyway.
Astrology, Mythology, and "High and Sad"
If you've ever wondered whether the astrological references in "High and Sad" were intentional, the answer is yes. Very intentional.
"I am an astrology nerd. I'm deep in it," Franklin told us. He's a Libra Sun, Libra Moon, and Aquarius Rising, with that Aquarius Rising placement directly inspiring one of the song's lyrics.
From there it opened into the larger world he's building through The Byzantines, a blend of Appalachian folklore, mythology, cyberpunk, and modern storytelling. Personal enough to feel like his, open enough for listeners to find themselves in it.
The song itself came from a period when he realized the ways he was coping were numbing his emotions and his experiences both. "High and Sad" became a way of confronting that, a conversation with someone on the other side he never quite named, though we think it might have been August Belmont all along.
When we sat down, he was high off the news of a re-release: "High and Sad" as a feature with the one and only Noah Cyrus. The glow in his eyes when he talks about Cyrus tells you the friendship runs deep, recently sealed with matching tattoos. The collaboration is out now on all streaming platforms.
Videography by LJ Portnoy
Revisiting "Hoboken"
Longtime listeners were thrilled when Franklin recently revisited "Hoboken," a fan favorite from the Sewer Rat era. Written for his girlfriend Anna, it was one of the first meaningful gifts he gave her through music.
"Hoboken to me was love."
At its core, it's about finding safety in another person, a sense of home, themes that still echo through The Byzantines' music. The revival grew out of a tradition from the Greetings From Your Hometown tour: outdoor, a capella sets where they'd cover a different song in every city, something with local meaning, results ranging from incredible to disastrous.
Building The Byzantines
The Byzantines came together the way the best bands do. Through friendship, and a little chaos.
Aidan ran the mix on one of Franklin's songs, Tim on guitar. That is how Franklin knew them. So when the call came to play Jonas Con, half the lineup picked itself. Tim on guitar, no question. A banjo player, less obvious. Franklin asked around, someone pointed him to Aidan, and Aidan signed up on the spot.
He just left out one detail. He didn't play the banjo. Yet.
What he did next is the part that never gets old. Seven days locked in a closet, doing nothing but learning, his wife leaving food at the door. He kept the whole thing a secret for nearly a year and a half, and it only just surfaced. Listen to him now and you'd never guess. The precision, the plucking, all of it lands like a maestro who's been at it for decades.
Tim fills out the rest, harmonies and guitar wrapping the sound until it feels whole. Then there's Ben and Nick, the newest additions, already so woven in you'd think they'd been here since the first chord, blending out a magnitude on drums, upright bass, and horns.
Franklin spoke warmly about Tim, Aidan, Nick, Ben, and even his TO and audio engineer, Nic, and it's obvious how much they mean to him. One favorite memory came from the band's first headline show, a homecoming gig at Club Dada in Dallas, when their drummer broke his foot the night before rehearsals. They ran several auditions, but the moment they played with Nick and Ben, the chemistry was instant. "I looked at them both (Tim and Aidan) and was like, guys!!! we got them."
The first song the full band wrote and recorded together was "Road Soda." Everything that followed, including "High and Sad" and "Village Liquors," built from there.
What's Next?
He was quick to tease unreleased music. "There is a… harddrive…." he remarks, holding back every detail. "On my life, I will make it happen." A pinky promise was made. An iPod was offered. We're still waiting on the final details, but will be listening and ready.
This August, Franklin Jonas and The Byzantines head out on The First of Many, their first headlining tour. Four words that double as a thesis.
They earned the name. After four tours as the opener, they won over audiences who came to see someone else. And win them they did. Somewhere along those runs, people started coming early, filing in before the headliner just to catch The Byzantines. And Franklin never lets it pass unnoticed. He dances. He celebrates the crowd out loud, thanking them for being there, reminding them they had a choice and chose to come early, telling them they are part of the story now. That gratitude is not a bit between songs. It is the most honest thing he does on a stage.
Now the lights are theirs from the first note, and the title makes its promise. There will be more. Franklin sounds caught between two timelines when he talks about it. "It feels like we're so far removed, and I can't believe it hasn't even been a year yet. But I also feel like that was yesterday."
Franklin Jonas in one word: Grateful
Gratitude surfaced all conversation long, no matter the subject. Those onstage speeches fans now know by heart have never had a script. He just says what feels right, the same instinct that guides the music, the band, and the community forming around both.
Looking five years out, Franklin won't predict too precisely, since he couldn't have predicted where he is now. But he does have one dream: what he calls "the Maggie Rogers set," the Sunday 5:40 p.m. slot at a festival like Stagecoach or Coachella. "I hope it's with these four guys. I hope Nic is doing sound. And I hope that we drive there in a big old van that we own by that point, and I don't have to rent them anymore."
As the tour approaches, the title says it all. The rubble has settled. The rise is well underway.
And if Franklin is right, this is only the first of many.
Catch Franklin Jonas & The Byzantines on their first headlining tour, The First of Many starting In August. Tickets and tour dates at https://franklin-jonas.com/shows/