Franco’s Journey in Rock Music

By Kayla B

Ruby Franco has been listening to rock music for as long as she could remember. She started off with the ukulele, later learned the guitar, and has been playing ever since then. After years of practicing the guitar, she came to the realization that she wanted to start a band. However, picking up and learning an instrument wasn’t easy.

Franco first discovered rock music when her mom would always play The Beatles and older music on long car rides. It was only until sixth grade that she explored music on her own. This gave her a chance to figure out her music taste.

While having a diverse music taste, she is a big fan of older rock. Franco is a big fan of Radiohead, Deftones, and the Smiths, which are all bands formed in the 90s. Her cat, Stevie, is even the name of the lead singer of one of Franco and her mom’s favorite bands, Fleetwood Mac.

As a self-taught guitarist, she used the video sharing platform YouTube in order to learn and play her favorite songs. She derived inspiration from music videos and live performances. Franco views music as something that comes with a lot of freedom.

“Yes, it is very freeing. It's almost a form of therapy for me. I find music very comforting for me,” said Franco.

However, unlike today where there are now apps that help you figure out which chords to use, when she was younger, she had to look at the performances and look at their hands.

“Actually, I heard a song by a girl named Clairo. It was called Bubble Gum and it sounded like it was on ukulele and ever since I heard it, I would beg my mom for a ukulele and then she got me one,” she said, remembering how she got her first ukulele.

Like many young musicians, in her days as a beginner, she had moments where she felt like giving up. When she first started the ukulele, it took her a while to get the hang of it. This is because she liked to sing and singing while you play is a little more difficult, she commented.

When she first started playing, she didn’t tune her instrument. She didn’t know how to tune it and thought it came automatically tuned. She was playing an untuned ukulele, she said, laughing about it.

When she first held the ukulele, she had zero music knowledge prior to even wanting a ukulele. However, she always wanted to play guitar and it was always a personal side-quest of hers. So one Christmas, she asked for a guitar. She got it for her birthday instead.

She had her first guitar for only a month until one of her sisters accidentally knocked over the guitar and broke the frets. She stopped playing for about a year and a couple of months.

When she finally decided to pick up guitar again, she got her current guitar from visiting a pawn shop.

She recalled how she picked out the guitar she has today: “First, okay, when looking for a guitar, especially if it’s in like a thrift store or a pawn shop, you have to check the label and the brand that it’s on and once I saw the little fenders sign, I knew. Because that’s the best kind of guitar you could get.”

Living in a small apartment, she plays on weekdays during the daytime while her neighbors are at work. She tries to keep the noise at a minimum and to her surprise, she has yet to receive a noise complaint.

Franco has been playing the guitar for about 5-6 years now and since she was 10-years-old. There was a time in her life where she thought she had wanted to quit. However, she pursued her love for rock music and kept going.

Now Franco is starting a band with her best friend Audrey, who plays the bass alongside a friend who is a stand-in drummer who played at Yerba Buena’s Club Rush.

This has shown us how far Franco has come as a musician. Franco never gave up on playing the guitar, and will continue to grow as a musician.