Frank Meyer (Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, Trading Aces, FEAR) Steps Out with ‘Living Between the Lines’
After years fronting West Coast punk bands like The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs and Trading Aces, and sharing stages with punk legends including FEAR, Wayne Kramer, and James Williamson, Frank Meyer is finally stepping into the spotlight with his debut solo album ‘Living Between the Lines,’ out now via Kitten Robot Records.
“This record is everything I’ve been through and everywhere I want to go,” Frank says. The album plays like a personal mixtape, blending punk, soulful detours, and blues into a cohesive rock ‘n’ roll statement. “I wanted to lean into other areas like soul, blues, and ’60s pop to see how far I could stretch myself, yet still sound like me,” he adds. The result is an honest album that reflects major life moments—loss, love, and change.
While collaborations with Cherie Currie, Eddie Spaghetti, and Lisa Kekaula add star power, ‘Living Between the Lines’ remains unmistakably Frank’s. “No matter how pop I get, there’s always gonna be some edge and snarl. That’s the Frank Meyer promise!” he says.
“I wanted ‘Living Between the Lines’ to go in all the directions I hadn’t been yet.”
What did chasing pop structure teach you about your own punk DNA?
Frank Meyer: To me, a hook is a hook. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pop song, a punk song, or a metal song. A good hook will always strengthen a song and make it more memorable. Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift have tons of hooks, but so do Green Day and the Buzzcocks. Even Slayer writes great hooks. “On and on, south of heaven” is a catchy hook! It’s the most memorable part of the song. It’s an earworm. A very satanic earworm!
‘Blue Radio’ is catchy as hell but still weird and ragged around the edges… Is that balance between sugar and snarl something you chase, or just how your brain naturally writes songs?
With ‘Blue Radio,’ I was purposely trying to write the most sugar-coated pop hooks I possibly could. Like something you could hear on the radio or in a cheesy TV commercial, but in a good way. It came out sounding like Cheap Trick meets Amy Winehouse, and I’m good with that. But no matter how pop I get, there’s always gonna be some edge and snarl. That’s the Frank Meyer promise!
Where does your obsession with surreal Americana and cinematic chaos come from?
Movies. I was a movie junkie growing up, especially horror or sci-fi flicks. So a lot of time when I am writing a song, I think about what kind of movie it would be. Or even what the movie poster would look like. Sometimes you just start with a cool-sounding title and go from there. But there’s always a visual approach to my songwriting, and that stems from being a movie geek growing up.
You’ve played with punk legends, and now you’re putting out deeply personal solo work. What’s scarier: sharing the stage with James Williamson or showing people something that’s entirely yours?
Playing on stage with James Williamson was pretty nerve-wracking, though I don’t think it showed. But, yeah, he’s one of my heroes, and the Stooges are a hugely impactful band on my career, so I took the job very seriously when James asked me to sing for him. First it was at an all-star concert, then we started writing and formed a band together—James Williamson & the Pink Hearts. We made one album, did some live shows, then I helped write his album with Deniz Tek after that. Those live shows we did were killer, but it was definitely pretty scary singing those Stooges classics with the man himself right next to me! I just said “f*ck it” and sang my heart out.
The album feels like a mixtape of all your lives—punk bangers, soulful detours, barroom blues, the whole shebang. Was ‘Living Between the Lines’ your way of refusing to stay in one genre lane?
That’s exactly right. I wanted ‘Living Between the Lines’ to go in all the directions I hadn’t been yet. Of course, it still had to be a rock ‘n’ roll album, but I wanted to lean into other areas like soul, blues, and ‘60s pop to see how far I could stretch myself, yet still sound like me. I’m really happy with the results. It’s a much more personal, dynamic album than I’ve done before. Very honest. I had a lot of heavy stuff go on while recording it, and it’s all reflected in the music. My folks passed away, my best friend died, my daughter went off to college, I fell in love and got married. Lots of complex emotions. It felt irresponsible not to address these life events on my first solo album.
‘Baby Dynamite’ combusts, dies, and rises from the grave like a glitter-drenched phoenix. Is that character a metaphor for your creative process—or just a badass punk goddess you wanted to see come alive?
‘Baby Dynamite’ was written about my daughter, actually. When she was a teen, she was just this awesome firecracker with so much energy and enthusiasm. So smart, too. Still is. We used to go to this diner near our apartment and sit at the counter to get burgers. I’d drink this killer white wine sangria they made, while she’d have an OJ. She’d chat up the chef and the staff, and eventually, they took her in and taught her how to cook, wait tables, be a hostess! She started working events… at age 14! I was so proud. So she is Baby Dynamite. But in the music video, I made her this badass woman character who ends up setting fire to all the gross guys that hit on her. She literally takes a blowtorch to toxic masculinity!
You’ve always had your hands in multiple creative buckets—bands, books, videos, collaborations. What’s your fuel these days? Is it still the same raw fire from the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs days, or something else entirely?
These days I am playing in six active projects that are all touring: my solo career, my longtime L.A. punk rock ‘n’ roll band the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, my European-based hard rock band Trading Aces, the legacy punk band FEAR, Lee Ving from FEAR’s country band Range War, and Dictators frontman Handsome Dick Manitoba’s solo band. Because I’m touring so much now, I really have to carve out the time to focus on writing and recording new material. So the fuel is still always these creative ideas that swirl around in my head all day long, but I just have to make the time to complete the ideas and record them. Right now, I am finishing up the second Trading Aces album, which is a banger! Then the Cheetahs are gonna knock out a new EP. Then I will start working on the follow-up to Living Between the Lines. Writing-wise, that should keep me busy for the rest of the year.
There’s this thread of finding beauty in the sleaze, glam in the gutter, and pop in the punk. How do you keep that vision from getting diluted in an industry that often wants you to pick a lane?
I think my overall lane is rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s just the context that changes a bit between my various acts. For instance, the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs are more punk, and Trading Aces are more heavy metal, but it’s still me that is writing (or co-writing) the majority of the material, so there is a consistency across it all. And it all still ends up sounding like rock in the end. I think fans of those two bands can easily coexist. And most of the folks who dig that stuff are likely to own Fear or Dictators albums too. Now, whether these folks like my solo album material or not remains to be seen, but again, it’s all coming from my head and my heart, so I think there’s a common thread there that fans will find and enjoy.
“The most surprising thing about music is that it is still so full of surprises!”
You’ve worked with legends, fronted bands, been a sideman, and now you’re steering the ship solo. After all these years, what still surprises you about making music?
The most surprising thing about music is that it is still so full of surprises! I have been doing this since I was 12 years old and I still love it. You think you’ve seen and done it all, and then something you couldn’t imagine happens and you just laugh. Playing music is constantly fun, inspirational, and full of surprises. If anything, the real surprises are when you end up playing with someone cool who you’ve been a fan of your whole life! To be playing alongside guys like Lee Ving and Handsome Dick Manitoba is amazing… and surprising!
So you’ve jammed with some seriously legendary punks—Wayne Kramer, Cheetah Chrome, FEAR’s Lee Ving… what’s it like being in the mix with those dudes? Is it more “holy shit, I’m here” or just straight-up fun chaos?
Once you get past the initial trippiness of meeting your heroes, it’s all about getting the job done. Wayne Kramer taught me that being a professional musician is about “doing the work.” Like any other job, if someone pays you to do a job, you do it, and you do it well. My job is to play music by playing guitar and singing. Sometimes I am the boss in that job, like in my own bands, and sometimes I am the hired gun, like in FEAR and Manitoba. But I still have the same work ethic in both scenarios: to get the job done well. So whether I was playing with Wayne or Sylvain Sylvain, Cheetah Chrome, Cherie Currie, Michael Des Barres, or even Schoolhouse Rock’s Bob Dorough, I was always there for the same purpose: to play and perform the music the best I can.
Trading Aces had folks from all over the place, right? How did that crew even come together? Was it like instant sparks, or did it take a few weird sessions to click?
During the pandemic—when everyone had to stay home and many of us got laid off from our jobs—I kept myself busy playing lots of music. I was doing lots of online lessons and session work, and reaching out to other musicians I admired who had home studios to collaborate with. One of those folks was Kory Clarke of Warrior Soul, and soon enough I was working with him on a Warrior Soul project. Through Kory, I met his bandmates Ivan Tambac and Dennis Post (drums and guitar, respectively) and soon started writing songs with them. Ivan is from Spain and Dennis from Copenhagen. Dennis brought in fellow Danish bassist Bjarne Olsen, and I ended up adding guitarist Niklas Stalvind of Sweden’s Wolf. Since it was Covid times, it didn’t matter that we all lived in different cities across Europe and the States. But soon we made an album, Rock ‘N’ Roll Homicide, and when we were able to, we started touring Europe to support it. Now we are finishing up the second album, and it’s a KILLER.
Singing for James Williamson… man, that’s wild. Did you feel pressure stepping into that kind of role, or were you just like, “Screw it, let’s go”?
Both! I was nervous, but I said, “Screw it, let’s go!” I work well under pressure, so I just decided the best move was to forget who he was and just do what I know how to do and trust my instincts. So I sang and played my best every time we worked together, on stage or in the studio. If he said “jump,” I said “how high”? I knew my role was to be his frontman and vocalist, to hit the notes, to pour my heart into it, and be easy to get along with. So I just stayed in my lane and did my thing. It was a blast and I learned a lot from James. From Wayne Kramer too. RIP.
The Cheetahs were always this full-throttle, no-bullshit kind of band. After all that, what made you go, “Alright, time for a solo thing now”?
I’ve been doing the Cheetahs for 30 years now, so I think it was about time! The idea really came from another pandemic-related project. During that same time I was forming Trading Aces, I made an album with my old pal Eddie Spaghetti of the Supersuckers. We lived near each other and could record from home, so we started writing and eventually put together our collaboration album, ‘Motherfuckin’ Rock ‘n’ Roll.’ That was the first time that an album had my name on the front and not a band name. I kinda liked it. Then I wrote ‘Blue Radio,’ which I knew was a great pop song, but wouldn’t fit on a Cheetahs or Trading Aces album. So I figured it was about time to make a solo album and that I didn’t have to stick to any rules or playbook.
FEAR’s energy is nuts, like totally unhinged in the best way. How do you keep up with that kind of madness on stage without frying your circuits?
The FEAR sound and energy is all about founding members Lee Ving and Spit Stix, who are both amazing to work with and still play great. Those guys created a sound that was totally unique in the world of punk and way ahead of its time. They started in the late ’70s and incorporated elements of rock, metal, jazz, prog, and country into what would be called “punk,” and it was very avant-garde in a lot of ways. My role is to play well and support those guys, to execute that legendary sound live night after night. I grew up on FEAR and they were the first punk band I ever heard as a kid, so it’s huge for me to actually be playing in the band. We have a new album out called The Last Time, and it’s really solid.
Let’s say the blue radio is real—and it only plays one song for the rest of time. What’s the song that lives on in that weird little box, and why?
‘Surrender’ by Cheap Trick, of course! It has everything I love about music. It’s hard and heavy, but it’s filled with catchy pop hooks. It has a great, huge guitar riff, but cool, new wave synths too! The lyrics are fun and funny, yet tough. It’s short and sweet. It rocks! And it namechecks KISS! Case closed!
Klemen Breznikar
Headline photo: Joe Welkie
Frank Meyer Website / Facebook / Instagram
Kitten Robot Records Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / YouTube
