#frankfoxeslore

In the original line-up, Tim was the most qualified musician, but since James joined, they're the second-most qualified. Synth keyboards are his favourite instrument to play, but his ability comes from a transferable skill in the form of his grade 1 piano - which they'd had private lessons for as a child until his parents couldn't afford the lessons anymore, but they kept at it. Guitar he picked up at Frank's and taught themself to play, while the melodica he had bought at a toy shop and purposely learned to play "properly" so that Foxes could use it in their music. Tim's vocal ability was something he learned from growing up in a relatively musical family and being around Frank and his family from the age of about eleven - they're a higher tenor than James is and it's higher than his normal speaking tone. They are the highest vocal tone in the Odd Foxes line-up. His songwriting skill they picked up whilst helping Art writing the original Odd Foxes songs early in the band's life, production and composition he learned similarly to how James did - on the job while making records. His synth programming skill, however, comes from Tim's obsessive special interest in synthesisers and learning exactly how they work and why - it's his most proficient skill in the studio. His main influences are: punk, blues, funk, disco, pop, prog-rock, and glam rock l - all of which they actively listens to on a near-daily basis.

You wouldn't think it from looking at his name or hearing him, but Frank is of Welsh descent; both of his parents are Welsh, having originally come from quarryman's town Blaenau Ffestiniog (near the Eryri National Park) in Gwynedd, before they moved to Dagenham/London for work and then to Basildon in Essex to raise their family. This means that he is, technically speaking, a 1st generation immigrant to England, having been born and raised there. His only tangible connection to Blaenau is having been there as a kid during school holidays to visit family, and knowing/understanding but not being able to speak very much Welsh (and using that area's slang). He knows all the nursery rhymes/child-level limericks (Gee Ceffyl Bach, Dau Gi Bach, Fuoch Chi Erioed Yn Morio), the national anthem, and folk songs and is able to recite/sing them in the original language -- but, aside from the odd swear word and basic phrases picked up from his parents, that's about as far his ability in the language really stretched. Before he died, he had been learning more conversational Welsh in his spare time and had even taught Suzy some things so she could share in his heritage -- both particularly liked listening to bands such as Bwncath. Thanks to his parents, and having gone out of his way to learn it for himself, Frank is very much aware of Welsh history but is especially knowledgeable about the cultural and industrial history of North Western Wales and its relation to quarrying (and a very specific, unique kind of blue-purple slate, and everything attached to that - including the people & quarries involved - is now protected under UNESCO World Heritage). He knows the Nid Oes Bradwr (There Is No Traitor) history better than anything and, in the 80s, he made a point of pasting a homemade sticker version of the sign that read 'Nid Oes Bradwr Yn Y Band Hwn' (There Is No Traitor In This Band, essentially meaning 'No Scabs In This Band') onto his bass guitars and he had hand-printed a whole series of T-shirts with the same phrase on the front and frequently wore them on UK-based television appearances as an act of solidarity with Welsh miners who were striking. Although he is in his right to refer to himself as a Welshman and he does actively engage with the language, culture, and history, Frank feels it would be disrespectful because he was born in England and therefore considers himself an Englishman. He has even turned down an arbitrary Honorary Welshman title from cousins (and their friends) after Odd Foxes got big because he doesn't think it's right to call himself that when he wasn't born in the 'mamwlad'. Before he died, he was very much pro-independence and outright stated so multiple times, because he felt like Wales should be free to properly rule/govern itself instead of being stuck to the imperial colonial country next door's idea of a 'union'.

Frank only liked one day out of the entire Christmas period -- Christmas Eve, and that's because of the Thomas family tradition of singing folk songs together. Before moving in with James, he'd do the pub thing, the Christmas Eve tradition, and then spend a very awkward and tense Christmas Day with his family. He'd usually pretend to fall asleep during the Queen's Speech after dinner so that he wouldn't have to talk to anyone. After moving in with James, he relished in being a co-host and after they adopted Suzy, he loved watching her little face light up at the idea of the 'Patio Santa' and, as well as the dinner James makes, he particularly liked cuddling up with Suzy and James on the sofa to watch The Snowman, Wallace & Gromit, and Doctor Who.

As much as they'd like to sweep it under the rug and pretend otherwise in 2023, Brian & Roger were the bane of Frank's existence his whole life and his biggest, greatest fear. Three & six years older than him, the pair had been the source of a lot of Frank's problems as a child, a young teenager, and even as an adult. They bullied him remorselessly about everything from his glasses making him look 'bug-eyed' (hence his second nickname of 'Bugsy'), to his endless amounts of talkative energy, to how he presented himself as part of Odd Foxes. It didn't help that, as a boy, he was quite small and weak-looking, which immediately gave his brothers an excuse to overpower him in rougher games. His sudden growth spurt at the age of fourteen hadn't stopped them, though, because they'd turned to more cruel and calculated methods of bullying him -- teasing him about his battle with an unhappy puberty and his intelligence. While he learned how to use his mouth and eventual physical ability to fight back to get out of trouble with them, it came with the caveat of Frank getting into trouble with other people - and, therefore, their parents. There was a period when they were adults where the bullying from his brothers got so bad that Frank point blank refused to entertain the idea of going home even for holidays just so that he could avoid them. When Frank publicly came out in 1993, the pair of them had tried to get in contact with him but, given his (understandable) life-long fear of them, they were wholly unsuccessful in their attempt. In October of 2014, they had tried to gatecrash Frank & James' wedding reception, thinking that the fact they were family and, unlike their parents, were 'okay with Frank being gay' meant they'd been automatically invited but James (as well as Art, Tim, and James' family) soon put a stop to that before he'd even seen hide or hair of them. Before Frank died, Brian had managed to make contact and apologised over the phone for his behaviour, but that went down about as well as a lead balloon... It was far too late to fix any of the damage he and Roger had done to Frank by then. After his death, both had been invited -- more out of courtesy than anything else -- to his funeral and they had both attended. They were, however, quickly disinvited and thrown out of the wake when James had overheard them attempting to make out that their relationship with Frank was merely a case of 'boys being boys' rather than years of unrelenting cruelty. To this day, the pair of them maintain that there was no real animosity toward their baby brother and think that James' reaction and 'drama' at Frank's wake was 'uncalled for'... Yes, even despite everything they'd done to him over the years.

Frank loves folk music, particularly old, old songs that would have come down the generations from the late 1700s/early 1800s and Celtic folk. He considers his love for folk music the 'only good thing [his] parents ever gave [him]' and he learned to play guitar so that he could play his favourite songs at parties, over Christmas, and on New Year's Eve. He knows every song by heart, having them ingrained into his being from a very young age -- and by the 00s, his favourite folk artist was Kate Rusby, having dragged James to go and see one of her concerts on a few occasions. Thanks to his love of the music, Frank also knows multiple languages, including Welsh, Cornish, Scots, and Gaelic but his skill in them is... limited to the songs, he's not really conversational in any of them -- nonetheless, it did impress his mates and, of course, James, when one December in the late 80s he sang the Mari Lwyd song after they'd played a show in Wales. Frank's ability to sing the songs is how he'd gotten the role of a backing vocalist in Odd Foxes in the first place - with Tim and Reg having heard him singing to himself as he set up his bass at their first practice.