Michael was born in Oakland, California to a single mother of Irish, German and French descent and an African-American and Seminole Indian father. His Mother attended UC Berkeley during the peak of the student and civil rights movements and gave Michael up to be adopted by a university professor and a school teacher. He was raised in Davis, California, where he grew up feeling like an outsider in the community and often in his own family.
As a rebellious youth he looked outside of his home and discovered a circle of mentors: artists, musicians, teachers, DJ’s, basketball junkies and assorted misfits around town who opened his eyes to a world of creativity and underground excitement.
In 1984 he enrolled at the University of San Francisco with the sole intention of playing basketball, but happened upon a catholic priest who taught him how to tell a story on paper. Soon Michael was writing poetry everyday, and with the help of a pawn shop bass, began creating music inspired by the Hip Hop, Punk and Reggae that was being played on the campus radio station.
With his humorous and sometimes poignant gift for narrative and desire to give voice to the voiceless, Michael’s music has garnered him an impressive international following of die hard fans and numerous peace and humanitarian awards from International organizations. A masterful lyricist, his songs resonate with the passion of his beliefs and political views and his consistent courage to speak the truth has earned him tremendous respect from his peers.
Having directed many of his own music videos, creating a feature length documentary seemed like the obvious next step. “I have always been fascinated by the power of visual images and song to bring people to levels of emotion that are much greater than the experience of either of them on their own”, says Franti,” I want my films to enrage, enlighten and inspire people to become more involved and in love with the world around them.”
CATHERINE ENNY, Producer Beginning her career in Orange County as sound engineer and then record producer for more than a dozen punk and garage bands, Catherine moved into the field of artist management when she signed one of her bands, Kyuss, to major label Elektra Records.In a swift move to Hollywood, Catherine simultaneously began working for the independent label, Restless Records in the Publicity and Marketing departments. Continuing to broaden her management roster she joined forces with Warren Entner Management whose legendary clients included Rage Against The Machine, Deftones, Faith No More, Quiet Riot & L7. Together they launched Ignition Marketing, a company at the forefront of “guerrilla music marketing” breaking artists on the Interscope, Sony, Warners and EMI labels.
In 1997 Catherine founded Guerrilla Management in San Francisco and
continued to represent influential rock bands such as Kyuss, Queens
Of The Stoneage, Monster Magnet, The Dwarves, Sean Yseult from White
Zombie and Fu Manchu.
Michael Franti and Spearhead came onto the Guerrilla Management roster
in May 1999 and brought a whole new meaning of “guerrilla”
into the mix and also a refreshing break into the world of hip hop and
activism. From this signing came a synergistic business and creative
relationship in music and global activism venturing into the realms
of festival production, music videos and now documentary filmmaking.
With major accomplishments under their hats such as producing an annual
50,000 capacity music, arts and political festival called Power To The
Peaceful, 3 major music videos for Franti’s band, Spearhead and
several high-security prison shows, Franti’s desire to “walk
his talk” of anti-militarism, anti-death penalty and anti-war
inspired the journey into war zones and regions under strife to experience
and be a voice for life under repression and occupation and for love
of humanity.
Organizing a delegation of ten into the war zones of Iraq, Palestine and Israel brought a whole other box of “skills” under Catherine’s hat. With the production of a feature length documentary based on the Middle East trip completed, Catherine continues her pursuit of social justice, filmmaking, artist management and the search of “ultimate decompression holidays” in honor of the old “work hard, play hard” adage and lifestyle.
Born of a Japanese artist and a Swedish architectural engineer, Carla Swanson has over 13 years of experience in the design field, ranging from print to motion graphics for television and film. After graduating with a B.F.A. from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Carla worked internationally for several years - as an art director for the advertising firm Lintas:Milano in Italy and collaborated on projects with a product and furniture designer in Cairo, Egypt.
Upon her return to the U.S., Carla joined the Hollywood film graphics firm Lumeni, where she experimented and created hybrid methods of art between the film and digital worlds. Her multi-faceted understanding of design, digital techniques and the film process led her to become an Independent Creative Director and Main Title Designer, creating numerous award-winning film and television projects for Universal, New Line Cinema, MTV Films, Disney, Paramount, Miramax, Sony, Warner Bros. and Dreamworks.
Now based in San Francisco, Carla has turned her focus and vision to documentary filmmaking and is the founder of “TheHundredthMonkey", a group of independent artists committed to increasing social awareness through design, art and film.
WONDER KNACK, Editor Based in Portland, Oregon, Wonder Knack is the co-founder of Knack Imaging, a multi-media design firm. Her talent in graphic design and photography gained her the respect and clientele of Nike, HP, Sony and Bicycle Technologies International as their freelance designer.In 2000, Wonder and Michael Franti teamed up on the first of many projects designing and principal photography for the album artwork of "Stay Human", "Everyone Deserves Music" and "Songs from the Front Porch". Wonder's vast background in still photography naturally led to the moving picture, where she shot and edited numerous music videos for Michael Franti and Spearhead including "Rock the Nation", "Soulshine", "Sometimes", "Ganja Baby" and assisted music video director Guy Guillet in filming "We Don't Stop".
Recently, the Marley Brother's commissioned Wonder to design the tour identity package for the First Annual Bob Marley Roots, Rock, Reggae Festival 2004 and invited her to be one of their official tour photographers.
JOHN NEFF Sound Mixing Engineer
John Neff is a man of many tastes and talents from being a DJ at a Maui radio station, Maui Record label owner to touring and recording in the '60's and throughout the '90's with such legendary artists such as The Ascots, Steppenwolf, Hoyt Axton to Donald Fagen, Willie Nelson and Ringo Starr.
Diverse in his sound mixing techniques, inventive sound design and his textural audio landscaping brought John to the attention of Award Winning filmmaker, David Lynch. His collaborative film projects with Lynch includes work on upcoming feature "Inland Empire" (2006), "Mulholland Drive" and "The Straight Story"; theatrical releases, 5.1 remixes for DVD of Lynch catalog, including "Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet", "Wild At Heart", "Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me", "The Elephant Man", plus many early Lynch films. An accomplished musician and composer- Neff has composed, scored, recorded/mixed for "Mulholland Drive" and "The Straight Story", the 2002 Cannes Film Festival Theme, "Cannes Memory" along with numerous commercials for national and international clients.
John has managed and recorded/mixed projects for Lynch at his private Hollywood studio complex for these many projects. For their collaborative, musical project - Blue Bob., Neff co-produced a music video, composed, performed and recorded/mixed the album with Lynch and then ventured into recording/mixing all content for website www.davidlynch.com.
Musician, Michael Franti's documentary about his journey through war zones titled "I Know I'm Not Alone" was mixed at the legendary Plant Studios in Sausalito, California with John at the helm. Neff was intrigued by Franti's musical content and message of peace and compassion in this untraditional documentary and felt compelled to be part of this remarkable journey and mission of humanity and peace.