Frances Quinlan


Christine Frances Quinlan is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and painter best known for leading the indie band Hop Along.

Career

Quinlan was raised in North New Jersey and Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and was an active reader in her youth. She began songwriting as a teenager with her brother, Andrew, who introduced her to female musicians including Ani DiFranco, Fiona Apple, and Lauryn Hill. In the mid-2000s, Quinlan began a solo acoustic project in college at Maryland Institute College of Art. Quinlan then began using digital audio workstation software to record her first EP, Songs of the Sea.
Quinlan recorded her first solo album, Freshman Year, under the name Hop Along, Queen Ansleis, in 2005, between her freshman and sophomore years. She distributed the album on burned CDs. After graduation, another brother, Mark, joined her on drums as she continued the project, which was renamed Hop Along. Hop Along's 2015 studio album Painted Shut was widely praised by critics for its "immediacy and emotional depth", led by Quinlan's voice. Quinlan lived in Philadelphia in the mid-2010s, where she wrote the lyrics of the band's next album, Bark Your Head Off, Dog.
Her album, Likewise, is the first solo album released under her own name and recorded with a bandmate from Hop Along. She also created the album's cover art. The album was released by Saddle Creek Records on January 31, 2020.

Discography

Studio albums