Having his

He has rocked with Dispatch -- but now Pete Francis is taking some time to work on solo projects.

Pete francis has spent much of his musical career crisscrossing New England, working the Northeast college, prep school and theater circuit with the rock band Dispatch - sometimes playing as many as four live shows a week.

Francis, a longtime Riverside resident and now a denizen of lower Manhattan, formed Dispatch with two of his buddies while majoring in English at Middlebury College in Vermont and the group has built a solid local reputation -- Selling about 100,000 copies of its four albums and often packing theaters in New York City and Philadelphia.

But while traveling around on a bus and playing cool music helped francis and his friends fulfill their rock fantasies, the band's members decided they needed more.

"In some ways," Francis says, "We needed to work on other things."

That "Other thing" for Francis is "So They Say," a solo album that features a fluid mix of blues, jazz, and rock topped with the 27-year-old's sung and spoken lyrics. On "So They Say," Francis teamed up with produce Jack Gauthier and two veteran jazz musicians Martin Armstrong and Martin Ballou. The album was released on Francis' Scrapper Records, a recently formed label.

"It's more of a personal work," Francis explains. "Dispatch is a really good rock band but these are projects about me."

Recently Francis has also taken other projects including a short tour of the South with soul singer/legend Percy Sledge.

He's also the headliner at the June 22 Sunbake Festival at Roger Sherman Baldwin Park and on June 27 he will appear at The Knitting Factory in New York City. And he has his own website, www.petefrancis.com.

But most of his energy is going towards recording his next album.

An avid poet, Francis' songs often begin as poems and are later set to music. A fan of Wallace Stevens, JamesJoyce, and Robert Frost, he attempts to incorporate more literate elements into his lyrics, but is wary of imitating the greats.

"Today what I don't see is a lot of lyrical depth," he says. "You have to always try to tell the truth in an original way."

Francis, born peter Heimbold, graduated from Brunswick School in 1994, splitting his time between playing soccer and the guitar. He credits his three older older siblings for sparking his passion for music, and introducing him to cool records. "My siblings were all very musical so the attraction was natural," Francis says. Still, he was a talented soccer player. "I played sports and had lots of good friends," Francis says. But, a nagging ankle injury and three operations sidelined him -- and that refocused him on music.

That focus remains and has helped Francis form a strategy for the future.

Despite the polished pop sounds that dominate the charts currently, young audiences still want to see bands perform, Francis explains. So, in the near future, Francis wants to incorporate film and artwork into his live shows, making it more of a multimedia experience.

"Really what I do has a lot of respect for the past but is also trying to get past it," Francis says. "I want to do something unique."