Rough Francis is a rock band from Burlington, Vermont consisting of Bobby, Julian, and Urian Hackney, along with Tyler Bolles.
The Hackney brothers originally formed the group in 2008 to pay tribute to the music of their father's (and uncles') early 1970s proto-punk band Death.
Inspired by the Beatles, The Who, and Alice Cooper, their music did not find a warm response in Detroit's Black community, and the band's foreboding name prevented them from garnering much airplay or landing a record deal.
[3] Meanwhile, Death's 1976 single began to resurface, falling into the hands of ex-Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra and many other record collectors who played it at parties and posted it on the Internet.
The final track on the album, "Comm to Space," features recordings of their late uncle, David Hackney, making prank phone calls in the early 1970s using homemade analog delay effects.
[2][4] The experience of the three younger Hackneys, in discovering their family's music and forming Rough Francis, is documented in the 2012 film A Band Called Death.