BAD NONNO: The Sonic Alchemist Rewriting What It Means to Be an Artist

Los Angeles has always birthed the beautifully chaotic — the ones who feel too deeply, hear too loudly, and transform their internal storms into culture. Joey Francis, professionally known as Bad Nonno, is one of them.

A DJ, producer, Silk Tung artist, sonic alchemist, film & video game composer, and multidisciplinary musician, he stands at the intersection of nightlife energy, emotional healing, and cinematic storytelling

But this isn’t the typical producer profile.

This is the story of a man turning lived experience into entire universes.

A Multi-Identity Creator With a Singular Vision

Bad Nonno is one of the core artists behind HowVanisH, the alt-rock / electronic hybrid project co-created with Anwar Hadid, and the architect of multiple sonic identities:

• Bad Nonno — nightlife intensity, emotional electricity
• Mistress Moon — ethereal, feminine, celestial lofi
• HowVanisH — alt-rock / electronic fusion with Anwar Hadid
• M42 — heavy underground drum n bass and techno
• OfSonicAlchemy — immersive healing, breathwork, bowls, chanting, and atmospheric ritual performance

He is also the creator of EEP: Emotional Energy Pollution, a sunglasses and lifestyle brand built around spiritual armor, energetic boundaries, and emotional identity.

And across all these forms, one truth stays constant:

he doesn’t make tracks — he creates worlds.

A Childhood of Chaos, Culture, and Spiritual Mentorship

Before he had vocabulary, he had vibration.

Before he had language, he had sound.

Growing up inside an intense Italian-American family system, surrounded by Los Angeles’s instability, grief, and generational trauma, Joey found refuge in music. Piano at eight. Guitar at 13. Producing and performing as a teenager. Later entering the Silk Tung movement — where sound becomes cinematic, physical, sensory, and free from genre or industry rules.

“Music became my language,” he explains.

“It’s how I survived. It’s how I speak back to the world.”

Through mentorship from spiritual guides like Sandro and Aurelio, Bad Nonno developed a practice rooted in emotional sovereignty, discipline, and somatic healing — turning his pain into something sacred.

Eighty Unreleased Worlds — And A New Era Incoming

In just the last year, he completed around 80 unreleased songs across his different identities — a catalog that spans goth-pop dance energy, underground rave textures, cinematic synth atmospheres, celestial ambient soundscapes, and high-intensity emotional electronic music.

His upcoming rollout won’t be confined to one platform.

It won’t exist in one genre.

It won’t behave like a standard industry campaign.

Because Bad Nonno isn’t an artist in a box —

he’s an ecosystem.

Collaboration Across Eras, Cultures, and Subcultures

Bad Nonno has composed, performed, produced, or shared creative space with artists spanning multiple generations:

• DVBBS
• Lucky Rose
• Robby Krieger (The Doors)
• Taylor Barber
• Jaden Smith
• Odd Future
• Prayers
• Tessa Rae
  

From underground drum n bass circles to psychedelic rock lineage, from cinematic alt-rock storytelling to the new Silk Tung movement — he flows between worlds without ever diluting his identity.

Healing As Performance. Frequency As Culture. Music As Medicine.

One of the most distinct aspects of Bad Nonno’s universe is OfSonicAlchemy — a merging of bowls, EBow, wind textures, guitar, percussion, chanting, and breathwork that transforms performance into emotional ritual.

His work is driven by a belief that today’s world is drowning in emotional noise — and that music, when intentional, becomes protection.

This philosophy extends into EEP (Emotional Energy Pollution), his sunglasses and lifestyle brand designed as energetic armor, a cultural statement, and a form of identity protection.

From Nightlife to Cinema: A New Frontier

Beyond artist projects, Bad Nonno composes for film and video games — crafting sonic atmospheres that support psychological narratives, cinematic tension, and emotional worldbuilding.

His scoring blends ambience, synth tension, guitar motifs, and layered palettes that make scenes feel alive.

Not just background music — but emotional architecture.

Challenges, Loss, and Rebirth Through Creation

His biggest obstacles weren’t in boardrooms or in industry gatekeeping — they were personal.

Dysfunction. Instability. Emotional abuse.

Losing close friends and family to addiction, including his cousin Alfredo.

Instead of collapsing inward, he built worlds.

Instead of repeating cycles, he broke them.

Instead of shutting down, he turned pain into frequency.

“Art saved my life. Now I use it to help other people find themselves again.”

The Future of Bad Nonno: More Than a Career — A Movement

In the next few years, he sees:

• Bad Nonno headlining global festival circuits, bringing Silk Tung’s physical cinematic energy to massive crowds
• HowVanisH evolving into a full live cinematic show — visual storytelling, hybrid performance, emotional rock-electronic fusion
• Mistress Moon expanding into meditation spaces, film scoring, and galleries
• M42 anchoring underground culture in Berlin, Tokyo, São Paulo, and LA
• OfSonicAlchemy becoming an immersive ritual and retreat experience

And EEP emerging as a symbolic cultural brand where style meets spiritual protection.

His identity is not a single lane — it is a constellation.

The Angle Behind This Press Run

This is not a normal producer interview.

Not a “new single out now” promo cycle.

Not an influencer rollout.

This press run is about:

• Transformation and rebirth
• Chosen family versus generational trauma
• Music as emotional medicine
• Silk Tung as cinematic, sensory performance
• The merging of underground, spirituality, gaming, film, and emotional nightlife
• EEP as cultural armor
• The rise of a multi-identity creator in a boxed-in industry

This is the introduction to the Bad Nonno Universe: the art, the lives inside the art, the healing behind the noise, and the future he’s building one frequency at a time.