James Franco has a Smiths-inspired band called ‘Daddy’

And they’ve just signed a record and film deal with Kolbalt. What?

This is not satire. We repeat: this is not satire.

James Franco and his multi-intrumentalist compatriot Tim O’ Keefe have been operating as ‘Daddy’ for a while now judging by the creepy photos of Franco’s Spring Breakers co-stars the band released in 2012.

They released an EP back in 2012 too, named MotorCity. It’s taken them a while to seal a record deal but now they’ve been snapped up by Kobalt and will release an album and film inspired by The Smiths in the new year. They’ve even got original Smiths bassist to record with them.

“We are really excited to partner with Kobalt on our upcoming Daddy album and film,” the band said of the deal. “Kobalt has the right forward-thinking approach to work with a project as unique as ours, where we see our work not only existing within the music realm, but extending into the film, art space and beyond on an independent basis.”

Forward-thinking indeed: the full-length film will be made up of a series of ten music videos (one for each song), and the album will be named Let Me Get What I Want and based on a book of poetry he wrote that was, of course, inspired by The Smiths.

Franco’s also enjoyed making other forms of kooky concept art stuff this year, including a book entirely made up of epiphanies on Lana Del Rey.