FRANK TURNER’S change of direction saw him change from hardcore veteran into folk anti-hero, a remarkable shift of focus that’s now beginning to look more and more like a stroke of genius.
Formerly the front-man of cult Xtra Mile favourites MILLION DEAD, Turner responded to the band’s sudden split in 2005 by seizing the opportunity to reinvent himself as an acoustic guitar-playing singer/songwriter. Two years on, and he’s still riding the rich vein of creativity that led to 2 EP’s and January’s acclaimed debut album ‘Sleep Is For The Week’, as well as a staggering amount of live performances. Two years on, and Frank Turner is beating the odds wherever he goes - his latest triumph being the unanimous approval from the masses of hardcore/rock devotees who’ve seen him open the show for BIFFY CLYRO on a short sell out tour.
Backstage at Leeds Met, the resounding success for all three acts on a bill that has also featured YOURCODENAMEIS: MILO means that dressing room spirits are high. Winning over hard rock crowds armed with only an acoustic guitar seems to be exactly the kind of challenge that brings out the best in Frank, whose demeanour is rightly that of a man pleased with the way things are going.
“It’s nice to be in control” he remarks
“That’s the plus side. The downside of it is that, if you’ve got four people who think that an idea is good, it’s probably…good. Whereas I get to the stage now where I finish writing a song, then hit myself with the impending question ‘Is it any good?’
Answering his own question, he shrugs: “I often have no idea, after playing the thing 19,000 times in a row, whilst thinking of lyrics etc. So it’s very, very different – there are pluses and minuses, but at the end of the day, this is what I want to be doing right now, because otherwise I’d be doing something else.
“There’s a certain amount of choice involved in doing what I’m doing right now”
Which is very folk-based?
“Yeah, that’s an idea which has been incubating for a long time. I’m emphatically NOT - not going to be one of these…anuses who claims to have been into it all along and is like ‘I’m going back to my roots’ and all this shit. Not true. I listened to a few things when I was a kid, Counting Crows, The Levellers and stuff like that, but y’know, comparitively - compared to punk and hardcore, this is a new thing for me”.
Continuing, he adds: “When I first properly got into country and folk music, it really, really struck a chord with me, and I feel that I’m currently in my ‘niche’, creatively”. “I mean, at the moment, my ‘output’ as it were, compared to Million Dead, is nuts. I’ve already released 2 EP’s and an album, and we’re looking at getting the next album out for just over a year after the first one”.
Does this mean that it comes easier, I wonder?
“I’m not sure that it’s easier” he replies “so much as I feel like I’ve found my sweet spot”.
“there’s still as much work with kicking verbs, vowels around, tenses etc., and musically – agonising over middle sections, but, I dunno, I’ve got so many more ideas on the go at any one time, and it just feels more natural to me now. With Million Dead, the wider world got to know us at the end of our career, but the thing is, by that time, I’d already been playing hardcore for 8 years. For everyone else it (the crossover to folk/country) was kind of a new thing – for me it was, well, I’ve been trying to write songs like this for ages”.
“If there’s one thing it’s important NOT to be, that’s openly laboured, or forced” states Frank: “
“That’s bullshit – so it’s nice, now to be doing something that feels, a lot more kind of…..relaxed” he smiles.
Comparisons with one of Turner’s major influences, Billy Bragg, has me throwing the term ‘protest singer’ into the conversation, which Frank responds to thus:
“The reason why I’m suspicious of that tag is the same reason that Million Dead spent ages getting away from being labelled as a political band, and that’s that basically sooner or later both of those terms swallow the people they apply to.
“And at the end of the day, if I just wanted to be a politician I’d go into politics” he states:
However, I’m a musician before I’m anything else, so there will be times when I talk about politics – and I think that music is an interesting vehicle for getting political viewpoints across, but I just think that…Searching for a second, he illustrates the point
“Billy Bragg is the perfect example. His strongest work, by miles, is his non-political stuff. But because he got labelled as ‘that guy with the guitar who’s into the unions’ and shit, if you say ‘Billy Bragg’, that’s what 99% of people think of, they think of the miner’s strike before they think of any of his songs – and that to me is a shame, because….he’s a great songwriter”.
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“I’m just wary of falling into that trap” he explains
“Obviously there are political songs – and there will be more as well” he promises with a smile:
“There was less of it on the first album, because Million Dead were so, kind of political. I wanted to get away from that for a bit – But I’m still intensely annoyed at lots of things in the world, so I think that…well, for example, the working title for the next album is ‘things that have been annoying me recently”.
Like Margaret Thatcher? (his ‘Thatcher Fucked The Kids’ song made me warm to him instantly)
“Well, yeah - I mean, this is it…that’s something I feel very strongly about. I’m very pleased with that song, because I think I made the point I wanted to make as well as I could’ve made it. And it’s nice to be able to write music that engages people on a political level – it’s just not the only thing I do”.
Whatever he does though, can be measured out in terms of hard work. He’s a prolific gigger, for instance. Almost 300 shows in just under two tears – ‘That’s a phenomenal rate’, I think to myself in full Alan Hansen mode
However, Frank’s response to the statistics is driven: “It’s not enough. I wanna do more”.
“Basically the business of being on tour, that sort of lifestyle, is something that I not only enjoy, but am quite good at?” He states. And you know what? He does look incredibly well
“I can, generally speaking, sleep anywhere, and not really give a fuck, y’know?
I just think that you should play to your strengths in life. I know plenty of people who are rubbish at being on tour, a lot of people. It’s quite sad in a way, you get a lot of people who grow up spending their whole lives wanting to be a musician and are really into the whole thing. Then they go on their first tour and discover they’re not built for it. It’s kind of sad, because you can’t really be – or make a living out of being - a musician without touring - doesn’t really work so, yeah, I’m lucky I guess. I’ve got quite a strong, protestant work ethic, somewhere in here as well”.
“I’ve got a black flag tattooed on my wrist for a reason – the work ethic inspires me enormously”.
Is this tour is the latest success?
“It’s going really well. Fucking immense, actually! Nervous is too strong a word, but I guess I was mildly curious – y’know, it’s a very ‘rock’ tour. Biffy Clyro, and Milo are both heavy bands – and then there’s me with my guitar. That’s fine, I know there are going to be certain people here who were Million Dead fans, but even so….I’m outside the paradigm of rock, or whatever, for this bill, and I suppose I should have occasionally woken up in the middle of the night worried that I was gonna have a rough time with the crowd, but everybody’s been really loving it”.
“The major fun for me is that there’s an obstacle to overcome. I walk onstage and apart from those who already know who I am, the kids at a rock show see one guy with an acoustic guitar and they get certain preconceptions, most of which are negative. Just to demonstrate to people that you can play folk music, without being James Blunt, is really nice!”.
“The best comments, and I’ve been getting a lot of them, every night on this tour, are from people coming up and going ‘Fucking hell I had no idea who you were before, I thought you were gonna be rubbish, and you were really cool’. That’s the perfect comment for a support”.
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