22 | September 11, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News
Music
Frank Turner:
“I’d love to be totally punk and say I don’t care” Frank Turner doesn’t pull his punches. But, ELLA WALKER discovers, even folk-punksters feel doubt occasionally
“I
FEEL quite liberated in a way right now. The new material that I’m writing is much more. . .” there’s a significant pause. “Optimistic, shall we say.” This is something of a breakthrough for Frank Turner, a man notorious for scuffing about on the edges, strewn with tattoos and railing against the establishment. Apart from that time he opened the Olympic Ceremony for Danny Boyle, of course. He tours fiendishly, writes constantly and drives himself into the ground trying to make every show better than the last, building on a legacy of gigs in pubs, squats, fans’ living rooms and our very own Portland Arms, where he’s played “more times than I care to remember”. Turner is committed, genuine, outspoken, damningly honest even when it’s detrimental to his media image – although he isn’t too fussed about that anyway – and a talented, sweat-slicked performer with a cult following. But optimistic? Hmm. Starting out in post-hardcore band Million Dead, after a brief stint touring with school outfit Kneejerk, he was, and still is, a bit of a metal head. However, with five studio albums under his belt, including England Keep My Bones which charted at number 12 and earned him “sell-out” slurs, Turner’s taking folk-punk with an acoustic edge almost mainstream. Hence why he’s playing Cambridge Corn Exchange on his next visit to the city, not old homing coops, the Junction and the Portland. But do not expect a hallowed living room after party of old, it ain’t happening: “Ha, ha, no is the honest answer because with the kind of shows that we do these days, apart from the fact I’m 32 rather than 22, I’m going to
throw everything I’ve got into the gig, and then I’m going to sleep a well-earned sleep.” Optimistic and sensible? What is going on?! The fact is, the angsty Frank Turner who spat out track Thatcher F****d The Kids, has rather mellowed of late, particularly since those early booze and drug fuelled Million Dead days. He switched to a straight-edge persuasion (no drink, drugs or cigarettes), went vegetarian and goes to bed on time. Of course though, the unavoidable biographical nubbin that still most overshadows his music is that he went to Eton at the same time as Prince William. . . “It does for certain types of people,” he concedes levelly, clearly bored of the scrutiny. “I long ago learned, both in my social and public life, that if somebody’s really that narrow that they’re going to judge me on what my parents did for a living, then I’m not really interested in engaging with them. “I’ll get on with my life thanks and just try to treat everybody equally and hope against hope that these other people will too.” Obviously that’s easier said than done, and in many instances has been made more problematic by Turner’s knack for making ill-advised political outbursts. In 2012 the Guardian printed a quote in which he called himself right-wing. So began the hate mail and death threats. “It wasn’t a particularly pleasant period of time,” he admits with a sigh. “I’d love to be totally punk and say I don’t care and it doesn’t matter, but it was pretty goring. But that’s in the past now.” A self-confessed libertarian, these days he’s more thoughtful, but no less vocal. Talking swiftly and brightly, he veers towards self-deprecation
Editor: Paul Kirkley Writer: Ella Walker Email: ella.walker@cambridge-news.co.uk
with a morose twist but there are flashes of laughter and he’s incredibly likeable, even though many of his answers make you feel like you’re getting a telling off. Take his next album. A big part of this tour is the fact he and his band, The Sleeping Souls, are playing some new unrecorded material in preparation for heading straight into the studio after the last show. “I have mixed feelings about road testing material but I do think you can learn something by playing them in front of an audience that you don’t get just playing them in a rehearsal or recording studio.” When asked how different it’s going to be to 2013’s Tape Deck Heart though, I get the schooldays blush caused by exasperating a teacher. “Well it’s going to be different, otherwise there’d be no point,” he says bluntly. “It amazes me that every time I do something people go, ‘it’s different to the last thing he did’, in an accusatory voice as if that was a mistake in some way. “[They say] ‘Ah man, you’ve changed.’ I go, well yeah! That’s the point. Who wants to spend all that time on the road, travelling around the world and not change?” And he has. From his early acoustic protest writings on EP Campfire Punkrock and the folkier Love, Ire & Song, to today’s Tape Deck Heart, but that doesn’t mean he’s always entirely happy with what
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Who are you listening to? [American folk band] Field Report’s album – I’ve just listened to it twice and it is completely amazing, and Will Varley is a singer songwriter from Kent who I think is going to take over the world and everyone should check him out.
Have you planned your next tattoo? ᔡ Frank Turner, Cambridge Corn Exchange, Tuesday, September 16 at 7.30pm. Tickets £25 from (01223) 357851 / cornex.co.uk.
I’m always tinkering and adding little bits and bobs here and there. It’s a culture that I’m very into. I’m planning quite a big back piece at the moment, but it’s not finished yet so. . . I’ll keep schtum until it’s done.
he’s put out, in retrospect at least. “I can never be objective about the music that I make, but the last record was quite intense and quite personal, and it feels now, with a little bit of hindsight, something that I really needed to get out of my system. “That’s not to denigrate it in any way, but it just feels like it was a process I had to go through.” He adds, laughing: “I’m older and hopefully a little bit wiser. Who knows? But I like to think I’ve got better at song writing, although that’s ultimately not for me to judge.” Does he doubt himself? “Yeah, all day, every day. I could give you the longest list of what’s wrong with what I’ve done in the past, I’m extremely unconfident about what I do.” It seems a strange conundrum to be crippled by self-doubt, and yet, night after night get up on stage and play in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. “Playing live is a slightly different thing to writing and recording, they’re separate disciplines,” he explains. “I wasn’t in any way a good performer or entertainer when I started out, I was actually quite bad at it, but I’ve been touring since I was 16 years old, more than half my life on the road now, and I like to think I’ve gotten quite good at my stock in trade. I think I can entertain a crowd.” The legions of obsessed fans – many who ink their bodies with his lyrics and post them on dedicated Frank Turner tattoo Facebook pages – would agree, but their adoration can’t convince him he’s any good at putting a song together from scratch. “I have good days and I have bad days. I’m not sure there are that many genuinely creative people who wake up every morning thinking: ‘I’m brilliant!’” I push for some of that optimism he promises has been funnelled into the new songs until he finally accepts that he is quite excited about those new tracks, “but that’s always the way,” he says wryly. “Just wait until six months after they’ve come out and I’ll be totally down on them again.” He must be truly proud of something he’s achieved though. There must be a moment that blazes permanently in his mind as an undiminished highlight. “When I was a kid I told everyone I wanted to be a touring musician and everybody, including my parents and all my best friends, laughed and told me I was talking out of my arse, and I’m now 32 years old and I’ve been a professional touring musician for a decade,” Turner pauses. “I’m really proud of that fact actually, because I set my mind to do something and I did it.”