Features: Frank Turner: ‘There Are Moments On This Album That Feel Ambitious And Dramatic’

Frank Turner invites Rock Sound into his London studio to hear some new songs and talk about Englishness and death.

Posted Monday, 7 March 2011 in

One of the more heart-swelling moments Rock Sound can remember in recent years is standing at Brixton Academy watching Frank Turner headline the living fuck out of it. That night he played a handful of new songs that form part of his fourth album, and last month we went into his North London bunker to wrap our ears round what festival crowds will no doubt find themselves bellowing come the record's summer release.

First off, it's clearly a step up from 'Poetry Of The Deed' in terms of scope and ambition but Frank's lyrics are as sharp as ever. And when we sat down with him he was enormously positive about what he'd worked for. "Generally speaking it’s quite upbeat as a record, maybe not so much as ‘Poetry Of The Deed’, which I thought was very happy," he explained. "This one’s more reflective and introspective. There’s certainly some angrier stuff, and one song is a lot more Million Dead-like than anything I’ve done before, much faster and noisier.”

You can read more about the album in the new issue of Rock Sound, which is onsale now, but we just had to pick up that Million Dead strand...

Is it weird that you’re going back to that sound when you’ve grown into being ‘Frank Turner’ and left ‘Frank Turner, ex-Million Dead’ behind?
“I’m not sure it was quite so conscious, but on a subconscious level I think that’s exactly why I’m more comfortable doing it now. It doesn’t sound like ‘Pornography For Cowards’ but it is a lot more electric guitar-driven and the vocals are more intense rhythmically and in terms of words-per-minute. A big part of it is I don’t feel any need to react to that time any more. I’m comfortable with it because it was such an increasingly long time ago, and when I think about it it’s generally quite fondly. Every now and again you still get the ‘Japanese soldier still fighting the war’ thing where you get an email asking if Million Dead are going to get back together and it’s like… no. As nice as it is when people ask, it’s wrapped up. But the other thing to be said about this record is that while ‘Poetry…’ was more of a rock album this has a much wider breadth sonically. It has heavy, fast songs, a few vocals-and-guitar songs, even an a cappella number too, a song that’s a nod to Nick Drake, a song that’s more country-rock than anything I’ve done before… thinking about it, it just sounds like me, which is a very positive thing. Either that or I’ve completely disappeared up my own arse!”

Do you feel differently about this album at this point than with your previous records?
“We did a lot of preparation for this record – we’d demoed everything three times. And when we did ‘Poetry…’ we did it as more of a band record but it was a band who hadn’t been playing together as long as we have now; since recording that we’ve toured constantly and that shows both in the way we play better as a unit but now I’m more comfortable saying certain songs aren’t going to have drums, or guitar.”

The Billy Bragg comparisons are going to be stronger than ever, because it’s almost a decade since he released ‘England, Half English’ and he wrote ‘The Progressive Patriot’ a few years ago about what it means to be English…
“Without wanting to get too excited about it I think it is a function of getting older – that angry anti-nationalism quite a lot of people get when they’re Marxist teenagers departs and I do feel interested in what English culture and history means. It so happens that my family, unlike many English people, doesn’t have too many different roots, and it brings together music and history, which are two things I’m obsessed with, as folk music. I’d say the other big angle on some of the songs is a sense of fading grandeur of entertainers. There’s a song about the death of music hall, as I’m really interested in the dignity of that last generation of people who stood proud while cinema and rock ‘n’ roll destroyed their craft. I was talking to Franz Nicolay [formerly of The Hold Steady and recent touring musician with Against Me!] about how you get into punk rock and touring and you can’t find role models who did it for longer than five years, with the possible exception of someone like Mike Ness. But if you look at music hall or vaudeville you have a much larger range of people who were professional entertainers for a lifetime, and I reached a point where that was very interesting to me. I love thinking about people like John Otway, who’s still going as an old man, and it’s the idea that when the spotlight and coolness passes on a lot of people stop doing it. I think the people who keep doing it are very inspiring, and I like to think that when the spotlight passes I’ll keep doing this.
"I don’t want to be one of those people who are like, ‘I was in a band in my 20s. We did alright. And now I do something completely different in my 40s.’ Of course, one answer to that is to be Neil Young and be enormously successful throughout your entire life, but with realism and humility one has to consider the possibility of not being Neil Young. Loudon Wainwright III is another huge inspiration – he did the Charlie Poole thing [Wainwright released ‘High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project’ in 09, which pays tribute to Poole by re-recording traditional songs made famous by the singer as well as featuring Wainwright originals celebrating Poole’s life] and that was really interesting because that was him doing exactly what I’m talking about but with regards to Poole. It was just fantastic when that came out, because that was exactly what I meant… except he did it.”

Do you think you still have a grand project ahead of you?
“Yeah. There are moments on this record that feel quite grand and ambitious and dramatic. I had a thing the other day – and this is looking forward beyond this album – because I went to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor when they returned and it reminded me of that epic scope of making music that’s about the collapse of civilisation rather than making music about drinking with your friends. And while I enjoy making music that’s about drinking with your friends there’s a part of me that’s into that grandiose scale.”

When I said a grand project I didn’t necessarily mean size, but something important that could go on to define you. For example, Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’ wasn’t ‘big’ per se but it was hugely important in his career…
“Let’s see what people say about this one! I always feel like I’m the wrong person to ask as it’s better for me to trust my instincts in the short term. I hope, when this record comes out, that people say ‘That’s the greatest one, that’s the defining one’. But then again I would say that – and if I didn’t I’d be slightly worried, or working harder. Maybe in five years’ time I’ll look back on this as ‘The One’ or maybe it’ll be seen as a curveball. It certainly doesn’t feel like a curveball to me, because it’s bold about the kind of music I want to make with all my insecurities wrapped up in that.”

Frank Turner's fourth album will be released this summer via Xtra Mile.