Frank Turner is one of the most prolific touring musicians on the planet and happily he’s landed in Australia for a whistle-stop appearance with The Sleeping Souls at Good Things Festival this weekend. We caught up with him ahead of their show at Sydney’s Crowbar.
Welcome back! Melbourne last night, Sydney today. You must be knackered.
Yeah, yeah, I’m very jet lagged. I mean, my band flew in direct from the UK, I came via Vietnam – it was for a couple of days, which helps a bit, but not that much. I was in Denver before then as well, so I am very, very confused about what time of day it is right now. But, hey, life goes on.
On the topic of touring, I saw that you’ve done shows in 48 countries, is that correct?
Something like that, yeah. There’s a list on my site. Lots of people seem to be under the impression I hold that information currently in my head. I’m slightly OCD about numbers, don’t get me wrong. I’ve got all 50 states, and I’ve got all Canadian provinces apart from one, and so on and so forth, but I’m not actually, I think it’s 48, yeah. I’m heading to Japan after this tour, which will be 49.
So that will be the first time you’ve been to Japan?
Never been before, and I’m very excited about it. It’ll be amazing. I’m only going to be in the country for about 40 hours, unfortunately, but such is the tour schedule.
Well, that leaves about 146 or something countries left. There’s a few more to get through.
I’ve got three more on the docket for next year that I’ve not been to before, which include Macedonia and Romania, and another one that I can’t… Oh, Turkey. Never played Turkey before.
Is there anywhere that you haven’t been that you want to go in particular?
The short answer to that question is anywhere I haven’t been I’d love to go, and it’s one of the huge privileges of what I do that you get to see some of the world. I mean, the clichés are true, that you travel around the world and you see hotels and dressing rooms and airports and stuff for the most part, but, you know, I’ve been to Sydney many times and I’ve headed out and done the sights and that kind of thing, and I’ve never been to Australia other than through music, you know? But the real answer to your question actually is South America. I went to South America for the first time in January this year for a holiday. I went to Brazil and was completely floored by it. I just thought it was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been in my life. There is a big kind of punk rock scene in that part of the world, and I’m very keen to get there, and we’re having some conversations about it. So, fingers crossed.
You and the Souls are down here for Good Things Festival this weekend. Are there any artists on the lineup that you hope to see?
There’s a few. I mean, the problem that we have is that, this is true of most festivals, you don’t always get to see everybody you want to see because there’s a million bands on and I’ve got things to do and so on and so forth. Also, with the schedule over here, we’re playing and then showering and then heading to the airport and flying to the next city every day. Having said all that, there’s friends of mine on the bill. I’m excited that The Gaslight Anthem is around. They’re all friends of mine. I toured with them, good Lord, 15 years ago. It was the first time I toured with them. Also, funnily enough, actually, I loved Korn when I was a kid, and I’ve never seen them live, but I don’t think I’m going to this time either.
They’re headlining, aren’t they? You’re going to be in bed or something.
I’ll be on a plane all three days, which really sucks, but it is what it is. It’s a great line-up, generally. There’s a lot of great bands and, well, this is the other thing – I haven’t spent that much time studying it in detail. Generally speaking, with the festivals I tend not to get too deep into the line-up until the day of the show simply because I don’t want to be excited to see a band and then discover that I’m not going to see them.
The last time we spoke was when Undefeated was just about to be released. Now that you’ve been touring it, has it changed your perception of the songs in any way?
A little, and it always does, to a degree. There is no quality test like playing songs in front of an audience. I mean, broadly speaking, I’m still as proud of the record as I was when it came out. It’s been interesting which songs land and which ones don’t. I mean, I think they’re landing, and it’s a wonderful thing to play a new song when you’re 10 albums in and have a crowd sing along with it. It’s almost like *phew*! Do you know what I mean? It’s a relief, but, you know, it seems a bunch of them have slotted right into the set.
Probably the most important song on the record for me emotionally, and I know I’m not supposed to have favourites, but whatever, is a song called “Somewhere Inbetween”, and that song’s really been landing with audiences, and that’s been very gratifying because I’m proud of that song, but sometimes I’m a little nervous with that song, because it’s incredibly raw and exposed. It doesn’t pull punches, shall we say.
I’d suggest that’s why it resonated strongly.
Sure, absolutely, but it’s a double-edged sword, I guess is what I would say. I’ve got a few songs like that in my catalog. It’s not my first, but this is a particularly raw one. I remember finishing the first demo of it and playing it to the guys in the band, and they were like, Jesus Christ, dude. I mean, cool, it’s great, but like, wow, kind of thing. That’s kind of gratifying in a way, in the sense that as a listener, I’m interested in art that’s unguarded, you know, and that pulls no punches. Of course, there are those moments when you’re standing on a stage in front of X thousand people or whatever, or 100 people or whatever, and you’re kind of like, why am I talking about this in public again? But it has been great as part of the set, for sure.
It’s funny that you mention that song, because when I first heard the album, that was the song that I loved the most.
Oh, thank you.
Along with “Ceasefire”, which I felt was related to it at first hearing.
Yeah, they’re definitely kind of sisters, those two.
“Somewhere Inbetween” was an immediate favourite, and deeply resonant, but now it’s those same things for a different reason, and I wondered if that happens for you?
Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting. It’s a song that I’ve had… I mean, it’s not my place to speak on anybody else’s behalf, but I’ve had trans people, for example, who have emailed me and said that that song has had meaning for them, that sense of not quite fitting in and all the rest of it. I’m not trans myself, so that’s what I mean. I don’t want to be pretentious in my claims for the song or whatever, but I do think that, you know, in many ways, the holy grail of songwriting is to say something very personal that then ends up having a universal appeal, and you can’t really aim directly at that, because then you just suddenly start sounding like Robbie Williams.
It becomes contrived, surely?
Exactly, but it’s gratifying when you… It’s a bit like a magic eye, do you know what I mean? You’ve got to kind of do it by accident. Do you know what I mean? And when it does work, it’s a gratifying feeling for sure.
It’s one that every single time I listen to it, tears me apart, but it’s great, because there’s some sort of camaraderie, really, hearing it in song form.
Right, and that’s the thing with art more broadly, I think, is largely about empathy. I mean, it’s also about getting the rocks off and having a good time, but, again, my favourite part as a listener are those moments when somebody says something that you’re like, oh my God, somebody else gets it.
I think this pertains to our relationships with music. Sometimes when I’m listening to music, including yours, it’s excruciating in its power.
I’ll take that as a compliment.
It’s a thing where it hurts to listen to it, but you can’t tear yourself away from it in a way. Is your own relationship with music similar?
Yeah, absolutely, definitely, and, I mean, at the risk of this sounding a bit like a line, I’m first and foremost a music fan, do you know what I mean? So, for example, Pedro the Lion, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Pedro the Lion? You should check out Pedro the Lion. He’s one of my favourite songwriters ever. We had him on at the Lost Evenings Festival in 2023, and it was such a privilege. His most recent suite of records, which are about his childhood, he’s done eight records now, I think, maybe nine, but he’s been doing a suite of records about growing up, and they are profoundly affecting to me. There’s a song on the record Havasu. Is it? No, maybe it’s on Phoenix, actually, but anyway, the lyric says, “I buried my first secret self when I was only three, and I just realised I can’t take my new one with me”. I was listening to the record for the first time in the car, and I actually pulled over, because it was just like, I need a minute with that. Do you know what I mean?
Yes, I totally get what you’re talking about, for sure. There’s nothing like music…
Yeah, I mean, I agree strongly.
Obviously.
Obviously. (laughs) Otherwise, this would be a weird career choice.
I know I’m preaching to the converted. You’ve got 10 albums, and roughly a thousand million songs. Do you have a favourite song, or ones that are favourites, and has that changed?
Yeah, I would be hesitant to have a kind of solid answer to that question, because it changes, you know. In a way, each song is kind of a self-contained thing, and it’s more a question of whether or not it lives up to its objectives, if that doesn’t sound too clinical. For example, there are slightly more kind of light-hearted songs, like a song like Tattoos, which is a song about having tattoos. It does exactly what it sets out to do. What it sets out to do isn’t especially profound, you know what I mean? But, it’s a tick. It does what it sets out to do. Whereas Ceasefire, for example, you know, is about something much more involved.
So yeah, so sometimes… they relate to different feelings, different emotions, different times in my life. A lot of my favourite songs are songs that have slightly changed what they mean to me over time because I think, first of all, that’s the sign of subtle songwriting. The moment when a listener finds something in a song that I didn’t intend is magical to me. I think that’s amazing. You know, people sometimes apologise for having their own interpretation of a song. I’m like, no, no, no, that’s the fucking point.
Also, for example, “I Am Disappeared”, from England Keep My Bones, sometimes it means something pretty different to me now than what it meant when I was 28 or whatever it was when I wrote that song, but I like that about it, you know? It’s like I’ve found a different way of not quite interpreting that song but just understanding it, you know? And I think that’s kind of cool. Then, at the end of the day, songs like I Still Believe and Get Better or whatever, I mean, these are songs that have kept me in house and home for a long period of time and I think they’re good songs and I therefore have a love of affection for them.
I don’t quite want to go down the kind of Nirvana and Smells Like Teen Spirit route of being resentful of having songs that are more successful than others, you know what I mean? We always finish with Four Simple Words because it’s what people want, and I enjoy it too. It’s fun, you know? Everyone goes fucking nuts. I don’t understand really why bands have an issue with that. It’s like, you wrote a song that everyone loves, what’s the fucking problem, dude?
There’s also this stuff like whenever we’re rehearsing for a tour, whenever we get to “Photosynthesis”, we always play the intro and then stop and we’re like, “we don’t need to do that one”. Do you know what I mean? We’ve played that song so many fucking times.
That’s not to say that I’m bored of it necessarily, but then the point of a performance, the point of playing live is the exchange of energy between the audience and the performer. So it’s never boring to play live because the crowd is part of the equation too and the crowd is different every day, but to play in a rehearsal room with just the five of us, it’s just kind of like, yeah, we know how this one goes too. You know, I could play Recovery standing on my head on Ketamine in space, you know what I mean?
I look forward to that. That’s the next tour. My question was going to be do you get tired of performing but you’ve already mentioned there’s an energy.
Yeah, I mean, I think that if the… again, I don’t want to throw shade particularly, but if the presence of an audience doesn’t affect the performance of the song, then I’m not sure that you’re doing it right. You know what I mean? It’s like, you’re playing to people. That’s a lesson I learned. I remember the first kind of sizeable tour I ever did, Million Dead, my old band, we opened for a band called Pitch Shifter for a tour. On the first day of the tour, all the rest of the band came up to me and went, take notes from that fucking singer. He doesn’t sing at his feet and the kick drum and the ceiling and all the rest of it, he sings at the crowd. I was like, oh yeah, that’s kind of the point, right? It’s communication after communication. So yeah, that’s why we do this, is to engage with people.
Do you notice, with all the touring you do, different energies with cultures?
Yes, a little. Obviously, I broadly tour in Western developed countries, however you want to describe it. I just played in Vietnam, but in all honesty, more than half the audience were expats, both nights, kind of thing. That said, I’m excited to play in Japan because I’m told that the culture there is very different, but I haven’t done that at the moment that we’re speaking to each other. I would say, at the risk of sounding a little bit like a hippie, the thing that I like about what I do is that it tends to bring out commonalities among people rather than difference. I think that that’s cool. It’s nice to see that we have things in common as humans. Of course, clearly people have something in common in that they like my music enough to buy a ticket, so you’ve got an entry level kind of common ground there, but yeah, it’s cool. It’s nice to see people do circle pits. I mean, I always crack jokes about how circle pits go the other way around in Australia and the UK, but it’s not actually true.
Disappointing. So, Lost Evenings, Scotland. Sold out.
Yes, I know. It’s crazy. The thing is, I mean, actually, to be honest, on a lot of levels, I want Lost Evenings to get bigger, but it is very hard to find venues that are right for Lost Evenings, because we need two stages, we need the panels, do you know what I mean? There’s a lot of infrastructure requirements for it that make it, as time goes by, it’s making it more challenging to get rooms to fit it in. This year, I was adamant that I wanted it to be in Scotland. I don’t know how much you know about this, but people say, we’re doing the UK, and then they just play England or whatever. I am from England, but I’m painfully aware that with a lot of justification, a lot of those people are kind of like, what the fuck, dude? I love Scotland, and it’s such a cool thing to be able to play in Scotland, but yes, it’s sold out, which is nuts. We’ve got lots of things to announce for it, in terms of the bill and everything else, but it’s going to be wild. I’m excited for it.
I think you should say that Australia is your next challenge.
It’s been discussed. We’ll see. I have a wish list of cities around the world, shall we say.
I interviewed you in 2018, when Be More Kind came out, and I think you just announced Lost Evenings?
I think it was Lost Evenings 2. Be More Kind came out on day one of Lost Evenings 2, which was a nightmare, just in terms of my schedule. I remember, nine months before or whatever, we were like, wouldn’t it be cool? We’ll launch the album on the first day of Lost Evenings! When we got there, I was like, this is a fucking disaster. Also, slightly less entertainingly, that was the day that we found out that Scott from Frightened Rabbit had died. So I woke up the morning of album release. My wife at the time woke me up and said, I’m going to tell you this before you read it online. So that was, that stands out in my memory as being a tough day.
Just while you mention Scott, he was my very first in-person interview. Back in 2017 I think, and I was talking to him about songwriting and what a great songwriter he was, and mentioned there’s two other songwriters that I particularly love of whom he reminded me, Frank Turner and Simon Neill, and he, first of all, he was very reserved and I was very anxious, but there was this glimmer of moment where his whole face lit up and he said, “they’re my friends”, and he was…it was this light in the middle of this rock when he spoke about you and Simon. He was just sort of illuminated.
That makes me very happy. I met somebody at a show in somewhere in America. Goodness knows where. It’s been a long year, but at some point this year. He came up and he showed me a tattoo he had of a kind of a drawing, and I was like, cool, nice tattoo. He then said “this is a drawing that Scott did on a bar napkin”. He ended up in a bar with him and he drew him a drawing on a napkin. He then said to him, “recommend me some music” and he flipped the napkin over and he wrote my name down on the side of the napkin and just gave it back to the guy. He said, “that’s why I came to the show tonight”. That made my day. I mean, I miss that motherfucker, I really do. He was a gentle and beautiful soul. I’m very sad about what happened to him. As are we all.
Of course. I thought if I ever saw you one day I’d share that with you.
I’m very glad that you told me that. That’s a point that my day can sit over. Also, for the record, Simon is a great songwriter. He’s a good soul.
With that I parted company with one very tired, jet-lagged, but impeccably gracious English punk-folk singer as he prepared for another gig, in another city, in another country, on another day.
Catch Frank with The Sleeping Souls at Good Things Festival in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane on Friday 6, Saturday 7, and Sunday 8 December respectively. Tickets available here.
Header image credit: Shannon Shumaker
