Frank Turner is (usually) a busy boy.
Over the last sixteen years, he’s played 2484 solo shows, released seven studio albums, and written two books. But now, he’s stuck indoors like everybody else. So, to pass the time, we caught up with Frank to talk settling in to life in lockdown; whether a potentially great songwriter must first become a great storyteller; and the roots of his anti-authoritarianism.
First things first – how are you coping with current events?
‘I’m as well as can be given the mad circumstances we’re all living through. It’s a mental time. I don’t know about you, but a couple of times a day I suddenly stop what I’m doing, remember what’s going on, and kinda go ‘fuck’. You suddenly have these moments of remembering that we’re living through a global pandemic, and it can be somewhat jarring at times.
Your last album was quite explicitly centered around stories – but, when listening to your new live album, it seems like each of your most recent albums has an overarching lyrical theme to it.
‘It’s funny you should say that, because right now, I’m in the middle of writing and demoing a new record. You’ve got to do something to kill the time right now – and, indeed, because that was my plan anyway for this year. But, for the first time in a little while, I’m enjoying not writing towards an overarching theme.
‘Tape Deck Heart was a break-up record, and Positive Songs for Negative People was me coming out of the other side of that; Be More Kind was a record about the state of the world at the time; and now, I’m able to write songs that just are what they are.
Why do you think that it’s so much more common to hear a songwriter singing about their issues and struggles than their triumphs and joys?
‘Music is many, many different things, but one of the things it can be is catharsis. There is a greater need, I think, to sing and to analyse the things that are more difficult, and one of the most sublime moments in music for everybody is getting that feeling of ‘it’s not just me’. Those moments where you hear somebody pour their guts out and expand their problems in a way that you were searching for yourself, and then somebody puts it better and you’re very grateful to them for doing that. I think that happens to all of us.
‘But, having said all that, I am quite militant that the idea that ‘you can’t write good songs unless you’re sad’ is bullshit. To me, that just reflects a narrow view of what songwriting is and what music can achieve. I think that songs can be anything you want them to be. In a way, the statement might be that it’s easier to write songs about being sad; but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to write songs about being happy. And, if you find that to be the case, then try harder.
Who are your favourite songwriters?
‘I could be here for hours! Off the top of my head… Townes Van Zandt, who was a Texas songwriter in the 1970s (and later) who a lot of songwriters regard as being one of the ultra-greats. John K Samson, who was the singer in a band called The Weakerthans and now releases solo albums; and then, beyond that, Bruce Springsteen, Nina Simone, and Regina Spektor. I’ll be here for a long time if I attempt to list them all.
Do you think that it’s necessary to be a great storyteller in order to be a great songwriter?
‘I’m not sure that it is. I think that it’s possible to be both – and there are certainly some great songwriters who are also great storytellers – but there are undoubtedly people who can tell a great story and yet can’t write a song. (Which, in fact, would be a reasonable description of most of my family).
‘What is interesting, though, is that I definitely come from one of those families where we sit around and regale each other with family lore and history, and I think that’s an experience that has bled into my songwriting. But there are certainly songwriters who write in a way that’s not really storytelling – or at least not in the strictest sense of it – who also write great, great songs. So, no, I’m not sure that it’s necessary.
Did it ever concern you that certain people – like your family and friends – might hear your songs and be worried about you?
‘One of the problems that I’ve had is that I’m quite headstrong and independent in the way that I organise my life. There have definitely been moments where I think people would’ve been concerned about how I was doing; but, at the same time, my answer at those times to anybody who asked me would’ve been ‘go fuck yourself’. But then that has, in many ways, been my problem for a few years, and one of the things that I really had to get into addressing.
‘I think my mum’s gotten used to the fact that I spill my guts for a living. She asks me how I am, but not necessarily in a way that’s influenced by the songs that I write – just in a lovely and predictable motherly way.
Do you think that anti-authoritarian attitude is something you were born with or something that’s developed over time?
‘I think that, possibly, it’s nurture rather than nature. Just in the sense that I was shipped off to a boarding school on a scholarship when I was a kid, and it wasn’t a decision that I had any hand in. In fact, it wasn’t a process whereby I particularly understood what was happening until it happened. I have this very vivid memory of arriving at this boarding school, being dropped off by my parents, and not understanding why I wasn’t going back with them when they left to go home.
‘And I hated it. I hated the social systems of the school. I don’t want to say that I hated all of the kids that I was at school with; although there was a time in my life when I would’ve definitely said that, I can now look back at the experience as an adult and realise that it might not be necessarily fair because they were children.
‘Nevertheless, I didn’t like the implicit politics of where I was sent to school, and that is a major part of why punk rock – as both a genre and a philosophy – spoke to me so vividly. There was me, twelve years old, furious at the world and confused about the state of it all; and then I heard Black Flag and suddenly thought that everything finally made sense. So, yeah, I definitely do think that that experience as a kid was something that was very formative for me.
And have you mellowed with age?
‘I go through phases, is the honest answer to that. There are times when I get very pissed off about things; but at the same time, one of the things I’ve learned with age is to pick my battles. For example, I think that getting angry with the world on the Internet is the most titanic waste of time that I could possibly conceive of. If you’re pissed off about the world, go and do something about it: tweeting does not count as doing something. Fuck off, go outside, set up a local organisation, and action something. So, I’m not going to waste my time getting into arguments with people when I don’t need to and when there’s no possibility of change. Still, put a couple of whiskeys in me…
‘We are lucky enough to be living through what I personally consider to be a communications revolution, and one that is equally as ground-breaking as the Industrial Revolution (or anything of that ilk).
‘I think that it is not surprising that we, as a species, are still trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with this new technology that we have – to me, that’s completely understandable. More immediately, though, the thing about social media that I think more people need to tune into is that the currency of social media is not truth or information or knowledge; the currency of social media is attention and popularity. It has the same politics as the high school cafeteria about who gets to sit on the cool table. Once you understand that – that it’s not about being right or correct, but about whether you can show off to your crowd – then you begin to see social media for what it is.
‘I think that a lot of people still regard social media – in particular, Twitter – as a place where they can go to find out the news or the truth, and I’m just like ‘are you out of your fucking mind?’. That’s not what it’s for, and that’s not what anybody there is trying to do. So, stop looking for that because you will not find it.
‘That’s not to say that it’s without value, though. Right now, myself and a lot of people are very grateful for the technology that we all have considering that we’re all locked in our houses. I get to Skype with my mum and do live-streamed shows, so I don’t want to be blanketly negative about technology and social media, for I’m grateful that I’m able to do that. Gratitude is an underrated feeling in life; I think that being grateful for the things that you have is a good philosophical and political outlook in life. I just think that there are things we can improve in the way that we approach our relationships with social media.
If you were to be remembered for one song, which would you like it to be?
‘Well, that’s not up to me – and, in truth, that’s probably a good thing, for it’d be an all-consuming thing to think about. But, if I am allowed a choice, I would probably choose Get Better. It’s a song that’s stood me in good stead over the years. Sometimes when you write a song you just land all the punches and that feels like one of those to me.