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The Moment Of Truth With FRANK TURNER · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  My name is Frank Turner. I'm a singer and a songwriter and a touring
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  performer from Essex in the UK, and I am talking about my tenth album,
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  which is a silly number of albums. But my tenth album is called
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  Undefeated, which is a punk rock record, which is coming out on the
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  third of May, he said, getting the date right, on the third
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  of May twenty twenty four, and I'm very excited about it. Beautiful,
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  Frank, thanks for joining us this morning, this evening. Thanks for having
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  me, no worries. So, as you say, bro, you've recently
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  announced your tenth solo studio album, Undefeated, will be released on Made the
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  third, So how are you feeling about it? May like you still get
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  excited or anxious or nervous about new albums. Yeah, of course, I
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  mean I think, you know, there's there's a funny inbuilt thing in the
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  way that my job. That's the wrong word, but the way that what
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  I do kind of works is that you know, I'll spend two years writing,
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  rehearsing, arranging, recording, mixing an album that comes in at forty
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  four minutes, and then other people listen to it in forty four minutes.
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  And sometimes people go, that's all right, and it's just like, but
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  that's two years of my life. But I'm kind of I mean, it's
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  the tenth time around, so I'm used to that on some levels. But
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  yeah, of course, yeah, I'm still nervous. I mean, I'm
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  also I'm pretty confident about this record. I think it's a I think it's
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  a banger, shall we say? Yeah? You know it's I sort of
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  feel like on my last album FTC, I kind of kind of got my
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  mojo back a bit and sort of hit my stride again. And I feel
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  with this record on the other side of the pandemic with I've got my new
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  drummer in my band's first time recording with him, you know, and it's
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  first time producing myself, first time on the other side of being part of
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  the universal label world kind of thing. Just the whole thing sort of feels
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  like a bit of a research and it's really nice and yeah, I'm excited
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  about it. So what's this period life? Way? Mate? Like the
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  album's done, you're just sit and wait for it to come out, Like
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  you you go back over wonder where you could have done differently, or do
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  you put it to bed? I try. I try not to do that
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  if I wanted to do. I mean, it's a funny thing because there's
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  by the time you kind of finish the mastering proce of a record, particularly
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  if you're producing it yourself, which I was in assistance, I've already listened
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  to it like nine hundred million times, do you know what I mean?
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  Like, and you've sort of there is a degree which you finish the mastering
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  and then you sort of play in your car when you drive home, and
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  then you kind of park it for about a decade before before listen to it
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  again. I mean, that's not quite true. But you know, I've
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  been immersed in this music for a very long time, and it's quite frustrating
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  time to wait. And it's to do with promotion. It's to do with
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  vinyl pressing times lovely punk rock, but you know, we present it to
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  the world in the best possible way. So there is a bit of a
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  wait. And again I am so useless now, but I'm trying not to
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  second guess it, do you know what I mean? There is always a
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  bit whenever, apart from I guess from your first album, which you tend
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  to sort of records you've been touring. There's always a bit about a month
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  after it comes out when you're playing a new song live and then there's just
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  a little either rhythmical, lyrical thing that just clicks a little bit and you
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  go oh yeah, And it happens every single time, and there's not really
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  anything anyone can do about it. Yes, right now, you release the
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  singles No, thank You for the music and do One? So are they
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  a good song of representation? And what do expect from the album? Mostly?
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  Yes, I mean, I will say that the record has a fair
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  amount of light and shade and we've sort of started off with the kind of
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  in your face punk rock slaps, if you know what I mean, of
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  which there are quite a few more. But I guess there's also there are
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  some slightly kind of more introspective songs lyrically, and there are some there's an
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  acoustic song on the record. There's a kind of country song on the record,
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  you know, So there is there is some kind of breadth, shall
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  we say, But like you know, if you're going to off a campaign,
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  you want to kind of get people's attention, you want to smack them
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  in the face a bit. So so yeah, So these are these are
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  the more They're not the most aggressive songs on the record, but they're at
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  the more aggressive end of the spectrum right now. You sort of touched on
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  this a little bit before, but the press release says that the album is
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  a result of your decision to step away from the major label world and to
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  re embrace the liberation of working as an independent artist. Like, how is
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  that impacted? Well, I mean, the first thing to say is that,
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  like, I've been sort of trying to find the right pocablary to talk
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  about this, and I appreciate that a lot of people don't care, and
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  that's totally fine. Like I'm sort of at pains to say that, Like,
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  you know, I licensed to the major label world for five records.
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  I completed my deal. I didn't get dropped, I didn't break up however
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  that would be possible as a solo artist, and you know, and they
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  offered me more and I said no and took the decision that I wanted to
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  kind of go back to being a fully indie artist. Yes. The thing
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  about that is, like I don't feel like my creative decisions were compromised in
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  the last five records, but I sometimes had to fight quite hard to keep
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  my creative vision pure sacrosanct however you want to put it. And now you
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  know, now I'm completely the master of my own ship. I mean,
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  as I said before, and produced this record myself, which I've never done
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  before, and you know, I just sort of feel like it's an exciting
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  time. It feels much in control for me. I feel like it's a
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  bit of a homecoming thing because this feels like a bit like going back to
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  some of my earlier records kind of logistically or whatever. I mean, I
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  guess you could probably say that, you know, I'm in one of those
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  sort of slightly manic episodes where it's like either it's complete genius or it's complete
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  bullshit, and it's my fault either way, because there's now no one else
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  to blame. But but no, I feel I feel confident about it,
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  and it feels good. It feels like the right place to be now pressurally
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  so also, I says that musically the album switches from Black Flag to Counting
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  Pros Send Insto the Pogues by Elvis Costello and Billy Brag, Like that's a
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  pretty massive assortment of influences there. Made has got that in there. Well,
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  I mean, first thing I should say is I don't write the press
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  releases myself, but I mean I'll own it. Do you know what I
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  mean? That sounds cool, That sounds like a record that I'd listen to.
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  I don't know, I mean ten records in there are. Obviously there
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  are specific influences that play into any new record that I make. But on
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  some level it's quite nice that I don't I remember on early records sort of
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  feeling like, right, I'm trying to kind of drive this record into this
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  record, or I'm you know it was. My influence is a much more
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  specific and kind of surface level in terms of the way that I thought about
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  my music. I've been playing and writing music for long enough now and listening
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  to music for long enough now that like, broadly speaking, my influencers are
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  kind of like amalgamated at this point, you know. I mean they're in
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  there, they're in the mix, They've been digested, and that's not so
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  yeah. I Mean, there's plenty of things that you can cite influences what
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  I do, of course, but like I don't think about that all that
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  consciously when I'm making music now. I just kind of write music how I
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  want to write it, and that's a really fun thing. Like I say,
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  there are kind of specific things, like I was thinking about the Wild
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  Hearts. I don't know if the Wild Hearts are a thing in Australia,
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  but I was thinking, yeah, increditly one of my foone bands. I
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  was thinking about them that I was thinking about others Costello a Fabet on this
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  record, I was thinking a bit about kind of mid period Nick Cave,
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  the kind of rock and rolly, kind of avata blues kind of area.
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  But broad I mean, these were kind of faint ideas fighting around More broadly,
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  it was just a question of, like, cool, let's make some
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  songs. And you know, Everything Sucks by Descendants is the greatest punk record
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  ever made. And I will fight people on that stuff, and you know,
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  and that haunts my musicality and always will. But like I don't,
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  I don't necessarily think about Everything Sucks all day every day. True, So
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  whichever way you want to put it, they bry like that. There is
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  a there's a lot of influence and a lot of spect over the album.
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  So was there ever a consideration that it might be too much in there?
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  It might be too hard. Just no, not really. And this is
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  one of the nice things is that I feel like, you know, a
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  few records ago I had well in fact, actually on FDAC there's the first
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  song on FTAC is called non Survey, and it's a kind of full fat,
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  hardcore punk song. And when I was writing that, I sort of
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  had a moment of thinking, oh, well, this should be for a
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  side project because it's too obviously different from the kind of main body of what
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  I do. And then it was suddenly just like, well, who cares,
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  and who's going to tell me no to, you know, And it's
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  like, my name is my name, and I wrote it so it can
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  go on an album with my name on the front cover, and like you
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  know, I do. At the same time as saying all this, one
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  of the things as I get older, I sort of feel a bit more
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  comfortable being a specialist. I want to say, like I mean, I
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  don't just as in the sense that it's like I'm no longer sitting here thinking
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  maybe I'll do a Drummond based record next, because it's like that will be
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  terrible and nobody wants that and it wouldn't be very good. And I like
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  some drum and bass, I don't really know how to do it properly,
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  and it's like i know what I'm good at, and I'm going to focus
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  on that and hopefully, as you're saying, that's quite a broad spectrum of
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  things of influences. But like, you know, I feel sort of pretty
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  confident and comfortable and where I sit, and part of that confidence and comfort
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  involves knowing where I don't sit, you know what I mean. So,
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  like I can't wrap and I'm never going to try, you know what I
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  mean. Like the world will should be grateful for this now Underfitted follows on
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  from your first UK number one album with FC. So I was checking in
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  a way to sort of rehash that winning formula and do it again because you
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  know what I mean kind of, But so many times through my career things
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  have happened for me later than you might expect. I mean, my kind
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  of breakthrough record was my fourth album, you know what I mean, And
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  like I got to the point of playing arenas in my home country on album
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  five, and you know, and I got my first out number one on
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  album nine, And it's like all of these things are great, but it's
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  like by time, if they happen that. I know people who all those
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  things happened to do on their first album, do I mean when they were
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  twenty three or something. And actually, I'm not going to name names with
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  these dear friends of mine, but that's hard. That's really tough to go
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  from No. Sixty that fast. If you get to album a number one
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  album on album nine, by that point, you're slightly kind of inured to
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  the process, You're slightly aware that it's it's a bit of a game,
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  to be honest. I'm still proud of it, my god. And actually,
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  funnily enough, we were hoping to get another one this time around,
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  but bloody Taylor Swift's just going to announce an album like the week before mine,
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  so that's probably that forever. But that's fine. I love Taylor Swift,
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  She's great. But so you know, I don't think it went to
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  my head particularly. I was proud of it. It was something that we
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  worked on and it felt really good. The other thing I would say is
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  that, like my major focus actually for this album is kind of outside the
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  UK. The UK is fine, do you know what I mean? That's
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  when I'm from last album is number one's that's all cooking with gas. I
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  really want to spend a bit more time and effort kind of promoting this record,
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  touring this record in other parts of the world, Australia being a good
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  example, he said, currying favor. But I did come through twice last
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  year and maybe again this year, but I can't announce that yet anyway,
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  moving on, but so you know, like do you see what I mean?
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  Like the UK is going to be all right, I don't need to
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  spend as much time and effort promoting the UK. I want to go first
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  of all, to places like Europe and Canada and America and Australia that I've
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  been before. But I'm also like having conversations about going South America for the
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  first time and touring in Southeast Asia and all this kind of thing. So
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  you know, fingers crossed, it's it's going to be a more international campaign,
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  which I'm excited about. Beautiful all right, Frank Weell, I'll let
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  you go there. I might say, you've got like a minute to yourself
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  before your next interview, but that's yerous man. I've beat it out on
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  the third and from what I've heard of, but she's a bloody good Records
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  so I'm looking forward to referees around the whole thing. Thank you so much,
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  man, and hopefully we'll chat again next time. We've got some dates,
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  all right, man, Yeah, definitely take care, take care you.
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  Okay, that was great one. That was a good one. One.
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  Doubt this one's going to the same ship again in a minute. Well
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  this this next one's a cool one. So this one's going to be a
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  little bit longer. But David David James Young, he's a he's a great,
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  uh like really well known journalist here in Australia and he's doing a piece
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  where he wants to talk about the opening track from each of your albums.
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  Yes, a bit of a deep dive. I thought you might be kind
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  Yeah, yeah, this is this is great, will be yeah. I
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  mean the thing about that this is going to work because I think this shit
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  endlessly, So yeah, yeah I thought you would. Yeah. All musicians,
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  you know, like to get into the nitty gritty stuff like this,
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  so this is awesome. I'll let him in in a second. I'm just
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  going to stop