OneMetal : ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

OneMetal.com’s music editor Mark Wrigley met up with Frank Turner on the fourth date of his ‘Sleep Is For The Week’ tour at the Nottingham Social. After managing to shoehorn ourselves into possibly the smallest backstage room ever (with the exception of Exeter Cavern Frank informs us) we launch into an insightful and honest interview with the ex-Million Dead man.

First off Frank, thanks for spending some time with us and first question… you used to be in Million Dead.

(Laughs) for my sins…

What happened with that then?

Well there’s a million different ways of putting it. It’s a long and complicated story, but essentially it was band politics. We fell out with each other. It became a political minefield, started dividing into different camps. You know the point about being in a band it’s supposed to be like being in a gang you know going on tour and looking out for each other kind of thing. It got to the stage where certain people wouldn’t piss on other members of the band if they were on fire. It just wasn’t even vaguely fun any more for that reason, and it’s kind of annoying because musically it was all going really well. We were writing new material that was really wicked, it just got to the stage where we couldn’t really deal with being in the same room as each other at the same time, so it had to come to an end.

So it wasn’t a case of you just wanting a change of direction?

No no, this is actually a suggestion or kind of rumour that I’m at pains to refute. There was a moment where some people were saying that the reason Million Dead broke up was because I wanted to come and do this, and its actually a point of pride that that’s not the case. The one thing I will say about Million Dead is that I was 100% committed to it, to the end that I didn’t want it to break up and went to some serious lengths and effort to stop us breaking up, and, you know, I saw it through basically. Being committed to something, if you see what I mean, it’s quite important to me that that is publicly stated.

I think the reason that a lot of people think that is because I started doing this pretty soon after Million Dead broke up. What a lot of people forget is that we actually agreed to break up about six weeks before we announced it, as we wanted to fulfil our existing commitments rather than cancelling stuff.

Was there no temptation of continuing with Million Dead but just with a different line up?

Ahhh, well, maybe, but the thing is we changed the guitarist a year before we broke up. Cameron left, and that whole experience was pretty traumatic. It was a headache, and stressful and just the idea of trying to change like two members of the band at the same time after just having the total headache of changing one was just like… (shakes his head disparagingly). I mean to be honest the other thing as well, as is kind of self evident I suppose, was that I for one was getting a little tired of playing hardcore.

Yeah, right that’s fair enough…

I mean that was obviously like mentally linked in, with the fact that Million Dead were going downhill. I’m sure if all had been going well I would have still enjoyed it. I think I’d long ago reached the point in my life, about half way through Million Dead where if I couldn’t count on doing Million Dead any longer, whatever I did next wasn’t going to be hardcore… Do you know what I mean? I’d been playing in hardcore bands for a long time, since I was about 14 years old, and it’s not the only kind of music I listen to and it never has been. So, you know, I wanted to check out some other stuff I suppose.

Did you get any opposition from record labels or anyone like that in terms of going with the new direction?

No, erm, not opposition as such. I mean I am now signed to the same label as Million Dead, Xtra Mile. First of all we had the whole process of us saying “we’re breaking up” and them going “WHAT!” (laughs). But after that I told them what I was going to do, and I think if I had told them I was going to form another hardcore band, they would have presented a contract instantaneously. As it was they kind of, just not in a bad way, said well “we’ll just kind of see how this goes”, and then it sort of evolved quite organically. I did a whole bunch of touring, and then Charlie, the guy who runs the label who is a very very dear friend of mine sort of came up and said “hmmmm, you know, I was pretty sceptical but it seems to be alright, do you want to try an E.P?” I did the EP and it went really well and then we went for an album. And now he owns my entire life. (laughs)

Excellent! So how does touring on your own compare to touring with a band?

This is a question I get asked a lot, but the answer has changed in the last week, simply because this is the first time I have been out with a backing band and that puts a lot of things in perspective. I found it quite liberating to start with, but after a while the romance starts to wear off, and I must admit there were some times last year when I was thinking about jacking it all in. It was just sh*t, I mean travelling around the UK on the train, sleeping on complete stranger’s floors, not seeing any single human being… you know doing a show at Huddersfield… I mean everyone there was really nice, it was a good show, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m in Huddersfield. I mean I’m from the South Coast, I barely even know where Huddersfield is, you know surrounded by strangers. I had a particular episode in Wigan, doing a house show, and I hadn’t seen anybody I knew for about 13 days, and the show was a bit sh*t and I just wanted to f*cking shoot myself in the face at that point. Obviously it got easier to do as the crowds coming to the shows started to pick up a bit. I think part of it was I assumed I would continue coasting at the same sort of level that Million Dead were at, which was obviously in retrospect was a silly thing to think. But you know, it was a bit of a kind of blow to my ego, is the most honest way of putting it. You know playing sold out shows to 300 people to go to playing to 20 people in the back of a pub kind of thing, kind of did my head in. But its picked up now, and basically the way I feel about touring on my own now is that I kind of feel like, I don’t regret it, but I’ve paid my dues if you know what I mean? And I am now quite comfortable having a van and a tour manager and a sound guy, you know that kind of thing. It’s quite nice. Plus having other people on stage to add a bit of heaviness, you know. I am essentially from a punk and hardcore background, so I erm like it when it’s loud.

With that in mind though, ‘Sleep Is For The Week’ your new album, is that a biopic tale of your last year or so?

Well, it wasn’t designed to be as such, but it ended up as such. I kind of only really noticed that when we were in mastering the album. Ben who plays in Dive Dive produced the album and we were there mastering it, and I did kind of think it’s a pretty neat snapshot of the last year of my life. As I am sure the album evidences one of the things about Million dead breaking up was that I decided I was going to get f*cking destroyed every day, for quite a long period of time. Again, that initially has its own romance, but then you reach a point where you have been up for four days straight, and you don’t know any of the people you are with, and you’re sitting there thinking “I haven’t eaten anything since Thursday” (laughs) and it’s just not really a healthy place to be. And its something I am now cutting down on ! But yeah it is sort of a biographical story.

Yeah, the opening of the album, ‘The Real Damage’ is so reminiscent of so many New Years that I’ve had anyway, sort of waking up on people’s floors an no idea of where you are or anything like that…

Yeah (laughs) yeah… The cause of that particular story, again… all my stories on the album are true, but my friend Paul discovered his girlfriend was pregnant, and we decided, obviously after he’d celebrated with her for a little while. We decided to go and celebrate and dear God, we ended up in Bethnal Green and I never want to go to Bethnal Green again, it’s a f*cking skag hole. Literally I was going round lifting up sleeping bags, going “ahh, I’ve never met you before in my life… never met you…” and I called up Paul and asked “what the f*cks going on man?” and he was like, “I’m at work”. I’m like “Where? It’s Sunday!” and he’s “er… no its not!”

Lost day’s and every thing then? Are you quite surprised by the reception that you’ve had from the album? I mean you have been pretty much taken under the wing by people like Steve Lamacq?

Yeah, yeah Steve’s a bit of a good one. He’s a really great guy, and he’s been very supportive to what I do so thumbs up. But it is kind of surreal. I’m not now, and I hope I never will be complacent. I’m still just like a kid who listens to music like everyone else. I had a show where Steve was in the front row singing along to all the songs, and I was like “Oh my god it’s Steve Lamacq” (laughs). And I was just a bit freaked out by that.

You seem quite unassuming on the blogs that you post online about the album being number 4 in the BBC 6 charts.

Yeah yeah, that’s quite nice, but then you look somewhere else and its like at number 257. (laughs) I don’t personally understand how anyone can last longer than about 6 months in the music industry with a massive ego. Unless you instantaneously become Bono. Do you know what I mean, because it’s just this entire industry is geared towards destroying any kind of ego that you may have you know. It’s personal defeat after personal defeat. You just cant wander into it expecting decent treatment, a) because it will leave you disappointed and b) because that will make you a complete twat. And I do sort of make an effort not to be a twat! (laughs).

It’s got to boost your ego somehow though with things like The Sun saying you’re a “genius”?

Yeah yeah, but then my only response to that is, I think I wrote this on the blog… I think anyone that can read a sentence with sub-clauses without having some sort of brain haemorrhage must be a genius. But yeah it’s very nice. I’m always worried what the press think, because with Million Dead we had pretty much constantly good reviews. In fact I can only think of one bad review we ever got as a band, and we didn’t really sell that many records. The press is quite an insular sort of thing, and to my mind I think what matters is the kind of readers reviews… you know like on Amazon. One of those carries just as much weight as far as I am concerned. Essentially a journalist is just another person who listens to music. They may have a short term impact, you know, on the week you are in Kerrang! Or NME, and fine that has an effect, but beyond that, it’s kind of like people either like your album or they don’t… and hopefully they do… obviously. I want to be successful… I want to be Bruce Springsteen (laughs), this is a long established fact. I just think there’s so much kind of trapping and kind of parties and wining and dining and all that sh*t, and it’s all b*ll*cks at the end of the day.

My favourite moment of my job is to play a gig, where there’s enough people to make the room look full, and everyone is singing in the right places, and there’s a good atmosphere. If I’ve got that then the rest of it is just like f*ck ‘em.

You said earlier that essentially you’re just a kid who likes to listen to music, so what was the last album you bought?

Er… last album… I’m completely skint at the moment (laughs). I can tell you what the next… actually I’ll tell you what I got the other day. A friend of mine copied me a bootleg cd with 15 complete Regina Spektor live sets, and I shat myself because I’m actually going to marry Regina Spektor! You know people often ask me what’s the aim of your career? It used to be to play this venue or sell this many records, but f*ck all that, my sole aim in life is to marry Regina Spektor (laughs). I’m f*cking obsessed with her she’s actually the best thing to happen to my ears since Iron Maiden!

That’s going some way then… the best thing since Iron Maiden!

Oh yeah yeah… actually, I’ll tell you the next album I am going to buy, although I’m going to be p*ssed off if I do have to actually buy it. Jamie T… Me and Jamie used to do like house shows together years ago. In fact we played Jay(Beans On Toast) birthday, in some bedroom! And I have always thought he is a total genius, total f*cking genius. You know quite often when people, they kind of do a song that you have had the demo of for ages and then they record the album version, and you end up liking the album version less because some of the magic is gone. I’m very pleased to report the Jamie T album is nothing like that, all the re-records are better than the originals.

Yeah I was talking to a mate about him yesterday actually, and listening to a bit of his stuff…

Yeah, I think ‘Calm Down Dearest’ is like, I mean I first heard that song about two years ago and I think that’s one of the like f*cking top tunes of the decade, it’s just (Frank at this point grunts as if he has just seen his first naked lady!) So I am definitely picking that one up… well I am going to try and scab one off him, but I am probably going to have to buy one (laughs).

So if you could go on tour with say three other bands who would they be ?

Do they have to be current or can I pick anyone?

You can have anyone, past or present.

To be honest, most of them are current. I’d love, love, love, love to tour with The Lemonheads. Oh my God, I’d swap kidneys to tour with those guys. In fact I’d say the same about Counting Crows, despite the fact that their last album was a gigantic pile of arse. But the one before that I think was their best one and the one before that was slightly arse, and the one before that was slightly good, so I think they are kind of oscillating. So by my calculations the next thing they do is going to be the best album ever.(laughs). Erm, I’d really like to tour with Ryan Adams too actually.

Yeah that could work…

Again the thing with Ryan Adams, here’s my theory on Ryan Adams. He needs some serious f*cking quality control. Because he releases three albums a year, a third of which is good, and two thirds of it is just b*ll*cks. All that aside though, ‘Heartbreaker’, the first album he did. That is one of the most perfect albums ever f*cking made ever by humans ever, ever, ever! I listen to that record pretty much daily. He uses space, he has a lot of sort of ringing open space where he doesn’t sing or play very much, and it sounds kind of retarded when you say it, but you know what I mean, you know he just strums a chord and lets it hang. But he does it in such a way that you are always just hanging totally there, you wouldn’t dare sort of even whisper between chords kind of thing.

We are briefly interrupted by Nigel (Drums, Dive Dive) popping in to grab some gear and inform Frank that there’s still no sign of the food. Which prompts us to turn our angle of questioning towards Dive Dive supporting Frank, and also providing the function of his backing band.

You’ve got Dive Dive supporting you, and they are also your backing band… does that mean they get paid twice?

(laughing)No, it means I don’t have to pay them MU rates to be my backing band! No, like as I was saying earlier. I recorded in Tarrant’s house, Nigel played the drums and Ben produced it…

So there’s quite a relationship there anyway..

Yeah we’re pretty close. I mean we met actually when I was crewing for Reuben on tour, who are good friends of mine, and they were the support act. I remember I’d heard the name around a lot but never actually checked them out. I remember sitting on the merch stand as they were sound checking, I was putting up Reuben t-shirts or something, and I remember just putting down the t-shirt and turning round going “F*CK ME!, where the f*ck have you been hiding”, so I am actually a massive Dive Dive fan. And from my point of view, as well as being friends they are all consummate musicians, you know they are all very good at what they do, especially Nigel. I don’t know if you know Nigel’s heritage, he was in Unbelievable Truth, you know Andy Yorke, Thom Yorke’s brother. Nigel drums for Andy now with his solo stuff, he’s just kind of drummed for everybody.

So it’s all keep it in the family then…

Yeah yeah (laughs)

Dive Dive’s latest, ‘The Revenge Of The Mechanical Dog’ is actually pretty good, I do like that.

Do you have the previous album ?

No, not yet…

Well to be honest with you, it may well be available for sale this evening(laughing). Check me, I’m a salesman for other people! That’s a really f*cking great album as well.

That’s the thing, you come across as really genuine and down to earth, and that’s really good as we do come across people with absolutely gigantic egos.

Here’s a story for you… Two forms of experience for me. First of all, when I was about fourteen I met Barney Greenway at a gig. I mean, hello, I have ears, I am human, I do love Napalm Death. I was fourteen, it was the first time in my life I’d ever met anyone in a band that I totally f*cking loved. I went over to him and was like “Are you Barney Greenway?”, and he was like “What if I am?”… I was like “I really, really love what you do”, and he was like “P*ss off kid!” and that really, really f*cked me off good and proper. But then the flipside is, a few years later emailed Guy Piccioto from Fugazi and he emailed back, and Hank Rollins generally replies in 24 hours if you email him… or so I have discovered, and it’s just the difference it can make. I’m not going to walk through life assuming that I mean the same to anybody as they meant to me when I was sixteen. On the off chance that somebody does, I always make an effort to be nice to anyone I meet, like fans or whatever. No matter how young or how brainless their questions may be, do you know what I mean? I get emailed some really retarded questions…

Do you get strange requests then ?

Well, insane stalkers aside … yes. There’s been a few of them as well. People booking holidays for me and them in the South of France after a five minute conversation… I was like WHAT! That was like completely f*cked up. Erm, people are weird. I got chased out of a house by a baseball bat wielding dad once. (laughs)

To be honest though this is a good interview, but quite a lot of the time you get kids doing the interviews and sh*t and the questions are like “If you could be any car, what car would you be?”, or “What is your favourite colour?”, and it’s like, do people actually want to read this or are you just not very good at what you do? I don’t really understand.

Yeah yeah, I totally understand…

Nigel pops in once more and informs Frank that the food is ready so I believe it is time to take my leave.

Cool thanks very much, and I’ll let you get some food.

Cool, no go on, hit me with a final question… do one more lets go crazy.

Ok then, one more for you… staying on the subject of weirdos. What’s the weirdest audience you have played to?

Ok this is straight up. I played a show in Estonia, in Talin… And to be honest, touring solo without a band, overseas in a place where they don’t speak English is a little bit dodgy. If I had a band they could be into the rock and if we were in the UK they could check out the lyrics, but being in Estonia with just a guitar is like… But, the promoter was a really nice guy, Million Dead fan and all. There was a fair few people there, but the band I was supporting was an Estonian Hip Hop Crew, populated entirely by people who would serve as the textbook definition of “Wigger”. And all the people in the crowd are all like Estonians, but with kind of one trouser leg rolled up and sideways caps on!!! Before I went on, I just stood there over my guitar thinking what am I doing, what the f*ck is going on right now! This is retarded. I went on and played and they were all just , erm, kind of confused That was a really f*cking odd day. Touring Eastern Europe is just a barrel of laughs, left right and centre basically.

We had the worst day ever, when we hit a deer… at 110 miles an hour. We had to bribe border guards, got searched by the cops somewhere else, all in the space of one day. And then just kind of going into Russia, doing a gig which as far as I was concerned was a headline show, and then the minute you finish a bunch of strippers come on!! I’m thinking, I just supported some strippers, what the f*ck is going on! It was bizarre.

So the interview draws to a close with Franks still laughing, and he heads off towards the food, and I head off to the bar to prepare for tonight’s show. Once again I would like to thank Frank for spending time with us and giving us an excellent insight into his solo career.

Interviewed by Mark Wrigley