Following Frank Turner’s blistering set at Leeds Festival 2009, Platform caught up with the People’s Poet to discuss big words, big bands and Mondeo-core…
Platform: Having just come off stage, first things first: that was amazing, how did you find it?
Frank Turner: Thanks very much. I’m pretty sure that was the biggest show I’ve ever played. It’s one of those things where you try not to think about it beforehand, because you know, you’ve got a job to do and you’re playing a show. It’s when you make it into the last stretch of the last chorus of the last song kind of thing that you can allow yourself to go “WOW.” It was great and I had a wonderful time and walking out on stage in front of that many people is as good as you’d imagine it to be.
P: It had a few pretty good sing a long moments. Did you intend it to be such a festival-friendly set?
FT: Well obviously there are certain givens with a festival set. You can’t play the jazz odyssey; you have to play the hits. More generally speaking I’m quite weary of saying that “I write songs to be sung along to,” but for me the barrier between performer and audience is an artificial one, and it’s detrimental to everybody’s enjoyment. Music is at it’s most powerful when it’s transcendent and when it erases barriers and makes people kind of more, collective. The easiest short cut towards that is ‘the sing-along.’ I love it because it feels good, but also because it becomes that tiny bit less relevant who is standing on stage and who is standing in the audience because everyone else is simultaneously involved in making something cool.
P: Your songs are quite anthemic whilst also being quite articulate. How do you find the balance?
FT: I really like the idea of a crowd singing along to unusual words. I’d love it if I good get an entire crowd to sing along to along to a word like ‘psychoanalytical’ or something like that.
P: ‘Symbiotic’ is one of my favourite words at the moment.
FT: Exactly! Just imagine ten thousand people singing “SYYYM-BIO-TIIIC.” I might even try and use that myself now.
P: Wow. Can we shake a deal on that right now?
FT: Yeah sure, plus it’s on tape. But yeah, I guess the slightly point you could draw from that is that I don’t think music is popular because it’s dumb, because I don’t think that people are dumb.
P: Do you always approach songs in the same way since the days of ‘Million Dead’? Have any of your methods translated or are they more or less the same?
FT: Things have changed a lot. Mainly because writing with Million Dead was a very creative process. We all wrote together, but at the same time we were aiming for different things. We wanted to be some kind of cross between Black Flag and Refused and destroy the entire world with the power of hardcore or whatever. Whereas now, I kind of have this feeling that there is the platonic ideal of ‘the song’ and I think that everybody, in one way or another, is grasping towards that. I think Bob Dylan’s come close, I think Pete Townsend’s come very close, as has Bruce Springsteen. It’s not necessarily reinventing the wheel or trying to be progressive or radical in any new way. It’s more just trying to make something as classic as possible. So I just sit down and try to do my best to do that.
P: So what’s your reaction to all of the middle of the road Ford Mondeo singer songwriters?
FT: Haha, oh yes. Mondeocore. I regard it as ‘Estate Agent Music’, but yeah I know exactly what you mean. After many years of experience of being interviewed, one of the things I’ve learned is that there are few things worse than a musician being petulant about other musicians. Those guys have their own things going on. They write songs to the best of their abilities. They have their own aims. It’s not my place to call them arseholes just because I don’t like what they do. For me, whatever I like in music, whatever format its in, whether its a punk band or electro or hip hop or whatever, is rawness. That moment where you feel like you’re touching a nerve. You can definitely do that with instrumental music, like Aphex twin and those kinds of bands.
P: Mogwai?
FT: Yeah, a great example. Godspeedyoublackemperor as well.
P: Yeah, they’re amazing. Although, I’ve only heard ‘Lift Your Skinny Fists’…
FT: Oh man, I’m telling you. Every single song is absolutely incredible. I’ve got them tatooed on me as well. But yeah, I’m looking for that moment where it feels like someone has definitely got something deeper. Regardless of how you do it, whether you do it like Godspeed or like Ryan Adams croaking out something about how awful his life is, or Black Flag powering through with 3 chords in 5 seconds or whatever. The thing is, people want different things. Some people want music to dance to, some people want music to make them feel good. It’s really not my place to tell them whether they’re right or wrong.
P: Since Million Dead split up, similar bands of that genre have also become defunct (e.g. Yourcodenameismilo, Reuben, Hell Is For Heroes, Cooper Temple Clause). Would you say the scene is healthy?
FT: To be fair I’m probably the wrong person to ask. As I’ve been away so much I don’t really know a lot about ‘the scene’. I’m also not really interested in the concept of ‘the scene’. I mean, obviously there was kind of this explosion of British rock guitar bands around the year 2000. Well, when I say ‘explosion’ I mean ‘a wave of’. There were some really great bands that made some really great records. Reuben, McClusky, Yourcodenameis:milo, My Vitriol, Vex Red, so many great bands. But then you know, Reuben came to an end, Yourcodenameis:milo came to and end, Million Dead came to an end, Hundred Reasons are still kind of soldiering on but I’m not sure how long that’s going to go on for. But to me Rock n’ Roll isn’t about building institutions. To me, the hit you get from Rock n’ Roll is that moment when you’re standing in some random club and you see this incredible band and you have no idea who they are and you’re going crazy as people are bouncing off the walls. To me, that’s when Rock n’ Roll is at it’s greatest. If bands break up then just savour them for what they were and be happy for the fact that there are a million other bands coming through to replace them. I regularly come across bands and singer songwriters that blow my mind; most recently ‘Crazy Arm.’ Check out ‘Crazy Arm’ they will blow your mind. It’s just insanely catchy punk, they’ve just signed to Xtra Mile. But that’s exactly my point; instead of getting down about old bands splitting up just remember that there are a million new great bands out there.
Andrew Trendell
Tags: frank turner, interview, leeds festival, long live the queen, million dead, nottingham, road
