It’s all about the milestones for Punk Folk songwriter Frank Turner. After releasing his 10th album 'Undefeated' in 2024 and playing his 3000th show at London’s Alexandra Palace last month, Frank plans to continue growing those numbers in 2025 with shows planned in South-Eastern Europe, the US and the UK. Oh, and album number 11 already in the works!
With over 20 years in the music industry, Frank sat down to talk with us sharing his thoughts on what it means to be an independent artist today with the pressures of social media, and how he’s doing his own bit to help new songwriters with his long running mini-festival, Lost Evenings, and a competition to find local opening acts for his upcoming UK tour with the Sleeping Souls in April.
Q. Congratulations on your 10th album. That must feel like a significant milestone?
A. "Yeah, it's wild! I don't think I expected to be releasing ten albums. It's long enough ago now that I'm sort of toying with songs that might make part of album 11, which feels yet more ludicrous. But I feel fortunate in a lot of ways, not many people get to release as many records and still have anyone paying attention. So, you know, I'm grateful for it".
Q. How did the recording process of this record differ to previous albums?
A. "This one was slightly different, during the pandemic I knew I needed a hobby. I've been involved in the arrangement side of my records and every record I made, but I've not done the technical stuff of production. I decided to kind of immerse myself in the world of recording technology, which I did, I ended building a little studio in the place of live out in Essex. When it came to decide who produced my next one, suddenly it was just like, well, hold on I could do this. I had a friend come down to help engineer but broadly speaking I did it myself which was awesome. It was the first time I've done that; it was a little scary. I’ve had the same band touring and in the studio since 2008, they played on all the records. I love them to bits and it was kind of an interesting moment when I said that I was gonna produce it myself, I think there was a little bit of scepticism from some of them but in the end we all had a lot of fun".
Q. How do you feel your song writing has developed over the 10 records?
A. "I hope so, I don't want to repeat myself you know, I hope that I’m exploring new avenues. But I try to do things a little different every time and make sure that I'm not re-treading old ground and that kind of thing. Ultimately, song writing is both an art and craft and the art side of it remains ephemeral, but the craft side of it, one would hope with a bit of practice might get better. There are bits of Country in there, indie-rock, I think at the end of the day I don't spend very much time thinking about genre descriptor as well. To the extent that I think that a lot of the time genre descriptors are quite sort of surface level, there are songs where I will write and my band and I will work them up as a rock song and then will try it as a piano ballad and then we'll try it as a folk song and then we'll try it as a punk song, you know, and just sort of see which clothes fit".
Q. Have you got a favourite track on the new album?
A. "There's a song on the record called 'Somewhere In Between' which I'm really proud of. That one went through a lot of different arrangements and rewrites and all that kind of thing, and it's one of the most raw and revealing works that I've put out into the world to the extent that it’s a little intimidating at times, but it came out good I think and so yeah, I’m proud of that".
Q. You've been in the music industry now for over 20 years, what has been the biggest change you’ve noticed?
A. "I think that the impact of technology on music has been enormous in my time. I started out in DIY punk, by the time I started working with the kind of above ground music industry, the effect of the Internet on music consumption had already started and everyone was already running around with their hair on fire screaming, saying that it was the end times and they've not really stopped, and at a certain point you start taking it all with a bit of a pinch of salt. It has changed a lot in terms of the way that people buy music, listen to music, and of course, what people listen to. But I've been fortunate in the sense that what I do has never been cool. It's never been fashionable, it's never been mainstream, and therefore, if the mainstream or whatever constitutes the mainstream these days, sort of shifts and develops and all the rest of it, I kind of don't care and I don't have to care. I have my little niche that I fill and I'm very grateful for it. The essentials of what I do haven't changed in that time as in I try and write good songs and play them well in front of people who wanna hear them".
Q. What do you feel about the increasing reliance on social media for success?
A. "I find it quite depressing the way on which I think it’s necessary to be quite good at social media on some level to succeed as a band these days. In a way, it just seems kind of lame to me. I mean, the ability to make funny Instagram posts doesn't line up with the ability to write and play good music and I don't see why it should. You know, would Nick Drake have been any good or Leonard Cohen or whatever? There is a lot of that stuff going on. I was pretty old fashioned even for my time when I started out, just going out and doing the groundwork. I didn't have massive support from radio or press or whatever it might be. I just toured and opened for other bands and made waves that way".
Q. Talking of opening for other acts, you're running a competition for unsigned acts to support you on your upcoming tour. What was the thinking behind this?
A. "It's a nice way of kind of paying back a little bit. Like I say, an awful lot of my career came from opening for other bands. I was fortunate enough to tour with Biffy Clyro and the Offspring and Green Day and each band kind of gave me the opportunity to steal a little bit of their fanbase, or borrow at any rate, and that's how I made my bones and I think that that's still a viable route. So, if I can provide a bit of a platform like that for new people, that feels cool to me".
Q. You've got a huge run of shows coming up including performances across the UK and internationally. Which shows are you most excited for?
A. "The international shows are great for me because I get to see more of the world. Not many bands play in Serbia, and I want to be the kind of person who does. It’s exciting I’m looking forward to that. Then I have the solo tour in the States in May and the UK tour in April. Then we'll be in Scotland in September for my festival Lost Evenings. It's a mini festival but we do it every year. This is number eight, it's in a different city every year. We have two stages, and we have open mic and loads of different stuff going on around the venues. We started doing the open mic thing at lost evenings three which was in Boston, and it was a bit of an experiment and a Hail Mary, and I didn't know how it was and was going to go and it turned out to be my favourite part of the whole festival because among other things, the atmosphere in the room is very supportive. I mean, there's no jeering, that kind of thing, it is kind of like if you want to have a go, you're welcome kind of thing so I'm really looking forward to that".
Q. You just played your 3000th show! How was that and is it a record?
A. "It was enormous and it was incredible. It was quite difficult to take it all in in one go to be honest with you from where I was standing it was overwhelming, might be the word. Plus, there was just an insane amount of work putting the show together for everybody and my crew, particularly, but just on the day I was just pillar to post all day and suddenly you're on in 20 minutes. It's like, what the fuck? So yeah, I enjoyed it, it was great. I think that the audience enjoyed it, which is rather more important than how I feel about it. But it's not a record I'm afraid, there is a fair amount of dispute about who’s got the most shows and, in my opinion, the real answer is people like BB King and John Lee Hooker they basically played three shows a night for 360 days a year".
Q. What does your typical day off on tour look like?
A. "A day off on a tour generally involves sleeping a lot. We tend to have a hotel room each and we have a thing we call slug life as opposed to thug life where you basically go to a hotel room in the morning, you put on the robe, you lock the door and then you don't talk to anyone with the possible exception of your partner on FaceTime, and just do Netflix and Uber Eats or whatever. There are members of my band who'll be more touristic than that and will run out and go and see the sights and stuff which I respect, but for me, the more that time goes by the more I need some dead days in the tour".
Q. Are there any political songwriters who stand out to you right now and inspire your own writing?
A. "I don't really consider my work to be especially political, there's a song or two here and there. Genuinely, I don't love all the political songs that I've written in my time, some of them feel kind of brittle or outdated or whatever at this point. And there are people who do it better, off the top my head my friend Grace Petrie, she's an amazing political writer. Billy Bragg’s still out there doing his thing. There's lots of angry punk bands around at the moment that I love, whether it's the Meffs, NOBRO or Gen and the Degenerates".
UK tour dates (with support from Amigo The Devil):
Tuesday 1st April - Newcastle NX
Wednesday 2nd April - Leeds O2 Academy
Friday 4th April - Liverpool O2 Academy
Saturday 5th April - Manchester Academy
Sunday 6th April - Nottingham Rock City
Tuesday 8th April - Birmingham O2 Academy
Thursday 10th April - Cambridge Corn Exchange
Friday 11th April - Oxford O2 Academy
Saturday 12th April - Norwich UEA
Monday 14th April - Ipswich Corn Exchange
Tuesday 15th April - Swansea Sin City
Wednesday 16th April - Bristol O2 Academy
Friday 18th April - Southampton O2 Guildhall
Saturday 19th April - Folkestone Leas Cliff Hall
Full tour dates and ticket info HERE
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