Frank Turner: Surviving to the point of doing 10 albums – it didn’t just fall out of the sky
The singer talks about overcoming personal challenges, how he feels about playing his 3,000th show and the inspiration behind his 10th album.
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Your support makes all the difference.Spending more than 25 years on the road touring is an impressive feat for any artist, but to be on your way to your 3,000th gig by your early forties is nearly incomprehensible.
Punk-folk musician Frank Turner started raking up the miles in his spirited, teenage days when he began gigging aged 16 at local venues. He later graduated to playing festivals and arenas, becoming notorious for his relentless touring schedule and high-octane performances, often alongside his backing band The Sleeping Souls.
“It’s the one thing I’m absolutely sure that I’m reasonably good at,” the 42-year-old says with confidence about his shows.
“Being a writer, there’s this bizarre mix of extreme self-confidence and crushing self-doubt in a cement mixer forever.
“I wake up in the middle of the night and think everything I’ve done is awful and I should just stop as a writer from time to time. But I know how to put on a gig.”
Turner is showing the States how it is done throughout June before he returns to the UK to play the Glastonbury Festival and a string of UK tour dates. Each one will mark a step closer to his milestone 3,000th show, which he is due to perform at London’s Alexandra Palace next February.
“I’m aware that quantity does not equal quality”, he jokesover a video call from his home in Essex during a short break in his hectic schedule.
“But I’d hope I’d be reasonably good at playing shows after 3,000 of the bloody things.”
The singer-songwriter, from Meonstoke, Hampshire, first released two albums with the post-hardcore band Million Dead before he decided to go-it-alone in 2005. His 2007 debut Sleep Is For The Week and 2008’s follow-up Love Ire & Song helped circulate his name among fans and critics, but after further success with his third and fourth albums, he started securing more prestigious festival and concerts spots.
The Recovery singer has continued to scale the charts, with his last five albums all making it to at least number three, and his newly-released 10th album has followed suit.
“I spent a fair amount of time thinking about the double figures”, he says about his latest release, titled Undefeated.
“I’m proud of that and also slightly surprised by it.
“I’m just like ‘Huh, it’s still working? What’s going on?’. Forty-two is not an inherently punk or sexy age, I think.”
He spent a lot of time considering the album title, delving into thesauruses and playing word association games for inspiration, but finally found it when rewatching the 1980 biopic Raging Bull about the late boxing champion Jake LaMotta.
Asking for help is a sign of strength rather than a sign of weakness.
“What I like about the word undefeated is it doesn’t necessarily imply that you’re the world champion, it doesn’t mean you’re the best, it just means that no f***** has knocked you flat yet and I think that’s how I feel”, he explains.
“I don’t want to spend too much time blowing smoke up myself, but surviving to the point of doing 10 albums, 26 years on tour in total now and all the rest – it didn’t just fall out of the sky.
“There’s moments when it’s been tough to do this.”
Turner has faced his own share of trials over the years, with the scrutiny of social media and battling severe addition issues being significant challenges in his life.
He speaks openly about his struggles with substance abuse, which he feels is summed up by The Hold Steady lyric “it started recreational / ended kind of medical”.
“People use the expression ‘partying’ to refer to taking drugs”, he muses. “And the more that I’ve lived through, the more bitterly ironic that sounds to me.
“It wasn’t much of a party when you’re selling shit you own, and going to hospital and bleeding a lot, and not sleeping for days and days, and f****** up your relationships.”
He is pleased to say those days are behind him after seeking help and finding cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), but he remains conscious that addiction can rear its head again.
“Asking for help is a sign of strength rather than a sign of weakness, in my opinion,” he says. “Or at least, I think that’s how we should frame it as a society.”
“Because I think that it took me a long time to concede that I needed help and to get over myself enough to ask somebody for help.
“And when I say somebody, I’m specifically talking about professionals – therapists, medical professionals, whatever it might be – but it can include just talking about it to someone at all.”
While being on the road is where he feels most comfortable, it can often be a high-stress environment which tries to suck you into the cliches of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. It also served as an escape route from addressing deeper issues within his mind and past, like him being kicked out of his house when he was eight years old.
“For the longest time I was like ‘Music is my therapy and I don’t need anything else’,” he says.
“It took me a long time to realise this, but music is a necessary but not a sufficient part of my mental health toolkit.”
Many others may have left the industry while facing these challenges, while a host of artists who came up with Turner have never cut through to the mainstream.
Does he chalk his longevity up to personal resilience?
“Stubbornness might be a better way of putting it,” he says with a chuckle.
“I don’t really want to do anything else, and I don’t really know how to do anything else.
“I’m not going to starve to death if I don’t tour and play shows, I’ll figure it out, but this is what I want to do.”
He recorded the new album, and self-produced it, from his home studio in Mersea Island, Essex, where he lives with his wife when he is not travelling the country.
As he shifts into his fifth decade, his writing is evolving from youthful outspokenness to surviving middle-age challenges like fading friendships, mental fallout and persistent backache.
Turner has also been working and producing for up-and-coming bands, which he says has offered him inspiration when writing his new music.
What pearls of wisdom does he have for the groups?
“It’s okay to go to bed is one thing”, he says from experience, before adding: “I would say trust your gut.
“There’s no point in doing all of this shit if you’re following somebody else’s creative instincts.
“If you’re a writer, if you’re a creative person, why bother doing all this stuff if you’re going to sacrifice your artistic integrity? Ultimately, it’s a fool’s bargain. It’s a waste of time.”
Frank Turner’s album Undefeated is out now and his UK tour dates kick off on July 6.