Frank Turner discusses The Boss, his bed and women's bathrooms

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By Tim Jones

On Tuesday, November 17, The Revival Tour hit One Eyed Jack's in New Orleans. Consisting of punk rock luminaries Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music), Jim Ward (At the Drive-In), and Frank Turner among several others, it's not your average acoustic folk tour.

Frank Turner has recently seen a huge surge in popularity, thanks in no small part to his near constant touring.

"I'm on tour 350 days a year or something. I looked at my bed in August. It was great - didn't sleep in it. It looked pretty good. I laid down in it for a while and cried. I don't go home very often," said Turner of his gig schedule.

Prior to the Revival Tour, Turner had finished a stint of opening gigs for The Offspring which he says "was a pretty surreal experience playing to those kinds of crowds and that size of crowds and those kinds of venues, but it was a blast, I had a really good time. I was also given a ladies bathroom as a dressing room at one point, which answered questions I've been asking myself since childhood."

Turner's roots in punk rock extend back to 2001, when he was fronting a band called Million Dead - a post-hardcore band that didn't find much success outside of their native Great Britain.

"I was considerably more pissed off at the world, when I was 21 than I am at 27. Well, I wouldn't say that I'm less pissed off at it, just in a different way. I guess I believed that by shouting at the world for long enough I could change it when I was a kid. But unfortunately the world wasn't paying masses of attention to a little post-hardcore band," said Turner of his time in Million Dead.

After Million Dead split, Frank went solo, releasing his first full length, Sleep is for the Week in 2007. That album would be contrasted by his two subsequent releases, 2008's Love, Ire and Song and this year's Poetry of the Deed, in that the latter two would contain more songs in a political vein, where the first is almost totally an intimate, emotional record.

When asked about what influenced this change, Turner said, "A Scottish band called Arab Strap was my one of my biggest inspirations on the first album, and they write in a very painful confessional style. I guess I've been listening to a bit more Nick Cave and Bob Dylan in recent years, and those kinds of influences are how the music and the lyrics come through."

Turner also recently released a 7" single of Bruce Springsteen songs with Austin Lucas. He performs "Thunder Road" on it, and said of Springsteen, "Oh he's the greatest songwriter of this generation. I was in Hyde Park when Bruce got onstage with the Gaslight guys and it was one of the best moments ever. I think I might start crying if I ever met The Boss so I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not."

Frank Turner will be touring the United States again starting in February 2010 opening for Flogging Molly.

Originally Published: Issue 824 - November 18, 2009

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