British punk rocker turned folk singer Frank Turner stopped in for a Live & Direct Session on Tuesday, May 28. They talked with WYEP's Joey Spehar and performed some songs from Turner's new album "Undefeated" on WYEP!
Set list:
Do One
Show People
Girl From the Record Shop
Letters
Interviewer: Joey Spehar
Engineer: Thomas Cipollone
Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity:
Spehar: It's Frank Turner Live & Direct here at WYEP. That’s the song "Do One" from the new album “Undefeated.” I love the album, especially how it starts with that song. Lines like "some people are just going to hate you no matter what" are so simple, yet so important and true.
Turner: Thank you.
Spehar: It's easier to see than to live.
Turner: Of course. I think that with most of the songs I write, it’s more aspirational than an objective statement about where I’m at. It’s a reminder to myself. As the song says, it's a lesson hard learned. I’ve been doing this for quite a while, and I’ve figured out that spending energy rebutting negative energy can be a bad use of resources.
Spehar: I’m glad to hear you’re still working it out.
Turner: Sure.
Spehar: I thought you were a fully realized version of yourself.
Turner: Yeah, the super well-adjusted guy, right? Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case. But we’re all doing our best.
Spehar: And then there’s a song like "Somewhere in Between," which is a brutally honest reflection of feeling like an imposter.
Turner: Yeah.
Spehar: It’s tragic. I have a 12-year-old daughter who has always been confident. Then you become an adult and question what you’re doing.
Turner: Totally. It’s the realization that everyone’s just kind of making it up as they go along. That song is very important to me. It gets to the heart of what the record's about—finding your place in life. I’m 42, not a grizzled veteran nor a 22-year-old punk. The music I make has always been a mix, and I’m at a point where I’d like to figure out where I stand.
Spehar: You’ll probably get there someday.
Turner: That’s for you to say.
Spehar: You produced this record, right?
Turner: Yes, for the first time in my career. My lockdown project was to build a recording studio and figure out how to use it. I started by recording other bands. When it was time to make this record, I felt ready to do it myself. Working with younger bands influenced this record a lot. It’s refreshing to see new ideas and energy.
Spehar: I love "Girl from the Record Shop" and the shout-outs to bands like Radiohead, Amy Winehouse, and my favorite Descendents record.
Turner: It’s the best.
Spehar: We’re about the same age, so I get that there are important ones before that, but that one stands out.
Turner: "Everything Sucks" is the best. Listening to it took me back to when I was discovering bands like Nirvana, the Meat Puppets, and the Vaselines.
Spehar: Indie archeology.
Turner: Exactly.
Spehar: Do you find it important to introduce people to music you like, or does it even matter now?
Turner: It’s easier to find music now than it was before. People can access bands without barriers. I try to talk about bands I like. Once, someone dismissed me as a gateway artist, but I see that as a positive thing. It’s great to watch younger musicians with fresh ideas.
Spehar: And here I am, trying to turn people on to music as part of my job.
Turner: We can talk about records all day.
Spehar: I’m wearing a Grateful Dead mashup shirt.
Turner: Okay. I’m a fan of Grateful Dead too.
Spehar: Thought you might be.
Turner: You got me.
Spehar: How about a couple more songs?
Turner: I’d love that. In fact, I think I’ll play "Go from the Record Shop," a song about my first record shop visit when I was 14 and lost the ability to speak.
Turner: This is a later in the album song, and it's a tune about my community and my tribe and my family. It's a good way of telling that story. Also, it explains some of the lyrics. There's a British singer called John Otway who had a big hit single in 1978. He went on British television when there were only three channels to play it, and about half the country tuned in and watched him fall and land on his crotch on top of one of his amplifiers while trying to play a guitar solo. Everyone assumed that was the end of John Otway. But here we are in 2024, and John Otway is still a recording touring artist and someone I enormously respect. That's my people. So this is a good show, people.
Spehar: It's Frank Turner live and direct here on WYEP today, a great song called "Show People." And Frank, you're a real show guy. I just read that you officially broke the record?
Turner: Yes, we did. We broke the record. We're still going through the rigmarole of getting the certification. The previous record was ten shows in 24 hours in ten different cities, set by American country singer Hunter Hayes. However, I’m told he used a helicopter, which strikes me as bad faith. We did 15 shows in 15 cities in 24 hours. My tour manager, who’s in the room as well, survived and has made me promise to never try it again.
Spehar: And your total number is up over 3,000 now?
Turner: We’re not quite at 3,000 yet. We have a big 3,000th show planned for February next year. Tonight's show in Pittsburgh will be number 2,886, I think. Some people think I know these numbers off the top of my head, but I've written them on a list, which is actually on my website if people are curious.
Spehar: What keeps bringing you back to the stage?
Turner: A bunch of stuff. I love it. It’s the one thing in life I’ve got some confidence I’m good at. I sort of should be by this point. A close friend once said he sees me looking more comfortable on stage than anywhere else. There are many great musicians I started out with who are just as good and dedicated, but luck didn’t go their way. I feel duty bound to enjoy it and do it as much as possible because I know my friends would want me to.
Spehar: It’s very obvious watching you here today that this is what you're supposed to be doing.
Turner: That’s very kind of you to say. That’s a huge compliment. Thanks very much.
Spehar: Many years ago, you were in a group called Millionaire. You’ve been doing Frank Turner for a lot longer than that band existed. When I think about that, I think of other musicians like Dallas Green from Alexisonfire, who’s now much bigger with City and Colour, or Chuck Ragan from Hot Water Music, who’s arguably less beloved now on his own than he was in the band. Do you have a favorite musician who has followed a similar path?
Turner: That’s a good question. When I started out playing acoustic guitar after being in a punk band, people thought I was having a kind of psychotic episode because it wasn’t a well-trodden path. But there were two people who had gone down that road at that time, both of whom I toured with early on: Chuck Ragan and Tim Barry. Tim was in the band Avail, and he put out a country record in 2004. A lot of people thought it was weird, but it happened to coincide with my thoughts about doing something similar. Tim is a wonderful human being and a dear friend. I joked at the time that when I grow up, I want to be like Tim Barry.
Spehar: I see how people could think it’s weird. While it's so different sonically, the ethos can be very much the same.
Turner: Very much so. A lot of punk rock is based on youth and short-termism. When punk rock has been going for one, possibly even two full generations, it raises interesting questions about how you philosophically approach it. If punk rock started with a song that shouts "No Future" in 1976, and it’s now 2024 and we’re still playing punk music, it leads to a period of self-examination. Some of that takes place with acoustic guitars.
Spehar: As someone who writes songs that people respond to and make their own, do you think a song can change the world?
Turner: No, absolutely not. But a song can change a person. Cumulatively, that can be significant. At one point, I thought Bob Dylan caused the civil rights movement, but that was because I hadn’t read any history books yet. Culture is commentary to a degree, but history is driven by deeper motives. My life was irrevocably changed by my first Iron Maiden cassette and later by bands like the Dead Kennedys and the Weakerthans. I’m slightly allergic to grandiose statements about the world-historical value of what I do, but I like to think I establish connections between disparate groups of people, and there’s meaning in that.
Spehar: There’s definitely some meaning there. Sometimes you get tired of a song or bored with it, and you think it sucks, but then you talk to someone who is really moved by it, and you realize you need to step back.
Turner: Absolutely. There are songs I’ve played every night since I was 25, and people ask if it gets dull. The answer is no because performance is an interaction between the audience and the performer. There’s energy passing both ways. Playing a song I wrote when I was 24 and seeing 5000 people sing it back to me tonight, in a town I hadn’t heard of when I wrote it, is a privilege. It never gets old.
Spehar: Do you ever find yourself in a bad mood, and then look out into the crowd and have someone change it for you?
Turner: Absolutely. I love what I do; it is my job, and everyone has bad days. I remember one day in America, a guy in his 60s, who wasn’t the demographic I expected to connect with a song I wrote about a bar, had tears streaming down his cheeks while singing along. It was a relief because you’ve just turned my evening around.
Spehar: Frank Turner and his band are going to be playing at the Roxy tonight. We got a lot of high energy on stage today. It’s going to be what, ten times that?
Turner: Yeah. And I should mention we also have the wonderful Amigo the Devil, The Bridge, Citizen, and Mike Spackman. Doors open at 5:30, show starts at 6:30. There are a few tickets left. Am I doing well here?
Spehar: Yeah, you're killing it.
Turner: It’s going to be a great high-energy punk rock show, and a participation event.
Spehar: Okay, so come ready to move and shout along. You can find details on our website. Be sure to check out the new album Undefeated. It’s wonderful. Frank, would you leave us with one more song?
Turner: I would love to. I'll leave you with one more song from the new record. This is about a pen friend I had when I was a teenager who sent me punk rock tapes. The song is called “Letters.” There’s a happy ending since the song was released: the person I wrote about emailed me two weeks ago for the first time in 27 years and told me it was her fault, not mine, that things ended. That was a relief because I couldn’t remember. Anyway, this song is called “Letters.”