Last week we published the first part of our interview with Frank Turner. In this final part, Frank talks to us about England Keep My Bones, the slight move away from political lyrics, his book and more.
-Last month you released England Keep My Bones. Were you pleased with how well it did in the charts?
Well yes, although I feel I should say not that I think it's all that important in the grand scheme of things. As long as you take it with a pinch of salt, it's not a bad barometer of how many people are paying attention to what I do.
It's very, very flattering and slightly mind-blowing to know that that many people in one week are going to buy a record. That's kind of crazy! I think in the first week we sold more copies of England Keep My Bones than we sold of the first Million Dead album ever, which is bizarre.
It's cool, it's fun, and it's a cool thing to have on my CV to tell my grandchildren when I'm old, boring and not cool anymore. It's not the reason I do this.
-When we've spoken before, we've chatted about the state of the music industry and how no-one's buying records anymore. Are you proud to have sold so well, in light of that?
Yeah. It turns out there are still people buying some records, huh? It's good. I'm not sure that that has masses of impact on the long-term trend of what's happening to the music industry.
We made a lot of effort to make the packaging and the artwork of the record into something that was worth people buying, and not then charging £20 for it.
The deluxe edition of the record was generally about £9 as far as I'm aware. That's still a damn sight cheaper than CDs used to be when I used to buy them as a kid. Well, I still buy them, I mean when I was CD shopping as a kid it was £15 for a dual-disc. So, that felt good for me.
-Older songs like 'Love Ire & Song' have dealt with the country's collective political apathy. With the lack of any real political songs on England Keep My Bones, does that reflect your own apathy?
I don't know, I'd prefer to say that I wasn't particularly moved to write about politics this time round.
Having said that, I do think 'English Curse' is a reasonably political song in the sense that it's about resistance and property rights.
It would be false of me to sit down and try to churn out political songs because I felt like I should, and because other people expect it of me.
That would be bogus anyway, and particularly if I then ended up with a collection of songs I couldn't then sing with any conviction. That's not to say I won't, in the future, write more songs about politics. It's just I'll pick my battles.
-With that natural lyrical shift, and just your progression since your earlier albums, how does England Keep My Bones compare to your earlier work?
That's a good question, and I have to say it's one I try not to think about whilst writing. I don't want to be sitting there with a guitar writing songs and thinking about how anything compares to anything else I might've done.
That, to me, would be slightly disingenuous. I think there's a bunch of differences. The boring way of putting it is I've spent four or five years on the road travelling.
I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was saying that I've changed over time. I was like, of course I've f****** changed, I've spent five years on tour with over a thousand shows. What did you think I was going to be like? I'd be a robot if I remained the same, that'd be ridiculous.
I've changed as a person, I've learned more about the art of songwriting. I think one of the major changes is having a firm backing band to write for.
I always wanted to have a band, but with Sleep Is For The Week it was very academic as to who would be in the band, because I knew it was going to be me playing everything apart from drums.
Whereas now, I know when I'm thinking about the keys, I know that Matt's going to be playing, and what kind of playing he might do. The arrangment is more of a collaborative process.
The essential skeletons of the songs quite jealously remain mine, but in terms of putting together the arrangment for the full band, that's something we all talk about and contribute to.
-Has the actual songwriting style shifted with this album then?
Yeah, I think so. Hopefully not in any calculated or contrived way. You know what, in a way England Keep My Bones was a really fun record to write and rehearse.
I felt like I knew what I was doing better. With Poetry of the Deed, I felt slightly over-whelmed by having the band to play with. Everyone was finding their feet in a way.
This time round, without wanting to sound conceited, I felt like we're a good band, we do what we do well. Let's do it with these songs that are good, or whatever. It felt good.
-Now that you're on album number four, are there any songs in the vein of 'Thatcher F***** The Kids' that you're tired of playing?
Well...for the most part, I generally try to opperate on the principle that I will play anything from my back catalogue, if the mood takes me.
Actually, on the solo tour I did, it was really fun. Every day I was trying to drag up a couple of songs I hadn't played in a while. There were a couple that I'd never actually played live before.
It was really fun to go...f***. I haven't even thought of that song for years, and then there'd be people in the audience singing along. That was an incredible feeling.
With specific reference to 'Thatcher F***** The Kids', I stopped playing that song a few years ago now, for a number of reasons.
Probably the best way of putting it is this. I felt that when I put that song out, I got a glipse of what the world would be like if I was an out-and-out protest singer. It wasn't a glipse that I liked very much.
If you enter a world that's much more about politics that it is about music, there's a lot of people who are highly opinionated and not particularly tolerant with other views.
There's that, and the other thing is that as I've grown older my views on that particular subject have shifted. I don't want to completely disown the song, but I certainly don't think I can stand up on a stage in a room full of people and sing that song with 100% conviction anymore.
I don't think that the analysis in it is one I would stand by anymore. Having said that, one of the great things about music and folk music is that if people want to claim that song, play it, add an extra verse and do what the f*** they want, they're more than welcome to do it.
It would fill me with pleasure in fact, if people did that. It's not like I'm trying to erase it from history or anything like that.
-What stage is your book at?
It's about 75% done of the first draft, is the best way of putting it. We're getting then.
One of the problems with me, I'm much better at working when I have a deadline to work to, and that's a slightly open-ended project.
I go through phases where I'll suddenly spend three days on it fevorously, and then I won't touch it for a month. It will happen, it's coming. I promise.
-Who approached who with the idea?
Some guys from an American publishing house contacted me to see if I'd be interested in writing a book. My initial reaction was no, what the f*** am I going to write a book about?
They pitched the idea at me a little more carefully, and we're talking about doing it as book of tour diaries. I guess I just thought about it more, and I found away of thinking about it that didn't seem pretentious to me.
I wrote 10 or 15 chapters or so, sent them off to a couple of friends and said is this totally, totally tedious, or is it any good? People seemed to think it was alright, so I kept working at it.
-When we spoke in December, you mentioned maybe doing some side-projects. Are you considering any of them more seriously yet?
Well, I had another discussion with Dan the other day and we both agreed that it was an excellent idea for us to do something together.
Then, I've just got a new album out, he's got a new album out. It's the worst possible time to be trying to talk about anything like that.
The tour schedule for England Keep My Bones stretches to the horizon for me at the moment. I've got ideas and plans, but it becoming something conrete is further in the distance.
-Once the summer festival circuit is done, what do you have planned?
That's when the proper England Keep My Bones World Tour starts, basically.
We're doing Ireland, then America and Canada, then Europe, the UK, Europe, then Australia and Japan, the Far East, then America again, then Europe and UK again.
That takes us until this time next year. So, it's pretty manic.
-What final message would you give to anyone reading it? Anything to plug?
There's the tour coming up, but people can find out about that from my websites. Just come to a show and say hello, really.
-Cheers for taking the time to talk to us again. Good look with the tours.
My pleasure, man, nice to speak to you again. Take it easy.
Female First - Alistair McGeorge
Last week we published the first part of our interview with Frank Turner. In this final part, Frank talks to us about England Keep My Bones, the slight move away from political lyrics, his book and more.
-Last month you released England Keep My Bones. Were you pleased with how well it did in the charts?
Well yes, although I feel I should say not that I think it's all that important in the grand scheme of things. As long as you take it with a pinch of salt, it's not a bad barometer of how many people are paying attention to what I do.
It's very, very flattering and slightly mind-blowing to know that that many people in one week are going to buy a record. That's kind of crazy! I think in the first week we sold more copies of England Keep My Bones than we sold of the first Million Dead album ever, which is bizarre.
It's cool, it's fun, and it's a cool thing to have on my CV to tell my grandchildren when I'm old, boring and not cool anymore. It's not the reason I do this.
-When we've spoken before, we've chatted about the state of the music industry and how no-one's buying records anymore. Are you proud to have sold so well, in light of that?
Yeah. It turns out there are still people buying some records, huh? It's good. I'm not sure that that has masses of impact on the long-term trend of what's happening to the music industry.
We made a lot of effort to make the packaging and the artwork of the record into something that was worth people buying, and not then charging £20 for it.
The deluxe edition of the record was generally about £9 as far as I'm aware. That's still a damn sight cheaper than CDs used to be when I used to buy them as a kid. Well, I still buy them, I mean when I was CD shopping as a kid it was £15 for a dual-disc. So, that felt good for me.
-Older songs like 'Love Ire & Song' have dealt with the country's collective political apathy. With the lack of any real political songs on England Keep My Bones, does that reflect your own apathy?
I don't know, I'd prefer to say that I wasn't particularly moved to write about politics this time round.
Having said that, I do think 'English Curse' is a reasonably political song in the sense that it's about resistance and property rights.
It would be false of me to sit down and try to churn out political songs because I felt like I should, and because other people expect it of me.
That would be bogus anyway, and particularly if I then ended up with a collection of songs I couldn't then sing with any conviction. That's not to say I won't, in the future, write more songs about politics. It's just I'll pick my battles.
-With that natural lyrical shift, and just your progression since your earlier albums, how does England Keep My Bones compare to your earlier work?
That's a good question, and I have to say it's one I try not to think about whilst writing. I don't want to be sitting there with a guitar writing songs and thinking about how anything compares to anything else I might've done.
That, to me, would be slightly disingenuous. I think there's a bunch of differences. The boring way of putting it is I've spent four or five years on the road travelling.
I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was saying that I've changed over time. I was like, of course I've f****** changed, I've spent five years on tour with over a thousand shows. What did you think I was going to be like? I'd be a robot if I remained the same, that'd be ridiculous.
I've changed as a person, I've learned more about the art of songwriting. I think one of the major changes is having a firm backing band to write for.
I always wanted to have a band, but with Sleep Is For The Week it was very academic as to who would be in the band, because I knew it was going to be me playing everything apart from drums.
Whereas now, I know when I'm thinking about the keys, I know that Matt's going to be playing, and what kind of playing he might do. The arrangment is more of a collaborative process.
The essential skeletons of the songs quite jealously remain mine, but in terms of putting together the arrangment for the full band, that's something we all talk about and contribute to.
-Has the actual songwriting style shifted with this album then?
Yeah, I think so. Hopefully not in any calculated or contrived way. You know what, in a way England Keep My Bones was a really fun record to write and rehearse.
I felt like I knew what I was doing better. With Poetry of the Deed, I felt slightly over-whelmed by having the band to play with. Everyone was finding their feet in a way.
Tagged in Frank Turner