Reasons Not To Be An Idiot: Frank Turner

Frank Turner’s pretty cool, right? We like him here at Gigwise. Never one to mix his words, he’s one of those celebrity people that have far more important things to think about than their own inflated sense of self importance (unlike certain others!). When we caught up with him at Reading Uni, in a support slot for the Holloways, he was nothing short of nice and normal. Thank God for that. There’s only so much walking on glass to be done around those celebrity tykes.

Frank is a little bit stressed. He’s apparently playing superman a little bit these days, even manning his own merch stand at gigs, before knackering himself out to the point of exhaustion. We ask him how it’s all going. He’s basically been on a never ending tour since 2005, which appears to still veer off in the direction of Christmas. No rest for the wicked then. He’s down to play the Reading Lock up stage this year, thanks to his good friend ‘Mike’ (as in Davies - yep ‘im at Radio 1) and also the Cambridge Folk Festival. “There aren’t many artists that could pull that off,” he tells us. Indeed, there probably isn’t. The thing about Frank is that he does seem to genuinely cross the divide between the folk singer and the punk rocker. Perhaps this is largely to do with the underground reputation of his previous band ‘Million Dead’, but perhaps it’s also to do with the fact, as he notes, that “I don’t sound like Devendra Banhart and I shout when I sing.”

We ask Frank about the reputation he has appeared to have acquired as a protest singer (a sore spot we are well aware of). Frank is very aware of the fact that many people who listen to music do not care about what their favourite musicians make of politics. He’s written three songs about politics; two of which talk about how pointless, boring and stupid he finds it. He tells us, “If protest is the only form of political expression these days then that’s a bit shit!” Frank is also amused by the British Press’ inclination to possessively cling to their assumed pets (he calls this being ‘one of theirs’), “I’m not interested in playing a thousand benefits that essentially just emotionally blackmail people. Yes, I love music. Yes, I hate racism. But **** off! They’re basically making it impossible to argue with them. I’m not interested in joining the socialist workers party so leave me alone!”

Frank continues his political rant, cursing an email he received earlier in the week, criticising the election of a BNP party representative, “They called him a fascist, which is completely retarded. I mean he got elected – isn’t that what elections are for? It’s a shame that people think like that but the bottom line is that this person obviously represents the views of the people in that they elected him!”

We ask him about the cult of the celebrity. In one of his myspace blogs, he’s had a massive rant about some man who criticised him at a gig for signing some artefacts for his fans, “The guy that I was ranting about decided I was being a rock star by signing stuff, and the point is, if you don’t sign stuff people think you are an arsehole because they think you think that you’re too good to do it! The only sensible way to deal with it is to make people happy. If it makes someone’s day for me to scribble on a t-shirt or a CD or whatever, then I’ll do it.”