Graham Reid | | <1 min read
Frank Turner: audio interview. In Brisbane: May 21, 2010
British singer-songwriter Frank Turner moves between many worlds with ease: he plays to hardcore audiences (and started his career in such bands) but also works the folk circuit. He also plays huge festivals and small clubs.
His music roams across politics (Thatcher Fucked the Kids), wry humour (I Don't Care What You Did in Your Gap Year) and social obsrvation("once an honest man could go from sunrise to its set without encountering agents of his state and government").
With a band he can work a grand sound like Bruce Springsteen or the ramshackle folk of Pogues, solo he's more early wordy Dylan or fiery Billy Bragg.
His lyrics can be naked ("I'm young enough to be pissed off and old enough to be jaded") and also in-your-face like a punk ("there's no such things as rock stars, there's just people who play music"). But he is also witty, educated (Eton, a degree in history from the London School of Economics) and well traveled.
He is a folk/rock singer for our time.
His most recent album Poetry of the Deed is reviewed here.
Frank Turner plays The Kings Arms, Auckland on May 4, the Bar Bodega Wellington on May 5.
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