After interviewing the lovely Lethal Bizzle I turned around and saw a very calm and collected Frank Turner. He had just finished his interviews for the day so I put my serious music journalist glasses on and requested and impromptu interview which he very kindly agreed to. As I was setting up he excused himself to have a chat with Mr Bizzle, turns out he's a bit of a fan. Sitting back down on the chair that Turner has been glued to for the last hour and a half we got down to business.....
Altsounds: Have you played Reading and Leeds before?
Frank Turner: Yes.
Altsounds: Which do you prefer, Reading or Leeds?
Frank Turner: That's a loaded question. I'm gonna have to say Reading. Simply because when I was a kid I grew up going to Reading Festival.
Altsounds: That's rubbish I'm very disappointed, and its our first question!
Frank Turner: I went to Reading like all the time as a kid and it was always my childhood aspiration to one day play at Reading Festival. This is going to be my 4th year playing there so you know. I always retain a tiny little bit of that childhood "holy shit!" feeling about playing at Reading, sorry Leeds!
Altsounds: I'm sure we'll win you over, British underdog and all that. I see you pulling those beer ring things, do you do that for the environment or just out of frustration?
Frank Turner: Just force of habit. The environment stuff is nonsense propaganda in my opinion.
Altsounds: Nonsense propaganda? How do you figure that? Little hedgehogs get their heads stuck in stuff like that.
Frank Turner: Do they fucking really?
Altsounds: Yeah.
Frank Turner: Prove it.
Altsounds: Fine, give me your email and I'll send it on to you.
Frank Turner: I believe in rationalism and fact, rather than ideology and hysteria really.
Altsounds: To be honest I've got no questions prepared for you. I saw you sitting there and just grabbed you.
Frank Turner: Fine, that is OK!
Altsounds: Where are you from then?
Frank Turner: I'm from Winchester, which is in the South of England.
Altsounds: OK, I'm a southerner!
Frank Turner: Oh, where are you from?
Altsounds: Brighton-ish, kind of.
Frank Turner: I'm from along the coast, Winchester boy born and bred. I actually still live there now but I don't ever spend any time there.
Altsounds: So if I wanted to go to Winchester where would I go to rock out?
Frank Turner: The Railway Inn
Altsounds: Is that just a pub?
Frank Turner: It's the only venue in Winchester!
Altsounds: (Laughs) Is it quite small there then?
Frank Turner: Yeah, its like 150 capacity or something like that. Having said that, I'm playing the Guild Hall there in October. Frankly I wanted to play a home town gig on the tour so the Guild Hall is like a 1000 capacity. But also, when you grow up in Winchester and you want to go to gigs you basically spend your whole life going to Southampton and Portsmouth and then trying to catch the last train back or scab a lift off your mates older brother. All that sort of stuff. This time around they've booked Winchester in instead of having a Southampton and Portsmouth show and I got all these emails from people saying, 'Oh man I'm coming to your gig from Southampton, we've gotta get the last train or lift' or something like that. I'm like FEEL MY PAIN!!!!
This was my childhood and now you know what its like you big city, metropolitan, urbanite, bastards.
Altsounds: I like it! I feel your pain. That was my life aswell. When I say Brighton I mean a village so small that's 40 miles from Brighton that you wont have heard of it so ill just say Brighton cos its easier.
Frank Turner: I think you can always tell people who grew up in small towns or in the countryside as opposed to the Metropolitan cities. I actually grew up 10 miles outside of Winchester so there you go!
Altsounds: (Laughs) So whats your favourite joke?
Frank Turner: I'm so lame that I subscribe to joke websites, I just love jokes.
Altsounds: Are you serious?
Frank Turner: Jokes are my favourite things in the world, I love them.
Altsounds: So what is your favourite one at the moment?
Frank Turner: Probably.... 'This guy walks into a library and asks if he can take a book out about suicide and the librarian says, “fuck off you'll never bring it back!”'
Altsounds: Haha! That is really bad.
Frank Turner: What are you on about? That joke is amazing, it's a great joke!
Altsounds: But then again, my favourite joke for 5 years was 'a man walks into a bar - ouch' so I'm easily impressed. Have you got any others?
Frank Turner: Hundreds! I dunno, oh god I don't know where to start
Altsounds: Do you have a dirty one?
Frank Turner: I ended a long term relationship the other day, it's alright though, it wasn't mine.
Altsounds: Hahaha that's really bad. You're really bad. You've only got really bad ones!
Frank Turner: I fell off a 40ft ladder the other day, it didn't matter though I was only on the 1st rung
Altsounds: Oh god. Why are they so bad?
Frank Turner: They're amazing! Why can't Stevie Wonder see his friends?.....Cos he's married!
Altsounds: Hahaha, I like that one.
Frank Turner: What's extra special about that is that everyone thinks your about to crack a terrible racist joke and you say it and you just zing it in with something that IS actually quite funny.
Altsounds: Hmmn. I don't know why I keep looking at my notes, these are all questions for Lethal Bizzle.
Frank Turner: You can ask me a question for Lethal Bizzle.
Altsounds: Errr...
Frank Turner: Just read one out! Just read one out!
Altsounds: OK, I couldn't help but notice that your jeans are pretty baggy, have you lost a lot of weight recently?
Frank Turner: You know what? I have a long term problem with belts.
Altsounds: Do you? Your jeans aren't actually very baggy though!
Frank Turner: But you know what? I feel like I'm doing belts wrong, by which I mean I spent many years with this kind of Raptor style belt [web belts], and my trousers just fell down. Then I got a buckle belt. My trousers are still falling down the whole time! I've tried every fucking type of belt there is and my trousers keep falling down which leads me to think that there is some sort of belt technique that nobody ever taught me about.
Altsounds: Maybe you just need to eat more. Eat some McDonalds?
Frank Turner: Yeah! I do like a nice chicken nugget, but you are just basically calling me skinny.
Altsounds: Aaw did it break your heart?
Frank Turner: Yeah my hearts broken! I should probably storm out of this interview like a proper rock star, throw some stuff around!
Altsounds: I'll ask you another Lethal Bizzle question to keep you here. How many pairs of sunglasses do you have with you for Leeds fest?
Frank Turner: One, which my girlfriend has stolen.
Altsounds: Is she here now?
Frank Turner: She's out there somewhere, she disappeared to get some food.
Altsounds: Last question! If i were a princess trapped and locked away in a tower how would you rescue me?
Frank Turner: That's assuming that I would...
Altsounds: You WOULD want to!
Frank Turner: OK then. I would, erm, er, what would I do? I'd be a ninja and I would er, you know, like ropes and stealth and shit. Not the Arnie through the front door all guns blazing. Seriously, you'd be gone and nobody would know you were gone for quite a while.
Altsounds: Amazing! I'm impressed. OK, one last thing, sorry. You said earlier that you've heard of Altsounds because you've got a computer. That's brilliant! It's by the people, for the people, we don't have any paid staff...
Frank Turner: So you're asking 'can I have some money?'
Altsounds: Ha ha, hey yeah! No, no it's not really, I was just going to say, do you have anything to say bearing in mind we're not corporate. Do you have anything you'd like to tell our readers about yourself?
Frank Turner: Erm, two things. I have Grade Two harp and I'm mortally terrified of wasps, mortally terrified of them!
Altsounds: OK great, thanks very much.
Frank Turner: Cheers.
Frank Turner's 'Poetry of the Deed' is expected to be released 7th September 09
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Altsounds Q&A Interview: Frank Turner
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