frank turner extract

8/9/2019 Frank Turner Extract

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If punk was ever

to officially die, Imnot sure Id reallygive a shit.

SELLOUT finds the realFrank Turner.


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Frank Turner is well-spoken, polite and terriblyfriendly. He is also skilledin the art of interviews, ashe should be after nearlyten years of tirelessself-promotion. He wasalso filled with a restlessenergy that comesthrough in the form of constant movement,making our photographer,JAMES WILBY frustratedin his attempts to catchTurner still long enoughto get a decentphotograph. Turner fidg-ets and interrupts him-self, as though there is somuch to tell he cant waitto finish the previous

sentence. Articulate andsharp, Turner seemsknowledgable about al-most any subject webring up , including tradi-tional folk music, punkand politics, though theseare clear specialisms. Heis very self-aware, al-ways bringing the subjectround to selling his futureand current projects,but to catch glimpses of

what really gets to him isa rare joy worth chasing.When Turner talks aboutbeing onstage and hisfans, his face lights upwith a broad smile thatshows how far he hascome from the days of struggling in tiny venuesto make a name for him-self away from the stigmaof Million Deads mysteri-ous break-up. Tonight isTurners biggest headlineshow yet nearly 2,500adoring fans wait for hispeculiar blend of hard-core punk ethics andSpringsteen-esque deliv-ery. We caught him back-stage at ManchestersAcademy for fifteen re-lentless minutes.

Your 2008 single, Long LiveThe Queen, was in aid of

Cancer research and youhave supported many other fundraising events, such asrelief in Haiti. Do you feelthat this is something that

you have to do alongsideyour music?I dont ever feel that its some-thing I have to do particularly,its something I like to do. At theend of the day, an awful lot of my job is self promotion, andthats fine, but its just kind of refreshing for me to be promot-ing something other than me.Doing the whole breast cancer thing, obviously there was apersonal level on that for me aswell, because my friend Lexwas deeply involved in thatkind of fundraising Anyway,so Ive been getting involvedwith more political groups re-cently as well. We had no to IDdoing stuff on the last tour, andI think weve got the UK liber-tarian party doing some bitsand bobs on this tour as well,which is my political bent. I feellike Ive got a platform, so Imgoing to talk about it.

On the last tour, you playeda harder, more rock versionof Long Live The Queen do you think that this was to,in a way, make the song eas-ier to play live as it is so per-sonal?No not really, I like to try and dosomething different with thesetlist every time we do a tour in order to make it interesting,

and to give people a reason to

come back again. Its fun. I be-

lieve that songs are skeletons,and they can be fleshed out indifferent ways. There was amoment in time when that songwas going to be like that any-way, when I was writing it, andthen it changed. Were playingit the old way on this tour, but itwas kind of fun to do some-thing different.

You recently released a DVD,do you think you play differ-ently when you know you are

being videoed?No not really, actually. One of the things about the shoot onthat tour was that something Ireally didnt want was for peo-

ple at the show to have their experiences spoiled by somedickhead with a camera wan-dering all over the stage sothe crew was all quite discreet.Once I am up there, onstage,Im quite kind of focused on thecrowd, so I didnt really noticeto be honest.

Do you find it strange that a

lot of the music that es-pouses the punk ethicsnowadays is not traditional-style punk music, it is moremelodic? How do you think

this reflects the supposeddeath of punk?Ugh. People have been callingpunk dead since about sixmonths after it started. Somuch like Mark Twain, I think itis, reports of its demise aregreatly exaggerated. To mepunk is an attitude, that comesin many shapes and forms, andI think if you only look for punk

rock in skinny angry white boysplaying guitar youll probablyget bored really quickly. Right,not like I want to make out likeI think its a movement like

songs areskeletons, and

they can befleshed out in

differentways


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some people think it is, but thiswhole punk-folk kind of thingthat seems to be going onwhich I get lumped in with a lot,which is. Fine, because itsfair cop to a degree, but thatsa really good example. Its a re-ally cool thing where, if Imthinking positively about it, a lotof people, particularly Ameri-can punks, are reminding

themselves what they likedabout punk in the first place.The first time you hear Jaw-breaker its amazing, but whenyou hear the hundredth band

that sound like Jawbreaker itskind of like Eeeh. By takingthe same attitude and ethosand ideals, and quite a lot of the time some melodic struc-tures and stuff, and developing

them in a new format, it shocksyou out of the haze in a way. If punk was ever to officially die,Im not sure Id really give ashit. By which I mean, I just likemusic. For me, I grew up listen-ing to a type of music calledpunk rock, and if people arentmaking any new punk rockrecords, then Im still going togo home and listen to the FirstFour Years by Black Flag.

You just covered BarabraAllen, a traditional folk song.How does that side of musicaffect what you do?Well, one of the things aboutthat is that Ive recently gottenvery heavily into finding outabout traditional English music.It kind of combines my two pas-sions in life, which are historyand music. So Im working ondoing a traditional album atsome point, hopefully releasingat some point next year, as wellas writing another album, anda book, and being on tour untilthe middle of next year. Bar-bara Allen was fun to do, and

also kind of a challenge for mebecause singing accapela isnot really something Ive donebefore, so I was kind of brickingit the first time I did it, but itturned out alright. I really likethe whole notion of kind of tra-ditional music, such as foundsongs, where people dont re-ally know who wrote them andthey have hundreds of years of history. And loads of different

versions, I mean I have six dif-ferent versions of BarbaraAllen, and theyre all basedaround the same kind of riff. Tobe honest with you, the versionthat I sung is my version, - I tin-kered about with the lyrics, andthe tune a little bit, but thats theidea, thats the whole point,and its a living tradition.

How many instruments canyou play?A few. Drums, badly, bass rea-

sonably well. I can play guitar,well, rhythm guitar, I cant soloto save my fucking life. I canplay mandolin, lap steel banjo,but theyre all kind of variations

on a theme really. Not thatmany, but Im lucky that theband I work with includes someserious virtuoso players.Theyre all fucking great butparticularly Matt, my keyboardplayer, is just one of the mostdisgustingly talented people inthe whole world ever. Im doingan Australian and Chinese tour on my own, and Matt was justlike pick an instrument for meto learn while youre away andI chose accordion and he saidIm on it, so I think we mighthave an accordion in the fu-ture.

How did you meet your band?When Million Dead were still

together and not on tour Icouldnt not be on tour, so I wascrewing for other bands. I wasout on tour with Reuben, whoare good old friends of mine,who were supported by a bandcalled Dive Dive. Dive Divefeatured a guy called TarrantAnderson (who is now Franksbassist) and they are fucking

amazing, and very nice peopleto boot. Then when MillionDead broke up, those guys hadtheir own studio at the time inOxford. They offered to let meuse it to record some stuff, andalso offered to play on it. So Iwent and recorded the Camp-fire Punkrock EP with them,and it just sort of balloonedfrom there. We had about amillion different keyboard play-

ers, most of whom were shit, or annoying, or both. Apart fromChris TT, who was in the bandfor a while, which was great,but he has his own stuff to do.In the end, Nigel (Powell,Franks drummer) met Matt ina poker game, which soundsfucking rock and roll, ad foundout that Matt was a musicianand a keys player, and we tri-alled him out, and he was in-sanely good. When Matt joinedthe band it really felt like my

shows and the band hit a totallydifferent pitch to where theywere before, and its reallycome together now. Ill still dothings in my own name, but I

punk is anattitude, that

comes inmany shapesand forms

why do we have to stopliving exciting, adventurouslives just because we hit a

certain age?


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want the band to be kind of likethe E Street Band where theyare a backing band, but peopleknow who they are. Its impor-tant to me that people knowthat I play with the same peo-ple, and people know that theyare a band. Weve been tryingto come up with a band name,and havent really succeeded.Apart from, and they are, theyfucking are, joking with thisone, but they like Lazer Child.So maybe, Frank Turner andLazer Child, but I think not,somehow.

Do you prefer to headlinesmall venues or play supportslots in larger venues?I actually dont really care. Idont think shows are made bymade by that part, or at leastthats only a really small part of what makes a good show. For me, a good show is about at-mosphere, and Ive seenSpringsteen create a good liveatmosphere with sixty thou-

sand people, and similarly Iveseen that its possible to play toa huge number of people andhave no atmosphere at all, andIve done shows where theresbeen five people there and itsbeen amazing. Its something alot less tangible than the size of the venue that youre in.

Whats been your favouriteever performance you haveplayed so far?Theres a few, here and there.

I do so many gigs that its hardto pick one. The show last nightin Edinburgh last night wasgreat. One was, we were in StLouis, Missouri with FloggingMolly. We had a great tour withthem generally, but there wassomething about that show thatwas just really I dont know,we just came on and killed it,straight away. I really felt likewe owned that show, and itwas a really good feeling, andthe crowd seemed to agree.

Everyone was coming up to ustelling us it was amazing, and I just had to say Yeah, it was,wasnt it.

What inspired your newestalbum, considering howquickly it arrived on the tailof the previous one?Ive been writing quickly re-cently. One thing was, Jay, whois also known as Beans onToast, is a very old friend of

mine, and someone whoseopinion I value enourmously,about life, music and every-thing else. We were having adiscussion one day about the

song The Ballad of Me and MyFriends (from Turners firstalbum, Sleep is for the Week),and he was basically having ago about that song, saying that

it was overly pessimistic andsaying that he isnt giving up. Iwont tell you how old he is, buthes in his early thirties andhes a club promoter and a folk

singer, and he said Im notplanning on doing anythingelse with my life. His question,essentially, was why do wehave to stop living exciting, ad-venturous lives just becausewe hit a certain age? I was kindof stumped, basically. So I

thought about it a lot, and thatwhole conversation turned intothe song Live Fast, Die Old.Thats the first track I wrote for the album, and it really felt likeit had to be the first track on thealbum as well. Things kind of went from there for me. Gener-ally speaking though, I tend towrite about whats going on inmy head at any moment.

Youve been touring almostnon-stop for nearly seven

years do you plan on slow-ing down any time soon?Not any time immediately soon,I had three weeks off at Christ-mas, and it drove me out of myfucking mind. I feel like Imgoing to record another albumthis year, and get it out nextyear, and do another promo-tional tour. After that, I feel likeit might be time to do some-thing radical like take sixmonths off and just kind ofassess. Although, I say that,

the other thing Im thinking of doing is setting aside a year,probably 2013 off the top of myhead, to be the year of the sideproject. Ive had so many awe-

some ideas of side projectsand collaborations with people,like Beardy Man. Theres alsothe supergroup. Everybody po-tentially involved in the super-group wants to do it, but its aquestion of scheduling. It wouldbe Ben from Million Dead on

drums, Jim from At The Drive-In on bass, Jim from Jimmy EatWorld on guitar and me on gui-tar. It came about when me andJim and Jim were hanging outin Arizona, and having one of those conversations whereeveryone is agreeing with eachother over a pint. We were talk-ing about how Hot Snakes arethe single best punk band thathave ever lived, and we de-cided to form a band thatsounds like Hot Snakes. Were

gonna be called HammerZite,which is German for Hammer Time and the album is going tobe called Halt. Its going to befucking amazing, but when onearth were all going to find thetime to do that is beyond me.

You once said in a song thatthe only thing Im offering isme how true do you thinkthat is today?I hope its still one hundred per-cent true. Theres no fiction in

my songs, not because I dis-agree with fiction, I think itspossible to be very artisticallyhonest with fiction, but becauseIm really rubbish at it. I feel like

it might betime to dosomethingradical like

take sixmonths off

and just kindof assess.

INTERVIEW


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Tonight Frank Turner brokehearts. From the opening notesof Live Fast, Die Old from thenew album to the triumphantclose of Photosynthesis,Turner played tonights Man-chester show as though it werehis last on Earth.

Taking to the stage, FrankTurner opened the show as hisdie-hard fans have never seenbefore, replete with lights, full

band, smoke and an astound-ing 800 strong crowd. Havingseen Turner perform to an au-dience of 50 people tonightwas something of an educa-tion. Turner has performedevery show Ive seen withgusto and enthusiasm, despitehaving been touring almostcontinuously now for six years.Thats a long time to chase thekind of popularity he is now en-

joying.

The heady atmosphere in Man-chesters Academy Two was abizarre combination of longingnostalgia for the good olddays where Frank (as he is af-

fectionately known by fans) ranhis own merchandise standand would give personalisedshout-outs to fans based onconversations they had. Theother side to this was the ex-citement and pride felt at see-ing someone who deserves itfinally make it. Many of the die-hard Turner fans have accusedhim of selling out and beingdisloyal to those who havewatched and listened eagerly

since the now sepia-toneddays of Million Dead. To allthese sceptics, all I have to sayis; the boy has done us proud.

Turner has, in the 8 years sinceMillion Dead released their firstEP, never once become jadedor lost his incredible passion for what he does. He has consis-tently brought to the stage andto our headphones a sense of righteousness and fervour,coupled with an awesome

stage presence. Its not oftenthat someone can do all thatand still stay a nice guy.

But back to the gig. Turner

played an interesting and wellconsidered set, with a fairlyeven ratio of new to old songs,designed to please old fansand acquaint the radio onecrowd with his back catalogue.

His new album has somebelting songs on it, and after hearing them played live, Illdefinitely be giving some of theslower tracks, like Journey of the Magi another go. My per-

sonal highlight was his rendi-tion of The Postal ServicesThe District Sleeps AloneTonight, but he also playedSmiling at Strangers onTrains a bittersweet re-minder of his Million Deaddays. Also on the set list wereThe Ballad of Me and MyFriends, Fathers Day and areworked version of Long Livethe Queen. The new versionof the latter was, if possible,even better than the original,

yet loses none of its emotionalpunch.

Turner played everything well,

as is to be expected, thoughthe sound quality at the startleft much to be desired. Thiswas irritating, as this seemedlike an ominous sign of thingsto come impressive lightsand smoke, huge crowd, butterrible sound? Shiver. How-ever, the sound issues werequickly rectified, and the gigwent on to be one of the best Ihave ever seen Turner play, asthough the huge crowds en-

ergy fed his own.

In short, if you havent yet seenthis amazing performer, getyourself a ticket for the large-venue tour next year. At 15, itisnt much for the chance tosay you saw the Dylan of our times.

In Summary:Amazing. Grab a ticket for thenext tour before they sell out.But if they do sell out, with

Frank Turner, there will alwaysbe another tour.

FRANK TURNER


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SELLOUT catches up withCrazy Arm - lovely blokesthey were too. Leadsinger Darren Johns talkshere about their newalbum, punk rock radioand how it feels to besponsored by FrankTurner.

Youve recently had a newalbum out that has been verywell received. How are youfeeling about how the albumis doing?Im not really sure how its

doing to be honest! We knowhow its been received thereviews have mostly beengreat. To be honest, Im notreally sure how to guage howan album is received I darentask how many have been soldbecause I just dont want toknow in case its such a smallnumber that it brings us alldown! I think a lot of people areeither downloading it or listening to it on spotify, whichis great we dont mind how

people listen to it, but how itreflects in the sales Im notsure. Its worked wonders for us as far as the band getting tothe next level.

What do you think it takes tomake it as a new band in thedigital era?I think you just have to believein music, and not give a shitabout how many sales thereare. All the bands that I careabout never did it for themoney, and if I found that theydid I would boycott them, youknow? We come from anunderground punk scene whichwas never about and will never be abot shifting units itsabout the music, and the sceneand the community that it

evolves from. I think the era welive in is good in a way,because it seeds out all thosemoney-makers, because theyall think Oh, well theres nomoney in music, so Im going togo and become an estateagent or something itsgetting rid of all those idiots. Ithink its going to be harder for kids to get where they want toget, but it does mean that onlythe music lovers will be makingmusic, so hopefully in twenty

years time well only have thebest bands, and the best songsever heard.possibly! At least,people will be striving to dothat, and thats what we care

about.

How did you come to betouring with Frank Turner?We got signed to Xtra Mile lastyear, which is that same labelas Frank Turner is on, and heheard one of our songs, whenhe was travelling in aconvertible in LA and he justgot blown away by the song,and hes been fighting our corner ever since. He alwaysraves about us, if anyone askshim who his favourite newband are, he always says us.Were pretty flattered by that!

Then, I guess because of thelabel connection, he offered totake us out on tour, which we

just jumped at, and now theEuropean section of it aswell To say we were happywas an understatement. BothFrank and the label have donea lot for us, got us playing to acrowd of people that we mightnot have seen for another fiveyears. Im still gobsmacked byit all, to be honest.

Your music is a great spin onthe idea of traditional punk with lyrics that havemeaning, and a veryindividual vocal style. Where

does that come from?We understand, Like FrankTurner does, that punk music,and folk music are about wordsand storytelling. That traditionwill never disappear, throughall the incarnations of punk,and the folk music thatscoming through with punkmusic. People will always wantto continue that tradition of writing meaningful words,rather than justgarbage thatyoull hear from about 80% of punk rock bands these days.Its a shame, because theunderground punk scene is rife

with bands that havesomething to say, but thosebands will never get aired.

Who are your favourite newband?Im obsessed with the Skints at

the moment. Theyre nothinglike us, theyre a reggae punkband, and I just think theyreamazing. Theyre awesome,

theyre going to outstrip all of us in about three years. There

are other bands, local Cornishbands near us, like theBangers, who we play with alot. Theyre happy to staywhere they are, everyone on

INTERVIEW


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the DIY punk scene loves themand theyre ok with that, theydont want to lift up, its goodenough for them. It would havebeen good enough for us, untilthings changed

When and how did youform?About five years ago. We werea three-piece formed out of twodifferent bands, a post hard-core band and No Comply, whowere a ska-punk band. We lost

the ska bit When thosebands fell apart we gottogether, because we were allgood friends, and then about ayear later we got another guyin. We had no idea what styleof music we wanted to do. Wedrew from every source then,and people say were quite ahotch-potch of sounds anyway,but it was far more so then.Then we lost our fourth

member, and along came Tim,

and its never been better.Were the band it alwaysshould have been. Five yearsin the making.

When you are writing songs,do the lyrics or the tunecome first?I write most of the songs, bothmusically and lyrically. I write allthe lyrics, and most of themusic, and it all comestogether through jams in thepractice room. If its great, then

it goes into a song somewhere.Songs kind of get thrownaround in the practice room;certain parts get dropped, or cut off or questioned. Thats notto say that people couldntbring things to the table

Tim: Ive still got things to learn,before I can even start thinkingabout making something

You say on your facebookthat you feel that its impor-

tant to talk about your vege-tarianism, your atheistbeliefs and your support of human and animal rights.This is all obviously impor-

tant, but do you ever worrythat by confronting issueslike this in your music, you

might stop yourself from be-coming as famous as some-one who just wrote songsabout lighter issues?We never worry about it, no.Our label said that to us before,Do you really want us to putthat on the band biography?We were like, yes, we do.There are far more importantthings wrong with the world toworry about. Im not going tocompromise talking aboutthings just because it might

stop us getting played ondaytime radio. Most peopleagree, theyre not extreme pol-itics, theyre seen as commonsense ideas. Vegetarianism for instance. Twenty five years agowe were called Cranks, andnow its completely acceptedas the most most viable andwholesome lifestyle. Veganismis maybe not so much ac-ceoted, but another twentyyears and it will be. Thesearent extreme views, theyre

just common sense.

Its less popular to talk aboutthis stuff though.Its true. For instance, we did a

show with Mike Davies punkrock show, which was a cover of an anti-fascist song, which

was written in the sixties. Iwrote one of the verses myself,where I updated the song to in-clude a verse about the BNP.That was one of our mainsongs for the show, but for some mysterious reason itdidnt appear on this late-nightso called punk rock show Idont mean any disrespect,because I think the show isawesome, but I just wonder who decided the song couldntbe aired. We definitely said,

this is one of our main threesongs, but it wasnt even in-cluded as an internet down-load. It was just kind of conveniently lost. We were toldthat it would be played on theshow later in the year, butnothing. I think they werescared of the libel attached to itand backed off. Which is ashame, because the songshows a different side to us, itsan acoustic song. So yeah. itannoys me, but I wont stopdoing it for popularity reasons.

Will you be doing a headlinetour soon?We headline tour all the time,

but to tiny amounts of people.After this, well definitely be out

we have to strike when theirons hot, really, and just getout there. Were doing a lot of festivals through summer, andthats the aim really. Weve gotabout seven at the moment,and were trying for Readingand Leeds, and apparentlywere in the running for it Werestill out there, but some of usare still working, so we canttour all the time. Im doing a

solo tour in May, because therest of the band cant do it. Thenext band tour will probably beOctober, with the Skints

Do you prefer support slotsin large venues, like tonight,or headlining smaller ven-ues?They both have their virtues.Its much easier, in our comfortzone, to play small venues, onthe floor with the crowd, right inpeoples faces. I love that kind

of action. I do like the vastnessof these shows, though, andeveryone has been really niceto us. This tour is dreamlike, itdoesnt feel real to us, and itsodd. Im sure Ill look back andask What did we just do?! Thatwas insane! We still feel a bitout of our depth.

Do you all have similar music taste, or is there a lotof variety?Absolutely. We have the same

taste in music, were like clonesof each other! We always havethe same albums on rotation inthe van. Baroness, for in-stance, is everyones favouriteband, and if its not that itsSheerwaters new album,which is amazing or First AidKits new album, which isamazing as well. Obviously wedont have exactly the sametaste in music, but of all thethings that are put on, no onedoesnt want to hear it. We all

hang out together at home. Iknow its a realy clich, but weare a real family band, werelike a family.

CRAZY ARM


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aul du Noyer is quiet,reserved and polite. Itis hard to put together

the calm man before youwith the illustrious career hehas behind him one cannothelp but expect the stereo-typical editor but thenagain, Du Noyer isanything but average. He haswritten for or created almostevery major UK musicmagazine, interviewed thebiggest names in the indus-try and written several ac-claimed books. SELLOUThunts down the man behindthe deeds.

You have been in the maga-zine industry for over 30years now, what would yousay is your proudest momentin journalism?In journalism, it was probablylaunching Mojo, which when itstarted, was quite a difficultmagazine to persuade thepublishers to do they couldntquite see the point of it. But Impleased to say that although Idont have any involvement in itanymore its survived, in apretty hard market It still sur-vives I think its still the kindof magazine that I thought itwas going to be when it started.

Who was your favourite in-terview with?Well, some interviews are nice

just because its a pleasant en-counter, and some are a greatthrill because its somebodythat youve always wanted to

meet. To be honest, the onesthat are pleasant encounters Itend to forget, because you justwalk out with a sense of relief,thinking, thank god nothingwent wrong! The most memo-rable ones for me are when Imeet the people who werestars before I became a jour-nalist, so when I get to meetPaul McCartney or DavidBowie, thats quite a thrill, be-cause it reawakens the child-fan in me, you know, and Iwould say it was more excitingfor me to interview DustySpringfield than it was to meetMadonna, she was the first popstar I knew of as a child, be-cause Madonna wasnt a popstar when I was a kid, she was-nt even invented, so to speak.

You have been involved inthe creation of a vast number of magazines in your time in theindustry, which one wouldyou be most likely to readnow?The one that I currently write for now is The Word magazine,and because its tailored to myinterests, my age, its the one Iwould be most likely to read,were I not also writing for them.Ive been fortunate in that usu-

ally I was able to work for amagazine that I would havebeen a reader of anyway. Iworked for NME at a time whenI was an NME reader, Q Istarted for people of my ageand outlook, and the same withMojo. The one that I didnt haveany personal involvement withwas HEAT I suppose, and onceI walked out the door after thelaunch, I never picked up acopy again!

Whats on your spotifyplaylist?Its never just one thing in par-ticular. Its generally things thatare drawn from a hundred dif-

ferent directions. A couple of things at random are Kings of Leon; seventy differentversions of a jazz song called ICover the Waterfront. I liked thesong, and I was just wonderinghow many people had coveredit. Thats the great thing aboutSpotify; I just keyed in the title

and up popped seventy differ-ent covers, from Frank Sinatrato Billie Holliday.

What song would youchoose to sum up Liverpool?Id pick The Killing Moon byEcho and The Bunnymen.

What song do you think bestrepresents London?For London I would nominateUp the Junction by Squeeze.

Who was your most difficultinterviewee?Either Lou Reed or Van Morri-son. Id say they were joint top.

I N T E RVIEW

It was moreexciting for me tointerview Dusty

Springfield thanit was to meetMadonna.

ROSANNA HYNES meets the journalist with a

reputation to die for.

P


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Do you think the rise of theblogosphere means that thestandard of journalism willdrop drastically?I think the standard of theblogoshpere is going to have torise. Were still at the earlystage of that game, and what

will happen is that readersways of evaluating differentblogs will become moresophisticated, and gradually,instead of stumbling blindly

around the Internet, we will findways of being steered towardsthings we like, possibly througha very good system of reader recommendation. And oncebloggers have built up an audi-ence, they will have to workhard to keep that audience,because the great clich of the

Internet that your nearest rivalis only a click away its veryhard to keep hold of your readers on the Internet. Blog-gers will really have to work

hard, to meet a certainstandard.

Over the course of your ca-reer, you have interviewedsome of the biggest namesin music. Do you think thatthe current generation of musicians has what it takesto live on in the memories of their audiences in the wayThe Beatles, Bowie or TheRolling Stones have?

I dont see any reason why not.I dont see why the foundationof musical talent should either grow or decline, and I dont seewhy the supply of geniusshould be any less than it usedto be. However, whom thosepeople will be, when we look

back on them in 20 years time,I really couldnt say. The onlydifference is that nobody couldever really make the kind of breakthrough The Beatles

made, I mean, once you dis-cover the North Pole, nobodyelse can ever do it, because itsalready been done. A lot of what The Beatles did, apartfrom being very good, musi-cally, they kind of invented anindustry in a way, becauseeverybody else is obliged to dosomething like it. That doesntmean that nobody can be asgood as The Beatles.

What bands/ artists are your

biggest guilty pleasures?The Moody Blues 60s & 70sprog rock. Theyre the mostpretentious; fantasy, pompoussongs ever written, and theylook like poncey hairdressers!They were everything thatpunk rock set itself up to de-stroy, but secretly I love them.

I dont seewhy thesupply of

geniusshould beany less thanit used to.

Du Noyers leading interview withSouxise and the Banshees on thecover of NME.

Paul Du Noyer presents PaulMcCartney with a LifetimeAchievement trophy at the first QAwards.

PA UL DU NOYER


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Its been three years since your last album, why did you leavesuch a long gap between your first and second albums?Thats a long storyI needed toclear my head on a few things after having a funny couple of years, toget away from things a little. I gotan opportunity to go to the Arcticwith this group called CapeFarewell; I took them up on their offer. The writing began in earneston that trip. Shortly after that, Iwent to record the album in NewYork. Then a few months after Idfinished recording, I lost my old

record deal. Fortunately I left withmy album still belonging to me! Ittook a year to find a way to releaseand finally get it out there.

What is different about the newalbum?I feel like the songs are a little morerounded and realized. I had plentyof time to refine the album, andmake it exactly what I wanted it tobe. Theres a lot more pop songson this album, and by pop I meanproper poprather than The Sat-urdays or something!

You have changed record labelsince your first album, how hasthis affected you and your music?I wouldnt say that its changed allthat much since Ive leftthechange itself occurred while I wasstill a part of the Columbia label. Ithink there was an expectationplaced upon me to write somethingthat would sell hundreds of thou-sands of albums. Now Im not soconcerned about that, and Im writ-ing more of the songs that I want toagain. So I guess there has been achange of sorts, but it feels like its

for the best.

What is your favourite track onthe new album?Skylark Avenue. It was the lastsong I wrote for the album, and thatsong, along with Two Hearts, wasrecorded over here. In fact, thosetwo songs are my favouritesthealbum didnt feel finished untilthose were recorded.

Your music often has an orches-tral element, how many instru-ments can you play?Thats a really nice thing to saythank you! I honestly cant play allthat many instruments though youknow. Other than guitar, I can playa little bit of piano, the ukulele. Notthat much else!

Why did you reduce your nameto Liam Frost, are you with adifferent band now?The thing is, I signed my first dealas a solo singer/songwriter, andThe Slowdown Family thing was

just a name for the backing groupreally. Undoubtedly they added anawful lot to the live show on the firstalbum, but the name confused anawful lot of people into thinking wewere a band, so I decided to just goout as myself for this one. I haveone of the Slowdown guys in theband still, the rest are all new mu-

sicians. After all thatI want to bein a band again!

Did you take a gap from touringbetween the two albums, or haveyou been touring this wholetime?I wasnt really touring as suchbutI played a lot of shows kind of dot-ted round the country. Most of itwas Manchester and Londonthough.

Do you prefer to headline smallvenues or play support slots inlarger venues?

Smaller venues definitelyI findboth equally terrifying though!

Whats the most embarrassingthing thats ever happened on-stage?We played Sheffield on the tour around the release of the firstalbum, at the Leadmill in the smallroom. We were getting onstage,and I came on last in line. Any-ways, I tripped on the way up andfell face firstthis was in plain viewof the first few rows. I felt pretty stu-pid

Whats been your favourite ever performance you have played sofar?Theres been so many, the entiretour I played in support to StephenFretwell just before I signed a dealwas great. There have been loadsof really fun shows since the re-lease of the first EP, right up until

just this month I played at the birth-day party of this ace night in Man-chester. The band got up with metooloads of people singing alongto the all the songs. Its just nice toknow that people havent forgottenme!

What has been the best concertyou have ever attended?I went to a Nick Cave and the BadSeeds show at Manchester Apollo

recently. That was pretty astonish-ing. Two drummers and an awfullot of noise! Theyve been playingtogether for years and it shows.The same could be said of Wilco,who I saw at the Green Man festi-val this year. That was brilliant. BonIver, at the same festival, wasbeautiful as well.

Who are your main influences?Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello,Bob Dylan, Nick Cave, TheClashnot just in terms of songwriting ability, but also what theymean to people. I like a lot of new-ish stuff as well, like M Ward, RonSexsmith.

What inspires your music?I guess all the people I just men-tioned, but then some writers aswell. I like a lot of CharlesBukowskis books. John Fante aswell, who Ive always kind of put inthe same place as Bukowski. MilanKundera is great. Then all the ob-vious stuff, personal experiencesand whatnotI think without thoseI wouldnt really have all that much

to say in my songs.

You have been described as theUKs answer to Bright Eyes; doyou think you would enjoy thatkind of international recogni-tion?

Ive always really appreciated thatcomparison, as I admire Conor Oberst a great deal. Im not reallysure about the international recog-nitionI mean to be known andappreciated by all those peoplewould be a great thing obviously.But Id have to have it on my ownterms if you know what I meanIwouldnt want to con a bunch of people into listening to my songs inany way. It always feels like therehad to be a bit of a catch with it.There are exceptions though Iguess, Conor being one them.

Have you ever toured abroad?

Not really. I played at South BySouthwest in 2006. Other than thatits all been over herewait, doesIreland count as abroad?

INTERVIEW LIAM FROST

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