PipemanRadio Interviews Frank Turner at Punk Rock Bowling XXV

0:00 Hi, you have done too, Yes, that's sure from w for see why for you young? I've been pretend in to be somebody else since I was just fifteen. I don't know if the show. Was for them or for me anymore. I'm the shore and I don't recall people who I.

0:43 Remember being on the when I worked out who I was, because I didn't fin. This is pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio, and I'm here with. Frank Tennant Nice here at punk Rock Ball. I am back at punk Rock Bowling. I've been here a few times before, and it's always complete fucking chaos actually is what it is. I mean I say that the first year I was here, I went too hard, is all I'm going to say. In fact, i'll tell you Vegas. I'll tell you well, it's Vegas. But also the first year, the day after my show, I woke up in a bowling alley about sixty miles away from Vegas, wearing a crop top and hotpants, and then had to get back to town to get my flight back to England. So yeah, the first year wasn't great for me. And do you remember how you got no no idea?

1:34 Still to this date. Well, the good news was I came out of the place I was in and ran immediately ran into a bunch of friends who all just went ha ha. And I was like, Okay, I'm not on my own. That's the good news. But that was back when I used to indulge a lot more than I do these days. Well, that's like when I lived in LA during the eighties, right, Sunset Strip, teenager, hanging out with all. Those beare I imagine you've got some stories to tell. Yeah. Well, you know what they say is if you remember the eighties and Sunset Strip, you weren't there. Yeah, yeah, fair enough, But I can tell you, yes, there were times I just remember in the morning at the band's house, picking my friends up out of the bushes.

2:16 Yeah that's about yeah. Yeah, yeah, so you remember about. That, similar vibes, similar last time here was fine. I'm really stoked today. It should be good. I bought a special shirt for the occasion. Look at that. Yeah, that's that would be perfect where I live. I live in Florida. Okay, that that would be Florida Festival. It's like a Jimmy Buffett show. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, I'm a big parrot head. So see, you got to do one of his? Yeah, I could get drunken screw there. Yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah. So your first album you ever owned, I understand is Killers, Yes. Spy Maiden. Yeah. My dad bought it for me from the record shop of the train station, which dates that a little bit. Uh, when I'd expressed an interest because I saw a poster in my mates older brother's bedroom and I thought it was cool, and my dad bought me a copy of Killers on cassette, which to this day my parents regard as their major error in my upbringing because it was a light switch moment for me. My whole life devised into before and after that record.

3:15 And see I a lot of times all ask artists i've never met, we Were's that light switch moment? Yeah? And there it is. Yeah, for lots of reasons. I mean, it was heavy than anything I've ever heard before. My parents really listened topont music. My old sister listened to a few bits and bobs that I liked, but it was heavy. But the other thing, and I think it's true for a lot of Maiden fans, it was mine, do you know what I mean? I found it. It was mine and I didn't really know anybody else who liked it, and it's very easy to get quite obsessive about that band. Which I it's still to this day my favorite album I made him, you know. Yeah, you know, I sort of hate to say it, but I think it's probably mine as well. Well i'll see there you go. Well, the part of the reason I hate to say it is I don't want to be one of those like, oh, Pool Downer was Bruce Dickinson kind of people.

3:56 I don't even know if I am team Pauldiano, but I also love Bruce Dickens. I think Bruce Stinkinson is made into a degree, and I think, you know, and I think he deserves all the kudos and all the respect. But just that the record's got Murders in the Room organ and Killers, which two of my favorite songs of this. Oh yeah, Murders. I can listen to that all day and over again, exactly. So I want to really talk about too, No Man's Land, because that just the coolest shit ever. We actually I owned several radio stations. One is all women's empowerment radio station, and I just love tell them, why you've done this? Well, so this was back in I think it was twenty eighteen that record came out, I want to say twenty eighteen or nineteen. Basically, I'm a history nerd, like to a really quite tedious degree, like my band and carew run a mile when I start talking about history, because I never stopped.

4:46 But I had this idea. I tend to write sort of confessionally and about my own life and that kind of thing. And after it was my hold on my eighth records, So after seven records of that, I thought it was time to kind of switch gears bit, and I thought I wrote some history songs, and I started writing them. I got about five songs in, and all of them were songs. My idea was songs about peoplerom the historical record, who have been kind of ignored or overlooked or you know, who I think deserve a bit more kind of attention. And I wrote got five songs in, and all of them were about female historical figures. And it was I mean, there's an obvious political point in that, you know, I mean about the way our historiography has evolved over the centuries. But I decided at that point that I might as well, stick with the stick with a plan. So yeah, so it's it's eleven songs about female historical figures and one talking about my mum.

5:32 And you even did a podcast I did. Yeah, so that was the thing. So I did I did. I mean I hesitate to use the word research because once upon a time I was going to going to be an actual historian who does real research. And I didn't exactly go in the archives with cotton gloves or anything. But I read around the subjects as much as I could with each of the people, something it was quite hard to do because the idea was that they were obscure people. I mean, there are no full books about Cassiani, who was a Byzantine courtier who told the emperor to piss off, and it's great story, but you know, I read about it, around it as much as I could. And then but once the record was done, yeah, we made a podcast to go with it, and each episode I actually sat down with a real historian he knew what they were talking about to talk through the songs, which was cool, but the wrong way round to do it, because in more than one instance, I was sort of going through the lyrics that I've written and talking about the person they said and then this happened.

6:21 They're like, no, I didn't, and they were real histories, so they knew what they were talking about. So I had a song about Dora Hand, who was vaudeville singer from Dodge City in the eighteen seventies, and I'd read one account of her funeral, and the curator of Dodge City Museum just went, that's totally not what happened. Wow, you know what? It reminded me rate that second about Ozzie, just a couple of years ago, found out that he really didn't piss on the alabo. Oh really did you? You didn't know? I didn't know that. That's almost all those years of him waiting the alabo. It was actually in that show he did with Jack, and Jack brought him to the album and he's like, I can't go I kick on. Their turns out he's never been barred from LA. Wow.

7:08 Same day, you're busting. You're busting rock and roll miss now I love right? Yeah? Yeah, So tell us how your mother made the list? Oh well, I sort of. I've written eleven songs and my mom is a remarkable person. I had some uh, let me phrase this, Well, I had some rocky moments in my upbringing, and my mom was incredibly stalwart through those moments for her kids in a way that I'm not sure I really appreciated at the time, as kids often don't. And I sort of look back on it now and realized quite what my mom went through when we were kids, and quite what she put up with, and quite what she uh, you know, tolerated and in he kept from us in a protective way. And I just thought it was amrable. So I started writing song about that and it made the list. And the last episode of the podcast is me interviewing my mum, which was terrifying.

7:53 Now, okay, so that was gonna be my next question. Did she dispute the historical information that you put? Oh? I mean, I think she. Continues to have a more self effacing take on things, if you know what I mean. To her credit, I would say, but I loved a bit, since she's a remarkable person. So yeah, And you know what, parents and kids always have a very different perspective of what happened during that time. Of course, like my kids will say stuff, I'm like, now, oh yeah, I'm telling you, dad, No, I was there. Yeah, you know, so let's talk about your No. At single too.

8:36 Yeah. Sure, So I'm last. Just over a year ago, I released my tenth solo album. Yeah, it's sort of mad. I mean, I'm both proud and slightly startled by the fact that I've done Time Records right. And yeah, it came out and we did a bunch of things that the most the most recent single we did with a song called Somewhere in Between, which is a song about It's one of the most personal songs I've ever written, and I write personal songs all the time, and it took some doing to write and to get it right. And I worked with a director called Stuart Alexander on a video, and I know, we sort of love in a world in which videos don't quite mean what they used to. But this was a really special piece of art, I think, which I can't really take credit for because it was his work. But I'm really really proud of the song.

9:18 And yeah, I love it. Well, I love it too, And I love that you have that feeling about video because sometimes I'm like, why are these people doing videos like that? Right? Terrible? Yeah, And I mean, good lord, I'm as guilty as that as anybody else. There's videos in my catalog that I would delete if I could, but this was a special instance. He's a very well respected director and he got in touch with me and just said, I love that song and I want to make a piece for it. I've got an idea, and I just said, have at it. You know, you do you And we did a thing where I had to cover up all my tattoos with makeup, and I was sort of playing a kind of alternative life version of myself. Oh I do remember, so, yeah, I know. But putting the makeup on was weird as fuck because it's really effective. It looks like you've got nice tattoos, and obviously you're very used to your tantooes if you haven't, right, And it was really trippy taking them all off.

10:10 As for a practical joke though, yeah, you could go out and mess with your friends. Yeah, I took some photo. Well. The one thing about it is the makeup comes off everywhere, so like you can't touch anything basically once it's on, because you just leave flesh colored handprints everywhere and go. And I had to have a bunch of scenes in my car, and my car was fucked afterwards, it was like it looked like a murder scene. Wow. Well, it's great you're here at Punk Rock Bowling. Very soked to be here. Do you have any final words you want to say? I think long Livepunk Rock Bowling. Really, I think the lineup this year is the best of that I've seen with it Lambrini Girls, No bro Co Defendants, Laura Jane, Grace, Me Me Go, the Devil, Socialty. I could go on for ages and it's just it's just a but it's a There are a few of them around the world.

10:56 Was at Poosa First the other day in Montreal, which is kind of similar. But it's just sort of a bit a gathering of the tribes in a way that makes me feel really good about being part. Of this community. Well, we're glad you're part of it. Thank you and thank you for being here, and thanks for being on the Adventures pipe Man. Thanks for having me my pleasure. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of pate Man. I'm w for CUI Radio. Hi, I'm Frank Tanna and you are lucky and wise enough to be listening to Pipeman on W four c Y dot com Radio.