Speaker 1: I suppose I could give up however you want to
Speaker 1: put it rest on my laurels at any point in
Speaker 1: my life. But thus far, like hacking away, further has
Speaker 1: led to on balanced, better things, and I think that
Speaker 1: that gives me a degree of optimism. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good Wolfe thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Frank Turner, I guest
Speaker 1: we interviewed seven years ago and he's back for a
Speaker 1: second interview. He's an internationally charting, award winning singer and
Speaker 1: songwriter and author. This episode starts with a discussion with
Speaker 1: Frank himself, followed by three short interviews with fans of
Speaker 1: his music, including Eric and I, his friend Joe, eric Son,
Speaker 1: Jordan's and the One who Feed's own Jenny Gay. Hi, Frank,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: How are you? I am very good. It's great to
Speaker 1: have you back. I think we had you on about
Speaker 1: seven years ago and you were kind enough to come
Speaker 1: on a very unknown show at that time and made
Speaker 1: me deeply happy. So I thank you for that and
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have you back. Well, I'm on a
Speaker 1: to be a repeat guest. You know, we always start
Speaker 1: this off by reading the parable the Two Wolves and
Speaker 1: see what you think about it. So I'll read it
Speaker 1: to you and get your reaction for where you are today.
Speaker 1: So there's a grandparent talking with their grandchild and they say,
Speaker 1: in life, there's two wolves inside of us that are
Speaker 1: always at battle. What It's a good wolf, which represents
Speaker 1: things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other
Speaker 1: is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 1: hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second. Looks up at their grandparents, says, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins, and the grandparents is the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that it's an interesting thing that I'm doing this again
Speaker 1: because I regually remember us talking about this seven years ago,
Speaker 1: and I think, looking at my own kind of personal history,
Speaker 1: my own take on this is going to be I
Speaker 1: suspect different to what it was seven years ago. I mean,
Speaker 1: it may not be different rhetorically, that's the thing that
Speaker 1: I'm kind of interested in, but it's certainly like my
Speaker 1: life has changed pretty significantly, pretty dramatically in the last
Speaker 1: seven years. You know, I settled down a fair bit
Speaker 1: in my personal life. I met my wife seven years ago,
Speaker 1: and I got married three years ago, and I still
Speaker 1: drink alcohol, but I have given up other substances in
Speaker 1: my life, and that was a pretty serious effort, and
Speaker 1: it's one that certainly wasn't done seven years ago, even
Speaker 1: though I might have claimed as much at the time.
Speaker 1: So you know, there was a fair amount of wolf
Speaker 1: feeding going on at the time. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: powerful parable it remains a powerful parable. I like the
Speaker 1: fact that it doesn't shy away from the fact that
Speaker 1: those two things exist inside all of us, you know,
Speaker 1: and always will, and almost to a degree, there's a
Speaker 1: part of me that thinks that if you just had
Speaker 1: one and not the other, that that would be sort
Speaker 1: of weirdly skewed somehow, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think that there is a degree of balance in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, you know, I do actively attempt to feed
Speaker 1: the good wolf these days, and probably do a much
Speaker 1: better job of it than I did seven years ago.
Speaker 1: Let's say that, yeah, yeah, well, I've had the substances
Speaker 1: bad all myself, and it's off that way. You make
Speaker 1: a little bit of progress, you sillie back, You make
Speaker 1: a little bit of progress, and then hopefully you hit
Speaker 1: a point where it's a little more steady. So what
Speaker 1: I thought we might do for this conversation is we
Speaker 1: talk a lot on this show about values, about knowing
Speaker 1: who you are, what matters to you, and the person
Speaker 1: you want to be. Otherwise you're just buffeted by the
Speaker 1: culture and conditioning and instinct. And so I thought maybe
Speaker 1: we'd explore some of your songs through that lens, and
Speaker 1: the first one I wanted to look at is going
Speaker 1: back a while, but it's eulogy. You said about eulogy
Speaker 1: that you did it to try and write a brief
Speaker 1: statement of purpose in your book on songwriting, and we
Speaker 1: said that not everyone grows up to be an astronaut,
Speaker 1: not everyone was born to be a king. No, everyone
Speaker 1: can be Freddie Marcuri. Everyone can raise a glass and sing. Well.
Speaker 1: I haven't always been a loving myself, but I haven't
Speaker 1: what mother tell a dream. But on the day I tie,
Speaker 1: I'll say, at Leasta tried, That's the only eul g
Speaker 1: I need. That's the only ulgi need. That idea to
Speaker 1: me of trying, just trying your best feel so fundamental
Speaker 1: to me in a value sense, and it's always seemed
Speaker 1: to be in your work. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think one of the things about that for me is
Speaker 1: that to talk around the houses for a second. I
Speaker 1: do that quite a lot. You know, if you kind
Speaker 1: of read about Mozart, you know who's playing concertos by
Speaker 1: Timmys three, or indeed you know Bob Dylan who pretty
Speaker 1: much just kind of dropped out of the sky fully
Speaker 1: formed as an artist, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: you know, and indeed every day one can hear you know,
Speaker 1: young musicians, you're an artist, young writers, singers, performers, whatever
Speaker 1: they might be, who are just so kind of like
Speaker 1: fully formed from the offer and that's great, you know,
Speaker 1: or indeed, you know, you can talk about young athletes
Speaker 1: who by definition they are doing pretty well by time
Speaker 1: they're they're recently emerged into into life. I was just
Speaker 1: never one of those people, Like I could barely sing
Speaker 1: when I joined a band, I couldn't play. And there
Speaker 1: was a fair degree of brute force involved in me
Speaker 1: learning how to do what I do and within that,
Speaker 1: like one of the people who chimed with me from
Speaker 1: an early age was Henry Rollins. Because Henry Rollins talks
Speaker 1: quite a lot about not being kind of particularly adept
Speaker 1: at anything when he first sort of emerged into the
Speaker 1: idea of art in his life, and I sympathize that
Speaker 1: a lot. And I feel like I've had to kind
Speaker 1: of like shape who I am and what I do.
Speaker 1: I learned how to sing kind of, and I learned
Speaker 1: how play the guitar kind of, and my songwriting as
Speaker 1: for other people to charge, you know, and I figured
Speaker 1: out how to do what I do and just sort
Speaker 1: of fashion myself into something that I was comfortable with.
Speaker 1: And it's an ongoing process and it's full of wrong
Speaker 1: turns and missteps and all the rest of it, but
Speaker 1: you have to sort of keep the wheel turning somehow,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And that's where the trying
Speaker 1: thing comes in for me, is that, like I suppose,
Speaker 1: I could sort of give up however you want to
Speaker 1: put it rest on my laurels at any point in
Speaker 1: my life, but thus far, like hacking away further has
Speaker 1: led to on balanced better things, and I think that
Speaker 1: that gives me a degree of optimism. Yeah, you've talked
Speaker 1: before about how influenced you were by sort of the
Speaker 1: hardcore seen Black Flag, the d I y Ethos, right.
Speaker 1: I was fifteen and nine five, and you know, I
Speaker 1: formed a terrible punk band called the Walking and Fetamines
Speaker 1: and we had no drums, so yeah, thank you. We
Speaker 1: went out and stole trash cans and we were terrible.
Speaker 1: But I was so inspired by that sort of idea too,
Speaker 1: of just you know, try do your best. And you know,
Speaker 1: I also come at it from and I've heard you
Speaker 1: say this before, that you think there's like the Protestant
Speaker 1: Repuritan work ethic, you know, infused into that d I
Speaker 1: y and being a Midwesterner in America, you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of got like a double dose of it. So
Speaker 1: that's just always been a big, big value of mine.
Speaker 1: And I just have loved that song from the moment
Speaker 1: I heard it. Well, thank you, that's very kind. So
Speaker 1: maybe now let's jump to another value that comes much
Speaker 1: later in your career, and it is also something that
Speaker 1: is core to my values, which is the song you
Speaker 1: wrote called be More Kind. Sure, they've started raising walls
Speaker 1: around the world now, like Cackles Rags to part of
Speaker 1: corner Cat on the borders in our heads between the
Speaker 1: things that can and can't be said, stop talking to
Speaker 1: each other. There's something wrong with that. So before you
Speaker 1: go outset, you don't decide or you will find be
Speaker 1: more kind, my friends, try to be more kind. Talk
Speaker 1: to me about kindness, the role that plays in your
Speaker 1: life and why that's so important to you. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess I had a moment of confluence, if you like,
Speaker 1: when I was writing that song. I mean, it's funny
Speaker 1: actually talking about this for the first time in a
Speaker 1: while with a degree or distance on it. I had
Speaker 1: a moment in time around when I sort of first
Speaker 1: came to like mainstream prominence in the UK certainly and
Speaker 1: to a lesser degree, but still a little in the
Speaker 1: states of getting pretty badly burned by well, broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: by that fact of exposure. You know, Ultimately, one could
Speaker 1: say that the definition of mainstream is having your music
Speaker 1: exposed to something beyond a core audience, beyond a voluntary audience.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're an underground band, everybody who hears
Speaker 1: you as people who sort you out, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, and by definition, to sort of poke your
Speaker 1: head over the parapet as it were. If you're on
Speaker 1: the radio often or whatever, your music is exposed to
Speaker 1: lots of people who don't necessarily like what you do.
Speaker 1: And that's fine, that's all, of course, that's just life.
Speaker 1: But it means that a fair number of people become
Speaker 1: aware of who you are and don't necessarily love you, do,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And of course, like you
Speaker 1: can't spend your day trying to advertise your existence to
Speaker 1: the world and then complain when everybody thinks the sun
Speaker 1: shines out of your backside. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like anybody involved in kind of promoting themselves in that way.
Speaker 1: There's a degree of kind of performativeness to it. There's
Speaker 1: a degree of kind of like a need for sort
Speaker 1: of love or whatever, how do you want to put it.
Speaker 1: So it can be a difficult thing. And then in retrospect,
Speaker 1: I consider I see happened to a lot of different people.
Speaker 1: It was quite sharp for me. I got quite burned.
Speaker 1: It was exacerbated by the fact that this was a
Speaker 1: point in time when the kind of the negative sides
Speaker 1: of social media were less well understood. I think it's
Speaker 1: fair to say, and like I think nowadays most people,
Speaker 1: including most artists, are sort of savvy enough to understand
Speaker 1: what a Twitter pile on is and that it's something
Speaker 1: that you should avoid or just not pay attention to,
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. And that wasn't so much the
Speaker 1: case in anyway. So I had a bit of a
Speaker 1: rough time with all of this kind of thing for
Speaker 1: a couple of years. And then I also was reading
Speaker 1: My favorite poet was a man named Clive James, and
Speaker 1: Clive James had terminal cancer and he was given six
Speaker 1: months to live in for about six years, which is great.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's still a great sadness that he's left us.
Speaker 1: But he wrote a number of poems about mortality and
Speaker 1: about facing the end of his life, which he ended
Speaker 1: up having more time to think about than he had
Speaker 1: originally thought he might do. And he has a poem
Speaker 1: called Lesson de Tenebra in which he says the lines
Speaker 1: I should have been more kind and is my fate
Speaker 1: to find this out? But find it out too late?
Speaker 1: And that landed with me so hard, because I think
Speaker 1: the thing that I'd sort of started to kind of
Speaker 1: just about be able to kind of like extract from
Speaker 1: my own experiences was that, ultimately, regardless of what my
Speaker 1: political disagreements or social disagreements or whatever, or musical disacreements
Speaker 1: might have been with everybody, the thing that bothered me
Speaker 1: was my personal sort of tenor of my behavior towards
Speaker 1: other people. And that, ultimately the thing that wakes me
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night at those moments
Speaker 1: when I was callous and unkind and cruel and all
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. And my God, do I have
Speaker 1: a catalog of those to choose from to wake up
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and to agonize over.
Speaker 1: I think lots of us do, But with the beginnings
Speaker 1: of a tiny bit of agent wisdom. It was just
Speaker 1: kind of like that was apparent to me as the
Speaker 1: thing that was most important. And then here was this man,
Speaker 1: who I regard as one of the most emotionally wise
Speaker 1: and brilliant words smiths of the twentieth century, facing his
Speaker 1: own end of his life and essentially saying the same thing,
Speaker 1: but even more forcefully, and saying that, you know, the
Speaker 1: only thing that really comes out of the wash in
Speaker 1: terms of our interactions with each other is the way
Speaker 1: that we treat the people around us. And that was
Speaker 1: hugely powerful for me. You know. It's funny because like
Speaker 1: I made an album called Be More Kind, and I
Speaker 1: talked about that a lot for a period of time,
Speaker 1: as you do with a record, and there were some
Speaker 1: people who got kind of annoyed at me for saying that.
Speaker 1: Funnily enough, you know, and ultimately, it's not a panacea.
Speaker 1: It doesn't solve the world's problems, and indeed, quite often
Speaker 1: the hardest part of it is when people don't return
Speaker 1: that sentiment or that approach, you know. But nevertheless, even
Speaker 1: the occasions when I've been shouting at and cast gades
Speaker 1: in public, but have maintained my own composure and my
Speaker 1: own sort of hopefully sense of kind of like humanity
Speaker 1: and generosity or whatever. I can look back on those
Speaker 1: with a better feeling than the times when I lost
Speaker 1: my ship and screamed at everybody. You know, yep. I
Speaker 1: interviewed a guy last week named Father Gregory Boyle. He's
Speaker 1: done a lot of work in Los Angeles with gangs
Speaker 1: and amazing man. In his book, he had a line
Speaker 1: that said, just assume that compassion is the answer to
Speaker 1: every question, which I mean again, that's a broad statement
Speaker 1: that I don't think we can say. Of course, it's
Speaker 1: not always sure, but it's a pretty good orienting idea.
Speaker 1: What other things you were talking about, Clive James and
Speaker 1: the end of life. I don't know if you know.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're aware of the band Clem Snide, the songwriter.
Speaker 1: If bars aware of that, not super familiar with as
Speaker 1: a person who loves songs. He wrote a song called
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert about the American film critic as he was
Speaker 1: getting close to passing gorgeous, gorgeous song, I'd recommend it. Okay,
Speaker 1: changing gears and I'm talking at a million miles an
Speaker 1: hour because we don't have a ton of time, so
Speaker 1: get better. That's another to me when I look at values, right,
Speaker 1: there's this idea that there's always some place to go,
Speaker 1: always some move to make internally externally that makes you
Speaker 1: or your life for the world just a little bit better.
Speaker 1: And I loved that song from the minute I heard it,
Speaker 1: And then as I was reading your book, I realized
Speaker 1: that one of the lines in it you got from
Speaker 1: the person who first turned me onto punk music, who
Speaker 1: was known at the time Johnny Rotten. Tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about that line and him, Johnny Rotten's is funny.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an aside to what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: But what I like about Johnny Rotten is that he's
Speaker 1: still slightly beyond the pale for a lot of people now,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's incredible and absolutely as it
Speaker 1: should be. You know. I adore the Clash, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. But the Clash have museum and blend of
Speaker 1: exhibitions about them, and they have supplements in The Guardian
Speaker 1: about their history as a band, and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're just they're very much part of
Speaker 1: the arts establishment. And Johnny Rotten still four plus years
Speaker 1: later isn't really acceptable to some people, and I think
Speaker 1: including some people you know, in the art establishment. And
Speaker 1: I just think that's the most credible testament to punk
Speaker 1: rock as an idea. It wasn't supposed to be acceptable,
Speaker 1: and all these people who kind of clutched their pills
Speaker 1: slightly at Johnny Rotten, it's like, exactly, that's the fucking point. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I met him at a festival in Italy, in a
Speaker 1: roughly and it was interesting because I do know people
Speaker 1: who've met him and have had a bad experience of
Speaker 1: the man, and it's not really my place to sort
Speaker 1: of have any comment on that. Like, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: there are people who have met me and have had
Speaker 1: a bad experience of me too. I hope not. I
Speaker 1: try not to have that be the case, but you
Speaker 1: never know. But I met him and he was really nice,
Speaker 1: and I asked him, which is a rare, rare thing
Speaker 1: for me. I asked him to sign a piece of
Speaker 1: paper for me, and he wrote on it, may the
Speaker 1: road rise to meet you, and may your enemies be
Speaker 1: defeated behind you. And I thought that that was beautiful
Speaker 1: and I tibuted it around a little bit and put
Speaker 1: it in a song, but very much with a nod
Speaker 1: in his direction, because it struck me as a really
Speaker 1: powerful thing, you know, and get better as a song
Speaker 1: was a song that I wrote to myself. It's very
Speaker 1: much a pep talk of a song, but it was
Speaker 1: a pep talk that I wouldknew that I needed, and
Speaker 1: I wrote it to myself. And it's a wonderful thing
Speaker 1: for me when other people read and feel something into that,
Speaker 1: and that's fantastic. But like the primary target for that
Speaker 1: song was myself. Thanks to me and whown spat back
Speaker 1: the scene, I took her batter breathverd. I a picker
Speaker 1: skin of the best people I know. I'm looking out
Speaker 1: for me and so I'm taking the high road, but
Speaker 1: egins running. I am fine. My I always see the
Speaker 1: road rising up to meet me, and my heademies defeat
Speaker 1: it in a mirror behind. I'm trying to get batta
Speaker 1: because I have made my chass. She took a play
Speaker 1: that like you sided riding on my chest and she
Speaker 1: drew a lot of clus I broke in and said
Speaker 1: coma Alice based his last when you get that sp
Speaker 1: because I'm not dead yet. Yeah, I mean you said
Speaker 1: in your book on Songwriter. You know, you were sort
Speaker 1: of picturing yourself in this new, defiant, resilient state, and
Speaker 1: I love that idea, just you know, the resilience of
Speaker 1: coming through. There's lots of that on that record. I mean,
Speaker 1: the title of the record, Positive Songs for Negative People,
Speaker 1: is so great. I think. Our second guest on the
Speaker 1: show was a fellow Englishman, Oliver Berkman, who wrote a
Speaker 1: book called The Antidote Happiness for People who ate Positive Thinking.
Speaker 1: So that whole idea of sort of balancing those two
Speaker 1: things together I've always loved absolutely all right, So now
Speaker 1: let's move on to your latest record. Now I'm kind
Speaker 1: of pivoting away from the idea of values, but there's
Speaker 1: a gorgeous song on the record called a Wave across
Speaker 1: the Bay about Scott Hutchinson from Frightened Rabbit who passed.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you a question because a
Speaker 1: couple of records back again on Positive Songs for Negative People,
Speaker 1: there was a song for another friend of yours who
Speaker 1: committed suicide, and it's called us Song for Josh. I
Speaker 1: noticed something about these songs. This may be me reading
Speaker 1: into this, so I feel free to say, like that's
Speaker 1: not at all it. But the song for Josh, a
Speaker 1: friend who committed suicide, there's a sentiment of why didn't
Speaker 1: you call me? I failed you? There was a sentiment
Speaker 1: in there that felt more resistant to what had happened,
Speaker 1: or I don't think angry is the word right, And
Speaker 1: the song for Scott these years later is a much
Speaker 1: more peaceful And I don't want to use the word
Speaker 1: hopeful about a song on suicide, but the tone of
Speaker 1: those two songs to me is very different. What does
Speaker 1: that bring up in you when I say that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's totally fair. I mean, I think the thing for me,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things. I mean, the first thing
Speaker 1: is that they're about two different people, so that, of
Speaker 1: course the situation was different. Um Scott was very vocal
Speaker 1: about his mental health, both into his art and as
Speaker 1: a person, and as crossing as it is to say,
Speaker 1: I was heartbroken when I heard that Scott had taken
Speaker 1: his own life, but I wouldn't say that I was
Speaker 1: surprised particularly. I had always known that it was a
Speaker 1: thing that was possible. I was hoping unlikely, but it
Speaker 1: was possible. My friend Josh, on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: had no idea that he had any sort of like
Speaker 1: leanings in that direction, have the best way to put it,
Speaker 1: that was truly shocking to me, and therefore, you know,
Speaker 1: my reaction to it was quite different. But also at
Speaker 1: the same time, I mean, I sort of feel like
Speaker 1: I worked through a lot of things after Josh's passing,
Speaker 1: partly in that song and in conversations with friends and
Speaker 1: his family and whatever else, and you know, that put
Speaker 1: me in a slightly different frame of mind. I suppose
Speaker 1: about the second song, I didn't want to repeat the song,
Speaker 1: of course, but I think anger is a valid emotion
Speaker 1: about suicide. I think it's a totally valid emotion, and
Speaker 1: I did feel some of that around Scott as well.
Speaker 1: But I suppose the major sort of thing that I
Speaker 1: wanted to get across in the song A Wave across
Speaker 1: the Bay, for me was the feeling that like, and
Speaker 1: this is the hardest thing that I know how to
Speaker 1: say about what happened to him, or about anything, really,
Speaker 1: but like, Scott was my friend, and he was a
Speaker 1: lovely man, and he was a beautiful artist, and he
Speaker 1: was a smart dude. And one of the things about
Speaker 1: Scott is that there was no part of what happened
Speaker 1: to him that was a mistake, Like he knew what
Speaker 1: he was doing. He took a decision and he went
Speaker 1: through it. I wish he'd made a different decision, but
Speaker 1: he didn't. And ultimately, there is a part of me
Speaker 1: that wants to find a way of respecting his autonomy
Speaker 1: and his sovereignty, you know, um. And that's partly what
Speaker 1: that song is about. God, damn, I miss you, man.
Speaker 1: It was just weeks before you went, he was speaking.
Speaker 1: I just wished that you had told me you were
Speaker 1: leaving before you walked your final wife. I'm not pissed
Speaker 1: off for you. Man. You had something in your soul
Speaker 1: that we could recognize you were one of us. But
Speaker 1: he worked out how you could survive, the least for
Speaker 1: a while, the simpid moment just before you hit the waters,
Speaker 1: when you were filled with a sense of peace and understanding,
Speaker 1: with the wind in your hair and the light in
Speaker 1: your eyes as you realize you were finally escaping. Somehow
Speaker 1: in that moment, you miraculously miss it, like a wave
Speaker 1: across the bay, ever breaking. And that's how I like
Speaker 1: to think. If you ever falling, never landing, and rolling
Speaker 1: slowly out sea, you always smiling, you are fighting you
Speaker 1: are like breaking you wave the crossing by ever breaking,
Speaker 1: s ever falling, never landing before. I wish he was
Speaker 1: still here, God damn. But at the same time, ultimately,
Speaker 1: like I said, he didn't funk up, he didn't slip John.
Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't make a mistake and do what
Speaker 1: he did. He knew exactly what he was doing and
Speaker 1: he did it and that was his choice. And there's
Speaker 1: a part of me that wants to kind of like
Speaker 1: almost shake his hand and say, Okay, dude, you know
Speaker 1: that was you and that was your right to do that,
Speaker 1: which I do believe it was devastating for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, myself included. But do any of us have
Speaker 1: the right to say to him, no, you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to do that or whatever. I mean, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I wanted to part as friends. I mean, that sounds
Speaker 1: like a crazy thing to say. And it's not that
Speaker 1: they didn't want that for my friend Josh either, but
Speaker 1: I was much more in shock, essentially, I think when
Speaker 1: I wrote song for Josh would be the best way
Speaker 1: putting it. Yeah, you know, I have found a friend
Speaker 1: after he tried to commit suicide bleeding out. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of people who have had mental
Speaker 1: health issues, and there is a point where you do
Speaker 1: realize some people are carrying such a heavy weight and
Speaker 1: there's only so much that you can do, and you
Speaker 1: hope that it continues to get better, but but sometimes
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Yeah. Well, and ultimately it's not really your
Speaker 1: right to tell somebody else how to feel about anything, really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And in both of those situations, for me, like as
Speaker 1: I say, there's a desire on some able to respect
Speaker 1: that peasants of autonomy. Yep, Frank, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on. Your music is always one of the
Speaker 1: ways that feeds my good wolf over the years, it's
Speaker 1: been so important to me and it's great to see
Speaker 1: you again. That's very kind of you to say, And
Speaker 1: thank you very much for having me back again. It
Speaker 1: means I didn't screw it up too badly the first
Speaker 1: time around. All right, see you next time, See thanks time. Bye.
Speaker 1: Up Next is an interview with one of our good friends,
Speaker 1: Joe Russell. Hey Joe, welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to be on. So Joe is one
Speaker 1: of my best friends, have been a best friend of
Speaker 1: mine since oh boy nine eight, probably lots of stories there,
Speaker 1: but we don't have time for all those. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask Joe to come on and share a
Speaker 1: little bit about Frank Turner because he is someone else
Speaker 1: who loves him as much as I do, and I
Speaker 1: think he's got a couple songs that were on his mind.
Speaker 1: So first, welcome, Thank you. Yeah, Eric, I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to talk about Frank. And I vividly remember when you
Speaker 1: had given me a mixed list of all these songs.
Speaker 1: I knew that you were into him, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well give me a list to introduce the world Frank
Speaker 1: Turner to me. And I'm still very fond of that.
Speaker 1: Occasionally I'll go back and just let that one role
Speaker 1: and I think of that time when you had to
Speaker 1: introduced him to me. Yeah, so what's the first song
Speaker 1: you chose? It was the first song that I really said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I love this music and what it
Speaker 1: draws me into and it's live fast ile. I used
Speaker 1: to act back not in this matter, and I used
Speaker 1: to say I didn't can that we wouldn't be doing
Speaker 1: this whatever, But then the truth then then oh, it's
Speaker 1: just scared tay for tell, like a black cut show
Speaker 1: you can't take your right. That is the god I
Speaker 1: still got to do be so got so many tell
Speaker 1: us ever Rid Sime, just keep on bank you to stay.
Speaker 1: So we done it last Sep'm gonna good time days
Speaker 1: and the last we right windows on the clubs are
Speaker 1: in the Southwest. Skiss o the telling about day right
Speaker 1: here Catta we will want to say so it's the
Speaker 1: one that I first sell for. Instantly, I thought of
Speaker 1: my love for my closest friends, you and a few
Speaker 1: of our other best friends, and just reflecting on all
Speaker 1: the life challenges that we've gone through over decades and
Speaker 1: just how we just continue to push through them. And
Speaker 1: it's an emotional song for me. What's interesting is the
Speaker 1: song that my son Jordan's picked was a song that
Speaker 1: was also a song for him about friendship. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of Frank Turner songs do that well. They
Speaker 1: talk about the importance of friendship and how beautiful a
Speaker 1: thing it is. Yeah, and it's friendship and all of
Speaker 1: us realizing we're in it together to just you know,
Speaker 1: get through this crazy world and acknowledging how hard it
Speaker 1: is for all of us and stick together, be together,
Speaker 1: and we will get through as well as we possibly
Speaker 1: can a lot better than if we isolate ourselves. I
Speaker 1: think it addresses the need for fellowship quite a bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: love and fellowship, yep. Yeah. And I loved that song
Speaker 1: too the first time I heard it, just the whole
Speaker 1: pretense of it, like I'm not going to live fast
Speaker 1: and die young. I'm going to live fast and die old.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to just settle for one of those things,
Speaker 1: you know, And obviously our speed of living has come
Speaker 1: way down, or we would not make it to be
Speaker 1: would not make it to be old. But I just
Speaker 1: loved that idea the first time I heard it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that there's certainly a lifestyle of Frank Turner
Speaker 1: fans that probably had some really full life that at
Speaker 1: a very young age that hopefully they'll appreciate his sentiment
Speaker 1: around like, you know, it's been great, and let's continue
Speaker 1: to have something great that's practical for kind of who
Speaker 1: we are in the here and now in a later
Speaker 1: live Frank Turner is just for old people. I think
Speaker 1: that obviously your your son took a showing to him
Speaker 1: at a very young age. And I mentioned I have
Speaker 1: a second song that I quite loved that I can't help,
Speaker 1: but you know, sometimes tear up. I especially tear it up.
Speaker 1: When I heard this song live for the first time,
Speaker 1: just trying to sing it, I was practically passing out
Speaker 1: because I was holding back somebody tears and shouting at
Speaker 1: the same time. And it was losing days. Besides the
Speaker 1: general puzzlement of life, just kind of passing by the
Speaker 1: music because this punch of energy that just overwhelms me,
Speaker 1: especially in that life setting. Oh love floating back to body.
Speaker 1: In the days where I was young, Gut used to
Speaker 1: fix this South Quick shop after every slip by smole Bu.
Speaker 1: These days I'm collecting Scots don't seem to fade, got
Speaker 1: sund bruises that one go away to think, Dad, I
Speaker 1: would never live frost when to fights, and when you
Speaker 1: think like that, each day is a gifted feels five.
Speaker 1: But I'm fine too long for my side of the deal.
Speaker 1: As a recession, I'm not sure how to feel. Sad kid,
Speaker 1: losing days. You used to take a line side in
Speaker 1: the blinking harbor eye always sad, sadly a man of
Speaker 1: greatness and song by greatness, So it it's just hard
Speaker 1: to deny how much impact it has. Want to hear it.
Speaker 1: That's definitely another song that I would have to say
Speaker 1: is probably my very close second favorite song. It was
Speaker 1: the second song that I know that I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm just really falling in love with everything that's
Speaker 1: Frank Turner. And now you have a new favorite memory
Speaker 1: to go with that song. What's that? Didn't you say
Speaker 1: that you have a memory now of Chris making fun
Speaker 1: of it? Oh my god? Yeah. So yeah, every time
Speaker 1: I hear this song, I obviously I have that that
Speaker 1: initial impression in what it means to me, but I'll
Speaker 1: never forget like playing it when we were all together
Speaker 1: and we were we were just listening to music, you know,
Speaker 1: we were like juggling all these speakers around in that
Speaker 1: listening room, and I had just chose it and like
Speaker 1: our real time cue of of songs that we were playing,
Speaker 1: and I looked over and I just saw Chris kind
Speaker 1: of like rolling his eyes at me, you know, just
Speaker 1: mocking it because he just doesn't like it. And now
Speaker 1: every time I hear it, not only do I have
Speaker 1: that sentimental experience of my original love for it, but
Speaker 1: I also remember when Chris is making fun of me,
Speaker 1: and I liked that as kind of a mark in
Speaker 1: time of looking back and when we were together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he does not care for Frank Turner's music in the
Speaker 1: way that you, Steve and I do, which is why
Speaker 1: he is. It must be driving him crazy to do this.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm gonna interview like sixty people. He's going
Speaker 1: to just have to keep hearing why Frank Turner is
Speaker 1: so great. It's why he's not been invited to participate
Speaker 1: in this. But yes, he is having to edit it,
Speaker 1: which is sort of my you know, my subtle pleasure. Well, Joe,
Speaker 1: thank you. This has been fun for me because I
Speaker 1: got Jordan's on the show, my son for the first time,
Speaker 1: and now I've got you on for the first time.
Speaker 1: So this is great to get some of the people
Speaker 1: who mean the most to me my pleasure too. I'm
Speaker 1: really happy to be on the show and love the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Here next, we have a short
Speaker 1: interview with a man you've actually heard about before on
Speaker 1: this show. It's Eric Son Jordan's Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hey Dad, how's it going. It's good. I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to have you on, to have my son on. Finally,
Speaker 1: people heard about you a thousand times so here you
Speaker 1: are in somewhat person. We recorded this in person, you
Speaker 1: and me and Columbus, and I, with all my years
Speaker 1: of audio experience, screwed it up. So now we are
Speaker 1: doing it with you at home in Nashville and me
Speaker 1: and Columbus and just gonna ask you, like I've asked
Speaker 1: some other people to pick a Frank Turner song or
Speaker 1: two and then talk about what you love about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I had a really hard time trying to narrow
Speaker 1: down my options to one song. I've been listening to
Speaker 1: Frank Turner kind of as long as I can remember.
Speaker 1: I don't really remember when you started listening to him,
Speaker 1: but kind of on my own was seventh grade for me,
Speaker 1: which is probably about ten years ago now, So yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of formative years through there that he's like
Speaker 1: sort of been with me. So, like, picking one song
Speaker 1: has been hard, but they're definitely songs that, like I
Speaker 1: connect to different time periods. I try to pick one
Speaker 1: that I find myself connecting with currently. So I chose St.
Speaker 1: Christopher's Coming Home. Fridayvening by even begins before my phone
Speaker 1: begins to ring with people asking where I am, and
Speaker 1: I can't suppress a smile. We talk about the chances
Speaker 1: are that I am far away, and so I'm phased
Speaker 1: out of the black and that's how I miss out
Speaker 1: on another night, the cardoon night when nothing really happens yet,
Speaker 1: but everything goes down and and I'm just a promise
Speaker 1: to pick up the phone when I'm in town. Who
Speaker 1: when the evening cast his shadows on the corners of
Speaker 1: my days, And I'm old and I am settled in
Speaker 1: the place for rubbles, when my wondering me dering to
Speaker 1: find me reach there, and yes, whatever else may me,
Speaker 1: may my friends remember me? La la La. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: song is kind of about being away from home or
Speaker 1: being away from your friends, but he sort of like
Speaker 1: puts like a slightly more positive spin on that, like
Speaker 1: I'm feeling the pain of being away and like missing
Speaker 1: these people, but at the end of the day, like
Speaker 1: I know these people love me, and I love these
Speaker 1: people and my life currently I'm sort of between a
Speaker 1: lot of places for parts of the year and on
Speaker 1: the go, so with certain friends some of the year,
Speaker 1: and then I make new friends. My job is like
Speaker 1: a lot of coming and going, So I meet people
Speaker 1: for a few months, get really close with them, and
Speaker 1: then potentially never see them again. So those have been
Speaker 1: a lot of like what I've been experiencing lately. So
Speaker 1: I've been like resonating with that song, and there's like
Speaker 1: a specific line of that song that I really like,
Speaker 1: sudden along the lines of he's like talking about missing
Speaker 1: out and missing out on the kind of night where
Speaker 1: like nothing's happening but everything goes down something like that.
Speaker 1: Those are my like favorite times that I feel like
Speaker 1: I really miss, like you think you would miss like
Speaker 1: a big birthday party or a holiday, but it's sort
Speaker 1: of those casual nights where like a new inside has
Speaker 1: made or like a new favorite board game has found
Speaker 1: those at the moments you really miss. And that's why
Speaker 1: I like about Frank Turner is like I've heard him
Speaker 1: in interviews say that he enjoys songs where it feels
Speaker 1: like the song has like expressed something that he's always
Speaker 1: known just hasn't been able to put in words, And
Speaker 1: I feel like this song does that for me as
Speaker 1: well as a lot of his other music. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: do have a life that has a lot of coming
Speaker 1: and going, and that is difficult on friendship, and yet
Speaker 1: you've maintained a couple of core groups of friends for
Speaker 1: quite some time now, Yeah, yeah, which is true. And
Speaker 1: then it's been interesting to see, like because I had
Speaker 1: my first big move to college, which was moving away
Speaker 1: from like the friend group that I've had forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just been interesting to see all of those friends
Speaker 1: and then now the friends that I made, like in
Speaker 1: college and a little bit after college, and how that
Speaker 1: distance and time away like morse and changed things. Not
Speaker 1: necessarily bad, but it just makes things different and creates
Speaker 1: new dynamics and stuff like that. Yeah, what are the
Speaker 1: other people I interviewed for this is Joe Russell, who
Speaker 1: I have been friends with since I was eighteen, So
Speaker 1: that is a long time ago. I don't know, thirty
Speaker 1: some years probably something like that. But I would say
Speaker 1: all but four years of that, two years of that,
Speaker 1: three years of that, maybe he's been somewhere else New
Speaker 1: York or California. And we've still maintained a friendship all
Speaker 1: this time, and we still text, you know, nearly every day.
Speaker 1: And so that song I went back and listened to
Speaker 1: it after you selected it, because it's not one that
Speaker 1: I actually knew that well and UM really resonated with also,
Speaker 1: So thank you, Well, I hope to have you on
Speaker 1: again thanks to Bye Bye. Closing out the episode, here's
Speaker 1: the one New feeds own Jenny Gay and now a
Speaker 1: voice you've heard before. This is Jenny. Hello everybody, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask her the same question. Tell me
Speaker 1: about a Frank Turner song that you love and why
Speaker 1: you love it. I mean, I had to really put
Speaker 1: some thought into this to pick just one, honestly, because
Speaker 1: so many of his songs really, um, what's the word,
Speaker 1: They just stir some thing inside of me. And the
Speaker 1: theme that I connect back to time and time again
Speaker 1: with Frank Turner is this spirit of life is hard,
Speaker 1: and it can feel really awful, and we can get
Speaker 1: into some very dark places, and then we can call
Speaker 1: on friends, we could call on our inner strength, and
Speaker 1: we can rally, you know, we can will ourselves to
Speaker 1: make the choice to continue on, you know, despite the hardness,
Speaker 1: and that it gets better. And so the song that
Speaker 1: kind of captures all of that in the most powerful
Speaker 1: way for me is The Next Storm. And I think
Speaker 1: it's the music and the lyrics that come together to
Speaker 1: like just really conjure up that, Okay, I can do this,
Speaker 1: I can choose to continue on and it's going to
Speaker 1: get better. We had a difficul winter. We had a
Speaker 1: rough few months, or when the storms came in off
Speaker 1: the coast, it felt like they broke and everything. Honest one,
Speaker 1: it's easy enough to talk about blitz spirit when you're
Speaker 1: on the holding a roof fucking meting hit it and
Speaker 1: the pictures and the papers go ruined by the rain.
Speaker 1: And we wouldn't knew that then ever, gain't try again.
Speaker 1: But I do want to spend my life indoors lay
Speaker 1: long and waiting on the next storm. As to want
Speaker 1: to spend my life inside. I want to step out
Speaker 1: and face some shine with ours faith in the omens,
Speaker 1: without faith in the guts. We just ended up crunching
Speaker 1: at the emptier incherous a gambles, crunching our hearts. And
Speaker 1: I don't care what the well am out of saying,
Speaker 1: because the last time that I saw him, he was
Speaker 1: on his knees, he was praying the breaches out. The
Speaker 1: side has cut out just the same, and we un
Speaker 1: knew that. There we get try again, but the doors spendlow.
Speaker 1: My life indoors lay low. We're waiting on the next star.
Speaker 1: I's always spend my light inside. I will step out
Speaker 1: the face sunshine. The lyrics are we had a difficult winter.
Speaker 1: We had a rough few months. When the storms came
Speaker 1: in off the coast. It felt like they broke everything
Speaker 1: on us at once. And it's easy enough to talk
Speaker 1: about blue spirit when you're not holding the roof up
Speaker 1: and knee deep in it. And the pictures and the
Speaker 1: papers get ruined by the rain, and we wondered if
Speaker 1: they ever get dry again. But I don't want to
Speaker 1: spend the whole of my life indoors, laying low and
Speaker 1: waiting on the next storm. I don't want to spend
Speaker 1: the whole of my life inside. I want to step
Speaker 1: out and face the sunshine. So it helps me to
Speaker 1: connect to that point when you know, even though it's hard,
Speaker 1: we just have to choose to step forward and step
Speaker 1: out and turn our face towards as cheesy as I
Speaker 1: feel like, as I say it now, the sunshine, you know,
Speaker 1: I just love it. So I hope as you hear
Speaker 1: a bit of it, you love it too. If what
Speaker 1: you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making
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