England Keeps Its Promise for Frank Turner
Life is full of anniversaries, and this is never more true than for the music business, especially if you’ve been around a while. Frank Turner continues his run of tenth anniversary album re-releases with his 2011 record ‘England Keep My Bones’, out on June 4th.
Image Credit: Gregory Nolan.
Hampshire musician Frank Turner has already celebrated ten year anniversaries for his albums ‘Sleep Is For The Week’ (2007), ‘Love Ire & Song’ (2008) and 2009’s ‘Poetry Of The Deed’. Though only Turner’s debut would see a double CD re-release, all three albums would receive new vinyl pressings in multiple colours. This format continues for ‘England Keep My Bones’, which is reissued on 180g green and yellow vinyl, both in transparent and opaque editions. It will also be available in standard black.
It goes without saying the re-release will include the original twelve track album, featuring singles ‘I Still Believe’, ‘Peggy Sang The Blues’, ‘If Ever I Stray’ and ‘Wessex Boy’. Produced by Tristan Ivemy and recorded at The Church Studios in Crouch End, London, Ivemy previously worked with Frank Turner on ‘Love Ire & Song’.
But what of the extra material? The second vinyl in this collection includes recordings made in The El Paso Session. Though these are labelled as demos, they are better described as excellent quality full band recordings with a rougher edge. The El Paso Session doesn’t feature demo versions of every track on England Keep My Bones, but it does include extra cuts in ‘Song For Eva Mae’, ‘Wanderlust’ and ‘Balthazar, Impresario’.
Image Credit: Gregory Nolan.
As with Frank Turner’s previous tenth anniversary editions, England Keep My Bones will feature exclusive downloadable content. However, where the last three albums featured live performance sets (Swindon 2007, Nottingham 2008 and London’s Union Chapel in 2009), this re-release will make available additional session material for the first time.
Recorded solo by Frank at Portsmouth’s Old Blacksmiths Studios, these fifteen extra cuts include variations on the material that made the album, plus the extra tracks recorded at The El Paso Session, as well as a version of traditional folk song ‘Barbara Allen’ performed a cappella. Where live material is concerned, it’s fair to say that Frank has had this period covered for a while.
Just in the second half of 2011, the tour for England Keep My Bones took Frank Turner all across Europe, the U.K., Ireland and North America – and in some cases, multiple times. In a matter of days, Turner went from performing at Germany’s Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals, to Camden’s Barfly (now known as The Camden Assembly), playing to just over two hundred people. That same summer he’d also perform at Bestival on the Isle of Wight, Download Festival at Donington Park, and Reading and Leeds festivals.
But a real surprise would come when Frank Turner headlined his own show at London’s Wembley Arena in April 2012, with support from Beans On Toast, Dan Le Sac Vs. Scoobius Pip and Billy Bragg, who would also join Turner on stage to perform Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’. Was this really the same touring cycle as Frank Turner’s Barfly performance?
Above is a rendition of ‘I Still Believe’ taken from the DVD released from the show later that year. Turner’s band The Sleeping Souls is made up of the energetic Ben Lloyd on electric guitar, Tarrant Anderson on bass, Matt Nasir on keyboards, Nigel Powell on drums (who also co-wrote ‘If Ever I Stray’ and ‘Wessex Boy’, both performed that evening) and special guest Emily Barker on harmonica.
The show would become bigger still with Frank Turner performing in the Prologue at the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, where he played tracks from England Keep My Bones. The set included ‘I Still Believe’, ‘Wessex Boy’ and non-album track ‘Sailor’s Boots’. And so Frank Turner continued his climb, releasing his album ‘Tape Deck Heart’ in April 2013, but what will that re-release contain? Anniversaries do come round quickly.
Continue reading for our Q&A with Frank Turner. We ask about the re-release of England Keep My Bones, the circumstances around The El Paso Session, performing milestones, and consider the notion of optimism.
Image Credit: Gregory Nolan.
1. It's been ten years since your album 'England Keep My Bones' was released, what was the catalyst for putting together this anniversary edition?
The date coming around! We've been doing 10 year anniversary editions of my records as those milestones come up. Now it's time for this one. It's a fun bit of commemoration, puts things back in press on vinyl, and gives me the chance to release some new extra bits on there as well.
2. The record was made at The Church Studios in London, what was it like to work in an unconventional recording space like that?
The Church is one of the best recording studios in the city. Set up by Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, back in the 1980's. It was amazing to work there.
3. For this album, you were working with Tristan Ivemy again, how was it to work on these songs with him?
It was great. Before "England" Tristan had worked on some early recordings for me, and then he mixed "Love Ire & Song". This record was the first time we did a whole album together from the ground up. He's a fantastic producer and an old friend. It was a very relaxed, friendly atmosphere, it all went very quickly, I seem to remember tracking the whole album in about 10 days.
4. The El Paso tracks are really great quality recordings considering they're labelled as demos. Tell me about those recording sessions!
We were on tour in the USA (opening for Social Distortion, I think). I'd never really demo'd a record properly before, but since then I've done it for every record; it's a very, very useful part of the process, a trial run, a sketch to work up the main artwork from. We were driving through El Paso, and my buddy Jim Ward (At The Drive In, Sparta) had a studio there at the time, so I called him up and asked if we could load in in the morning, smash out the whole thing in a day, and move on to the next show. That's what we did. It was pretty hectic. But it made the final record much better than it would otherwise have been.
5. This was the tour you played your landmark show at Wembley Arena. Who first suggested the idea of playing that gig? What was your reaction?
My booking agent at the time brought it up. I'd just sold out Hammersmith, which is the next biggest place in London (5,000), several months up front. It made sense, purely mathematically, to look at jumping up to an arena level. But it still came as something of a shock to me at the time for that to be being discussed seriously. It just seemed ridiculous to me; it kind of still does. But the show was a blast, and there was a real feeling of collective achievement there.
6. And then a few months later you were playing the Olympic Opening Ceremony. What was the main "pinch me" moment from that experience?
The whole thing was very surreal. Probably the weirdest bit was just being asked, in the first place, by Danny Boyle. He called me in for a meeting; I immediately assumed it had to be for something other than the Olympics because... well, come on. But he asked, he was a big fan, and I went for it, because why not? A cool thing to have done, though not the top of my personal list of achievements.
7. The solo acoustic tracks are so intimate. Have you considered playing these arrangements in smaller acoustic gigs? Perhaps some anniversary shows?
I have done, many times! Hoping to be able to do some shows of some kind to commemorate the anniversary.
8. The world has changed an awful lot since 2011. In a media full of bad news, what do you think is the best thing to happen to the world in the last ten years?
That's an interesting question. Very broadly speaking, we're not doing too badly as a species - fighting disease, poverty etc is going OK across the board. The last 5 years have been depressing in the West, it feels like our politics have taken a turn for the worse for sure, and I'm not hugely optimistic for the future. But they just figured out a malaria vaccine. That's quite something.
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Pre-Order Frank Turner’s ‘England Keep My Bones’ in tenth anniversary editions here, the album is re-released in five vinyl editions, plus a digital download of bonus material.
Purchase Frank Turner’s previous tenth anniversary digital downloads from his Bandcamp page.
For more information about Frank Turner and his music, visit his official website.
Follow Frank Turner on Facebook @frankturnermusic, and on Instagram and Twitter @frankturner.
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