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Frank Turner Wants To Be More Kind

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Frank Turner has announced details of his forthcoming seventh studio album. Be More Kind will be released on May 4 through Xtra Mile Recordings/Polydor Records. Months after the release of Songbook, a career-spanning retrospective which also saw reworked versions of tracks from across the past decade, Be More Kind represents a thematic and sonic line in the sand for the 36-year-old. It’s a record that combines universal anthems with raw emotion and the political and the personal, with the intricate folk and punk roar trademarks of Turner’s sound imbued with new, bold experimental shades.

Be More Kind has been produced by Austin Jenkins and Joshua Block, formerly of psychedelic-rock Texans White Denim, and Florence And The Machine and Halsey collaborator Charlie Hugall. “I wanted to try and get out of my comfort zone and do something different,” says Turner. Fans got a taste of the new material last month with the first track ‘1933’ and this is followed today by new track (and title track) ‘Be More Kind’ which is available now. Of the track, Frank says, “Be More Kind”, the song, is at the heart of the album, both lyrically and musically; when I finished it I could see the rest of the album coming together around it.’’

Turner was halfway through writing a very different sort of album, a concept record about women from the historical record who had been ignored, when he was reading a collection of Clive James’ poetry and one particular line compelled him to re-think his direction. It was from a poem called Leçons Des Ténèbres: “I should have been more kind. It is my fate. To find this out, but find it out too late.” “It devastated me the first time I read it,” he says. “A lot of older, wiser people tend to say things like that, that the things that come out in the wash at the end of a human life are the way you treated the people around you. In the modern world, that’s a lesson that all of us, myself included could do to learn.”

Now he just has to work out how they are going to play them live. The Be More Kind World Tour will begin in April, with its first leg playing to over 200,000 people across the UK, the USA, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, taking them through to Christmas. Turner promises that 2019 will include visits to some “slightly more weird and wonderful places.” “My days of being engaged in an arms race to be the hardest touring musician in the universe are behind me now,” he says. “We’re going to tour hard but come home regularly in the middle of it.” The first batch of announcements covers 120 dates. Some old habits die hard. These are songs that demand to be heard and Frank Turner is packed and ready to go.

BE MORE KIND TOUR - UK & IRELAND DATES:

APRIL

13th Manchester, Academy SOLD OUT

15th Dublin, The Academy

18th Belfast, The Limelight

20th Aberdeen, The Garage SOLD OUT

21st Edinburgh, Liquid Room SOLD OUT

22nd Newcastle, O2 Academy

24th Sheffield, O2 Academy         

25th Liverpool, O2 Academy SOLD OUT

27th Bristol, O2 Academy SOLD OUT

28th Exeter Uni, Great Hall

30th Cambridge. Corn Exchange

 

MAY

1st Southampton, Guildhall SOLD OUT

2nd Southend, Cliffs Pavilion

4thLeicester, O2 Academy SOLD OUT

5th Oxford, O2 Academy SOLD OUT

8th Hull, City Hall

9th Norwich, UEA

11th London, Roundhouse, SOLD OUT

12thLondon, Roundhouse, SOLD OUT

13thLondon, Roundhouse, SOLD OUT

14th London, Roundhouse, SOLD OUT

 

 

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Xtra Mile Launch New Podcast

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Much-loved independent label Xtra Mile Recordings have today released the first ever instalment of their new podcast series, The Xtra Yard, featuring their various label signings in conversation. This first episode features label mates - and long-standing friends - Frank Turner, Will Varley and Beans on Toast (Jay McAllister) chewing the fat on everything from Townes Van Zandt and learning to drive, to what it means to be British and just how far they’d go to secure a support slot for Bruce Springsteen.

The Xtra Yard also captures the three of them recollecting the first time they met each other – hilarious stories including Frank meeting Jay on Holloway Road and hanging out at the Nambucca pub in London; Jay meeting Will three times before remembering who he was and finally Jay introducing Frank to Will at a gig at the Monarch in Camden. The three have remained good friends, touring buddies and label mates ever since.

The Xtra Yard podcast arrives at a busy time for all three artists. Varley releases his new album, Spirit Of Minnie, on February 9 the same day he headlines London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Frank Turner has just announced details of his forthcoming seventh album, Be More Kind, which is out May 4 and world tour of 120 dates this year, and Beans On Toast released his ninth album, Cushty, in December and has just announced details of his first book, vinyl release of his debut album and a tour in May. Tracks from all their new studio albums also feature within the podcast.

Recorded in Jay’s own living room, you can stream the episode via Spotify – listen here

 

 

 

 

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