by Scott Roos
Tomorrow night (Saturday, September 7th), punk rock icon Frank Turner will take the stage of Saskatoon’s Coors Event Centre with his band “The Sleeping Souls” in tow. Bedouin Soundclash will be opening up the evening. Collectively the two acts should put on a fun, energetic, and engaging show. Doors to the venue open at 6 pm with the music starting at 7 pm.
“I'm a touring songwriter,” Turner told NSMZ when asked how he would best describe himself as an artist, “I mean, and those two words are in the right order.”
The ongoing tour, which started in Vancouver on September 3rd, is in support of his latest album, Undefeated, released on May 3 this year. Prior to this successful release, he achieved his first number one UK Album with FTHC. Turner has a discography that includes 10 solo albums, four rarities compilations, one retrospective "best of" album, one split album, and five EPs. Additionally, he is known for his extensive touring, having covered all 50 states in a single tour jaunt in the past and, more recently, setting a world record for the most performances in a day by playing 15 sets across England in just 24 hours.
“I always adore being in Canada,” Turner told NSMZ of the current series of Canadian dates, “It's such a wonderful part of the world. And I'm very stoked to be here.”
“The thing that I enjoy most, I would say, about touring around the world and my experience of it through that prism is that music tends to bring out what people have in common over and above what they have that separates them. And that's a reassuring discovery.”
Regarding Undefeated, as mentioned earlier, this marks Turner's 10th solo album. What's particularly significant is that this is his debut as a producer for one of his own projects. Having spent a considerable part of his career studying numerous notable producers and producing music for other bands, Turner finally felt prepared to take on the role for his own music. He had learned and improved upon his skills initially as a pandemic project to keep himself busy during the initial lockdown in 2020. He also felt confident that he knew the artistic direction of the songs enough that he could do things himself this time round.
"I'm not saying that I'll never work with a producer again. I suspect that I will. But with this particular set of songs, this particular record, it was like, I know exactly how this goes and I don't need somebody else to talk me through, you know what I mean? I know what I want this to sound like."
“It's my 10th record. So I've sort of been produced as it were. I've been on the receiving end of that enough times in my life and indeed have done that for other bands to the extent that I think that I've kind of largely internalized that process or at least, I've internalized it as much as I need to,” Turner explains, “Obviously there are times when a producer can improve a record by the of process of streamlining, but I think we all know that there are examples of where producers in so doing kind of shake all the individuality out of an artist… And just sort of like package them down into something bland. There was definitely a sense with this record where I felt like I was freer to make the record exactly as I wanted it to be without anyone trying to kind of rein in my idiosyncrasies for the sake of a hope of some airplay or something like that. Ultimately I've made enough records now that I think that I can kind of quite happily kind of say that I know how my art goes and I don't need somebody else to kind of chop it into shape.”
Specifically, Turner learned and improved upon the craft of producing as a "pandemic project" during the initial lockdown of 2020.
Regarding the upcoming Saturday evening show in Saskatoon, this will mark Turner's third performance in the "City of Bridges". One of his lasting memories of the city is when he first tried poutine, a true Canadian milestone. For those in other Canadian cities, you can see Turner in Edmonton tonight (Sept. 6th) and Winnipeg (Sept. 8th). Mid-month, from Sept. 19th to 22nd, Turner will be in Toronto for his "Lost Evenings 7" Festival, hosted at the newly opened Great Canadian Casino Resort. The festival will feature appearances by Martha Wainwright, Henry Rollins, Bedouin Soundclash, NOBRO, and The Dirty Nil.
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