Frank Turner reveals the first single from his new album Be More Kind today. Blackout is available through Xtra Mile Recordings/Polydor Records and, says Turner, ‘is new territory for me, musically – a song you could even play in a club, it’s about how we might collectively respond to social dislocation and collapse…’ The accompanying video was directed by Michael Baldwin and shot on the George Lucas stage at the famous Elstree Studios, the same studio complex where key scenes from numerous legendary films including Star Wars and the Indiana Jones trilogies have been shot over its 90 year history.
Be More Kind represents a thematic and sonic line in the sand for the 36-year-old. ‘I wanted to try and get out of my comfort zone and do something different,’ says Turner.
After the stripped-down, live-sounding previous album Positive Songs…, Turner wanted to try a new approach for the record. With this in mind he recruited producers Austin Jenkins and Joshua Block, formerly of psychedelic-rock Texans White Denim, and Florence And The Machine and Halsey collaborator Charlie Hugall and the idea of recording a more rock-led album with tints of electronic-pop took shape. Be More Kind was made over a period of seven months, giving Turner the opportunity to turn songs on their head, try different versions and shake up the dynamics within his band.
Be More Kind was inspired by a Clive James 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.’
Turner recently announced the Be More Kind World Tour which 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. The first batch of announcements covers 120 dates.
BE MORE KIND TOUR – UK & IRELAND DATES:
APRIL
13th Manchester Academy
15th Dublin The Academy
18th Belfast The Limelight
20th Aberdeen The Garage
21st Edinburgh Liquid Room
22nd Newcastle O2 Academy
24th Sheffield O2 Academy
25th Liverpool O2 Academy
27th Bristol O2 Academy
28th Exeter Uni Great Hall
30th Cambridge Corn Exchange
MAY
1st Southampton Guildhall 01/05/2018
2nd Southend Cliffs Pavilion 02/05/2018
4th Leicester O2 Academy 04/05/2018
5th Oxford O2 Academy 05/05/2018
8th Hull City Hall
9th Norwich UEA