Frank Turner: “For the longest time I was the guy that toured, and that was it. I needed to become something more…”

It was a bad gig, that’s all. Onstage at Hatfield House, as part of last year’s Slam Dunk gathering, Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls performed a 55-minute set that was below their usual standards. It might not have been something that the sizeable crowd gathered in the early evening sunshine at the Punk In Drublic stage would necessarily have noticed – ​“My standards are pretty high so I like to think that when we have a bad show [the audience] don’t notice,” Frank says – but the musicians onstage certainly knew that their punches weren’t quite landing. The connection just wasn’t there, either with each other or with their paying public. “I came offstage and things started to snowball,” the singer recalls. ​“I was trying to drink through it, which is a&n...

unsplash-logoLilith Redmoon