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Frank Turner is ready to come back to Asbury Park. The English folk-punk troubadour, who played the Stone Pony this August and the Asbury Lanes in February, returns to the city this weekend.
"I love being in Asbury, it's a great part of the world, I've got a lot of good friends there and always have good shows there,'' Turner said recently.
Recalling his show this August with New Brunswick rockers the Gaslight Anthem, he said, "the last time we were there with Gaslight, we had a great show and then I got fucking absolutely blasted at the after-party as well, so I think I might need to go and apologize to some of my Asbury friends for being a drunk.''
On Friday (Nov. 5), Turner will share the bill at the Stone Pony with California punk icons Social Distortion and punk-influenced roots rockers Lucero.
Discussing what he's learned from Social Distortion and the band's iconic front-man Mike Ness, Turner said, "first of all, that you can have more than three chords in a punk rock song, you know? I mean, the album I got into Social D with that came out when I was kind of just getting into punk rock was 'White Light, White Heat, White Trash' (1996) and it's great because it's a deceptively simple record, it's actually got some complex stuff going on as well.
"So, there's that and just, I don't know, there's something in the honesty of his lyrics, the kind of raw, brutal honesty of his lyrics that I've always really appreciated and I can see how that's a major influence on me.''
Turner, who has earned plenty fans of his own on both sides of the Atlantic, said working as an opening act involves a different mindset than being a headliner.
"It's a different job to do for an opening act, you've got to catch people's attention, you know? And I actually really enjoy it, in a way I'm sort of hungry for it, it's like you're there, you've got a crowd of people, they don't know who you are, they don't necessarily give a shit and it's like, 'Right, time to make these people sit up and take notice and give a damn,' and it's a lot of fun,'' he said. "You can like really kind of attack it and kind of come out fighting, you've got the kind of underdog thing, which is a good time.''
According to Turner, he and his band will be entering the recording studio next January to record the full-length follow up to his most recent LP, 2009's "Poetry of the Deed,'' but he also has a pair of projects set for release later this year: "Rock and Roll," an EP which will come out in December, and "Buddies,'' an album Turner recorded with Jon Snodgrass.
Along with Ness and Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan, Turner is a prominent member of the folk-punk movement, combining the energy and passion of punk with the stripped-down aesthetic of roots music. While stating that he "always hated bandwagons,'' Turner also said the folk-punk movement represented a positive progression for punk rock.
"We're now kind of reaching a point everywhere where punk rock is kind of entering its second clearly-defined generation, not just in terms of a generation of bands but literally a generation of people,'' Turner said.
"You know, you've got parents coming to punk rock shows with their kids who are as old as they were when they started getting into punk, and I think that this kind of engagement with a more traditional style of music that still has a kind of like rebel edge to it is the thing that appeals. ... I think that in some ways the punk rock scene is kind of like addressing itself to the business of like not just writing songs about being 17 and pissed off at the man.''
