Photo credit: Shannon Shumaker
Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls have announced details of a more traditional headline UK tour for July 2024 in celebration of his tenth album Undefeated, including a stop at the 1865 in Southampton on Thursday 18 July.
“I’m bringing the tour, the new album, the Sleeping Souls, and my excellent friends The Meffs, to a string of dates in rooms I know well and love around the UK this July, in between our festival shows,” Frank says, speaking about the upcoming dates.
“Now I’m surprised to report that as I enter my forties, I’ve returned to being an angry man,” he sings on the recent track No Thank You For The Music. And that’s a concise statement as to what to expect from Undefeated, Frank’s follow-up to his first UK #1 album, 2022’s FTHC.
Finding the sweet spot between youthful outspokenness and surviving midlife’s challenges, it’s a record that explores both emotionally compelling topics and lighter reflections on those troubles that eventually come to most of us.
Who you are versus who you wanted to be in your youth, life-altering love, fading friendships, wistful nostalgia, the mental fallout and political consequences that still linger from the pandemic era, and the more prosaic issue of persistent backache.
Frank says: “There are no clichés about the difficult 10th album, so in some ways that’s a liberating statement. But at the same time, I have a duty to justify writing and releasing a 10th album.
“That’s a lot of records for anybody.
“Also, I’m 42. Which is not a sexy, rock’n’roll age. But all through my career, I’ve been interested in writers like Loudon Wainwright III or The Hold Steady, people who write about adulthood, essentially.”
While thematically Undefeated is informed by this time in life, sonically it’s full of echoes to influences that Frank has touched upon at various moments in his kaleidoscopic career.
It switches from Black Flag to Counting Crows, from Descendents to The Pogues, via Elvis Costello and Billy Bragg. Its freewheeling nature is reflective not only of his new-found independence, but also of the creative environment he found himself in.
As usual, it was entirely written by himself, but this is the first album that he produced himself, recorded in the home studio that he and his wife, Jessica Guise, share on Mersea Island, Essex. It features his live band: Ben Lloyd (guitar), Tarrant Anderson (bass), Callum Green (drums) and Matt Nasir (piano).
UK tour dates (with support from The Meffs):
28 June – Glastonbury, Avalon Stage
13 July – Cheltenham, 2000 Trees Festival
14 July – Manchester, Academy 2
15 July – Leeds. Brudenell Social Club
16 July – Glasgow, Garage
18 July – Southampton, 1865
19 July – Birmingham, Academy 2
20 July – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
22 July – Cardiff, Tramshed
23 July – Oxford, 02 Academy 2
24 July – Norwich, Epic Studios
26 July – Suffolk, Latitude Festival
Full tour dates and ticket info available here.
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