How Neil Young inspired Frank Turner: “Such good noise”
Discussions of Frank Turner normally centre around the man’s prolific songwriting. As they should, to be clear. The Winchester-raised folk-punk sensation has gone from hardcore cult hero in Million Dead to one of the most respected songwriters of his generation off the back of albums like England Keep My Bones and Positive Songs for Negative People. He’s developed a trademark songwriting style that’s made him a name all over the world, and that should be celebrated.
However, Turner is also a student of rock history. This is a man who has gone back and studied the greats of the past, waxing lyrical on tomes like Pete Guralnick’s doorstopper of an Elvis Presley biography, Last Train to Memphis. A man who went on Mastermind and selected as his specialist subject the heavy metal giants Iron Maiden. He was never content to just develop his own voice, like a true history nerd, he also saw the worth in everything that came before.
This is in his music if you know where to look. England Keep My Bones‘ closing number ‘Glory Hallelujah’ is a tribute to Townes Van Zandt’s masterpiece ‘Two Girls’. The cover and the title of Love, Ire and Song is an intentional nod to Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Love and Hate. He’s spent more time on stage covering Bruce Springsteen than some bands have spent on stage in general.
Yet there’s one artist in particular who has inspired an underrated part of his sound, his actual musicianship. It sounds silly, but it’s true. Turner’s guitar playing is the foundation of his sound, and his inspiration for that is another songwriter with an underrated, yet wholly unmistakable guitar sound.
So, who inspired the way Frank Turner plays guitar?
In the lead up to the release of his debut solo album Sleep Is For The Week, Turner said on a number of occasions that his chief inspiration for the record was Neil Young’s masterpiece Harvest. Both for the fact that it’s one of the best folk albums ever made, and the fact that they were the same age when they made both albums. However, Young’s influence on Frank Turner goes even deeper than that.
In an interview with The Current, Turner details how the guitar playing of Neil Young was what really inspired him. He said: “Since I started playing as a solo artist, my main kind of inspiration for that was always Neil Young’s acoustic playing, because he’s got that kind of mixture of flatpicking-with-strumming kind of vibe going on, just sort of picking out the melody from the chord structures.”
This is very interesting, because no one would call Neil Young the most technically sound guitar player, but that is something that Frank Turner takes inspiration from too, saying, “What I like about Neil Young is that he’s ragged. He’s fucking buzzing and strings all over the place, you know? Even on the records that are 40, 50 years old, you can hear his right hand just bouncing off the strings. I love that sound. Such a good noise.”
It’s a sign that one can pay fealty to the greats of the past while also creating a sound that’s thrillingly their own. One can hope that people take a few tips from Frank Turner when creating their sound going forward.
