Former Million Dead man Frank Turner has today announced a massive tour of the UK, in support of his upcoming seventh solo album.
Be More Kind is scheduled for release on May 4th, and on top of several upcoming dates, Turner has planned a nation-spanning set of dates, beginning January 22 2019, in Birmingham, before finishing up at London’s Alexandra Palace on February 3. You can see the full list of dates below, and tickets for the newly-announced gigs are available here from 10am on Friday, April 27.
Turner’s last full album came in 2015, with Positive Songs For Negative People, featuring the track ‘The Next Storm’, the video for which featured former wrestler and current mixed-martial arts fighter CM Punk.
Following the unveiling of Be More Kind‘s title track, Turner released the politically-charged video for ‘Make America Great Again’, taking aim at President Trump, naturally. You can check the video out below.
Turner sat down with NME recently for an in-depth discussion on the new album and it’s influences. Speaking on the video, Turner explained: “This is obviously one of the more provocatively-titled songs I’ve released in recent years, but in a way, I’m not kidding.
“America is bloody great, one of my favourite countries in the world. Much like back at home, they’ve had a politically fraught time of late, and I wanted to say something about it. And for the video, I thought I’d make some new friends (in Texas!) to help out with the suggestions.”
When asked if the album was similarly politically-themed, Turner elaborated that “That’s a difficult question for me, I’m tempted to say it’s a liberal album because what strikes me about liberalism as a political philosophy – as I understand it – is it’s the only philosophy that’s concerned with the rules of the game rather than rooting for one particular side. At least, the classical form of liberalism, it’s about saying what a liberal society aims to achieve, and what we have achieved for a long time, is a society in which people can disagree without taking up arms, and I think that is something a lot of people have taken for granted and become blasé about, and we will seriously miss that when it’s gone. It’s an album that addresses the world as it is, much more so than the last few records I’ve made, but it’s not a Billy Bragg record, it’s not a Rage Against The Machine record.”
22/01/2019-Arena- Birmingham
25/01- Victoria Warehouse- Manchester
27/01- First Direct Arena- Leeds
29/01- O2 Academy- Glasgow
01/02-Windsor Hall- Bournemouth
02/02- Motorpoint Arena- Cardiff
03/02- Alexandra Palace- London
