Brendan Yates says he’s learned innumerable things fronting his band Turnstile over the last decade and a half, not the least of which is that an ambitious musician needn’t move to Los Angeles or New York to make it.
“There’s nothing we haven’t been able to figure out living in Baltimore,” Yates says, and Turnstile’s success suggests he’s right: In 2021, the band — which spent the 2010s steadily rising through the East Coast hardcore scene — scored three Grammy nominations with its breakout album, “Glow On,” a set of fervent yet luscious punk jams laced with bits of funk, dream-pop and electronic dance music. The next year, Turnstile toured arenas as an opening act for My Chemical Romance then did the same for Blink-182. At April’s Coachella festival, Charli XCX ended her main-stage performance with a video message predicting a “Turnstile Summer.”
Even so, the proud Charm City quintet — Yates on vocals along with guitarists Pat McCrory and Meg Mills, bassist Franz Lyons and drummer Daniel Fang — did come to L.A. to record its new follow-up LP, “Never Enough,” setting up a studio in a rented mansion in Laurel Canyon where the band camped out for more than a month.
“We were looking for the experience where you kind of isolate a little bit, and Laurel Canyon has this tucked-away thing,” says Yates, who led the sessions as the album’s producer. “It was such a vibe.” The result extends “Glow On’s” adventurous spirit with sensual R&B grooves, guest appearances by Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes, even a flute solo by the British jazz star Shabaka Hutchings; “Never Enough” comes accompanied by a short film that just premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will screen in selected theaters this weekend.
Yates, 35, discussed the album over coffee last month in Silver Lake, a few days after Turnstile played a rowdy gig at L.A.’s Ukrainian Culture Center that featured an endless succession of stage-diving fans.
Who did the cooking while you were recording in the house?
We had a couple friends come in and cook meals. And we kept the fridge stocked. “What are we gonna eat?” — you can lose hours out of every day to that.
What’s the advantage of making a record the way you did?
You can kind of break away from normal life for a little bit and just exist in the music. You’re not going to the studio but thinking, “I’ve got to go to the grocery store later.” You wake up, have your little peaceful time in the morning before you get started, then just go right into the living room. We didn’t really need to leave the house for weeks at a time.
In a recent New York Times profile, the writer referred to you as Turnstile’s “workaholic frontman.” A fair characterization?
I wouldn’t describe myself that way, but I understand the sentiment. I’m in a band with people I grew up with — my closest friends — and we’re really passionate about what we’re doing. I give myself to it, but it never feels like work. When I was younger, I always separated music and real life. I thought of music as the thing that I love and real life as going to school and hating it. Even when I went to university, I was like, I’m not gonna do music.
You wanted to protect music from the strictures of school.
I guess so. I was doing these majors that I had no interest in. I started with kinesiology until I realized I suck at science and math. I switched to criminal justice, then I was like, “Wait, what am I doing?” Honestly, I think I was just looking for whatever major I could mentally check out on the most to make more space for music.
Did you graduate?
I left early because I wasn’t interested and I wasn’t doing well, and I got the opportunity to tour with this band that I played drums in. Eventually, years later, I went back and got a communications degree online.
Why?
I ask myself the same question all the time. One thing is, I’d started and I wanted to finish it. I probably wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for remote schooling. I never went back into the classroom — I was in the back of the van writing essays.
Does 35 feel old in hardcore years?
It would have seemed ancient to me as a 16-year-old. Never in my wildest dreams would I think at 35 that I’d be doing the same things I was hyped on doing when I was in high school. But I feel like age is a bit of an illusion. When you’re 12, you’re like, “I’m definitely gonna be married by 18 and have my first kid at 19.”
Certain aspects of aging are less illusory, right? Physical sturdiness, for example. How does that compare to 10 years ago?
I remember playing shows 10 years ago, and I had two knee braces on. At that time, I was just like, “This is what it is — here on out, this is what my knees are doing.”
You’re saying in fact you’re sturdier now.
What I figured out — look, I’m not a singer. Earlier on in playing shows, I’d throw the mic down and just jump into the crowd, mostly because of nerves and adrenaline.
Feels important to say that you’re definitely a singer.
I sing, but I wouldn’t call myself a singer. I’ve never done vocal lessons. Even forming the band, at that time everyone was like, “OK, we’ve got this band, but we should start one where you’re on the drums.” This band was literally: “Let’s do one on the side where I’m singing and you should get on guitar. Franz, you’ve never played bass, but you should play bass in this one.” Then you wake up 10 years later and — oh, shoot — this is the one we’ve put a lot into.
Turnstile, from left: Daniel Fang, Franz Lyons, Brendan Yates, Meg Mills and Pat McCrory.
(Atiba Jefferson)
For every fan of Turnstile, you’ve got someone accusing you of ruining hardcore. Ever hear a critique that actually stung?
I have no interest in having any dialogue about anyone’s opinion about anything that I’m doing.
I appreciate the definitiveness of that.
It just doesn’t matter.
Whose praise has been especially meaningful? There’s a great viral TikTok of James Hetfield and Rob Halford digging your set at some festival.
We’ve had so many cool moments like that — just like, “How is this real?” Obviously, getting to meet your childhood heroes is huge. But then there’s also the people you build relationships with and end up in the studio together — Dev or our friend Mary Jane Dunphe. You realize: These are actually my favorite people making music right now.
Notwithstanding your view on the opinions of others, what’s a moment on this album that feels creatively risky?
In the first single [“Never Enough”], after the band drops out, there’s like two minutes of just this synth chord. There was very much a conversation: “Is this too long? Should we shorten it?” And I’m sure there’s plenty of people where it might just be white noise to them — like, “Skip — I don’t need this.” But I feel like with this album there’s this intention to force yourself to sit with the chaotic moments and then sit with the very still moments and kind of have that relationship going back and forth. I think those moments of stillness are very connected to the film — you’ll kind of see how it all works together and why those moments are necessary. Our dream scenario would be that people’s first time hearing the album, they’re watching it with the film.
Someone says to you, “I didn’t really get the album until I saw the film” — that’s OK by you?
I would love that.
Who opened the door to the idea that you could make a movie?
The last album, we did a four-song EP [“Turnstile Love Connection”] that came with a video. I’d called my friend Ian [Hurdle], who’s the DP, and I was like, “Hey, I have an idea: We do this video, and it does all this and it’s about 10 or 11 minutes with these four songs.” I told him the whole idea, and then I asked him, “So who should we get to direct it?” He goes, “It sounds like you’re directing it.” I was like, “I guess you’re right.” I mean, I’m not a director.
You’ve now called yourself not a singer and not a director.
On paper, I don’t have any experience. The only thing I have experience in is really being excited about trying to make something work. But that video was a huge learning experience — the idea of, like, OK, this is possible.
There’s a rainbow color pattern that recurs throughout the new album’s videos. You’re using it as a live backdrop too. What’s it mean?
There’s a lot in the album that maybe ties into those colors. The record cover itself is a double rainbow. We were in Paris playing shows like a year and a half ago. We were walking around and it started raining while the sun was out. We’re like, “Yo, look” — there was this double rainbow. My friend snapped a photo, and that’s the album cover. Maybe there’s interpretations of that on a spiritual level — new beginnings or a transformation or openings to a different dimension.
Daniel Fang, Pat McCrory, Franz Lyons and Brendan Yates of Turnstile attend the 65th Grammy Awards in 2023.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The album cover is very subtle. You could easily look at it and just see blue.
That was brought to me — how intangible the cover is. But that’s the point: I don’t want vibrant rainbows. I want it to almost feel like nothingness. A small speck in a vast universe is kind of the feeling that was going into the music. The blue too — in the film, there’s lots of ties to water and the vastness of the ocean.
Very Malibu of you.
I mean, side note: I drowned like 10 years ago in the ocean. I was saved by some locals — this was on a big surfer beach in Hawaii. This is not necessarily what the album is about, but more just like a thought process. What’s always fascinated me about the ocean is its power and how small I felt in that moment as I was passing out. And I truly did pass out — saw the white light and everything. Just how fast that could happen and how small I could feel put things into perspective in a different way.
OK, few more for you: One thing you guys have sort of crept up to but not quite done yet is a full-on ballad.
The final song on the new record [“Magic Man”] is literally just me and a Juno [synthesizer] in my room. In some ways it’s uncomfortable, but simultaneously it felt like it needed to happen. I needed to sing that.
You don’t drink. Does that have to do with your upbringing? Is it connected to a hardcore or straight-edge ideology?
Maybe experience seeing things when you’re younger that can lead you in a different way? But, I mean, getting into hardcore, finding out about straight-edge and stuff — I felt a little more comfortable in my own skin, not needing to drink. I like to make sure it’s never from a place of being stubborn, where I’m just like, “I don’t drink because I made up this idea in my head that I’m not going to drink.” I don’t think that’s a good way to be about anything in life.
Turnstile at the Ukrainian Culture Center.
(Eric Thayer / For The Times)
If you were starting the band now, would you still put your website at turnstilehardcore.com?
Probably. At the time, turnstile.com was taken. I feel like that was such a cool time, where every band’s MySpace or Twitter, it was the band’s name plus “HC.” That was such a time stamp. But yeah — hardcore music is what we all grew up in. It was like the funnel for us to find ourselves through a music scene and a culture and a community.
What feels outside the window of possibility for Turnstile? “We’ll never write a country song,” or “We’ll never play a cruise.”
We’ve done so many things that were outside our comfort zone. We did some arena shows, and that was such a cool learning experience — how to connect to someone who’s 100 yards away, sitting down in a chair, versus a kid that’s onstage with you. That show in L.A. the other night was like the ideal for us, where the stage is low and it’s this intimate room. But then I had so many close friends who couldn’t get in.
You could see the show as Turnstile keeping it real or as Turnstile indulging itself.
In a way, it made us inaccessible.
I look forward to the Turnstile Cruise in 2028.
It’s been offered. It’s never made sense. My first question is: What does the show feel like? Is it more about people going on a boat just to day-drink and throw up while we’re playing? Or can you figure out a way to make it an actual thing? I don’t know — it’s not off the table. But I’ve never been on a cruise in my life.
You’ve accurately sussed the vibe.
I’ve seen the pictures.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
