Patience is a virtue, which is a good job as Frank Turner has announced dates which don’t land now until early next year. Playing a string of arenas running through early 2019, the tour is called the “Be More Kind World Tour” and although Frank was famously not very kind about socialists and the left in general, he was on good form at the AMA-UKs earlier in the year so forgiveness is pending. The album represents a thematic and sonic line in the sand for the 36-year-old. “I wanted to try and get out of my comfort zone and do something different,” says Turner.
After the stripped-down, live-sounding previous album ‘Positive Songs’, for the new record he recruited producers Austin Jenkins and Joshua Block, formerly of psychedelic-rock Texans White Denim, and Florence And The Machine and Halsey collaborator Charlie Hugall and the idea of recording a more rock-led album with tints of electronic-pop took shape. ‘Be More Kind’ was made over a period of seven months, giving Turner the opportunity to turn songs on their head, try different versions and shake up the dynamics within his band.
The album title was inspired by a Clive James poem called Leçons Des Ténèbres: “I should have been more kind. It is my fate. To find this out, but find it out too late.” “It devastated me the first time I read it,” he says. “A lot of older, wiser people tend to say things like that, that the things that come out in the wash at the end of a human life are the way you treated the people around you. In the modern world, that’s a lesson that all of us, myself included could do to learn.”
There will be a fan pre-sale for the 2019 dates via the official Frank Turner Store with tickets on general sale on Friday April 27 at 10am from here. To celebrate the tour announcement, Frank is today also launching a special tour edition of Be More Kind, featuring alternative cover art and a fold-out tour poster.
BE MORE KIND 2019 – WORLD TOUR
JANUARY
22nd – Birmingham Arena
25th – Manchester Victoria Warehouse
27th – Leeds, First Direct Arena
29th – Glasgow, 02 Academy
FEBRUARY
1st – Bournemouth Windsor Hall
2nd – Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
3rd – London Alexandra Palace
