NME’s first encounter with Turnstile’s anticipated new album ‘Never Enough’ is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it – it doesn’t come bearing the name of the hardcore band who blasted into the stratosphere in 2021, fuelled by their third album ‘Glow On’ and its Grammy nominations, spots on album of the year lists, and fervent international fandom. Instead, the record comes with an unassuming nod to ‘Big Smile’, the second track of their blistering 2018 album ‘Time & Space’ whose emphatic declaration of autonomy could very well have been a mantra for the creation of their latest album: “Don’t need your big smile / Your green light / Your damn time / I got no room for you inside my mind.”
‘Glow On’ did more than catapult Turnstile into new levels of success by way of the Billboard and UK album charts, the late-night stages of Jimmys Kimmel and Fallon, and support slots for the likes of My Chemical Romance and Blink-182. (Along the way, founding guitarist Brady Ebert departed the band; touring member Meg Mills officially joined Turnstile earlier this year.) The album was a thrilling artistic achievement, its incandescent energy and heartfelt, expansive approach to sound and genre framing Turnstile as change-makers in hardcore – and setting expectations for any new music sky-high. But as Daniel Fang tells it, Turnstile had no room for anyone but themselves as they made ‘Never Enough’.
“In terms of avoiding or engaging with outside expectations, there was absolutely zero,” the drummer tells NME a week before the release of ‘Never Enough’ this Friday (June 6). “Fortunately, we were never steered down a certain road: ‘Because ‘Glow On’ happened to be received this way, we need to recreate this or emulate that’. It all comes from the same place: does it actually resonate with us? Does it scratch the impulse to do something new and creative?
“I don’t know how anyone would have time or the bandwidth to manage outside expectations,” he adds. “I don’t think any of us can even fathom that, because there’s an infinite well within everyone [in the band]… I don’t understand how anyone could be guided by that when there’s so much else to work off of.”
After ‘Glow On’ – which they recorded with Mike Elizondo, a Dr. Dre protégé who’s produced Fiona Apple, Linkin Park, Mastodon, Nelly Furtado and many more – Turnstile decided they would go back to doing it themselves. Frontman Brendan Yates is credited as producer on ‘Never Enough’ (and ‘Time & Space’ producer and scene legend Will Yip contributed additional production), though as guitarist Pat McCrory notes, this isn’t so much a new role for Yates as it is a title he’s always informally held: “No matter who we’ve worked with, he’s always felt really in tune with the full vision of a lot of music that we make.” Fang says Yates has an “architect mind”: “An architect has to be a jack of all trades in order to form a vision for what a building should be, the purpose of the building, how the building exists, the spirit of a building.”
Turnstile got to building ‘Never Enough’ in Los Angeles. The band holed up in the Laurel Canyon studio The Mansion for about two months total in what Fang remembers as a “secluded” but “pretty wholesome experience”. “There was definitely a little bit of a camp vibe,” he recalls, “but more so best friends sleeping over at a house and being able to fixate on one thing and then share family lunches and dinners together every day.”
At The Mansion, Turnstile were able to properly flesh out demos they’d been holding onto for years, some of which they’d been developing or airing on tour, while taking ‘Glow On’ around Europe or opening for Blink-182. It was crucial for Turnstile to lock in together live. “Some things are just determined by how it sounds once you’re in the room playing it as a band, even down to the composition of a song,” the drummer says.
“You realise how things align with how you thought they would in your head – and how sometimes they don’t, and you adjust in the moment. Most of the time it feels pretty natural, and sometimes it requires some digging. That’s the most fun part, when you have to dig – that’s when everyone’s strength comes to the surface.”
“This whole album is definitely the most of an odyssey that we’ve ever had”
Fang reaches for the word ‘composition’ a few times as we discuss the recording process of ‘Never Enough’, which feels appropriate for an album that elaborates on the musical language of ‘Glow On’ by expanding their sonic palette and welcoming new guests to the fold. ‘Look Out For Me’, which at nearly seven minutes is Turnstile’s longest-ever song, features a recording of The Wire actor Maestro Harrell reprising emotional dialogue from the show and, in another nod to the band’s beloved city, slides into Baltimore club in a quietly euphoric outro.
Elsewhere, previous collaborator Dev Hynes aka Blood Orange contributes cello; Paramore’s Hayley Williams pops up on ‘Seein’ Stars’; British jazz titan Shabaka gently closes out ‘Sunshower’ with his mellifluous flute; and hyperpop architect and ‘Brat’ executive producer A.G. Cook buffs and polishes the electronic squeals on ‘Dull’.
The big-tent adventurousness of Turnstile’s music – their willingness to say, finish a furious hardcore track with a minute-long synth sequence – comes naturally to the band, McCrory says. “Elements like that come from a place that is familiar to everybody and are part of what we love about making music. We don’t just love simply writing really heavy guitar riffs.” He reveals his and Fang’s shared enthusiasm for Eurobeat from the ’90s and 2000s, recalling a time when, cooped up in a hotel room, they spent six hours making a beat (and dancing on the beds). “Being able to infuse [into the music] things like super long synths and dreamy parts… that’s very natural.”
At the same time, going through the “adaptive” “give and take” of the recording process with no external producer by their side meant Turnstile were fully responsible for all their creative decisions on ‘Never Enough’. “This whole album is definitely the most of an odyssey that we’ve ever had,” proclaims Fang, “in terms of us finding our own self-confidence in what things should feel like – and adjusting, doubting ourselves… We had to make all those decisions at the end of the day.”
“That’s the most fun part, when you have to dig [for a song] – that’s when everyone’s strength comes to the surface”
Not that Turnstile would have been in need of much outside input when they had three whirlwind years to reflect on and process. “The process of secluding ourselves in a studio and creating something is 100 per cent just diving within ourselves and unpacking thoughts and feelings that are pretty infinite in there, especially when we’re on the road,” Fang says. It’s a cycle that will probably restart again now, he points out: it’ll probably be months down the road that they process the release of ‘Never Enough’ and the premiere of its accompanying visual album, co-directed by Yates and McCrory, at Tribeca Film Festival this week. “That’s the life of touring and doing creative things non-stop, and then publishing them months after their creation. It’s just this weird timeline and weird way to interact with the world and go through life.”
There’ll be more to process yet as Turnstile hit the road this year, playing hardcore and underground festivals – they closed out Tied Down Detroit on Sunday and will headline Outbreak Festival in London next week – but also igniting the mosh at bigger multi-genre fests like Primavera Sound and Glastonbury, and striking out even farther afield. “It’s great to get presented with opportunities to play all types of different shows,” Fang says. “It’s really nice to play a festival in say, Trondheim, Norway, to a bunch of people that have never heard us before, and be able to use the band to have brand-new experiences for all of us.”
As their star continues to rise, Turnstile continue to be fuelled by their hunger for something different. What they’ve done before will never be enough. “Ideally, we never play the same venue twice,” Fang says. “The priority is to keep exploring and having an adventure.”
Turnstile’s ‘Never Enough’ is out June 6 via Roadrunner Records. Find the band’s tour dates here, plus screening details and tickets for the ‘Never Enough’ movie here