The Collapse Board Interview: Mick Turner
Back in 2010, Mess+Noise interviewed Mick Turner as part of its ‘Icons’ series of interviews with significant Australian musicians. Since receiving that accolade, Turner hasn’t rested on his laurels and continued to balance his work with Dirty Three with a solo career, his work as an artist, and a number of new music projects.
The 2020s have been a particularly productive phase for Turner, making three albums with Brisbane-based musician Helen Franzmann (Mckisko) under the Mess Esque moniker, playing with Adalita Srsen (Magic Dirt), Mick Harvey (The Birthday Party, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey), and Marty Brown (Art of Fighting) as part of Bleak Squad, and his latest project, Fancy Weapon, which features Joel Silbersher (GOD, Hoss, Tendrils), Claire Birchall (Smoked Salmon, Paper Planes) and Guy Maddison (Mudhoney, Lubricated Goat, Bloodloss).
We talked to Turner about starting Fancy Weapon, the drivers for his recent productivity, how he approaches working on new music projects, maintaining creativity, balancing making music with making art, and Dirty Three currently hitting their peak.
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I read you’re influenced by records your older siblings had in the house. Was there anything in particular that inspired you into wanting to pick the guitar up?
Yeah, I think probably all of it. A lot of 60s stuff, garage stuff and mainstream. I just always liked music a lot. And then when I was 15, I was kind of getting bored of all my hobbies and collecting cards or stamps and shit, just whatever, playing football, you know, and I just thought I should learn the guitar.
Did you have particular guitar heroes then?
There’s people I really like, Neil Young, definitely. I’m a fan of a lot of the guitar you hear on those kind of 60s garage rock records, early Kinks and stuff. I love all that stuff. Like back then, that influenced me a lot, I guess. And then punk rock, you know, and all the new music that came out in the late ‘70s was a big influence and kind of gave people permission to do anything really, you’re allowed to make any sort of music you liked. I guess it kind of allowed music to be more of an art form, I think, in a way that reached out to a lot of people I knew who I ended up meeting.
Because before music came around, what did you want to, I guess, be growing up? Did you have any plans for what you were going to do?
I wanted to be a scientist.
Oh, really?
Probably. I did at one point. But no, I think I can’t remember not wanting to be a musician, even though I didn’t pick up guitar until I was like 14, 15. I don’t think I thought about it. And then once I had started playing music, there was just no question about following some sort of career, even though I didn’t really see music as being a career. But it was just all I wanted to do.
You went to university, though?
I did go to university and I dropped out after two years. I realised I wasn’t interested at all in what I was doing.
What were you studying?
It was just like an arts degree. Studying biology, psychology, humanities, sciences.
I was reading an interview that you did for Mess Esque, where you were talking about your weaknesses and you said, “I have never been technically great, I don’t have a musical ear to accurately discern melody, I can’t sing in tune and I can’t whistle. I can work out a guitar line of someone else’s but it takes me time and I don’t find it easy.” Those would generally be seen as quite key musical attributes, especially when playing with other people, so what kept you going to think you could have a career in music?
I think it just happened. I just loved playing guitar. I played in a high school band, we used to play covers. I think my first gig was probably when I was 15, but by the time school had ended, a lot of punk rock stuff was coming out, and I started meeting people who were interested in that sort of music, and hanging out with them, and then just joining a band, and then just opportunities came. We would play music and then we’d write songs and then people would say, “Oh, come and play.” And so my career kind of just happened like that. I wasn’t like actively pursuing it as such.
I just loved playing music and hanging out with them. The Melbourne music scene was a beautiful thing, you know, like it was it was a home for misfits and there are all sorts of people there playing all sorts of different types of genre and anything that wasn’t mainstream, we’d all be in, playing in these small pubs and venues. It was a real community and it felt like there was a lot of respect between people. It was a home for people who didn’t fit in anywhere else. I think music’s really great like that. It gives someone an alternate kind of life from maybe what’s expected of people.
We’re here to talk about Fancy Weapon, the new band you’re in with Claire Birchall, Joel Silbersher and Guy Maddison. How did the band come about?
Fancy Weapon came about initially from me and Joel Silbersher. I’ve known Joel for years and we’d always talked about starting a project. We’d actually even written songs for various kind of ideas of bands that that had never got past the drawing board, really. But we had a few songs written for this, what became Fancy Weapon and we’d done demos of them. Guy Maddison, was an old friend of mine. He used to live in Sydney when I met him originally in the ‘80s and he ended up going to America and living in Seattle for a long time and he ended up joining Mudhoney. Then he came back to Australia and moved to Melbourne for the first time. I love his bass playing and I invited him to join me and Joel in this project we were working on. I gave him the demos and then we just needed a drummer. So Joel knew Claire Birchall, and there we were. It worked straight away.
How do you approach doing something new? Do you approach it with an expectation that it’s going to work from the start or does everyone just keep it very casual initially? And if things don’t work out, everyone just walks away?
A good thing about Guy, he’s very motivated. He likes to get things working and moving. A problem often with bands is you get together and you really need people to make things happen. So Guy was keen, and in a way, that was part of the reason that I invited him, too, because I knew that he would help get things moving along, because me an d Joel hadn’t managed to. We’d had those demos for like three or four years and nothing had happened. I wanted us to play gigs and I wanted us to make an album and be a thing, so I did have some expectations, but how well and how quickly that happened was really up to chance and how well it worked. We worked well together.
Was there a specific point where you knew it would work out?
I think straight away it felt good. The demos we started were the first songs we tried. And we’re all like seasoned musicians, we kind of know what we’re doing and we know how to get things done, we know how to play with other people. And so it wasn’t that hard. It seemed to just fall in place quite naturally. I think our personalities matched enough that it was easy, actually.
When you and Joel started writing the songs, were there musical references that you were looking to sound like? You mentioned the 60s garage and psychedelia before and that was the vibe I got from listening to the album.
Yeah, absolutely, and bringing Guy and Claire in, they’re both fans of the synthesizer and that sort of music a lot and I was really keen to kind of incorporate that into the whole psychedelia, and also song-based. I did want something different to the other things I do. I’ve got quite a few projects on the go and I don’t want projects to be too similar. And then I really like that sort of music. It’s so much fun.
The last five or six years have been really busy for you in terms of doing new stuff and then also fitting in a Dirty Three album and tour. Was there anything that drove this productivity?
It might be that my kids are now old enough to look after themselves, almost all of them. I’ve got three kids and the youngest is going to turn 18 at the end of the year, and so he’s just doing his last year at school, and with the others, one’s left home. Parenting is a lot of obligations and it takes up a lot of your energy and time. And it’s great but I think my social life suffered a bit during all that and so I’ve kind of come out the end and I’ve just got a lot of free time and might as well just do what I need to do.
A lot of these projects, they started quite a few years ago. Like with Fancy Weapon, we did those demos probably like six years ago. With Bleak Squad, that was started just before COVID and during COVID it pretty much froze, so that took like four years. Maybe it’s because of COVID that they’ve all kind of come to the fore right now.
I was going to ask you about the impact COVID had on you, because Mess Esque also started during that time. Obviously, Melbourne had it pretty bad in terms of lockdowns. Was it a time where there was a lot of talking about doing things because you couldn’t do anything and then afterwards was it like “Oh, we talked about doing all these things, we probably should actually do them”?
Well, live shows had stopped pretty much completely but I’ve got a little music studio and I was allowed to go there. So it was a very prolific time for me actually, because I was just spending all day recording. For a lot of the time, me and my partner would go halves in taking the day to work while the other would stay with the kids at home. My studio isn’t in my house but I was allowed to go there even with the lockdown rules, so I actually did a lot of work and it was a very prolific time. Maybe that’s another reason why this has all happened, because I had so much material to work with.
Is that typical for you, do you normally have a lot of ideas? Being involved with so many projects at the moment, do you ever worry you’re going to run out of ideas?
I recommend to any artist to get their own studio because it does allow for a lot of creativity. It’s great to have a space that is set-up. You set up your workspace and then after you leave, when you come back, it’s all ready to go, so you save a lot of time, like having to pack things down and set them up again and it helps with the creative flow, I think. I’ve always been like this. I’ve always had recording devices and made recordings. There’s so much stuff that never sees the light of day to the public, so I’m constantly working on things. I just love doing it. And most of it comes from just improvising.
You’ve known most of the people you’ve worked with recently for a while. Do you feel under any pressure when you start a new project with people that you know socially but not necessarily have made music with before?
Well, something like Bleak Squad, where I’ve known Mick Harvey for a long, long time, he’s guested with Dirty Three at times, but I’ve never really played in a project with him, there’s a mutual respect there. Each person in a project has got their own job, like the bass player’s there to play bass and the drummer’s there to make up the drums, so everyone kind of leaves everyone else and trusts in them to bring their own art to the project. That is the great thing about collaborating with people, the different approaches and the different ideas that come in. All the groups I’m in, there’s a lot of respect between the people. I don’t think a group can last that long if you don’t respect the other players.
When you start working with new people, does band politics and democracy in decisions ever become a problem?
Well, some groups have a main member who will probably write most of the songs and direct people. But is there a group like that I’m in? I don’t think there is. Most of my groups aren’t like that. Most of them are democracies, which have their own problems too, which means everything like the cover art has to be passed by everybody, which can slow things down. But I think it’s fine, usually you work it out. Dirty Three’s kind of operated that we each have our own kind of areas of the work that we deal with. Like Warren will deal with – apart from just playing the music – Warren will deal with most of the public relations and doing interviews and I deal mostly with – apart from playing guitar – I deal with the artwork and the production of merchandise and the management of all those sort of things. There’s quite a lot of work involved, apart from just playing the music in a band.
With Bleak Squad and Fantasy Weapon, you’re, in bands where you’re not the only guitarist. Have you had to adjust to that change?
No. No, it’s good playing with other players. Me and Adelita play quite differently, and we have different sounds. I think it works well. And same with me and Joel Silbersher, we’re actually getting this almost tag team soloing going and things, which is so much fun.
Is the soloing of the Fancy Weapon songs you or Joel or both of you?
We both do it. Like I’ll do a couple of lines and then he’ll do the same. We kind of ham it up a bit sometimes! But Fancy Weapon has a lot of humour about it, and the music’s really good too, I think.
The projects you’ve done recently have been collaborations and it’s been a while since your last solo album, Don’t Tell The Driver, which came out in 2013. Did you miss the camaraderie of working in a group with other people?
I’m really glad I did that record. It was a lot of work. The record has got horn players and strings and stuff, and when I played it live, I did it live with a big band, so I had maybe eight people on stage, playing all sorts of things. But I found that I ended up having to be the music manager, there was so much just coordinating people, I guess almost like conducting or something, so it didn’t leave any room for me actually playing myself. It really affected my whole experience of playing and the music too, I think, a bit. So that didn’t really work.
But I was going to make another record, and that’s how Mess Esque started, because I was looking for a singer, because I wanted to work with vocals on the next record – I did a bit on Don’t Tell Driver, there’s some vocals – and that’s how I met Helen Franzmann. It became more of a collaboration, so we made it a project. All my solo stuff got put on the side, but I do get asked to do solo things every now and then.
More recently, last year, I got asked to do the Polly Harvey support of her Australian tour, Even though I’d kind of put my solo stuff to bed, it was too much of a great opportunity to pass up, and so I pretty much wrote all new stuff to play on that tour. So I think I will make another solo record, because I’ve got all this material that I quite like.
Have the last few years of collaborating with people made you miss being a solo artist and having complete control?
I don’t miss it a whole lot, because I find loop pedals hard to manage, and often in a show they’ll go awry, you know. You’ll make a bad loop, and it’s hard to back pedal. Whereas when you’re playing live with actual people and you go out a bit, it’s easy to fall back in, and it actually adds to the whole feeling, and the music breathes much more. Loop pedal, you’re really constricted with it, you know, it’s the same loop over and over and over, so it’s got the same tempo and the same feel. Of course, you can change loops, but you don’t. It’s just much better playing with real people, because the music can breathe, I think. I like a lot of music that’s made by people using loops, and it’s just a different thing, I guess.
You mentioned Mess Esque, is that something you’re planning on returning to?
It’s still going. We’re working on a record right now, as I speak.
With everything else you’ve got on at the moment, how do you find the time?
It’s not easy, but I do, you know. I do find the time.
You’re touring with Bleak Squad in July and August, and playing some shows up in Queensland. You’re playing some album shows with Fancy Weapons in Melbourne, are there plans to do more shows around the country?
Yeah. We just played the other night, and we’ve got some more stuff coming up. I’ve got an art show, too, in September at the Abbotsford Convent, which I need to start working on.
With all the music going on, have you had to put your art on the back burner, or is it something you still find time or make time to work on?
Yeah, you do, because, I think any of these projects, you need a bit of a clear run. It’s not like I can do three or four things in one day, although I have done that. But especially with painting, I think you really need a clear run, because usually there’s a pattern. I find that you start working on some paintings, you have ideas, and then you start working on the paintings, and the first kind of period, maybe the first five, six paintings, they’re not very good. You’ve got to find that spot, there’s a sweet spot, I think you hit for things that you like yourself, because you’ve got to like it yourself if you want to show it. It takes me a while to get into the groove, especially if I haven’t done it for a while., to get the inspiration and the ideas really, really flowing to a place where you’re enjoying it and you think your work is worthwhile.
Do you paint your landscapes on location or are they worked on in the studio, from photos or memories or imagination?
No, most of my landscapes are done plein air, so I’ll go out and paint them. I might work on them in the studio a bit later, not often, but not always. I’ve got a place I go down at Phillip Island, down here. It’s like two hours south of Melbourne, southeast, and it’s a place I go and it’s right on the ocean there, and it’s called Surf Beach, Phillip Island, and I’ve done a whole series of the path from the house to the beach and then the ocean there. I’ve done like 100 paintings or something, but they’re all a bit different. Once I painted it, I did a view looking east along the coast with the beach there, and then I was reading Moby Dick, and I ended up putting a whale in it, but 12 months later, a whale washed up in exactly that spot. How’s that? Weird. It was kind of sad, but it’s an amazing thing seeing a whale washed up. They’re very big.
The Bleak Squad album cover, it’s just a photo of you, so presumably you weren’t involved in the artwork for that?
Yeah, no, the Bleak Squad people, they had strong ideas for that record, strong ideas about what they wanted, and we all went with it.
And is the Fancy Weapon cover something you’ve created?
No, Claire Birchall did that. I made a film clip, the ‘Squirmin’ Merman’ film clip, which you can see somewhere on YouTube probably and Claire made the ‘Squid’ film clip, and there’s going to be another one coming out that Guy made for ‘27 minutes’.
Given you’re often heavily involved in the album artwork, was it difficult to have given up the opportunity this time?
No, I mean, I don’t want every band I play in to have my art on the thing. With the Mess Esque covers, the second record did, but the next record was someone else’s art. Dirty Three always has my art, and my solo stuff does too.
It was a bit of a surprise when the last Dirty Three album and tour happened. Is it just a case of when the stars align as to whether there’ll be more Dirty Three in the future?
Yeah, very much. Both Jim and Warren are very busy with other things, they have numerous projects, as you know, I’m sure. I guess a lot of it’s Warren’s availability has opened up recently more, so we did Australia in 2024, and then we did Europe last year, late last year, and then we’ve just done a tour in America. And we’ve got more shows in Europe at the end of this year, in November, a couple of festivals and then a few headlining shows. We’re actually like we’re hitting our peak as far as audience goes. Our audience is like the biggest it’s ever been. It’s crazy. And we’re what, 30 something years into our career. It’s great. It’s nice to play to a lot of people.
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Fancy Weapon’s eponymous album is out now.
Fancy Weapon are launching the album with a show on Saturday July 4 at the Tote in Melbourne. Tickets.
