To see Turnstile live is to enter the eye of their openness. At the Baltimore post-hardcore band’s two sold-out New York shows last week, this was maybe never truer than during the sub-two-minute blast of “T.L.C. (Turnstile Love Connection),” from their just-released third album, Glow On. Turnstile’s P.M.A.-like acronym becomes an earnest, pit-stoking plea for “a little T.L.C.!” before throwing down total gratitude, in a cool interpolation of Sly and the Family Stone: “I want to thank you for letting me see myself! I want to thank you for letting me be myself!” Shouting these words in a sea of fans, you become the reflection; what you hear from the stage and see in the crowd align and amplify. It’s another way of voicing the spark and empowerment of hardcore—and a much-welcomed jolt of playfulness in a typically super-serious realm of music. In their eclectic sound, inclusive shows, and self-directed Turnstile Love Connection film, the world of Turnstile feels like a testament to how the blustery charge of hardcore can dovetail into a forcefield of wonder.
Glow On also ties in bits of R&B, rap, house, indie rock, samba, even new age—genre-agnostic kindred spirit Dev Hynes features on several interstellar tracks, including the misfit ballad “Alien Love Call”—while still sounding distinctly Turnstile, blending the floor-punching riffs of classic East Coast hardcore with the accessible hooks of their ’90s alt-rock youths. (It was recorded with Mike Elizondo, the producer of Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine, among other classics.) They push the “post” in post-hardcore while holding onto the breakdowns. At a Lower East Side merch pop-up between NYC shows last week, where pink-haired fans waited in line for limited-edition vinyl and skate decks, frontman Brendan Yates donned a T-shirt for Zack de la Rocha’s pre-Rage hardcore band, Inside Out.
In a phone interview the week before Glow On’s release, Yates was mentally preparing for the first Turnstile show since March 2020: a free, self-organized gig at an underutilized bandshell near his home in Baltimore, where they raised donations for local charity Health Care for the Homeless. Speaking with measured calm, he said Turnstile treat every album like it could be their last. “It’s about not being scared to try what’s in your imagination,” he explained. “I like to make sure a layer of discomfort exists, which is part of the challenge of opening up and making something that is meaningful to you. Rather than pushing aside those things you maybe feel slightly insecure about, we want to let those things come in and be a part of the process.”
During Glow On’s recording, that sense of adventurousness was inspired by film and friendship as much as other music. But discussing the Sly Stone reference on “T.L.C.,” Yates called it “an appreciation for those close or far that inspire you, for someone bringing out the best in you—bringing out the real you.” Maybe Turnstile will do that, too. When the microphone faltered for the first moments of “Mystery” at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere, the audience picked it up. And as Yates belted out “Alien Love Call,” he flipped the mic, letting the crowd call it back: “Can’t be the only one.” Not a person there was.
Below, Yates delves into the influences behind Turnstile’s latest.
Brendan Yates: Growing up in the DMV, go-go music is something we’ve always been exposed to. I didn’t realize until later in life that it wasn’t something a lot of people outside the general area know about. Because here, it’s on the radio. It’s even at school dances. You go to homecoming and there’s always a 30-minute section of pure go-go.
If there’s something we like to nerd out about, it’s rhythm and percussion. A lot of times drums and the beat are at the forefront of our priorities for where a song is going, and the foundation for a song. I think inspiration from go-go music ends up worked into a lot of our songs. With “Mystery” or “Blackout,” for example, the rhythms and grooves are rooted in a lot of inspiring music from the DMV area. Go-go music is also very focused on call-and-response and involvement in a live environment, and that has always been the primary focus for our band—a live show, playing music with other people in a room and sharing that.
I’ve known Riley for a really long time. I started touring in different bands pretty much right out of high school, and through that process you make connections with people who are also floating around a little bit, some who you just click with. Riley was one of those people. Power Trip were one of those bands who we were so regularly coming in contact with—whether we’re in Texas or they’re in Baltimore, or we’re doing tours together, over in Europe together. Riley has always been a huge inspiration to us, as a musician but also as a friend, and definitely played a role in inspiring us throughout this record. His passing was devastating to the world of music that we exist in, but also the world in general.
Power Trip were constantly building a world of their own, and Riley was building it to his vision—which was something that was very strong and fierce, but also very inclusive and welcoming. He looked out for people. I think he had an infinite amount of support and love for his peers that just felt very genuine. That’s something I feel is always to be extremely cherished.
Pop Pop’s my grandpa. He was a really good jazz pianist, and a few years ago when he was moving out of the house that my mother grew up in, he gifted me the piano that he had there forever. I would always play it when I was a kid. I’m not good at piano—I’ve never taken lessons or anything—but it’s fun to have in arm’s reach at all times. I’m always drawn to hop on and mess around and figure out chords and little things. It’s an old brown upright Huntington piano and it’s definitely out of tune, some keys missing, but it’s basically what opened up me messing with keys.
That ended up being a starting point for some of the songs, like “Fly Again” and “No Surprise”—little chords on the piano with just a little melody sung over it. Not even intending them to be Turnstile songs per se, just little ideas. “Mystery” was just a few chords, sung really quietly—this small one-verse one-chorus interlude kind of thing. Once I brought it to the band, and we gave it a shot with drums and full guitars and fully singing, it felt exciting to play from that beginning.
What is your grandfather’s history as a jazz pianist?
He played different jazz clubs when he was younger—not professionally or anything. He was always really good and he still is. He lives in an assisted living facility now, and there’s a piano there. No one ever plays it except for him. It’s right next to the dining hall, so if I go over there, we get food and he hops on and plays beautiful jazz piano.
We recorded in Tennessee in the middle of a farm. The studio was a barn and we lived in a little house in the front yard. The view from behind the studio was just a field as far as you can see, filled with alpacas and this little barn the alpacas chilled at. We spent so much time sitting in the hammock just looking at the alpacas gently grazing in the grass, alongside the sunsets or the foggy mist that would come in every morning. When you’re in the studio all day, you’re constantly making decisions, and it’s exciting, but it’s a lot of constant engagement at every single second of the day. To walk out the door to a field and see these alpacas standing still for an hour straight, and then they walk two steps, and they stop there, and then they stay there for another hour—it felt so peaceful. The alpaca-at-sunset scenario was 10 out of 10.
When we were recording, there was a TV screen over the mixing board, and through the entire process we constantly had a movie playing on silent with subtitles. We made it through hundreds of different things. Jet Li’s Fearless was one of them. In particular, the ending scene, which I bet you could Google and see: Jet Li is alone on this hillside at night, the stars in the sky are so big and bright. He turns around and sees his lover approach who he hasn’t seen in so long. And they just lock eyes. It’s a beautiful moment.
I think a lot of times a visual can help expand an emotional connection with a song. With that ending scene of Fearless, there was a moment where, with the music playing, seeing that on the screen, it’s still so vividly ingrained in my head. I think about it all the time. I remember being like, “Man, can we throw that on again?”
There were so many Bruce Lee and Jet Li movies we had flowing throughout the process, which was fun too for the heavier songs—parts where there’s an insane fight scene and we’re getting amped up. It was cool the amount of times that whatever we were working on would so perfectly link up with whatever the visual was—like where they’re out in space in 2001: A Space Odyssey and there’s some little guitar part that felt like it was perfectly aligned.
Sometimes you hear a song in a certain moment, and then every time you hear it after, you’re brought back to that time and place. I feel that way about Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams and the process of making the record. This was one that we watched as a band and were kind of blown away by visually. The film is a series of shorts of recurring dreams he had since he was a kid, and the colors and compositions were dreamlike, too. The exciting thing about having it on while recording was that it has this beautiful blend of reality and magic, which comes with dreams in general. Making music is taking your reality and putting it into something that’s bigger than you, something that isn’t tangible.
[Drummer] Daniel [Fang] mentioned that he was watching one scene, involving the ghosts of these soldiers, while we were doing “Alien Love Call” in the studio, and the combination of that heavy visual and the dialogue created a very emotional response for him. He was like, “Man, I had to step away for a second. I started crying.” When you have those accidental pairings of a visual and something you’re playing, or just a time and a place… we saw Dreams with the song and it just felt different.
At the studio, there was table tennis in the garage. Everyone gravitated towards it, but Franz and Brady were just on that thing like so regularly. At any moment, you’d step outside the house and just hear the c- c- c- —the sounds of them playing away. At 3 in the morning you’d still hear them out there, dripping sweat, doing a tournament. I beat Brady one time, and I found out after that he was playing with his left hand, so he was just being nice. But I’m still proud of that because he’s really good. When you’re making a record, you’re constantly engaged, so that was something to do to clear your head, and come back ready to be engaged again in making the songs.
It’s not watermelon or coffee, it’s very much about the combo. That was my breakfast throughout the recording process, which I didn’t think was that unusual. I was like: This is nice, watermelon is probably my favorite fruit and I love coffee, the ritual of it. It’s nice to collect your thoughts in the morning with a little cup. Good way to get hydrated, a little sweetness. Sometimes I would even do the yellow watermelon, just to switch it up. There’s nothing different about it other than the color, but it looks cool.
I sent it to a group chat and everyone gave me heat for it. They were like, “ew that’s disgusting,” as if it’s some crazy combination. So I just wanted to shout out that that combo was an inspiration as far as fueling the studio sessions every morning. I would say don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Nothing’s for everyone, but it’s always worth a shot. I thought it was really refreshing.
My friend gave me this book a couple years ago. It’s by this Jesuit priest, a collection of his last meditations before he died. My brain moves fast a lot of times, faster than I wish it did, in terms of being able to maintain focus on things. But it’s cool because every chapter is basically a short meditation or little reflective thought—on empathy and understanding yourself, the idea of love and restructuring that. Bigger picture things are made to be simple thoughts.
Especially over the last couple years of being at home, aimless bike rides around the city have been a great pastime—to go out with no destination, put headphones on, and just cruise in any direction. You’re kind of floating around. When I was in my bedroom working on ideas, if I was stuck on something, a bike ride was a way to free my mind. It was like a therapeutic process, to work out ideas, make decisions, turn the imagination on a little, and to think about big-picture things aside from music as well. I’d probably be on a bike ride right now if I didn’t know that the wind would be so insane in my headphones.
Baltimore in general is an influence, too. Growing up here, it’s a smaller city, but there are so many cool and interesting creative people and they tend to overlap, whether it’s mixed bills at shows or events happening in spaces with people from different communities—but really it’s all one community, because you’re all from Baltimore, with that unifying thread. That perspective came a little bit later in life, realizing that not everywhere is like that. Being from Baltimore and the DMV has always subconsciously worked its way into how we look at making music—the support and openness to sharing collective space with people around you.
