Franz from Turnstile is the coolest bass player right now

As decreed by Charli xcx at Coachella: Turnstile Summer is upon us.

Since dropping their third album Glow On in 2021, Baltimore’s hardcore heroes have bagged three Grammy nominations and toured the world multiple times, establishing British guitarist Meg Mills as a full-time member along the way. Now, they’ve finally dropped Glow On​’s follow-up, Never Enough. And in the words of Turnstile’s much-loved bass player ​“Freaky” Franz Lyons, ​“that shit is so tight”.

Fusing punk with ethereal soundscapes, power metal, new age jazz flute and, um, ska horns, Never Enough finds the band going stratospheric in terms of both ambition and sonic scope. And we’re here for it.

As Franz was packing his bags in Baltimore for the globe-trotting Never Enough tour, which includes much-hyped festival slots like Primavera Sound, Glastonbury and Outbreak, we called him up to get the lowdown on Never Enough​’s feature film, taking bass lessons from Fugazi’s Joe Lally and becoming the new campaign star for Guess Jeans.

First things first: Never Enough just dropped. What makes you excited about it?

It’s called Never Enough, and that’s just it, bro. I can’t get enough.

Since starting as a little hardcore band and getting up to whatever atmosphere we exist in now, we’ve learnt how to speak our minds and communicate our feelings to each other and just create in this very vulnerable way. This newest collection of songs and visuals is probably our most adventurous and fun-filled ever. There’s so much exploration in this record if you give it a chance. It’s so dope, it’s unexplainable.

One of the stand-out tracks, Seein’ Stars, features both Dev Hynes and Paramore’s Hayley Williams on backing vox. What makes each of those artists special?

Dev is really close with Brendan [Yates, vocals], and it’s an experience to watch him, like, rip up the cello. But it’s a radically different experience to watch Hayley pull up to the crib on a whim. Like, she just came over and got on a song. When you see a real professional sing in the first person — through Grade A recording equipment, with just the cans on your ears — that shit is different. She’s so good at singing. And she just free-styled!

There was mad stuff that we didn’t even use because it’s like, how do you figure it out when she’s just cut six minutes of fire? That’s a hard decision!

I heard you were looking to improve your bass game on this record. Tell me about working with Joe Lally from Fugazi?

When I get to the studio, I’m watching how much Pat [McCrory, guitar], Dan [Fang, drums] and Brendan practice and focus on what they’re doing. And it just made me wanna learn a bit more. You’ve got to be the greatest team member you can be, right?

One day, a friend put me in touch with [Joe], and bro just wound up being so cool. Dude, he’s a legend. I mean, you can really see why bro is the man. I took a handful of classes with him, and I’m just there on Zoom trying not to trip. He’s probably my favourite teacher ever. He just had a really cool and interesting way of explaining what was going on on the fretboard and note relation.

He gave me some homework that I still sit with over and over — working on, like, the fingering on the fretboard. That helped me work out what I could bring to the table for Never Enough. Just being able to look at the bass a little bit differently than the two guitar players — that’s definitely all thanks to bro.

There’s a full movie coming out in conjunction with the album. Turnstile: Never Enough made its world premiere as an official selection at New York’s Tribeca Festival last week before hitting theatres worldwide. Pretty big deal, right?

I’m really excited. Ever since Brendan was developing songs at the very beginning, we just felt like we wanted to curate a vibe. It works separately [as an audio release and as a feature film], but it’s just such a vibe all together. I’m really, really proud of the presentation, the authenticity, and the creativity put into it.

Brendan’s been doing many awesome visual things already, like [directing] the Paramore [This Is Why and Thick Skull] videos. And it’s Pat’s directorial debut. But dude, watching their vision come to life, and watching everyone around us all hands on deck to realise the visual path to the audio message… I’m just like: how can I make it look like you guys want it to look?

Speaking of which, you’re now a Guess Jeans campaign star. How did that come about?

I mean, I rock Guess Jeans when I can, but they just peeped at what we were doing and were like: ​“I fuck with how you guys are rocking”. So they hooked me up with the live look on stage in the film.

They’re an institution. Since you’re a kid, you know the triangle [logo]. And now they just have a super elite leather section and a good denim section. They’ve been photographing a lot of interesting people in a space where normally there’d be a supermodel — so it’s, like, me and [American R&B singer] Brent Faiyaz. That’s a crazy wave! He had his shades on and his beard, and I’m like ​‘dang, he looks so cool.’ It turned out awesome.

Who were your style icons growing up?
All I know is you just needed [Nike Air] Jordans. That was it. My first pair were Concord 11s, classic black and white, with the patent leather around it. The next one may have been the 4^th or 5^th grade, Cherry 12s. I just rock in Jordans, bro. That’s all I do: get some original Jordans, 1 through 11, and rock out.

Speaking of touring, your recent homecoming shows at Baltimore’s Wyman Park Dell in May looked insane. I read that over 10,000 people came, and that you raised around $50,000 for Healthcare for the Homeless. How was it?

Yeah bro, I can’t believe it. I mean, any time you get to play and it’s like that, with everybody on the stage at the function going crazy… that’s my atmosphere. If I’ve got to try and play the song but I’m, like, grabbing a dude by the shirt cos he’s like about to stage dive, that shit is just real fun.

Everybody from around town was just kicking it. Stage right was every parent that could be there, and stage left was every friend that lived on the street, or went to your neighbourhood bar or grocery store. And then Meg [Mills, guitar] is rocking out, and Pat, too… It was easy.

What’s the wildest show you’ve played?

We were playing Drop or something at a festival in Berlin this one time. I believe this is [2018 album] Time and Space era. And I kept hearing ​‘beep… beep… beep…’, like someone’s guitar cutting in and out. I’m looking around, like, ​‘bro, what’s that noise?’. And it’s off-beat, and it keeps getting louder…

I look to my left, and there’s an ambulance driving through the show. We’re in the middle of a square, there’s like 4000 people there, and the ambulance is going through the middle of it. The people just made a wave right around the ambulance. He cruised right through, it was all G. Luckily it was no-one at our show that was hurt – that’s why it’s a cool story to tell, for me.

You guys have a pretty diverse taste in music. Who’ve you been listening to recently?

Dude, when we were recording [at Rick Rubin’s The Mansion studio] in LA, I went to the Lodge Room in Highland Park one night. And I don’t know how I’d never heard bro before, but I went to this Pachyman concert, and I was like, ​‘this dude is wicked.’

He had this crazy synthesiser area, a couple of acoustic auxiliary instruments, and a CD cross-fader… it was so dope. I started really fucking with him. I got a tee at the show, and then that was it — I started getting the records. It’s an area of music that I don’t frequently explore.

Anything else?

Yes! Everybody listen to Never Enough. Watch it. Tell somebody about it. I swear you’ll find a vibe in it, there’s mad flavours everywhere. Give it a chance. I think it will be cool!