STUART TURNER

Stuart Turner

Stuart Turner just won’t shut up.

That is no bad thing of course. More of an observation. In the space of a quarter of an hour he holds forth on all manner of subjects from badgers to not murdering ex-girlfriends. It’s all linked together with musical anecdotes, of course, but his enthusiasm for anything and everything seems to be untamed.

Back in the confines of my home I will later find tweets from @stfes where Stuart will add to and clarify bits of information he hadn’t quite been able to cram into what was ultimately a fascinating and compelling monologue.

Stuart Turner has just finished hauling the last few guitars, amps and other musical paraphernalia from the stage outside the Command House, Chatham to that hostelry’s basement for temporary storage. It’s day three of Medway’s Love Music Hate Racism Festival. Turner has just performed a blinding set of rock-skiffle-blues with his band, the fantastically named Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society.

The band emerged, Turner explains, from when he worked as a solo artist. Gradually other musicians asked if they could join in and the band was born. “I just had to hope they were any good,” he jokes.

Turner’s been reading RockKent’s coverage of the Keynestock Festival, held at the University of Kent, Canterbury. It’s brought back happy memories for him. “I came runner up at Keynestock in 1995 and then won it in 1996,” he reminisces. “It was at a time when nowhere on campus had a live licence. Dance music had taken over everywhere so all the bands in the university were fighting to perform at the same two gigs.”

Times, it seems, have changed.

The jokey name “Stuart Turner and the Flat Earth Society” represents something of Turner’s almost Luddite tendency: a rebellion from the direction much of today’s music is going in with “everything sounding horribly 80s right through to Lady Gaga. It’s kind of a way of saying ‘if this is the future we don’t want to be a part of it.’”

The Flat Earth society is also, Turner notes, “the name of a 15 piece jazz band from Belgium. But they don’t have a Stuart Turner. And if you take a look at the actual flat earth societies around the place…they’re just weird.”

Conversation moves on to the band’s music – and most specifically Turner’s defining growling vocal. “I used to sing ‘normally’,” he explains. “But a few years ago I had throat cancer and after having bits of my throat removed my singing had to change. You get used to it – and it helps that I’ve always loved the blues which my voice is now well suited to.

“But I remember once when I was performing – I was still on stage, playing and everything. And this woman came up to me and said ‘I like what you’re doing, but have you ever considered singing more – melodically,’” Turner laughs. “She might has well have said ‘I like what you’re doing, but could you please stop!’”

He runs through some of blues artists who have inspired him: “Blind Willie Johnson, Howling Wolf. I missed the 80s and 90s because I was too busy concentrating on my parents’ records from the 30s. So I had a lot of catching up to do.”

It looks like this rebellion against the modern has been going on for quite a while then.

Turner was performing at the festival to lend his support to the Love Music Hate Racism cause. His song “Essex” with which he closed the set suited the mood perfectly. “I had a friend in Essex who ran for some council elections a couple of years back. She didn’t win, but the BNP came eight votes away from getting a seat,” the front man explained by way of introduction to the song on stage.

His other songs are, more generally, about his own personal experiences – most specifically those of the romantic kind. “I tend to take something that’s autobiographical and then change it slightly to have universal appeal. That’s how “Murder on Gaslight Street” came about [a song which appears on Medway Eyes’ astonishingly eclectic compilation double album of the area’s finest bands and artists].

“It went from having overt references to a break up with my ex to turning into a murder ballad.” He hastens to add that no killings actually took place when that particular relationship ended.

In addition to supporting a worthy, anti-racist cause, Turner’s using the opportunity of today’s gig to promote his EP “Weekend Heart” which is officially released today on vinyl and by download.

It has a badger on the front cover.

“I was very specific about having a badger on the cover,” he says. “It’s a reminder of home. I was brought up in Dorset less than 10 miles away from Ray Hunt [the band’s bass player]. There were loads of badgers around the place back there, so I wanted one on the EP definitely.”

Soon Turner is returning to things more Kentish, running through name after name of bands and musicians that have taken his fancy of late. “I studied in Canterbury in the 90s and ended up in Medway by mistake,” he explains. “There’s a big folk scene in Canterbury and you’ve got acts like Jo Hook there who I like a lot.”

“But here in Medway you’ve got millions of bands all playing – with nowhere particularly glamorous to go. I really like Theatre Royal – and not just because Robbie Wilkinson [guitars and mandolin] from my band is with them.”

He runs through a list of other musical recommendations from Medway and slightly further a field: “Lupen Crook, upcdowncleftcrightcabc+start, The Ambience, The Singing Loins. Then there’s bands that have passed through Medway a lot like 2 Wounded Birds. And Hobo Jones and the Junk Yard Dogs. They’re a great comedy skiffle band who under-rate themselves. Part music; part cabaret.”

And with that fast paced wander round the joyously anarchic world of Stuart Turner, his Flat Earth Society, a badger fixation and a love of comedy skiffle, it’s time to leave. With no rock ‘n’ roll accessory like a roadie to speak of, there’s a pile of equipment to be lugged from the basement in which we stand to assorted cars parked nearby.

Who said the music scene in Medway wasn’t glamorous? Actually, I think that might have been one Stuart Turner.