In Conversation: Brendan Yates of Turnstile
Two and a half years after the release of Glow On, Brendan Yates reflects on an intense period of change, adaptation, and growth—all while protecting his sensitivity against the harsh glare.
When Glow On came out in the summer of 2021, Turnstile were already one of the more popular hardcore bands of this generation. In the two and a half years since, the band have been presented with more opportunities and accolades that maybe any other band in hardcore history: They’ve played every festival both expected (Coachella, Lollapalooza) and unexpected (Camp Flog Gnaw, Rolling Loud). They’ve performed on both Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. They were even nominated for three Grammy awards in 2023. This is simply not a trajectory anyone could have predicted for a former Reaper Records band featuring the drummer of Trapped Under Ice on vocals. It’s an incredible triumph, by any measure.
Turnstile are very much part of a hardcore legacy of musical shapeshifters like Bad Brains, urban culturalists like Leeway, and PMA street preachers like Supertouch. What they do is not completely unprecedented. But the way Turnstile have managed to translate hardcore idealism and culture to a broader audience is immensely special, and there’s something about singer Brendan Yates’ earnestness that makes it make sense. As the touring cycle for Glow On finally winds down and the band starts work on their next album, it felt like a good time to ask Brendan to sit down for a postmortem of sorts, to reflect on everything that’s happened, and to close the loop where it started—in the hardcore scene.
I’ll start here, because this is kind of funny: I recently read a magazine feature from around the time that Glow On came out, and the opening of the article said, “Most of the time, Brendan Yates isn’t an interview kind of guy. An artist in his heart and soul, the Turnstile frontman finds it inherently unnatural to pick at himself and his oeuvre.” What’s your take on that?
BRENDAN: I think that’s their interpretation of how the interview went [laughs]. I’m probably naturally a little bit uncomfortable talking about myself, and a lot of times, that’s just what interviews are. Sometimes it’s nice to have that moment, and sometimes it’s kind of uncomfortable. I’m not sure which one that was, but I’ve had ones where it’s just very uncomfortable—the ones that aren’t a mutual conversation.
I think I really cringed at “an artist in his heart and soul.”
BRENDAN: That’s their words!
I know! [laughs] I also kind of love the assumption it makes that, as an “interviewer,” I am not uncomfortable. Which is nonsense. I’ve been doing this for literally 30 years, and it’s still uncomfortable to some extent. But I do it, because I feel like that discomfort is a sign of growth. And I really believe that if we do this right, we’ll both walk away with something from it.
BRENDAN: Definitely. I haven’t always done every interview. I look for the ones where it would seem more like a cool connection, or a cool experience, versus a PR opportunity with someone where you end up in that seat where you’re like, “This person interviewing me probably has no care to be talking to me right now, and I almost feel awkward even talking about myself to someone who maybe doesn’t actually want to know my response.” The ones where you can have a genuine connection and a genuine conversation—that feels like a natural thing.
So let’s go from there. Can you think of an experience from the last two and a half years since Glow On came out where you consciously forced yourself to be uncomfortable because you knew you could grow from it?
BRENDAN: In reality, that’s kind of a common thing that happens with our band. Putting out every record, there’s always a certain level of discomfort that comes with it. Or the tours we do. We’ve done tours before where we see an opportunity for something new, but we also know that it’s not necessarily the perfect hardcore tour—with comfortable venues, reactions, people, or that kind of thing. It’s placing ourselves in environments where we are the fish out of water, which I think we’ve done continuously in our time as a band. And it’s not always “the bigger thing.” Like, we did an arena tour last year not because it was the “biggest” thing we could do, but as an experience thing. It’s always gotta feel right, but it’s about finding that perfect sweet spot where it’s going to be uncomfortable, but it’s also going to be a totally new eye-opening experience in different ways. Sometimes you take away things that are negative from it, and sometimes you take away things that are positive, but that’s kind of a theme with our band. We’re always looking for that sweet spot of feeling like it’s something that feels true to us, but also feeling a level of discomfort that’s going to teach us something new or give us a new experience so that we’re never doing the same thing over and over.
That respect for learning is definitely a thing with you. Like the way you were a drummer who learned how to sing. Or how Franz [Lyons] only learned how to play bass to be in this band. Or even James [Vitalo], your manager, and how he learned how to be a manager with Turnstile. I feel like I read somewhere that you finished school on tour, too. Is that right?
BRENDAN: That was when I was playing drums for Trapped Under Ice. I went to school for a year, dropped out because I wasn’t doing that well, and then TUI started touring more. Then I went back a few years later and just did it online. I was writing papers from the back of the van and stuff like that.
But yeah, I think it’s very much the way this has to be. We’re all very passionate about making music together. And I think we have all come to an understanding that this has to be something that aligns with us growing as individuals. It can’t be this stationary thing where we are moving one way, but the band is staying right here. It has to come forward with us. We have to adapt. The essence of who we are is always going to be who we are. For us, our upbringing is growing up in the Baltimore-D.C. area, finding each other through hardcore punk shows in the area, and coming up through that music scene. And through that, I think we are also growing with the band as our vessel. I’ve seen the world. I’ve learned more through just traveling and touring the world than I ever learned in any school.
I wrote an essay for Anti-Matter recently about that sort of weird taboo we have in hardcore about ambition…
BRENDAN: You’re simultaneously supposed to not care about it, but also, you better be passionate about it and make it your entire life.
Right [laughs].
BRENDAN: So how do you find that balance, you know? If you truly live something, how do you not want to have ambition or care about it or want to bring it to the world?
I thought about the lyrics to “Pressure to Succeed,” which is one of your earliest songs. It sounds like you were basically saying that when we pretend to be ambitionless, it’s just fear of failure. It sort of felt like you saying, “I want to be fearless.” That’s the way I took it.
BRENDAN: Yeah, I think so. I think in some ways, I was also at a point in my life where I was very unsure. I knew that I loved music. I’ve been playing in bands since I was a young kid. When I was in high school, I was doing all the concerts—symphonic, marching band, jazz bands. I loved music, but I was also separating music from “the real world.” It was like, “OK, that’s what I do for fun.” But the real world, or what I was going to do as a job, those were two different lives that I had to manage at the same time. I could never see that there was potentially just one.
Even when I went to college, I didn’t really go because I wanted to. I was getting out of high school and I didn’t have anything on the table, so my parents were like, “You should go to college.” I had that kind of support there. But studying music was not an option for me because at that time I was like, “No. I’m not mixing these two things.” In hindsight, there might have been some cool music things for me to learn. Like, maybe I could have learned some more on the technical side, some engineering things or whatever. But I think having that separation created this anxiety from that side of the world that’s telling you that you need to figure out what you’re doing—that there’s your fun time, and there’s your expressive time, and there’s reality. In some ways, I was feeling the weight of what I thought was reality at the time. I didn’t think you could find your own path.
Did you ever feel like you could make your way through hardcore specifically? And I know this is a weird thing for some people to talk about, but you know, for me, I dropped out of high school right before I turned sixteen, and I was like, “I don’t have any job experience and I live in New York City, so I kind of have to figure out how to make something work with what I have.” Playing guitar and writing were the only two things I had.
BRENDAN: Yeah, I think one reason why we were able to even continue touring is because, first of all, living in the area we do—as opposed to L.A. or New York—rent is way more affordable. But even now, whenever people ask what I do, I’m like, “Well, I play music, but it’s not my job!”—but I guess it is at this point. It’s something I do full-time. It’s something I put all my time into. But for forever it was just such a separate thing. In hindsight, I think the benefit of that is that no decision for playing music was ever made from, like, “Let’s just do that tour because we need to make the money.” It was always like, “Do we want to tour? Do we want to donate a month or two of our lives driving across the country in a van with two bands? Is that what we want to do?” And the answer was always yes.
Another thing about that first 7-inch that always fascinated me was the first song, “Death Grip.” It’s basically a jilted lover song, right? That’s kind of an interesting way to introduce a hardcore band. Like, Madball doesn’t have a jilted lover song [laughs]. How did you go there so early?
BRENDAN: I think I was just attracted to the idea of digging into something vulnerable. That song would be written totally different now, but I think looking back to me at that time in my life, and being brand new to having a voice as the singer of a band, I was trying to figure out how to sing about something that I felt was a little more personal and less guarded. Anytime I got those glimpses of bands who can present that kind of [hardcore] aggression, but also have a human approach of being—not needing to have some sort of guard up—those, at an early age while getting into hardcore, were appealing to me.
There was also a question of whether or not there was ever a thought in your mind that people would hear that and be like, “Oh, this guy is soft.”
BRENDAN: I think, fortunately for me, after a few years of getting into hardcore, I realized it’s cool to be yourself and you don’t necessarily have to be hard. Because I think, going in at first, the initial black-and-white perception is that this is not a place for you to be vulnerable. Even just growing up, before I started going to shows, with skating, there were always friends who would call you a “sissy” as soon as you started talking about your feelings or something. But once I was traveling more, and having groups of friends around me where I realized I didn’t necessarily need to have my guard up, you could be more comfortable. Like, who are you trying to present tough for?
Even when Turnstile formed, I always felt a sense of younger and older generations being like, “That’s not a hardcore band. They’re singing like this, or they’re, like, wearing colors” [laughs]. But I think the comfort you get is when you realize that you can define the world around you how you want to define it, and you don’t have to necessarily shape your world to anyone else’s definition. Like, when we were talking about the growth of Turnstile. Every album is a learning experience and such a step towards becoming more comfortable in your own skin. It’s constantly an effort to tap into the truest version of yourself.
A lot of what you’re talking about, actually, reads very clearly in the “Turnstile Love Connection” video, which was an amazing way to introduce Glow On. But… permission to get a little weird here?
BRENDAN: OK [laughs].
I pulled up this text chain from June 28, 2021, which is the week you released that video. I texted Jeremy Bolm [from Touché Amoré], who I think had just interviewed you for his podcast. I knew you were friends, so I think that’s where the connection in my brain went. Anyway, this is the text I sent him:
“I know you said that you’ve been thinking a lot about the Turnstile video, so I have to ask: Did Brendan just come out? I’ve watched this video like ten times. There was all this symbolism that’s killing me: The hardcore performative aggression in a pink room. Running away into the arms of a man while singing, ‘Thank you for letting me be myself, thank you for letting me see myself.’ The bizarre callbacks to Madonna. The motorcycle scene evoking My Own Private Idaho. That final image of relief with a tear down his face while hugging a man. My head is spinning LOL.”
BRENDAN: I love that.
So I guess the first thing I would ask is, how does that sit with you?
BRENDAN: That sits great! I love that those questions were circulating around in your head and that you were thinking about it. I think that there’s a lot of symbolism that was intentionally put in the video and in the album with the goal of feeling something from it. For me, I’m always going to know exactly what I’m feeling from something—but even that changes sometimes. Like, something that was once about this kind of confused connection with someone that was very close in your life might now be about your parents or something.
Again, I grew up drumming, so I always feel like I was better at connecting to things based on how they made me feel versus maybe some of the more literal things that some of my friends, who are hardcore historians, are constantly connecting to the music. Like the first time I heard Madball—this is before I even had the context of hardcore or any subgenres of heavy music—I’m hearing this and at first I was literally envisioning creature monsters. It sounded so scary [laughs]. But I just like that pure takeaway with no context.
Because imagination is fun.
BRENDAN: It is fun! It’s like when you let a kid draw and it’s literally a bunch of scribbles, and you’re like, “I have no idea what this is,” but they’re like, “Well, that’s the dinosaur. That’s the moon. That’s the astronaut.” It’s so elementary, but it’s also such a pure interpretation of how they see the world.
How important is your sensitivity to who you are?
BRENDAN: I think it kind of defines who I am. Anyone’s sensitivity is essentially a reflection on how they feel the things around them. It’s kind of the definitive representation of how you see the world around you and how you see yourself in it. Everyone has their own version of that.
I ask because I would probably also describe myself as a sensitive person, and I remember when I was put into that position when my band started getting bigger, it felt like there were a lot of demands on my time and my psyche and my energy that were multiplied in a way that I think maybe affected me a lot harder than my bandmates. I didn’t handle it very well at all. So on some level, maybe I was wondering how you feel like you’ve been handling it over the last couple of years.
BRENDAN: What you’re saying is very relatable, because I think in some ways that sensitivity can be your own worst enemy a lot of times. The more in tune you are with your feelings towards certain things, the more you are constantly putting them under a microscope—including yourself. It can be really overwhelming. I think the last couple of years in particular, for us, have been such a combination of these insanely high highs and these incredibly low lows that are all just a result of that intensity of what’s been going on in our lives. We’re so grateful for all the opportunities we get, but it also comes with this juxtaposition of feeling how your desire is to express yourself and to play to as many people as possible, but then you’re also kind of wishing no one would ever hear what you’re doing or not even wanting everyone to perceive you…
…and also the guilt that comes with that. That’s exactly how I felt. Like, obviously, I wanted to make the music, and obviously, I wanted to share it with people. But there were times where I felt like, “This is too much, can I take it back for a second?” [laughs]
BRENDAN: Maybe the sensitivity is just us, but even with press. I remember so many instances of me doing an interview and then the text comes out and it’s something I didn’t say, or the way it’s worded makes me come off a certain way. Part of me wonders if that’s just me knowing myself and knowing how I sound? Or will someone else read this and not even think twice about it?
I remember a small example where we won an Album of the Year thing for some magazine, and the question was like, “Do you guys work to get achievements like this? Do you guys hold awards like this [in] really high [esteem]?” And I think my answer was like, “It’s not anything we work towards. It’s not like that’s the goal. We didn’t make this album so we can get a magazine’s Album of the Year, but when it happens, it’s obviously a cool thing.” And the headline they went with was like, “We Don’t Care About This Award”—in its own magazine. I think they wanted us to be “the punk band that doesn’t care about it.” That was the story they wanted. But to me, I sound like such an asshole right there. And then I kind of have that circling feeling, where I want to give and I want to express, but then as soon as it’s not perfectly achieved—which is always guaranteed, because everyone is going to perceive whatever you do differently—it just sends you into this back and forth of, “I want to never express, I don’t want anyone to see me ever again” [laughs]. It’s like this hard back and forth.
I remember growing up, I only wanted to hang out with friends on Tuesdays or something because the idea of weekends gave me anxiety. Friday or Saturday, everyone is going out. Or holidays like New Year’s Eve, I just wanted to stay home and do nothing and not see anyone. I don’t get it, really. It’s like, this is when you should be celebrating, or out with friends or family, but this is also when it feels overwhelming. Daniel [Fang], our drummer, is on such a crazy sleep schedule. He stays up and goes to bed anywhere between six in the morning and noon. He’ll just stay up the whole night, and he’s talked about how he loves the magic of it—like, “The whole world is asleep, and I’m out doing my thing, and I feel like I have my own little world.” I feel like [Daniel and I] have always really related to each other whenever we talked about that. There’s such an unexplainable back-and-forth, hot-and-cold feeling of when your desires don’t necessarily match up with how you’re built to handle them.
In my experience, it also felt like people who were not in my position were constantly telling me how I was “supposed” to feel, and that just added to that overwhelmingness. Because I felt like, “Well, I can’t say this out loud so I’m just going to go over here and not say anything at all.” And that’s sort of what killed me.
BRENDAN: Did that kind of expand the microscope you were putting on yourself and on your band—as far as, like, “I can’t just feel the same kind of free-flowing kind of feeling that I had before?”
I mean, I really first became aware of that “microscope” feeling when I played in Shelter, between 1992 and 1994. It was the whole reason I quit. I felt like I was constantly looking over my shoulder, like people were just waiting for me to fuck up and do something that “wasn’t Krishna.” It was a very ideological band. Texas is the Reason was supposed to be my liberation from that, where I could be whoever the fuck I wanted to be, but as the band progressed and things started moving, the microscope came back in a different way. The main reason I quit was because I didn’t feel like I could come out and be in this band successfully. In 1996, that did not seem possible.
BRENDAN: Wow. So you were simultaneously feeling that microscope that we’re talking about as far as being perceived, but you’re also suddenly feeling that additional inner kind of discomfort from not being able to be comfortable around even the closest people to you, and the people in your world. I think in some ways, that microscope that we’re talking about, it’s kind of easier when it’s like, “I’m at least comfortable with what we’re doing and we’re comfortable with ourselves.” But if you don’t have that comfort in your small, intimate group, I can imagine that would have been a recipe for all kinds of chaotic feelings and confusion.
One thing I learned after I quit the band—and not just after coming out—is that I felt like I had to relearn how to be myself in a lot of ways. Our band only existed for a fraction of the time that Turnstile has existed, but once I stood outside the band, I realized that there was a lot about myself that I needed to re-understand outside of the context of being in this unit with these four people. Like, at least for me, it was difficult to have those individual growth moments we were talking about earlier while I was inside a collective that was so intense. Do you ever feel that way?
BRENDAN: Yeah. I mean, having a band that you’re sharing this experience with is like having a partner times five, you know? The amount of energy and thought and delicate communication that you need to have with every single person to maintain this is more than you’d ever need with a group of friends or even coworkers, where you can turn it off after five o’clock. It’s a really unique thing. I’m trying to think of parallels, but I can’t. It’s such a unique environment where you’re not essentially all growing individually and then you have this one shared thing; it’s like, you’re all individually growing together in an intimate way that’s different than anything I could ever think of an example for.
I’ve tried coming up with analogies, and I can’t.
BRENDAN: Yeah, because it affects everything. Even dedicating yourself to that kind of routine and lifestyle… It affects friendships at home, family relationships at home, they all suffer from constantly being gone. The band becomes the only constant. The only relatable people are the small unit that are directly with you, in your same position.
I will say that the only thing that gets us through this is that sense of connection we’ve all had with each other. One thing I value most about the band is the level of intention we put into everything—like, not only when we’re making music, but everything. Like, if a tour [offer] comes in, we’re not just talking about, “Is this a good tour?” We’re talking about, “How are you feeling after being gone? What’s going on in your life? What do you need to be home for? Where does this sit with each individual person and collectively?” We have those conversations where it’s not just “what’s best for the band,” it’s more, “Where is everyone at?” Our manager, James, he’s amazing because I think any other manager would have quit if they had to go through the amount of conversations we have as a band. It’s not like we’re trying to be difficult; it’s because we all have reasons for being really sensitive and aware of how everyone is feeling. That’s the only way. Because whenever you’re not, you get hit with the repercussions of it. I mean, you know exactly how complicated band dynamics can be. It’s just so elevated. Every feeling is so elevated. And I think the more it lasts, the more fragile it becomes.
I had no plans of ever being in a band again, but one of the reasons why I’ve been able to play with Thursday for the last three years is because I honestly feel like this is the first time I’ve ever been in a band where I feel safe—like, I legitimately feel like everyone loves me and authentically wants the best for me and vice versa. But they’re in their 24th year as a band. They didn’t always understand it, but I think they know now that if we’re not caring about each other’s well-being, then this other thing we do isn’t going to happen.
BRENDAN: It doesn’t exist. Yeah. You think about, like, what are the odds that you put five people in a room that even all have the same communication style? Everyone could have the best intentions for each other and love each other, but one person might not be able to sit in a room and talk about something with the others. And what are the odds they have the same ways of expressing their love? It’s hard enough to sync with one person. So I think accepting that it will never be perfect, but just making sure the effort is there, that’s all you can really do.
The band that really made me think about all of these things for the first time was Rancid. I went out with them for a weekend in 1998, and it was the first time I’d ever been in a situation around a band where I felt like they legitimately loved each other. And they do things for each other. Even just to the point where I realized that there was no alcohol in the dressing rooms and they were like, “Oh, we’re all sober on tour. Because if one person is sober, we’re all sober.” That makes complete sense. I was like, why isn’t every band like this? [laughs] It changed my outlook on the possibilities of how a band could function. And now it’s 2023 and Rancid is still a band. I think that says something.
BRENDAN: It really does. I feel like, as a band, everything is set up to work against you. Attention, success, creative differences, stressful and strenuous schedules, losing sleep—there’s no element that’s in your favor. I think the only time you really come together is maybe right after you play a great show or something like that, and then as soon as that wears off, you have to load out the trailer. As far as longevity goes, everything is pretty much set up for you to fail. There are so many legendary acts that all take their own planes and sue each other every week [laughs]. You have to constantly battle all that as much as you can for it to be not even perfect, but to stay afloat.
OK, then, one last thing. When Glow On first came out, Turnstile was still very firmly perceived as a hardcore band, but since then, it kind of feels like you belong to the world in a new way. I’m wondering if you feel that shift.
BRENDAN: I think we’re often surprised by other people’s perceptions of the level they think the band is at. Like, for example, even playing those late-night shows, that was something my family members saw as a different level. But to us, we had to load in that day, and bring in all our gear, and play the show. We didn’t even have a touring crew with us until this year, and we hired our friends—who have done an amazing job. But even the idea of having a guitar tech or a tour manager was foreign to us two years ago. In some ways that’s changed now because we have a pretty solid, small crew of people, but at the same time, these are people that I’ve known for so many years that it almost feels like an expanded group doing the same thing but in a different shape.
The only thing that feels different to us is the opportunities and the places where we can exist; that still kind of blows our minds. Like, how are we the only band on this jazz festival in Norway? Or an all hip-hop festival where we’re the only band. I think what’s almost always assumed is that things feel different for us—like the whole world changed. But I think, while the opportunities have changed, everything else truly feels exactly the same as far as who we are or where we’re from. Even geographically, we’re all still in the same area we grew up in. It’s hard to explain. As far as the process and the essence of what this band is, I don’t think we could change that if we tried.
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Turnstile seem to be opening up doors for this particular subculture the way Nirvana did for theirs, but based on this interview, I think Turnstile's in a much healthier place than that band was when they blew up. Thinking back to Tuesday's essay, I see parallels - because those early bands (and people) were hard, they made space for the people who came after them to be themselves.
And I think part of what makes a hardcore kid a hardcore kid is earnestness - hardcore doesn't really seem like a place for irony and sarcasm. It's important to believe and to try.
Love this! My fondness for Brandon and thr band has only been elevated (even if he left you hanging on the video question)