On a nostalgic drive through Turnstile’s Baltimore hometown last month, the band’s workaholic frontman, Brendan Yates, pointed out an empty lot that looked like the eroded remnants of a loading dock where the band once played a show. A few days later, on a giant stage in the California desert, Charli XCX proclaimed it would be a “Turnstile Summer” on a huge screen during her Coachella set.
Over the past 15 years, Turnstile has blown up from local hardcore heroes to one of the most popular punk bands of its era. Though the group emerged from a world of aggressive music, it cycles through genres — dream-pop, alternative rock — often over the course of one song. That chaos, along with a striking emotional depth, is in its ethos.
“There is something exciting about being able to make music in a way where there’s no formula, there’s no expectation,” Yates, 36, said. The band’s 2021 album, “Glow On,” propelled it from the upper echelons of the underground into a dramatically larger landscape that included TV commercials, Grammy nominations and a spot opening for Blink-182’s arena tour. With a new album, “Never Enough,” due June 6, Turnstile is pushing its sound further, and the stages are set to get even bigger, leading to an inevitable question: Can the group retain its magic (and its mission) as it grows?
In the late afternoon, four of the band’s five members jammed into the guitarist Pat McCrory’s car for a drive soundtracked by a Robert Palmer deep cut and a lot of sighs about the ongoing gentrification of Baltimore. They stopped at Red Thorn Tattoo, and were surprised to find it closed. Yates, McCrory, the drummer Daniel Fang and the bassist Franz Lyons, outfitted in a selection of hoodies and baseball caps, peered through the window. (Meg Mills, a new addition who plays guitar, was back home in the United Kingdom.)
Fang, 35, whose soft-spoken, slight presence belies his ferocity as a drummer, explained that over a decade ago, the storefront was a music venue known as the Charm City Art Space that hosted hardcore shows. When he was in high school, he was inadvertently shoved to the ground while moshing there, leaving him bloody and with a chipped tooth. In spite of that — or possibly because of it — he had a great time. His mother panicked when she picked him up, then was “overjoyed” that he’d found his people. Fang relayed this origin story as though he were a pastor outlining the moment he found religion. For him, the seeds that would grow into Turnstile had been sown.
Hardcore, an outgrowth of 1980s punk rock with screamed vocals and screeching guitars, is an apt mirror for young adulthood — a limbo stage that is fertile ground for creative expression. The genre’s overarching ethos is one of self-determination, and its underground nature breeds a do-it-yourself mind-set that often follows hardcore fans well into their adult lives.
