With all that is going on in the world at the moment, you may be forgiven for missing out on the announcement that this summer is apparently going to be a Turnstile summer. If you are reading these words and wondering what exactly a Turnstile summer is then you are in for a treat as I shall soon explain. But first, let’s go back a year to the summer of 2024. Rising British music star Charli XCX released her sixth album which was simply called brat. Now, not only was Charli XCX becoming a force in the world of music with hit songs such as “Boom Clap”, “Break the Rules” and “Boys”, successful collaborations with artists such as Billie Eilish, Sam Smith, Rita Ora and Addison Rae, along with writing hit songs such as “Beg For It” by Iggy Azalea, “Same Old Love” by Selena Gomez, “Senorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello and many more, she was also becoming well known as a social media influencer and trendsetter. When the brat album, with its distinctive solid lime green cover dropped in the summer of 2024, the look and feel of this album became one of the most popular cultural trends of the year. The term “brat” was said to describe anyone who willingly acknowledged their flaws and foibles and thrived because of them anyway. The impact of the brat summer was felt all throughout the world by young consumers of culture. Millennials identified with brat culture and embraced it as their own. But brat culture really showed its impact during the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. Charli XCX posted a simple tweet on the website X which stated “Kamala IS brat”. Sensing that an opportunity to connect with an entire demographic slice of the U.S.population had suddenly presented itself, the team behind Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris quickly changed the look of their campaign logos to all lime green as well. The new Harris signs even used the exact same font as was used on the brat album cover. Well, we all know how that endorsement turned out for Kamala Harris and the rest of the U.S. voting public but, just the same, there was no denying the impactful nature of Charli XCX’s social media pronouncements. So, during the spring of 2025 when Charli XCX played at the recent Coachella Music Festival and afterwards declared this to be a Turnstile summer, it was no small matter, either. A torch had been passed from one influential musician to a band on the rise that seems set to explode into the musical stratosphere as you read these words. Time will tell as to whether or not Charli XCX’s endorsement of Turnstile will elevate the band into the pantheon of the greats or if it will expose them as being merely a flavour of the day. In either case, Charli XCX notwithstanding, Turnstile stands as one of the world’s hottest bands at the moment and you are about to find out why. Stay tuned. It’s gonna get crazy!
Like many “overnight successes”, the rise of Turnstile has been well over a decade in the making. Turnstile formed in 2010 in Baltimore, Maryland. They were a hardcore punk band at the time and quickly gained notoriety for the ferocity of their live shows. They have released four albums over that time with Nonstop Feeling being their debut album in 2105. They have produced new albums every three to four years after that with Time and Space (2018), Glow On (2021) and Never Enough (2025) being the full extent of their discography to this point in time. With each new release, the band has broadened their sound by experimenting with instruments and song stylings that go beyond the usual three guitars and a drum kit that most punk/hardcore bands employ. Like many, I am a relatively new convert to Turnstile. In fact, when Charli XCX anointed them as the musical flag bearers of this coming summer, I reacted with indifference because like many of you, I assume, I had never really followed their career before in my life. That admission probably says way more about me that it does about the band but it also says something important about them, too. Let me explain.
If you have been a faithful reader of this blog then you will know that I have written a series of posts about seminal punk rock bands under the title Who’s Punk?! What’s the Score?! Over the course of those almost two dozen posts, one thing that became abundantly clear was the uniqueness of the punk community. The world of punk music is one in which most bands eschew corporate sponsorship and slick studio production techniques in favour of a more stripped down, raw sound and a foundational DIY approach to marketing themselves, putting on live shows and selling their merch. Many punk bands have built their reputations of being true to their own artistic vision, without any external pressures or considerations that come with signing major label contracts. For most punk bands, it is always all about the music and connecting with their fans. From an audience member point of view, punk audiences tend to hold their heroes to often impossibly high standards of fidelity. When they favour a band, punk fans will give their heart and souls, quite literally, in support. Bands reciprocate by feeding off of the energy coming from the mosh pits before them and from the stage divers who clamber onto the stage to share a few seconds of dancing time with the band before leaping fearlessly into the waiting arms of their peers who line to front of the stage. In the world of punk and hardcore, there is tremendous value in bridging the divide between a band on stage and its fans below and making the whole musical moment seem organic and symbiotic. Trust and respect exist in equal measure in an environment of mutual care and satisfaction. That is what hardcore and punk music has always been at its essence,
I first came to know about Turnstile because of an amazing concert they recently gave in a park in their home city of Baltimore. As much as Turnstile embodies the values of a true hardcore band and displays that in their live shows, they are also very much a band who wears their influences on their sleeves. One of those influences was the city of Baltimore itself. Turnstile was originally made up of singer Brendan Yates, drummer Daniel Fang, along with guitarists Pat McCrory, “Freaky” Franz Lyons and Brady Ebert, all who cut their musical teeth as part of the Baltimore music scene. It was this hometown scene that nurtured the band when they were just starting out and which has been there for them throughout their evolution as a group. As part of their growth as a band, the members of Turnstile made the creative decision to not simply repeat the same sound album after album, song after song. They added some ambient moments in songs alongside the usual gigantic guitar riffs they were known for. They also added some woodwind instruments and brass, too, in ways that added depth to their songs and the sound of the band. After their third album Glow On came out, guitarist Brady Eberts left the band and was replaced by a talented musician named Meg Mills. Whether Eberts left due to the band’s choice of artistic expression which may have felt like they were straying away from their hardcore punk sensibilities is unknown at the moment. But it does seem as though Turnstile are about to step into the national music spotlight in a big way. So, in order to thank their fans back in Baltimore, Turnstile announced that they would be hosting one of the most unique and unusual concerts imaginable in these times. They announced a free pop-up benefit concert in a park named Wyman Park Dell. The park is an open bowl-like space. There were no tickets sold. There was no security on hand. There were no wristbands or VIP sections roped off for those chosen few. There was simply a band, a stage and ten thousand of their dearest friends and admirers. It was this concert that suddenly exploded across my YouTube feed after it took place on May 10, 2025 and which brought Turnstile fully to my attention. I am going to stop the post and share with you a video of a song from that concert. If you ever want to see an example of trust and respect between an audience and a band, this is it! The song “Holiday” is barely two minutes long but the energy and the joy on display is incredible. This is definitely an example of a band and their fans being as one in the moment. Please take a moment and watch Turnstile and their fans in Baltimore during a performance of their song “Holiday”. It is epic!
At the Wyman Park Dell concert, Turnstile debuted songs from their latest album Never Enough. In addition to releasing the new album, the band has also taken all of the songs and created a full length visual album (which you and I might call a film) which you can watch in theatres starting on Friday, June 13, 2025. The visual album is also called Never Enough. Like many bands, Turnstile are touring in support of their new album. If you want another example of a band and an audience being as one, please take a moment and watch this performance from June 5, 2025 at a show held under the K Bridge in Brooklyn, New York. The song is called “TLC”. Again, it is super short. But what I really want you to see is what happens during the second half of the song. This audience definitely knows their band and turns in one of the best live audience moments in a very long time as they shout out the Sly and the Family Stone line “Thank you for letting me be myself” in unison. It must have been a hoot and a holler to have been there in person. You can view that performance of “TLC” here.
But that performance under the K Bridge is a bit different from the one they gave in Wyman Park Dell and for me, it highlights one of the dangers that could potentially derail all of the momentum that the band has accrued. The Hardcore/Punk ethos of being connected to your fans works best in smaller venues. It isn’t necessarily suited for larger stadium settings where some semblance of crowd control is often necessary. As you can see in the “TLC” video, the band and the audience are separated. I didn’t see any stage diving at all during this song. This performance reminded me of some of my favourite rock band moments such as AC/DC at River Plate in Argentina performing “Thunderstruck” or Rage Against the Machine at Finsbury Park in the UK performing “Killing In The Name”. Nothing at all wrong with those comparisons, if being a stadium rock band is where the future lay for Turnstile. At present, Turnstile are continuing to evolve as a band. Their sound is developing greater variety and depth. They made their reputation of being one of the best hardcore punk bands in America but now that they are finally gaining national attention, will they be able to stay true to their roots? It is a question that has nipped at the heels of many a punk band before them. How they respond will determine how successful they will become. It isn’t easy to continue to grow and develop creatively by simply recycling what has been successful in the past. As Turnstile continues to chart a seemingly newer and different course, will their original fans follow them through it all as did Radiohead’s fans when that band followed up their groundbreaking album OK Computer with the sharp right turn that was Kid A? Time will tell. I guess we are about to find out because Turnstile are definitely the belles of the musical ball this summer. For my local peeps, you can experience a bit of what a Turnstile summer is like by seeing them headline at the Ottawa Blues Festival at Lebreton Flats on July 12. Tickets for that event can be found here.
Regardless of whether it is Charli XCX endorsing Turnstile or it is me talking about them here, they certainly seem like a band that is warming to the spotlight. Turnstile has impressed me so far because of how comfortable they are in their own skin and how committed they seem to be to a creative plan going forward that they have established. Turnstile are also a band that is respectful to those bands and artists that have supported and/or influenced them in the past, as well as those fans who have supported them as they first started playing together in Baltimore. I am going to leave you with one final video. It is the official video for their new song “Look Out For Me”. At seven minutes in length, “Look Out For Me” encapsulates everything you need to know about the band in one video. This song was shot in Baltimore and begins with a static shot of a park bench that has the words “Baltimore: the Greatest City in America” carved into it. The video features huge guitar riffs for the first half of the song and ambient Trip Hop sounds for the second half. The guitar riffs harken back to their roots as a hardcore/punk band while the ambient Trip Hop signals the band’s ongoing evolution of sound. The video spends time in the very Wyman Park Dell that Turnstile gave their free concert at, which speaks to their Baltimore roots. All in all, just about everything that Turnstile is can be found in this video. Enjoy. “Look Out For Me” can be viewed here.
All in all, if this is indeed the summer of Turnstile then it is going to be a rocking affair and it is going to feel like family. And we’re all going to feel completely spent when it is finally over.
The link to a video of the full Wyman Park Dell concert from May 10th can be found here.
The link to the official website for Turnstile can be found here.
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