‘Our songs are a result of what feels good to get out’

Hard at work on Never Enough’, Turnstile’s upcoming visual album, Hannah Ewens talks to singer Brendan Yates about intuition, reinventing hardcore and praise from Charli XCX

- Hannah Ewens

Turnstile's Brendan Yates was curled up in bed at his Baltimore home during Charli XCX's recent Coachella set - oblivious to her announcement that "Brat Summer" was sort of over and "Turnstile Summer" was about to begin. It wouldn't remain a mystery to him for long; within minutes, millions had seen his band’s name plastered in all caps on a towering screen behind her. “I thought it was a joke,” he smiles, remembering how his phone lit up with messages from friends trying to get his attention. “I was like, ‘What is this AI image?’”

It’s six weeks later, and the 35-year-old frontman is briskly strolling through a leafy park in Los Angeles, his tawny hair bouncing, as he recalls the pop star’s premonition over a video call: “She’s really special and makes music that resonates with a lot of people, so to get that nod was really nice.” It was unexpected for a pop star, even one as preternaturally ahead of the curve as Charli XCX, to offer such a glowing endorsement of a hardcore band, but that’s a limited descriptor for Turnstile, a group who operate with a similarly leftfield vision as her.

While Turnstile emerged from the early 2010s hardcore scene, they always stood out – not just because of Yates’s dynamic singing or their aversion to the black uniform of hardcore, but for their unique musical DNA that connects with a sprawling and diverse audience. Their music is still, on the surface, what the average listener might identify as hardcore – aggressive riffs, breakneck shouts for vocals, excitable breakdowns – yet just as often, it’s none of those things.