How Turnstile conquered this summer — and the world
by Wesley Case
Published August 29 in The Baltimore Banner
Turnstile was already an all-time Baltimore band.
This year, though? The city’s veteran hardcore quintet was transcendent, reaching levels of rarified air reserved for acts that do more than simply release a great album — they shift culture.
When influential pop star Charli XCX declared it’d be a Turnstile summer, few could have envisioned the group dominating the pop-culture zeitgeist to this degree. At a time when monoculture feels harder to achieve than ever, Turnstile was everywhere, in real life and on our social media feeds, deftly executing a meticulous album and accompanying movie rollout for its fourth LP, June’s “Never Enough.”
There they were in England, rocking the Glastonbury stage in front of thousands. A few weeks earlier, they were debuting “I Care / Dull” on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in Los Angeles. Throw in the Tribeca Film Festival red carpet and some magazine covers, for good measure.
When I called bassist Franz Lyons last month, I had to ask: Why is Turnstile having such a moment? How did they emerge from a hard-hitting genre not known for its crossover potential?
“I don’t know, man. It’s just hard to say, ‘cause for me, it kind of feels like we’ve just been doing our same thing,” Lyons said from an Amtrak train, on his way to a flight to Eastern Europe “to see what’s crackin’ out there.”
“I think it’s a slow burn kind of situation,” he added of their growing audience. “You kinda gotta let people just take it in.”
As Lyons shrugs, the rest of the world continues to champion his band’s earnest, mosh-inducing sing-alongs. “Never Enough” marked new milestones for Turnstile: It’s their first top-10 album debut, while the title track earned their first Billboard No. 1 single, topping the Alternative Airplay chart earlier this month.
Most beautifully, Turnstile — which also includes singer Brendan Yates, drummer Daniel Fang and guitarists Pat McCrory and Meg Mills — has reached these heights while keeping their roots firmly in place in Baltimore, where the band formed in 2010.
A decade after the release of their debut album, “Nonstop Feeling,” the group could still be seen in Charm City, like when they collaborated in July on a one-of-a-kind pop-up event in Hampden with Baltimore streetwear brand Carpet Company and the boutique cafe Good Neighbor.
Fans began lining Falls Road at 7 a.m. on a Saturday for their chance to buy “Never Enough”-themed T-shirts and merchandise — the act’s fourth capsule with Carpet Company — inside an old mechanic shop. Some sipped Turnstile Tonic, a cloudy, coconut milk-based drink with a light indigo hue to match the album cover.
Excitement surrounding the pop-up event was palpable, said Good Neighbor founder Shawn Chopra. It was “all smiles, all day“ — an outpouring of hometown love, he said.
“Some people in Baltimore know them, some people don’t,” Chopra said. “But now this feels like a tipping point, where everyone is starting to know them. And everyone feels like they can connect to something they’re doing.”
This was the summer Turnstile became Baltimore’s third major sports team, a group of city-grown talent whose neighbors rallied around and proudly called their own. Locals wear the band’s merch like they’re backing Lamar or Gunnar — whether they’re hardcore lifers or have never sniffed a mosh pit.
Anyone who attended Turnstile’s free Wyman Park Dell show in May likely saw this coming. We could feel it in the air that magical afternoon, where the band kicked off the “Never Enough” album cycle under the sun and in front of thousands. The day’s unbridled joy could be seen in the carousel of stage-divers who jumped into the crowd’s embrace. The gauzy footage has become essential video evidence of a concert you’ll still brag about seeing decades later.
The full concert video “actually brings tears to my eyes,” wrote a YouTube user. “With how s—— the state of the world is seeing a gig like this bringing people together [—] every race every gender, just bodies flying everywhere and everyone moving.”
These are the moments that matter most, Fang told me hours before the Wyman Park Dell performance, which has gone on to raise more than $49,000 for local nonprofit Health Care for the Homeless. “I just love the world feeling like a smaller place,” he said.
“I was kind of worried that the more popular the music would get, the less intimate the shows would be,” Fang said. “And it’s surprised me that it’s kind of the opposite.”
Turnstile quickly took the energy from the Dell on the road, taking its bright, color-blocked stage to Los Angeles; Brooklyn, New York; Ottawa and the United Kingdom. The band also celebrated the release of the “Never Enough” film, a stylish 14-track “visual album” filmed in Baltimore and debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival.
All the while, critics raved. “Never Enough,” the follow-up to 2021’s breakthrough “Glow On,” boasts an aggregated Metacritic score of 83 (“Universal acclaim”). Rolling Stone called it “a haunting collection that’s worth repeated visits,” while features in The New York Times and Pitchfork only strengthened such arguments.
Turnstile’s trajectory still feels surreal for those who remember seeing them at venues like the now-defunct Charm City Art Space more than a decade ago — where they performed in front of tens, not hundreds or thousands.
Mike Riley, co-founder of Charm City Art Space and former Pulling Teeth lead singer, initially wrote off Turnstile as “a Trapped Under Ice kid brother band.” To watch the group, years later, “smash every ceiling” previously known to the hardcore genre has been incredible, he said.
“It was so unexpected, right?” Riley said from Colorado, where he’s cheered on Turnstile’s ascent from afar. “I’m sure even the people in the band didn’t have any idea where this would take them.”
The rest of 2025 will find Turnstile largely on tour: The U.S. run starts Sept. 15 in Nashville, while the European leg includes stops in Dublin, Milan, Paris and Lisbon through Thanksgiving. With no current Baltimore or Washington, D.C., dates, your best bet is to buy a resale ticket for Philadelphia on Sept. 19.
So much of the so-called “Turnstile Love Connection” — a song title, sure, but also a reflection of the band’s capacity for optimism and inclusivity — is born from the live experience. Somehow, they still feel like teenagers in Yates’ parents’ basement, “jamming for fun and the love of it,” Fang said.
“If we stopped being able to tour and play shows tomorrow, I’d be so happy with everything we’ve done,” he said. “And I feel so proud of the place where it all came from.”
In many ways, this summer cemented Turnstile’s legacy in both Baltimore and hardcore history books.
But to Tony Pence — owner of Hampden’s Celebrated Summer Records, where fans still buy “Never Enough” daily — the band’s greatest impact will eclipse any single career milestone. He’s watched firsthand how Turnstile has already inspired the next generation of musicians.
“I’m seeing more and more new kids get involved — going to shows, supporting and starting bands — than I ever have. … I think the trickle-down effect from Turnstile is very real,” Pence said. “I’m just like, ‘OK, cool. What are those kids gonna be doing next?’”
This story was republished with permission from The Baltimore Banner. Visit www.thebaltimorebanner.com for more.
