The Armed’s New Song Features Frank Turner, Only That’s Not Frank Turner?

Adult Swim just put out the new single from Kurt Ballou’s The Armed, “FT. FRANK TURNER,” which does not feature English folk/ex-hardcore singer-songwriter Frank Turner. Also, the cover of the single does not feature a photograph of Frank Turner; it features a photograph of English punk musician Frank Carter.

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The real Frank Turner found out about this inexplicable prank about this pretty fast, and at least appears to have no idea what is going on. In a statement to Stereogum, he said, “I was not at any point aware this was happening, don’t know the band personally (though I am a casual fan), and didn’t clear this.”

The Armed responded, of course, saying “It saddens us to hear that he’s upset about the song. We’ve been big fans of Gallows for a long time.”

Frank Turner was, of course, not a member of Gallows. Though Frank Carter previously was.

Turner also alleged that the song contains some of his vocals from an eight-year-old unfinished song that he demoed with Kurt Ballou, who last year outed himself as the mastermind behind The Armed. So the song does literally contain sounds created by Frank Turner, but it’s not exactly like he rolled into the studio to drop a verse. So the band is billing as a feature a nearly-decade-old demo that they spliced without clearance as an 80-second nearly-inane-noise song… incredible.

Why The Armed did this is anyone’s guess: though they’ve always dabbled in pop-cultural detritus, this particular game appears to come out of literally nowhere, and really has almost no ties to anything whatsoever.

Additionally, the band released a promotional photograph earlier this week that features almost no people who are actually in the band, other than the maybe-they’re-in-the-band members Dan Stolarski and Cara Drohlshagen. This is basically par for the course with The Armed, who have previously hired actors, celebrity photographers, and Walmart employees to pose in photos.

The mustached dude in the photo is also wearing a Carhartt hat, which is very likely an Inzane Johnny reference. Could also be a nod to Johnny’s involvement in the project, though there is little evidence of that association other than that they are both based in Michigan.

Anyway, the band has also announced that they’ve signed with Sargent House (Chelsea Wolfe, Russian Circles, Emma Ruth Ruth Rundle, etc.), and that they’ll be performing at a string of select dates this summer, including at the Roskilde festival in Denmark:

P.S. There’s also been some chatter that Billy Corgan is the next member of The Armed who may soon be unmasked. This speculation that was fed earlier this year when Corgan began appearing in public wearing a Ghillie-like leaf coat, the band’s somewhat trademarked, inexplicable dabbling in swamp-culture aesthetics.

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