JOEL TURNER – Knock You Out
Written by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment - Sense Music Media | Wednesday 14th September 2022
Photo by: Peter Stagg
Talking Mullets and Assault with a Modern Day Poet
Anyone who was watching Australian television in the early 2000s is going to remember the name Joel Turner. A supremely talented beatboxer from a poor background, the teenager made a spectacular impression on Australian Idol, busting out his skillset in front of millions. With the group THE MODERN DAY POETS releasing the wildly successful self-titled album in 2004, world domination seemed inevitable … until a brutal assault left him with a broken jaw and the wind knocked out of his career. Now, he has returned with Mullet featuring Macca The Rappa, an ode to the notorious haircut, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to have a chat with SENSE…
Are THE MODERN DAY POETS still together?
They’re still around. My brother … he still raps and writes. His name is DubLT. He went into gospel music. He left the crew after the first album, but we still all do stuff together, and there might even be a bit of a reunion in the future. I’m still working with C4, so you’re going to hear us on tracks together, for sure. We’re back, yeah.
So, what was it like? Growing up without a whole lot, and all of a sudden your mug’s on the telly. What was that experience like?
It was crazy, man. I was kind of already getting known locally for my beats and stuff, because we were in so many cyphers. For those who don’t know what a cypher is, it’s like a hip-hop-style live jam on the street, you know? You’d beatbox and people would rap. Even at school, I’d go to school, and people would be asking me to beatbox, and sometimes I wouldn’t even get to … I’d be about to eat my lunch and people would be like, “Hey mate, can you drop the beat?” I was getting known as the local guy who did music and stuff, but not on that scale. Once I went on TV, and 4.4 million people saw me that night, at the Grand Final of Australian Idol. After that, things started to explode. We had the song These Kids already sitting around. I recorded that three years before Australian Idol. I first recorded that song when I was fourteen years old. So then, it was weird to go through fame at a young age. I would go to a food court and people would start going, “There he is!” They’d start looking over, and I’d go to take a bite of food and just as I was about to eat someone would be like, “Hey Joel, can I get an autograph?” … It was a bit full-on at the time, especially that young. You’re going out and you’re constantly on edge, sort of, ready for people to ask you questions. You’re sort of not having time to yourself … Constantly, you had to be on the ball, ready for people to want a photo or talk to you. It was good at the same time … it’s great that people come up and love my music and want to talk to me, but sometimes it would get a bit much. It was just a lot to go through at a young age. It was a shock to the system, I’d say.
I remember hearing that you’d been assaulted at a house party trying to break up a fight … that had a pretty big impact on you, hey? You broke your jaw.
I just did this second album which had DE LA SOUL on it from America, that big hip-hop group. It had DE LA SOUL, it had MYSTRO, who was like a popular underground rapper from the U.K. It had ME-ONE, who was also called MC Eric from TECHNOTRONIC that bought out that “Pump up the jam / Pump it up” … that massive number one worldwide hit. So I had some good names on that album. We were ready to release, and I went to this party with my partner at the time and this guy just ended up being a psycho. He took a big run up and smacked me out with a 2x4 to the face. I had to get my jaw wired back together, and I had to cancel all my shows, and it took me a while to recover from that, yeah.
Well, that’s a bit rude.
Yeah, I think a 2x4 to the face is a bit much.
I had no idea it was a 2x4. Jesus, who had one of those just laying around?
Yeah, no, ‘cos the next yard was up on a retaining wall, so he was actually standing up a lot higher than me. The next yard had a half-built house, so there were bricks and building material there, and he picked up this really thick piece … it was the stuff that they use inside the house that they build the bricks around, as part of the frame of the house, so he took a big run up, and my head was down closer to his knees because the next yard was higher up … He took a big run-up like Happy Gilmore and just went crack. I didn’t have enough time to react … He took a quick run-up, and before I’d even registered what was going on, I remember, it just felt like I got hit by a truck in the face. Yeah, I woke up, and I was pissing out blood from my mouth, and my whole jaw was broken in half. It was so painful. I couldn’t lie down. I had to go to hospital. I waited for ages before I got morphine, and they ended up having to wire my jaw back together. Yeah, I was really lucky. I could’ve died. He went to prison, as well. I just learned to be careful, and just to look after myself and stay out of certain situations. It was kind of weird, because I was at the house party, and he was a friend of the person who [owned] the place. My partner at the time was friends with his partner, but I didn’t realise that he was a psycho and would hit his partner and stuff like that. By the time I found out, it was kind of too late.
So anyway, I had to cancel some shows, and that lost us a bit of momentum. I started coming back, doing shows again … My band actually had to jump up onstage in front of 5000 people and perform without me because I was in hospital. [Laughs] I think that’s what really stopped the momentum a bit. We were on a roll, you know? I’ve come back over the years. I’ve still been performing live. I jumped onstage and performed in front of 10,000 people with PUBLIC ENEMY. I beatboxed while Flavor Flav and Chuck D rapped. I did the XZIBIT tour. Yeah, that was awesome … I’ve still had some good experiences, and I’ve kept busy in terms of live performance, but I’ve just kind of wanted to better myself as an artist and come out with something fresh. I’ve got some great tracks in the bag that we’re bringing out, as well as Mullet, which is the new track that we’re bringing out now.
Pictured: Mullet artwork
I’ve got to tell you, I don’t approve of you endorsing mullets. I thought that we, as a society, had moved on beyond the mullet, but apparently we haven’t. [Laughs]
[Laughs] It’s just one of those things, man. We noticed that it’s just the haircut that just won’t die. We thought it was gone after the 90s. It was big in the 80s – you’d see Farnham onstage with a mullet. Then it went away, then it came back, and it became … certain characters that you’d see at the pub would have a mullet … real kind of ocker, Aussie blokes. Now it’s made a comeback as a popular thing, and we noticed the mullets popping up everywhere – kids to adults, celebrities, football players, athletes … we noticed heaps of people rocking mullets. We did a funny song about it as a “mullet anthem”, and we just knew, right now is the time to bring out a song like this, because the haircut is everywhere. We keep seeing it. A few months back, I went to the shops, and no joke, a dad had a mullet, his son had a mullet – he had a ranga kid who had a mullet – and even the kids on scooters, even the youngest one who was, like, three years old, it was like a whole mullet family. I’m like, “Aw man, here we go! Mullets are back!” [Laughs] Yeah, that was last year! So, we’ve done a comedy track, as well as kind of taking the piss out of the stereotype of mullets, and giving them a bit of representation, because we feel like they’ve kind of had a hard time, you know? [Laughs]
I feel like it’s almost come back as a kind of “fuck you” to people.
Yeah, it has … It’s come back as another haircut that you can choose to have if you so dare. It’s got a following, man. People are cranking their mullets. We just went to Mulletfest in Dubbo, and we were surrounded by mullets everywhere. We performed our song at Mulletfest, and I was like, “Wow, I didn’t realise this many people actually had mullets.”
I’m impressed, and slightly disturbed, that there are so many people with mullets that they felt the need to have a festival. [Laughs]
Yeah! [Laughs] It is, man. There was a mullet competition. There was a Best Juniors Mullet, a Best Seniors Mullet … there was even girls with mullets. There were some really cranking mullets there. There were, like, coloured purple mullets and stuff. It was crazy. It’s definitely not dead. It’s the haircut that just won’t die!
Mullet feat. Macca The Rappa is out now.