More Dour To Their Elbows

e presumably doesn’t mean to offend, but Daniel Kessler assures me that he won’t ever be reading this Hot Press interview. Speaking down the line from his Sicilian hotel room, the Interpol guitarist explains that he’s spent much of his band’s increasingly successful career studiously avoiding what’s been written or said about them.

“I haven’t actually read an interview in about seven years, almost since the beginning,” the 35-year-old musician admits. “I haven’t read reviews either since around that time. The only live film footage I’ve ever seen of us has really been the first thing we ever did, which was around 2002 or something.”
He puts this policy of avoidance more down to “survival” rather than a complete lack of rock star narcissism.
“I try not to look or analyse or see what we have done, and just keep going forward,” he explains. “I realised years ago that once it’s out of your hands, it’s out of your hands. And so I think that has served me well because, it’s either you try and control everything – and you are going to fail because you can’t control everything – or you let go of things.
“Like we’re doing this interview now, but then afterwards it’s in your hands, it’s not in my hands. What’s in my hands is my answers and our conversation somewhat, but after that it’s up to you and the people you work with to decide how the interview is going to be. That’s out of my control. I can only decide that I’ll do this interview, so I think that’s kind of served me well and I kind of like it. It lets you keep going forward and not paying too much mind to what you’ve just done.
“I’m not saying that this is necessarily an honest way for me to go by, but it’s like a self-preservation one. I don’t want the influence to be because, ‘Oh man, the review wasn’t good’, or any of that stuff to get into my subconscious at all. I want to be like, ‘this is what’s doing it for me’.”
If Kessler ever does decide to take a trawl through a box of Interpol’s old press cuttings, he’ll be pleasantly surprised. Or maybe not. Presumably both his bank balance and his bandmates, Paul Banks (vocals), Sam Fogarino (drums) and recently departed bassist Carlos Dengler (of which more shortly), have provided some reassurance over the years that Interpol definitely aren’t considered a crock of shit.
First formed in New York City in 1997, though not releasing their debut album Turn On The Bright Lights until 2002, Interpol have slowly and steadily built up a vast international audience for their dark, downbeat and gothic guitar-driven indie rock, garnering no shortage of critical acclaim along the way.
Kessler is holidaying in Italy following a month’s tour of the US, and gearing up for both the release of Interpol’s self-titled fourth album and some U2 support dates.
“The US ones were postponed after Bono injured his back. But we’re doing some European ones in the coming weeks."
He explains that his avoidance policy doesn’t just extend to the media – at least not while he’s writing or recording a new Interpol record.
“During a recording I definitely live in a bubble. Certainly during writing and recording I won’t even hear friends’ bands for fear of subconscious infiltration of influence. So I’ll steer clear and probably insult my friends by not hearing their new records and so forth. But then the spring arrives, and like a bear comes out of hibernation and starts finally catching up to things, and then that’s a great feeling when you are like, ‘I can do this now. I can hear new music!’ And you’re like, ‘I want to buy a record!’
“I think this time when we finished recording I bought the Beach House record [Teen Dream], it was maybe the first record I listened to after finishing this album. So it’s always a good feeling, just like in everything in life there is give and take, and so when you finally take you really appreciate it, not just constant consumption.”
Any reason why the new record is self-titled? It seems unusual for a fourth album.
“Yeah, I think it felt interesting – Interpol. Even the fact that you’d ask that question, you know. I think if it’s your first record you probably don’t even ask the question, it’s just like it’s the modest presentation; the band name; it’s efficient; it’s an introduction. But while we were writing the record I think we had one day where we just sort of deviated from practicing and writing, and we started having a conversation about titles and so forth – nothing too serious – but then Paul said, ‘How about a self-titled record?’
“And that sort of caught all of our attentions, and it made us all think a little bit, and right there there was a bit of a sign: ‘Oh yeah, that might be the most interesting thing we could do – let the music speak for itself’. And it being the fourth record it’s a bit different when you do that. But the music is really full, the record does speak for itself. Every song is quite detailed and has its own story, and together it’s a very cohesive feel as an entire album, in our opinion. So we felt like, ‘Well, we don’t need to really try to add a title or find something to tie all this together.’ We felt like this really says it all. It’s very much an Interpol record.”
This much is true. While initially loud, claustrophobic and doomy sounding, it’s an album that seems to musically expand over repeated listens.
“As a record it’s really detailed. I’m sure your fifth listen will be very different from your second listen. And I like that. I think, in this day and age where people try to – in the music industry – front-end the record and you know, you need a big single, and put it at No. 1. We don’t really operate by the times. I think we operate the same way we have always operated, which is an album, and the right sequence for the record, and an overall story from start to finish.”
Soon after Interpol was recorded, bassist Carlos Dengler – probably the most recognisable band member – announced that he was departing the fold. While Interpol is now officially a trio, they’ve recruited David Pago as their new bassist and Brandon Curtis as their new keyboardist and backing vocalist for their tour.
“Well, it wasn’t like one day we were shocked or anything like that,” Kessler says of Dengler’s departure. “We knew while we were writing the record that Carlos had been a bit conflicted because there are other things that he wanted to attend to in his life, and other avenues that he wanted to go down.
“But obviously being in a band demands a lot of your time and attention, and it’s kind of hard to juggle both, and once you release the record, chances are you are going to be gone for up to a year-and-a-half and so forth. And it’s hard to do two things at once when that’s happening, and at the same time we knew he was very much really involved with the music we were writing and was very much into the stuff we were writing. It wasn’t until he basically finished his contribution to the recording process – before we had mixed the record and so forth – that it became clear for him that he needed to leave the band.
“But when he came to that conclusion we understood - and it was a very sympathetic and amicable moment.”
With record sales at an all-time low, and the music business in the doldrums, the band will be embarking on a gruelling promotional tour for Interpol. Brian Eno recently commented that “records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky.”
What are Kessler’s thoughts?
“I don’t know… I mean, maybe. To me, it’s part of this whole thing – it’s out of your control. Some things are in your control: being creative, and finding interesting ways of disseminating your music, and having really direct contact with people who are interested in your music so people out there don’t have to wait for twenty middle men to say, ‘Oh, well you need us to get to that opportunity’, you can actually be creative, have great ideas, and if they’re good ideas, and if the music’s good and so forth then people will come to you. That’s direct, so maybe that’s part of the trade-off.
“As far as selling records, I don’t know, I never really put too much stock in them in the first place. And the fact that we’ve had the success that we’ve had with even our first record... you know, in all earnestness I would have been so excited if we had sold 20,000 records worldwide. 10,000 records in the United States was a success where I came from. And so to have surpassed a certain level has always been like nothing I ever imagined. So I never worried about record sales too much I guess, and the days of selling records? I still think people care about the Album or the Album has a certain completion, so I sort of worry about the art of the Album and not just the art of one song. So I’m not really biding by the times, I’m not trying to really fit for the times, just kind of doing your own thing and what feels right to you. And I think that’s the only thing you can control in this day and age – is what feels right to you.”