Woah, Kele

K
ele Okereke, one of the most renowned indie frontmen of the noughties, is just about to release his debut solo album, The Boxer, an impressive collection of pulsating electro tunes. According to some reports, Kele had originally considered taking some time off from making music when Bloc Party went on hiatus, but he's quick to emphasise that this wasn't exactly the case.

"I always knew I was going to make a record by myself," he explains. "We had a discussion in the middle of 2009 about what we were going to do the following year, and I thought I might take around six months to do nothing, but it didn't really work like that. Before I knew it, I had all these half-finished songs that I just felt compelled to complete."
It had been mentioned in some quarters that The Boxer would feature Warp beat guru Hudson Mohawke on production duties, but in fact the sole collaborator on the finished record is XXXChange. When I ask Kele why he decided to give the album the title of The Boxer, he replies that he liked the image of someone fighting back in adversity. I wonder if he feels that he's been on the ropes himself recently?
"I think the last touring year of Bloc Party, we were kind of exhausted," Kele reflects. "I don't think the way we were communicating was particularly strong. It was quite a dark time for us as a band, and this record was the one ray of positivity that I had to focus on. While we were touring in 2009, it was the one thing that kept me excited about music."
Did he miss his fellow band members while working on the album?
"Not really," he laughs. "The thing is, I haven't gone on the road yet; once we start touring, it'll probably be a different story. But right now, not really. Like I say, it'll probably be different once I start gigging, although I'm lucky that I have a very good group of people around me, who I've known for a long time. So I think it's going to be a whole new kind of adventure."
Bloc Party guitarist Russell Lissack (currently touring with Ash), has been quoted as saying that the group intend to reunite later in the year, but when I query Kele about a possible reformation, he offers only a tentative, "We'll see". He's also reticent about discussing his "coming out" in Butt magazine earlier this year (which he described as "an important step" in his relationship with his "super Catholic" parents), giving simply a terse "no comment" by way of reply.
Searching around for a less awkward conversational topic, I suggest that Bloc Party's continuing musical experimentation has been a heartening feature of the rock landscape in recent years, as many other bands who've achieved a mainstream breakthrough (eg. The Killers, Snow Patrol, Coldplay) have been musically pretty conservative.
"Well, it's very kind of you to say that," responds Kele. "We just do our own thing, and don't pay too much attention to what other people are doing. That's it really. I don't own any records by those bands that you mentioned; it's not interesting to me. One of our greatest strengths – and one of the things that people criticise us most for – is our individuality. We don't care about pissing people off, even our fans. It's always been about what we wanted to make, and I feel that's a good thing.
"I'm incredibly proud of our output as a band, I think it's diverse and compelling. When you look at the music of some of our contemporaries, I don't think that there's necessarily such a range in their material. I reckon that's what will stand the test of time. People will be able to get into the Bloc Party records and appreciate the different sounds and textures, and that's exciting."
Has making The Boxer given Kele a renewed sense of creative vigour?
"Yeah, it was a very different way of working," he answers. "The reason why it happened so quickly was that it was a very enjoyable process. It reminded me a lot of why I started making music in the first place."

Kele plays Dolan's, Limerick (May 14); Cyprus Avenue, Cork (15); Academy, Dublin (16); and Spring and Airbrake, Belfast, (17)