Interpol In Their Own Words

06/03/09 11:34am

In The fall of 2005, Interpol disappeared for the better part of two years. They made their return in Canada this spring to preview their July release, Our Love To Admire, a sprawling collection of orchestral rock that takes their trademark sound and gives it another dimension. Paul Banks and Sam Forgarino discuss what happened from the time they vanished until their highly anticipated return, which began in Ottawa in mid-April.

Paul Banks: I think we were all very ready to be done with touring at the end of 2005. Primarily, we'd had this long mission where the first two records were almost formed as a campaign. And it was very important to us to make the second record close on the heels of the first, and make it very good, and to go out and support that album. And it did become one long stretch. When the second one was done, I think that we all had a really good sense of accomplishment that we'd achieved exactly what we wanted to, like making the second record, supporting it as aggressively as the first one, and just making our mark. We all felt that was a great time to break and get our heads back, which was needed at that point. I think I just went out and got wasted for a while. I'm sure we all went on vacation. I don't remember where I went.

Sam Fogarino: When we finished — the last show was October 2005 — we immediately took three months off from each other, the whole thing. I actually started working on some other music. I went and I never really stopped. Interpol takes up a lot of our time, so I just felt the need to kind of express some stuff outside the band. And then we started again. I mean, three months goes by really fast, and the next thing you know, right after the new year, mid-January 2006, we were kind of holed up in our rehearsal space working on this album. We spent 10 months kind of honing in on the songs and fleshing them out before we entered the studio a year after that last show was played in 2005. One solid year.

PB: And the space that we wrote in after those three months was an interesting place to write the new songs. You know, cold, hell. It was on 8th Avenue and 38th Street. It's called The Music Building, right?

SF: Music Building, yeah.

PB: It's just like, not dilapidated, but it's a pretty scuzzy fucking area. It's right by Times Square, but not even, it's off Times Square. So it's still got the remnants of fucking sleaze.

SF: Remnants of sleaze juxtaposed with nine-to-fivers and flocks of tourists.

PB: So it's really a bizarre part of town.

SF: The parts of town with tourists always made me feel like, "Why are you here? This part of town sucks. Like, why aren't you downtown where there's cool things?"

PB: But anyway, we had this room that — what I thought was great about it was it was on the sixth floor, which doesn't sound high, but it was. It's right above 8th Avenue and had quite a few windows that were all dirty and graffitied over. But you could see. Look west and you could see some really big buildings over by the west side of the highway — huge, fucking enormous factory-type buildings. It's a pretty interesting view. Prior to that we'd had spaces that either had no view or were in a basement with no windows, so it was the first time to kind of have a real sort of city vibe that I always felt. I always like looking out the windows, especially at night. You go over to the windows and look down at the street. That felt really good, to be writing in that sort of environment, however scuzzy the whole thing was.

SF: I agree, totally. Even though it was off of the main area of Times Square, you still had the illumination of outside lights coming in, even when you put the lights off in the room. It was lit by neon that was coming in externally. And there was like a true New York grit, and I think the last bit of true New York grit was in that room — in that corner room that faced northwest.

PB: I don't think we've often been asked about how environment affects our music, and I really don't think it's something that can be described — how that happens, if that happens at all. Music kind of obeys its own laws, which are independent of environment. What melody or what counter-melody works with the melody has nothing to do with the space you're in. It's self-referential, it has its own realm of existence that you have to obey. So, I mean I liked it. I felt like I was going to a rock rehearsal when I was going to this place, but once we're in there and we're playing together it's much more like nothing is around you except for the music.

SF: If anything, it informs your personal state of mind. If anything, it readies you for what you're about to do. If we would have been at Compass Point in the Bahamas, we wouldn't have written a reggae record. It would have been the same record. Personally, the way we would have been affected by the environment still wouldn't have had anything to do with the music. One might have been kind of happy and bubbly because you're near white sandy beaches and palm trees, but the dub influence wouldn't have snuck in.

ON WRITING AT HOME

PB: Just like anything, writing depends on how your day went. You're situated in New York, you have your own personal lives going on. Some days it was just super-productive and fun, and a very jovial atmosphere. And some days it was like pulling teeth.

SF: In general, the writing process is my favourite aspect of the entire thing. But as far as pulling teeth, when we're writing it's great when everyone's exactly on the same page. It's great at that early stage. As well, I like it because it's sort of the non-committal stage. It's like you're jamming to make things sound good. There's a lot of battles won and lost. The right kind of battles you have to fight. That's not always pleasant, the differing of opinions. But ultimately we don't stop until everyone likes what's happening. The reward at the end is everyone will be happy. But getting to a point where four strong-minded individuals all agree? Sometimes it's a smooth process and intensely gratifying. But sometimes it's a more difficult thing, and it's only gratifying later.

PB: I think everybody differently has their own way in which they want to contribute. We play as a band, but everyone has their private, personal contribution. You can work on that as an individual, but none of us says, "On this record, guys, we're going to make it like this." I think we all had our own aspirations as to what we wanted to do to improve. As a band, I think just organically it's a more sophisticated thing now. For me personally, in a general way I wanted everything to be better. As far as vocals went, I wanted to focus on melody. My only thought was that I wanted to really hone in on melody. But that's not really a change as much as it's a natural evolution, I think.

SF: Rhythmically, I wanted it to be more kind of true to my roots. It's kind of funny. I always thought — even from the minute I joined this band — that bombastic rhythmical bursts would really complement the gauzy, whispy melody that sometimes occurs in the music. And it's funny, I went in thinking this could happen immediately, and it didn't. It took time to evolve. And I think that on this record it has gotten closer than it ever has. I wasn't so concerned with maybe being… I didn't have a problem with being conventional at times, being really hard-hitting and really forceful and embracing some early rock influences, ‘cause I think that creates something really cool, not something you'd really expect coming from Interpol. You have this really rock bottom foundation.

ON RECORDING

SF: We started in The Magic Shop in SoHo. We made a conscious decision not to go back to Bridgeport, to stay local. And The Magic Shop was great. We tracked the bass and the guitar and the drums there and then switched studios to Electric Lady Studios, also in downtown Manhattan. That's a great, great fucking studio.

PB: We wound up doing quite a bit at Electric Lady. It was nice to be in New York. Electric Lady is supposedly haunted. Some days I had a feeling that something was around there, but I didn't see anything.

SF: It was a good experience. And you do kind of feel something — aside from this dorky, you know, "This Bowie record was done here!" Or, Led Zeppelin's Houses Of The Holy was mixed at Electric Lady. I went home one night after a session and turned on VH1 and it was just like some type of rockumentary on — I think they were speaking with someone who had played with Jimi Hendrix. And it was like, "That's where I just came from!"

PB: I saw Sebastian Bach.

SF: Axl Rose came in! He did some work. Patti Smith was mixing her record while we were there. And I was at a pre-party that she and Michael Stipe from R.E.M. put together before they were both inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. And that was like the only time I'm ever going to feel really comfortable approaching her, by saying, "Hey we were just at the same studio together." And she was like, "I saw your cases." That was basically it, and awkwardly so! And I was like, "It's best left like this." The whole Patti Smith aura remains intact.

ON GETTING BACK IN THE GAME ON CANADIAN SOIL

PB: Well, it's been a while. I think it's just sort of, you know, getting back in the groove of performing. We all like Canada a lot.

SF: It's true! It's not just a North American testing ground. Canada isn't Columbus, Ohio, that's for damn sure!

PB: I feel very excited. I also love performing, seeing the world. It's like we kind of put out this thing we put a lot of blood and sweat into, and now it's kind of like you have to make sure it gets out into the world in the right way. That kind of sense of duty and excitement to see how this does, doing right by the record. And then you just go see the fans and see the world. I feel very excited, but also a lot of focus about what we're doing.

SF: It's almost controlling the way it's perceived, making sure the performance is above, beyond the par. There's a great satisfaction in completing that task. The fact that you have the whole year to do it and kind of hone it in is amazing. And then it's kind of undeniable that to see the world by playing music… words cannot express. Pinch me. It's just like, "What the fuck?" It's great. "I get to go where? And do what?" And when you get that crowd that is just totally electrified and elated and you see it in front of you, it's kind of priceless.

PB: And once people — like, now we're playing newer songs that people don't know — once the album's out and they know it, I'm very excited to see that reaction. Right now it's just an immediate sort of, "I have no idea what the fuck you're doing, but it's awesome." And that's good, you know, it's fun. I like watching them getting into these new pieces. The pieces we're playing are challenging! They're not first-listening material necessarily at all, anyway. But to see that kind of switching over as people become familiar with the material and then their excitement for the songs, I have a lot of anticipation for that.

The following feature is from the July 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. To purchase the issue, go to the CHARTattack Shop.