Bloc Party's Kele Okereke Opens Up For A Weekend In The City

Bloc Party are in promotion mode for the Feb. 6 release of their A Weekend In The City album, and frontman Kele Okereke seems to have revealed more than just information about the disc in an interview with the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper on Sunday.

Journalist Craig McLean asked Okereke about his sexuality, since rumours have been floating around about it and there are a few songs ("I Still Remember," "Kreuzberg") on the new disc that seem to have gay overtones. Another track titled "For England" had similar themes, but was left off of A Weekend In The City. It's something that the 25-year-old singer has avoided discussing with the media in the past, but, without coming right out and declaring himself homosexual, he says he's now ready to open up and talk about it.

"With the first album [Silent Alarm] I didn't think it was essential to the experience. I didn't want to have to talk about it in a tabloid way. It wasn't there in the songs, so why did people need to know? But yeah, there are songs on this record that do feel like they're about desire, longing. So yeah, I am gonna talk about that."

Okereke says "I Still Remember" deals with longing for someone you can't have, and he goes on to talk about unspoken attractions between heterosexual boys and men.

"I guess 'I Still Remember' is an attempt at trying to confront that. I don't think that my sexual impulse is that bizarre or foreign. [But] the way that it's supposedly discussed in mainstream culture is [that] it's a crazy thing. But I know from my own experiences a lot of heterosexual boys had feelings or experiences when they were younger."

Whatever Okereke's sexual persuasion, he's helped make one of the most eagerly awaited albums of early 2007 and is uneasy about the "definite homophobic bias-slash-persecution" that most non-heterosexuals are subjected to in the media.

"Britain has always had a love/hate relationship with gay public figures. They're treated as funny and inoffensive and camp. But then when a seemingly heterosexual person seems to display an inclination for the other team it becomes this real hounding situation. You're allowed to exist if they're seen as a kind of sub-class."

Despite this, Okereke sees that he can be a role model by speaking out "to young people in their impressionable formative years — and say something that could help them make sense of their lives. Lessen the sense of alienation and isolation that they might have. I think that's something that definitely... I'd be proud of. That we could say that there are alternative ways of behaving, of living one's life."

Bloc Party's The Prayer remix EP was made available exclusively on iTunes on Tuesday, while a seven-inch version of the song backed with "For England" will be given away with the purchase of A Weekend In The City by select independent music retailers.

Bloc Party are taking their show on the road in support of the new LP. The band will play shows in Britain and Japan before launching a North American tour that will feature a rotating cast of opening acts that includes Final Fantasy, former Death From Above 1979 member Sebastien Grainger, The Strokes' Albert Hammond Jr., The Like and Smoosh. The band had to cancel part of their North American tour late last year after drummer Matt Tong suffered a collapsed lung.

Bloc Party have tour dates slated in March for Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, but they haven't officially been announced yet.