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Interpol.
"I'm a huge fan of tennis, it's my sport. I don't have the athleticism [to play professionally], but I'm pretty fucking good," Paul Banks says rather defensively. And why did I start talking about tennis to the vocalist and guitarist of Interpol, perhaps the broodiest, most sombre and seemingly least sporty band of this year's Splendour In The Grass line up?
Well, it is a little known fact that Slow Hands, from
their latest release 'Antics', was originally entitled Rod Laver.
It seems strange that Banks would be a fan of arguably Australia's
greatest-ever tennis player, but Banks explains that the title
Rod Laver was more of an idea rather than a direct reference
to our sporting hero: "I like playing with the idea of icons;
I've always liked playing with names. With Rod Laver it was
something that inspired me.
"The more I think about things lyrically, sometimes I think they get less pure. Some stuff is very meticulously thought out and composed and some of it is almost associative but more..." Banks stops as he tries to think of the best way to explain himself.
"I try to obey spontaneous ideas. I consciously try to obey
them and not second-guess them because there's something pure
about that; there's something utterly unique about the first
thing that comes into your mind. Rod Laver just occurred to
me as a title months and months ago when we were first writing
Slow Hands but when it came down to it we couldn't get
clearance from whoever handles his estate, which was unfortunate.
Had we pushed it maybe would have, but we had time constraints
and at the minimum they would've wanted to see the lyrics and
then they would think, 'Well, why do you want to call it Rod
Laver? It has nothing to do with tennis'," he concludes.
Interpol's rise to fame was relatively rapid, emerging from the crowded New York scene and onto the world stage with the release of 'Turn On The Bright Lights' in 2002. "I suppose there was a degree of strategy in the beginning, but we weren't the kind of band that got into it to become famous. We weren't trying to write music that was really acceptable so we were surprised that we were received as well as we were. We weren't writing radio-friendly songs nor were we expecting to be a big band, so our whole strategy was about satisfying our own creative impulses musically.
"As far as getting a following in NY, we had a simple, plodding along kind of attitude. We didn't want to play too many shows, but we never wanted to be too far out of sight. We thought, 'We'll play once a month in NYC until people start to notice us in other cities' then we started branching out to Boston and Washington DC and the fan base grew very gradually. When '[Turn On The] Bright Lights' came out it kind of set up very quickly."
Soon Interpol were touring not only in America, but also in Europe and the UK. At first Banks was surprised by the reactions.
"The response has been very much relative and equal everywhere in terms of enthusiasm and as far as popularity. We predicted that we would be better received in Europe because kids like new music, I think it's in their culture more than it is over here. [Europeans] are all geared up about bands and music and stuff. But we were surprised to see that our audiences in the US have been as enthusiastic as they have been all over the world.
"We haven't been to Australia for this record so I don't know what to expect. I know the last time we went was one of the most fun tours we've been on. We all thoroughly enjoyed our time. People are great there."
Reactions to 'Antics', Interpol's slightly 'lighter' album (i. e., not pitch black), indicate that Interpol's set of dates will be well received. Despite the subtle change of tone on 'Antics', Banks rejects any mention of premeditated change in musical direction.
"We don't pursue any direction consciously, we just write the songs as they come. So I think there'll be trends in our song writing, but it's never anything that we set about to try and do. I have no idea how the next record will follow in the course of anything we've done prior, because I think there'll be 'periods' and because the songs come from all four of us there's no one person that can guide it in any one direction That's why I think a 'trend' is a more appropriate way to describe it."
I suggest that the record would instead reflect what was happening in the collective lives of the band during the writing and recording process.
"In some way maybe, but then again any events that are happening in one person's life will wind up diluted by all the other inputs. There's no way you can make any sort of direct correlation between life influences and the actual sound."
There was one more thing that was on my mind: how does a band like Interpol fit into the 'sun, fun and frivolity' attitude of an outdoor festival such as Splendour? "We all have sort of different views on that. I think we all agree that our music is appreciated best in the dark," Banks laughs. "But at the same time it is rock music so I always think, 'If you have a loud drummer and electric guitar then you can play at any time of the day'. I think we go over fine during the day but there are guys in the band that would happily never play in the day time."
Cassie Hilditch
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dB Magazine proudly presents Interpol at Fowlers Live on Fri 22 July.
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