Q&A: Bloc Party
Tickets for their Rock City date on October 28 are now on sale.
We spoke to Matt Tong...
Did all four band members have a similar idea of what you wanted to achieve on Intimacy ?
I think Kele was the main instigator in the small electronic direction. Generally we have always tried to do something different with each album and we felt the best way we could ensure we did that on this album would be to allow Kele to go to town with it.
When you look at all three Bloc Party albums, how do they compare?
I think we find it so hard to be objective sometimes especially when it comes to pitting our records against each other. I think compared to our second album this time we didn't think through things so much and that actually felt a lot more natural. It was slightly counterintuitive going into the second album session with a bunch of demos that we just wanted to record to make sound better. As a band we like to keep on creating – even if we're in the studio recording – so actually going into a studio to re-record a demo that we've been practising, I don't think that really suits us now.
What songs from your back catalogue are you most proud of?
On the second album I think Where Is Home? is one I'm most proud of. I really admire Kele's lyrics and I think it was a really brave song for him to write. People in contemporary indie don't really seem to tackle these subjects and when they do the attempts always appear rather ham-fisted so I really admire the sentiments in that song. On the first record a song called Pioneers really encapsulated what that whole album was, it was like the whole album in a three-minute song. On the new record I'm most proud of the songs I wasn't really involved in – Signs is working really well as a live song it seems and Biko is also really good.
You recently moved to Berlin: Why?
I suddenly had the resources available to me to be able to move to Berlin and I was sick of living in London and fancied a change. I'd never lived in a foreign country before and really felt like it would be an interesting thing for me to do.
The style of your music has changed with each Bloc Party album. Do you think you'll ever go back to the indie-rock showcased on Silent Alarm ?
I don't think so – there's every chance we might go back to more orthodox arrangements or things that resemble a traditional band but I don't think we'll ever write songs like we did on Silent Alarm again. I think that energy and nervousness was a fairly important factor so I don't think we'll ever go back to that again.
How many more albums do you think are left in Bloc Party?
We'll continue as long as we feel like we're offering something interesting. As long as we produce records people don't expect us to do, we'll carry on making records but as soon as they start to become repetitive we'll stop but who knows when that'll be!
The band is known for having a great stage presence. Do you feel the pressure when you go on tour?
I think we only really feel pressure when we do really big shows like big festivals or arena shows because in order to give the kind of performance that works well in front of that many people you have to show a little bit of restraint which runs slightly against our natural instinct of a band which is to play things really fast and not really focus on the standards of what we're really playing. We've always really excelled in the environments when we really go at it without thinking too much – it comes quite naturally but we're definitely approaching bigger shows a bit more carefully and you do feel a bit more pressure to deliver. We try not to think about it too much but sometimes self-doubt does creep in.
You suffered with a collapsed lung a couple of years ago when on tour – were you worried afterwards about whether it would affect your playing?
I think the first show after I was like "hmmm, let's see how this goes". I had to take two months off after but it was fine and it's been fine since. I've been looking after myself, there's not a lot you can do for it but it made me give up smoking which is a definite positive and the good thing to come from the whole experience.
You've managed to avoid being in the tabloids. Was that a conscious decision?
To be honest with you, if you end up being in the slightly unexpected position of being a celebrity then you make a conscious decision as to whether you'll be photographed stumbling out of nightclubs. You make that conscious decision to go to those places and be reported about in the celebrity columns. There's a whole mechanism in process to make sure you're always in the public eye and your PR person co-ordinates with the paparazzi and helps brand you as some kind of celebrity. I don't think we did anything exceptional to avoid it but naturally we're not that kind of people or in it for that kind of thing. They say no publicity is bad publicity but if you start acting like that then you have to justify it in a certain way and it doesn't suit us. We're a bunch of nerdy guys in a band, we wouldn't fit into that world very well. Also I don't think people would buy it coming from us – panty shots of us getting into a taxi wearing a kilt showing our testicles – I don't think it's going to go down too well!
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Bloc Party
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