Paul Banks and Daniel Kessler of Interpol join The Matt Wilkinson Show on Apple Music 1 to premiere their brand-new single 'Something Changed', from their forthcoming album "The Other Side Of Make-Believe". During the interview they discuss the writing and recording process, how working remotely impacted the sound of the record, reflect on working with video director Van Alpert, and more.
Interpol Tell Apple Music About The Process Of Recording Their Forthcoming Album…
Daniel Kessler: It feels like a good step forward and it feels like a natural evolution in the next chapter in our book and was pretty effortless to do. And even though the circumstances were not effortless in the sense that we normally do get together in a room and we flesh out songs and we build them up and they become Interpol songs in that manner because of the circumstances in us being in the three different countries. So we basically just traded these tracks back and forth and then we saw like a window to get together after lockdown. I think it was like March 2021 and then we went to the Catskills. It's one thing to build these songs on recordings and send them around but it's another thing that played them together. And then we just rented this house for two weeks and just moved the furniture out of the living room and just started playing together. Then soon enough you could see that these songs could stand on their own feet and we could achieve. Bring it full circle to now playing them live in the room and playing them from start to finish, and then also fleshing them out and working on some new ones.
Interpol Tell Apple Music About Recording Vocal Parts For The Album Remotely…
Paul Banks: When Daniel was saying that this one was written remotely, and so like the vocal delivery I wasn't competing with the volume of Sam and the amplifiers in a room when I was writing my vocal parts. Instead I was just alone in a bedroom. I think the temperament of the melodies is a little bit different this time around because we didn't have that sort of raucous volume situation going on. It was just me with headphones in my bedroom writing.
Interpol Tell Apple Music About Their Brand-New Single ‘Something Changed’…
Paul Banks: I mean, Daniel writes the chord progression on piano, so that was circulated to us over email as a complete song with the structure. I think it's a pretty fun song because the bass kind of really just appears in the chorus and then the vocal got inspired by the baseline that I did. And then the guitar stuff was also just sort of tinkering. The reverse guitar stuff was totally just a noodle that I did, it actually had a bunch of wrong notes in it as well in the beginning. And in the mixing session, I think we actually just kind of went through and took away the parts that were sort of pushing it too far.
Daniel Kessler: Because it's melodic. What is there is very, very melodic and unlikely or an unexpected melody, but it's very compelling. And for me it becomes one of my favourite moments of the record. In the bridge, especially the fragility coupled with the vocal and the way it just kind of elevates, it's a great moment, it's one of my favourite moments on the record itself.
Interpol Tell Apple Music About Working With Van Alpert…
Paul Banks: The initial concept that Van had come up with that really spoke to me was featured choreographed dancing. We're sort of known as being a bit of a melancholy band and I think the rhythm section's always been a major aspect, but I don't know if the dance-ability of the music has ever really been highlighted. He kind of got this concept going, it's like two lovers and they are being pursued by a gang, a kind of '80s referential dance gang. Love Is A Battlefield was a reference. West Side Story was a reference. I told Van to check out a movie called The Last Dragon for fashion ideas.
This couple they're being chased by a gang and ultimately they defend themselves and are triumphant at the end of video one and then video two begins and it's a bit of a dream state where now the protagonist male and female find themselves naked and they're being pursued by this strange police officer whos played by me. Van's idea was like that there'd just be this weirdly, almost magical unstoppable force, like ominous presence. And then we talked about like Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men, Raising Arizona as a Coen's movie where there's this dude on a motorcycle with these guns.
Interpol’s Paul Banks Tells Apple Music About Covering Post Malone…
I'm a huge fan of his [Van Alpert]. He did the video for ‘White Iverson’ by Post Malone, which is a song that really early on I actually like was such a fan of, I did a cover of that song that no one has heard nor will they hear, but very passionate about that song.
Interpol Tell Apple Music About The Title Of Their Forthcoming Album…
Paul Banks: I mean, it's a lyric from a song on the record called ‘Passenger’. So when we were deciding on album titles oftentimes we'll just go through and pick certain lyrics that we like and I think when we realized that was an option, it was a pretty easy choice after that point.
