Joe Talbot from IDLES joins Matt Wilkinson today (20th Feb) on Apple Music 1 to discuss new album Tangk. Joe discusses how he writes his lyrics in the studio and making the new record with Kenny Beats and Nigel Godrich. He also talks about new song ‘Idea One’, his love of poetry and rapper D Double E, writing love songs and his IDLES band mates.
Joe Talbot on writing lyrics spontaneously…
Everything was written at the mic. It's a thing. It's like the power of procrastination, the idea being that you've already written it. Writers that search for words and search for lyrics and search for stories, it comes from experience. It's all experiential. No matter how far away from your reality, your story, or your lyrics fit, it comes from your experience. I kind of just trust it. And it works because I listen to the song like 200 times.
Joe Talbot on Kenny Beats and Nigel Godrich…
But I mean more of when you're trying to learn from someone as brilliant as Kenny or someone as brilliant as Nigel Godrich, there's a sense that it's not just about what's happening at that point, but it's about putting two and two together. I followed both of their careers and their catalogue before I met them and had the opportunity to work with them. So when you see it in person, I can assume it's the same as meeting a football manager, you know? You can see all the games being played. But when you see them train and you see it all fit into place, you understand that's an ethos and a work ethic that comes to life when you are working with them.
For me, it was tough as an artist understanding what to do on this record because I had preconceptions of what was going to happen. And it doesn't, there's a lot put on me in terms of just because that's how I've done it before. You don't want to get comfortable as an artist. If you're comfortable, you're on the edge of boring. The bored get boring. The interested get interested. And the way you stay interested, as an artist, is creating a dialogue and keep challenging yourself and moving forward. So I'm just in this room with Bowen and Nigel, Bowen being a lot more dynamic than I am. I'm just like, this isn't what I'm used to. So Nigel was good at pushing us.
Joe Talbot on new song ‘Idea One’ reminding him of the band’s previous track ‘Kalechi’…
And then I went away and listened to it , and it just reminded me of a song called Kalechi, which is on Crawler, the album before, which is about my mate who killed himself. I hadn't seen him for a long time, and it just made me feel a sense of regret and not keep in touch with some of my friends from Exeter, which I had a chip on my shoulder about. And I realised it was me that I was angry at and nothing to do with the place I grew up in. But I wanted to reattach myself to the last moment I saw him, which was waving him off. And then it kind of made me think of all these certain friends of mine who came from very different backgrounds and my experiences with them and their parents because I didn't really hang out with his parents that much. One was a lecturer, one was a pharmacist, Nigerian family. But it was the last time I saw him, and it was with them and his sister.
Joe Talbot on poetry and D Double E...
I am a lover of poetry. Basically I see art as a thing of pleasure, like eating fruit or ice cream. The nutritional value when it comes to art is exactly the same. I was trying to think of something that I was looking at this morning. Okay, not this morning, but the other day, it was D Double E's birthday. Shout out. Happy birthday, D Double. And I was going through some of the reloads that come up through his career. To me, that's as important to me as Caravaggio, and as a beautiful moment in my artistic understanding of what the human spirit is capable of.
Joe Talbot on writing love songs...
Love songs are all I ever write. I will only write love songs. But my love comes from a broken history of trauma, attachment issues, loss, terrified, terrified boy trapped in a man's body who's banging to all things wrong with him, and lived a life that basically, I survived, to a point where I've flourished as an artist. And it's incredible. So I want to celebrate the privileges I have, which are to breathe, to love, to vote, to walk, to hang out with my kid. And celebrate these things and do something of purpose and meaning that allows other people to listen to our songs and have purpose and meaning. See that, their purpose, and see their meaning when they hear the song, and potentially the words.
But really I don't need my fucking words to know that we mean it. And we mean it. We make these songs with love already there. I can't listen to that song and just make shit up to try and sell it. I'm good at making T-shirts. I can make money. This is about something else. This is about connecting with the song and the people that are hearing it.
Joe Talbot on his IDLES band mates…
I love them more. You learn to love people when you have to go through things that mean you unlike them. I mean that with all respect. They carried me for 15 years. I've been a piece of work, so have they in different ways, but nothing like what I've been like. And the work ethic that I have and the drive I had and the tiny holes I forced them through to get where we are now means that I had to be the bad guy. It meant that I had to learn to be a better person and I was allowed that room to be a better person with their patience and their love. And now it's a lot of pragmatic, job-orientated ups and downs. It means you just got to ignore each other and respect each other every day. And also listen to each other and hold each other and carry each other.
What I know will happen is when IDLES either stops or takes a backseat and we do other things for a while, whoever in the band, if they turn up on my door, they're my brother and my best friend again. But for now, it's like you have to have that balance. It's a lot to do together.
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