Interpol

I look back on [our first tour] and it’s very romantic. We had no expectations of what was going to happen. We were all packed in a van and wore the same clothes for a week straight and then all of the sudden you just kind of end up at this higher level. We still go at it with the same mindset – it’s just our clothes are cleaner.

story by Sharyn Goldyn
photo by Pieter M. Van Hattem

Interpol knows how to keep a secret — and they have a very big one waiting to come out. It’s been three years since Interpol delivered their critically acclaimed sophomore album Antics on indie mainstay Matador Records and with their long-awaited new LP Our Love To Admire coming out this summer on Capitol Records, the band is keeping their lips firmly sealed about what to expect from their debut major-label offering.

“I’d rather wait and have the record speak for itself,” Interpol’s longtime drummer Sam Fogarino told a curious Chicago Innerview. “We don’t want to give it all away yet. We live in a day and age where everything happens so quickly. We did our first shows for the pre-release in Canada and immediately the new material was thrown up on YouTube — which is good, but when you put in many months of blood and sweat and people get their first glance of it recorded with the lowest fidelity on YouTube, it’s a little disheartening. We want people to hear how it’s meant to be heard.”

The band did recently announce the album cover art and track listings and their first single is spreading around the Internet, but Fogarino was pretty vague about what to expect. Instead, he gave the dirt on the creative process behind the album and why it took over a year to write and record.

“The first two albums were one constant movement, one record smearing into another,” he said. “There was absolutely no pressure when we were writing this album — the whole process from writing to recording was so exciting. There is the feeling of reaching the higher plane this time around.”

One of the biggest challenges for the band this time around was making the new material as fresh as possible while still maintaining that signature Interpol sound. “We knew we had to push the envelope, but you can’t do it forcefully,” explained Fogarino. “It is a major challenge to push yourself artistically but have it happen organically at the same time so it doesn’t sound forced. I think the minute that it becomes too easy, this band will cease to exist. We are the same guys playing the same instruments, but we are pushing boundaries. There is an expansion to the sound, but it still sounds like Interpol to me.”

Another sign of growth for the band (in addition to the new facial hair now being sported by bassist Carlos D) is their jump from Matador to Capitol for the July 10 release of Our Love to Admire. “It seemed like a logical conversion,” Fogarino explained. “They have known us for years and we had friends who had come and gone through the years at the label. For Interpol, this album is exactly the album we would have made whether it were a smaller label or not.”

It’s been a long steady climb for these dour, well-groomed NYC rockers since they first signed to Matador in 2002 after sending in a demo which reportedly flipped the minds of label co-owners Chris Lombardi and Gerald Cosloy. “Chris Lombardi was actually in Germany driving on the Autobahn really fast and he was listening to it and decided he wanted to sign the band,” Fogarino recalled.

Matador released the well-received debut album Turn On The Bright Lights and the band immediately found a rabid fan base and started touring. “Early Interpol shows were a thrill,” Fogarino said. “I recently saw some old, old pictures from our first tour when Bright Lights first came out. We all look like babies, there was such a naivete. I look back on it and it’s very romantic. We had no expectations of what was going to happen. We were all packed in a van and wore the same clothes for a week straight and then all of the sudden you just kind of end up at this higher level. We still go at it with the same mindset — it’s just our clothes are cleaner.”

Cleaner clothes aren’t the only things that have changed. “We played two nights at Radio City Music Hall, that’s something that if the band ended tomorrow it would still put a smile on my face,” Fogarino recalls. They were also invited on tour with The Cure for a month-long tour in 2004.

“I’ve met a lot of people who were musical heroes who have now become friends. I learned a lot from Robert Smith. Being accepted by someone like Robert Smith interjected a little more confidence in what we do. It was a little sense of arrival. He’s just the sweetest man you could ever meet but at the same time he is a total eccentric. It’s really him — that smeared lipstick isn’t a gimmick,” Fogarino said laughing. He then added, rather seriously, that you can’t let those good moments hold you down. “You don’t want to stop and smell the flowers for too long, you want to keep it going.”

Keeping things going is something they seem quite capable of. Interpol may be experiencing worldwide success and touring and writing music non-stop, but they seem to have settled into their 3-piece suits gracefully.

“Tour so far is pretty mellow; I try to keep a low profile,” Fogarino said. “I just focus on the 75 minutes I play on stage. To me, the party is kind of over. You have to expect the unexpected but I don’t facilitate that happening. But I always get in trouble in Chicago — a lot of my friends are there. I lived in Ukrainian Village for six months 11 years ago working for a record distributor.”

Fogarino has high regards for Chicago, saying he would love to play a residency here if he could. As for their upcoming sold-out Metro show this month (their first appearance in the city in nearly three years), fans can expect three to four new songs and mostly songs from the earlier albums.

Those unable to find tickets to the Metro show will get another chance this summer, when Interpol will be returning as one of the headlining acts of this year’s Lollapalooza. “I remember way back when Ministry and Lush were playing Lollapalooza and I really wanted to go. I have never been to a Lollapalooza,” Fogarino said. One can only hope that Interpol will unveil more new material at Fogarino’s first Lolla — including the cleverly-titled tracks “Heinrech Maneuver” and “No I In Threesome.”

Until then, we’ll just have to keep the secret.

Interpol :: Metro :: June 3.

The Arcade Fire

We’re trying to do something that reaches people’s hearts…

story by Jay Gentile

The Arcade Fire is not a band — they’re a religion. Sure, they release albums and put on live shows, but within the small period of three years they have righteously blown up to pious proportions. The “indie band that could”, based in Montreal with seven official members (though often performing with 10), has become something of a deistic phenomenon. With just two records (2004’s masterpiece Funeral and the newly released follow-up Neon Bible), the Arcade Fire have more than just fans — they have pilgrims.

Multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry’s presence is unmistakable. He’s tall, awkward and wears thick-rimmed glasses yet projects professionalism as if the stage was his own personal office — free to goof around and work intently as needed. He, along with core couple Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, is part of their main songwriting process. He is often seen playing a wide variety of instruments (a skill shared by the entire band) including upright bass, drums, keyboard, accordion and guitar.

Though in the midst of a chaotic Neon Bible tour, Parry takes a few moments to speak with Chicago Innerview about the mission of the band and the difficulties of living the overnight success story.

The best thing about the Arcade Fire is their unabashed enthusiasm. Seeing their live show can be exhausting — the constant energy and emotion packed into every note every night, as well as their unrelenting willingness to be one with the fans (often entering or exiting through the crowd, leading them into a mass jam session). For those that have been fans since the beginning, it can be odd to see a band known for their humble energies now playing to packed three-balcony theaters.

Parry explains how he feels about the transition and its effect on their work: “I don’t know yet because it hasn’t been long enough,” he says. “It’s a mixed bag for me that I sometimes enjoy and sometimes don’t enjoy as much in terms of playing for larger crowds. In a big room sometimes it’s tricky to project for me personally. We’ve always just put one foot in front of the other and tried to do things that feel good…If it stops feeling good we will end up changing what we do.”

Though only a couple years have passed, it’s been a long road since Funeral. The highly acclaimed debut displayed youthful nostalgia and encapsulated a childlike state — unscathed by the horrible realities of adulthood and death, the very notion that inspired the band at the time. It was a concept album, with each haunting melody and arrangement oozing into the next to create some of the best music of the last five years.

Thus creating a frenzy. A high Pitchfork Media rating propelled them into hipster cyberspace, and there was no holding back the ensuing avalanche of hype. The Arcade Fire toured and toured, exposing to the world that they consisted of much more than empty praise. Soon even the skeptics learned of the magic that occurs during their concerts.

Frontman Win Butler is the preacher (always dressed as though he is from the prairie) — intense and passionate, beckoning his onlookers to reevaluate the state of their lives. Chassagne joins in, flailing her arms wildly to rouse fire in the parish with her enchanting voice. Parry and Win’s brother Will act as the healed, hitting each other and shaking violently until (often times) rendered unconscious. The rest of the band is the gospel choir, feverishly playing and singing as if their lives depended on it. The audience eats it up, and then they do it all again the next night.

“Hopefully we get something back,” Parry elaborates on their hysterical audiences. “Sometimes it falls on its face and you need to adjust. At some of the larger venues you can’t really look people in the eyes in the same way as you could pressed up against them in a small club.” Though the Arcade Fire are getting larger by the minute, their force is still pure and it remains a force to be reckoned with.

This revival is fitting, seeing as how the band recorded Neon Bible in an old church-turned-studio. They packed in loads of instruments as if preparing to hibernate for the winter and went to work to create a much darker, more politically-influenced composition. Neon Bible is not quite as bewitching as its predecessor, but it still proposes that same sense of urgency. Instead of encouraging us to gallivant through snowy fields forgetting about our parents and our ideals, it serves as more of a warning.

Though Neon Bible seems at times obvious in theme, Parry confirms its inspirations: “I wouldn’t say [the album is about] the war in general, but obviously that plays into it a lot. We try to put a bit of reflection back into the world that’s maybe a little broader in its scope and looks a little further into it.”

Album highlight “Black Waves/Bad Vibrations” is apocalyptic — starting with a sweet Chassagne and ending with an insistent Butler leading an epic choir of angels singing: “Stop now before it’s too late/I’m eating in the ghetto on a hundred dollar plate/Nothing lasts forever that’s the way it’s gotta be/There’s a great black wave in the middle of the sea.” Title track “Neon Bible” and album closer “My Body Is a Cage” echo this dire sentiment, but the band assures you that not all hope is lost. “Keep the Car Running”, “Antichrist Television Blues” and re-released “No Cars Go” bring us back to the good old days, but this time around with less Bowie (who is himself a rabid fan of the band) and more Springsteen.

All in all, the Arcade Fire lives by a mission statement: Give the world something genuine, and get back something omnipresent. “I would say it changes depending on where you are or how it feels at any given moment,” Parry says of the mission of the band and the emotion that they seek to exude. “We’re trying to do something that reaches people’s hearts. We’re trying to really use what we’re doing as much as we can, trying to take advantage of playing in front of people in a way that maybe other people don’t do as much…”

Where does this emotion come from? “I always try and make sure that [the music] comes from a place of purity,” Parry elaborates. “I like to feel pure. It’s hard to describe in words, which is why I try to do it through music to varying degrees of success. I have to be emotionally present when I’m performing, maybe even [with] conflicting emotions, while trying to tap into something bigger than any of us individually.”

Mission accomplished. All praise the Arcade Fire.

The Arcade Fire :: Chicago Theatre :: May 18, 19 & 20.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

The government tries to make people think music is not important or relevant in every way that they can because they know it’s one of the only things that can shake them up and make people come together and share one voice – in a much bigger way than one politician can.

story by Sara Farr
photo by Ken Schles

During the tour for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s second album, Take Them On, On Your Own (Virgin, 2003), it seemed like the band was in a race toward implosion. Between rising tensions and petty arguments, it looked like the group was headed straight for an episode of VH1’s “Where Are They Now?” Drummer Nick Jago walked off the stage during a concert in the U.K., their record label dumped them, and the band members indulged in the kind of self-destruction that rock bands are famous for.

As vocalist Robert Levon Been puts it: “We went through some dark shit as a band and we’ve gone through it publicly. I was as guilty as anyone else.” But Been had been working on some songs and decided to start recording an album in a last-ditch effort to see if there was still something worth saving. “We had songs that needed to be heard,” he said. “We walked the plank, not knowing what it was going to end up sounding like. I looked at each song individually and for some songs, the simplest method was the best acoustic guitars, voice, maybe a little harmonica. With others, it felt like it could and needed to be more. Our style of writing changed, and we had to adapt to it rather than the other way around.”

Like the Allen Ginsberg poem of the same name, the resultant record, Howl, was a primal scream. It was an outraged sinner’s cry for redemption, a plaintive whisper in the darkness, and a triumphant yawp rolled into a gorgeous amalgam of walkabout country blues and stripped-down rock. It mixes the simmer of Johnny Cash’s first album with Rick Rubin with the frantic grasp of a crazed Hunter S. Thompson story. Though primarily an acoustic album, it retained the familiar fuzzy gray tones of classic BRMC tunes like “Red Eyes and Tears” and “Whatever Happened to My Rock and Roll?”

Which is why it frustrates Been when labels approached Howl as an anomaly. “When we were shopping the record, a lot of people said they would sign us, but they said they saw the record as a kind of throwaway that comes in between two ‘real’ records,” Been said. “I think this record is as real or as important as anything else.”

It also paved the way for reconciliation with Jago and a chance for a new beginning. “To sing a song is a pretty redeeming thing if you can pick yourself up to do that, because it’s not a very easy thing,” Been said. “It’s hope that someone will recognize something in the voice that they can relate to and they feel as well. Right now, it still feels like it’s our own struggle and we feel isolated from other people sharing the same story, but maybe we haven’t figured out the right way to say it yet.”

Finding the right words isn’t something you can plan. Sam Cooke’s inspirational “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Been asserts, is an example of music’s power to bring people together and inspire them to action — a power he strongly believes the government would like us all to forget, despite the fact that politicians exploit the power of songs as campaign slogans.

“The government tries to make people think music is not important or relevant in every way that they can because they know it’s one of the only things that can shake them up and make people come together and share one voice — in a much bigger way than one politician can,” Been said. “So it’s dumbed-down and more about the ‘product’ than the actual words being sung. But you should take art and music seriously. It’s a part of your culture and as important as any other product.”

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club :: with Elefant and The Morning After Girls :: Metro :: February 8.

Supersystem

When done well, [political music] can be really good. It helps if you’re an old weird burnt-out dude writing about a war you were in as opposed to some white kid.

story by Jay Gentile

It’s a Saturday afternoon in New Jersey, and Supersystem keyboardist Pete Cafarella is lost in Ikea. He’s talking to Chicago Innerview while desperately searching the sprawling furniture complex for his girlfriend. He’s just encountered a “really intense” part of the superstore: the kitchen display, where apparently crazed holiday shoppers are boxing each other out to get their hands on the newest no-stick cooking utensil. He seems a bit freaked out, but maintains his cool composure and carries on with the interview.

The quick background: Supersystem makes dance punk music of the type that The Rapture has been credited with inventing. They used to be called El Guapo, but changed the name after some cheesy Chicago rock band claimed rights to the name. They left their former label, Washington D.C.’s Dischord, for Chicago’s Touch & Go to release their fifth LP, Always Never Again, last spring.

The first time I saw these guys live, at Chicago’s Hideout around the time of the release, the power went out midway through their set. The power came back on, asses again started to shake and then…the power went out again. I ask Pete what the hell their problem was, and he fesses up like a man instead of trying to pin it on the venue. “I take full responsibility,” he says. “We probably plugged too many amps into one circuit.”

With half of the band currently still residing in D.C. and the other half (including Cafarella) taking up shop in Brooklyn (where the album was recorded), the record has attracted some “political” characterizations for the 9/11 geographic connection and often vaguely political lyrics. I ask Pete if he considers Supersystem a “political” band. “It’s political in the sense that it was made by three privileged white kids for other privileged youths in the early 2000s,” he replies. When asked if there is a role for politics in music, he says, “when done well, [political music] can be really good. It helps if you’re an old weird burnt-out dude writing about a war you were in as opposed to some white kid.” He finds the current crop of political music a-la Conor Oberst “a bit disingenuous.”

What then, pray tell, is the “purpose” of this particular band of musicians, I ask Cafarella, who is still scanning Ikea’s savage landscape for any sign of his girlfriend and/or on-sale oven mitts. “We want to abolish racism,” he replies. A noble goal indeed, but I’m looking for something just a bit less sarcastic. Is it, perhaps, to drive hipsters to dance as part of this new phenomenon that so many likeminded dance punk bands from LCD Soundsystem on have been characterized as heralding?

“My dad doesn’t dance,” says Cafarella. “When we get the dad’s to dance, then we’ll have achieved our goals.” He adds: “And if you’re a true hipster, you do dance and smile.” What a revolutionary concept. Empty Bottle please take note.

Seeking more enlightening passages from a young man just trying to get out of Ikea alive, I move on to the song “Everybody Sings” from Always Never Again, which features Molly Schnick from Out Hud as well as provocative lyrics such as, “Do you feel a connection with everyone alive?” The answer, according to the song, is, “Yes and no.” So, does Cafarella believe we are all connected then or not? “As far as we’re all social beings, but I don’t necessarily believe in any spiritual unity,” he says. When asked if music has the capacity to provide such a unity, he answers, “possibly.”

When asked for a characterization of the whole dance rock genre so popular amongst the kiddies today, Cafarella offers this: “I want all bands and people to get along in whatever context they’re operating within. It’s a genre of music that’s really fun and exciting, but at the same time totally generic and played-out and lame.”

While I like the album overall, I found myself wanting to like it more than I actually did. Yet it is a decent and worthy album by a band in transition (having added new member Joshua Blair on drums in addition to the name change and label swap) that hints at the ability for greater things to come. And it’s good to know they’ll still be offering music as we continue to search for the definitive dance rock album of our time.

Yet Supersystem still has a lot of work to do. And they still haven’t abolished racism, although I may have seen a few dads dancing at their show, so at least they’re making progress.

Supersystem :: with French Toast, Call Me Lightning and Disc Jockey CB :: Empty Bottle :: January 12.