They’ve been touted as the next big thing and been given the title of “Genius” by the legendary Steve Lamacq. It’s been a pretty big year for the four lads from Bloc Party. Gigwise caught a few words with Kele and Matt from the band before their gig in Liverpool.
Gigwise: It’s been a really busy year for you, but you must be pretty pleased by the way things have gone so far?
Kele: ‘Yeah, its been a really good ride so far, heaven knows what the next years going to entail. We’ve just been having a really good fun time.’
Gigwise: You’ve just come back from a tour of the states, how did that go?
Matt: ‘It was quite hardcore ‘cos we were playing everyday for about seven days. No days off, but the American audiences were really excited and really into it..
Gigwise: I hear Interpol were at one of the gigs?
Matt: ‘Yeah, Carlos was there. It was strange ‘cos he was well taller than we’d thought he’d be.’
Gigwise: This latest tour is in support of your new single ‘Helicopter’, have you got big hopes for it, maybe Top 40?
Kele: ‘Yeah, the last single just scraped in so anything more than that would be a bonus’
Gigwise: What about the lyrics from that song, is there a slight swipe at George Bush there?
Kele: ‘The thing about that song it was written as complete stream of consciousness so any influences or meaning people may draw from it are their own.
Matt: ‘We take our influences from a whole range of things, you can’t help the effects of things that happen around you. We certainly don’t want to be spoon feeding things to people. The word political band just makes me feel a little odd. It doesn’t inspire me.
Gigwise: What major influences do your draw from that have help create your sound?
Kele: ‘We all seem to like different types of stuff. I think Matt’s first influence used to be working out computer games.’
Matt: ‘Yeah, yeah, I used to like working out computer game music on my keyboard, that’s how I started. Its kind of important for people to listen to what they listen to, plus it wouldn’t be tolerated if somebody was telling us to listen to certain types of music (stares at Kele). That’s why we sound like we do. Obviously Kele puts the songs together in the lyrical sense, there has to be a centre point or else it’d be a complete mess. But we do like a lot of different things.
Kele: Yeah, definitely. We’re four individual people and we all into different stuff.
Gigwise: What about current bands, anything in particular you’ve been listening to while on tour?
Kele: ‘There’s a band called The Futureheads. We think they’re really great. It’s criminal that you don’t hear more of them really. There are quite a few others, none that I can remember at the moment.
Gigwise: . You’ve got your debut album ‘Silent Alarm’ coming out in the New Year, are you pleased with how that’s turned out?
Kele: ‘Yes, I’m really pleased with how the albums turned out. It’s as good an album as we hoped we could make. It was a nice experience, it all went nice and smoothly. We weren’t too scared by the process, we were ready to evolve within the process which is really important within a creative position. We’ve been living with these songs for a year, playing them live every night and now you’ve got to try a revaluate them, record them and make a piece of music.
Gigwise: Did playing so many gigs before going into the studio help or hinder you in any way?
Matt: ‘Well songs that we’ve worked out in the practice room don’t really start to sound right until we’ve taken them on the road for a couple of months, and then we’ve got really good a playing them.
Kele: ‘It helped cos we were quite tight by the time we went into the studio’
Gigwise: You made a comment recently that your upcoming debut album ‘Was really gonna wake people up’?
Matt: ‘I think the first half will, but after that it gets a bit more meditative at the end and maybe people will start to fall asleep’
Kele: Yeah, like most great albums. It’ll send you to sleep, but not in a snooze fest way. More like a comforting, real warm way.
Matt: ’Yeah, we’ve been discussing how some of the music that has most affected us has been music been listened to while travelling and falling asleep. Subconsciously picking up on stuff.
Kele: ’Yeah, there are a lot of textures the sleeping ear will have fun digesting on this album.’
Gigwise: Finally, what about the comment from Steve Lamacq that he thought you were ‘Genius’, that must have been pretty flattering?
Matt: ’Yeah, we were listening when he made that comment. It’s funny, we were playing a show with Franz Ferdinand last October which really kicked us all off. Prior to that we’d sent them a demo and they wanted us to meet them at another show they were playing. We saw Steve Lamacq there, and we all stood around for about half an hour too scared to go over and give him a demo. So we got someone else to go over and the next week he played it. We were all tuned in and he was like ‘I’ve got this genius new demo’. I think I got a bottle of Babycham to celebrate. Yeah, that really was one of the most exciting times we’ve had as a band.’
Being described as the next big thing can sometimes be a hindrance, but with Bloc Party they certainly seem to deserve the hype and have taken it in their stride. They may even make us all sleep better at night! You can catch Bloc Party on their current UK tour until the end of October. They’re next single ‘Helicopter’ is out on 25th October.
.jpg)
