Photo: Press
Backstage at Red Bull Studios, Kele Okereke eyes his surroundings with a smile. He takes in the scene: various members of support band Jaws playing Fifa, countless open pizza boxes and half-empty vodka bottles. "Oh my God, this is such a ‘band’ room’ he says, sitting himself on one of the umpteenth velveteen sofas. He’s wearing bermuda shorts and a charcoal t-shirt with a simple gleaming chain. He is clearly in a chilled and contemplative mood.
It’s been almost ten year's since Bloc Party burst onto the scene with the urgent yet sensitive Silent Alarm, two since their last album and four since Kele’s debut solo effort, The Boxer. Drawn deeper into an ever-evolving love of house and techno, Kele’s second solo record is still focused on electronic music but this time sees a more personal, stripped back approach with his live performance later consisting of just two people, his careful, flourishing vocal and some decks. A particularly emotional “Everything You Wanted” particularly seemed to resonate with everyone there despite the barrier created between studio and screen. To mark his new album Trick, he talks to Gigwise about guitar bands, drugs and the cyclical nature of popular music.
Given you were very experimental in much of your Bloc Party material, why do you think some people find the change of genre so hard to fathom?
I don’t really think so much about those people because I’m not really thinking about anyone! I’m not really thinking about how people are digesting it or breaking it down because that’s not really my concern. I’m very selfish - I always say this but it’s true. I’m really just concerned with doing what I want to do. I always felt, in Bloc Party, that we always pushed against what people were expecting us to do, so I don’t think this has been so much of a departure for people that have been paying attention. I think they can kind of see where this has come from.
How has the climate changed since you released The Boxer?
In terms of electronic music in the mainstream there’s been a big explosion of EDM. That’s not really music that I have much connection to but in terms of critical appraisal, I guess people are maybe over it. It’s not anything that really figures in my world so much. I think that these things are always kind of cyclical: they become really popular and fashionable and then they become unfashionable and then they become fashionable. That’s kind of how it was with 2-step garage when I was a kid! That was a very popular sound growing up in the Nineties and then it got really over-saturated. It became really unpopular but now you’re hearing it referenced a lot more in other people’s music, because they were kids when I was a kid, so things come around in circles.
One of your earliest clubbing experiences was when you and Russell Lissack from Bloc Party would go to the Peach club night in Camden Palace - what did you drink, wear and dance to?
I can’t tell you! I’ll get in a lot of trouble! For me it was really one of the first times that I went to a club. I wasn’t super 100% into the music sometimes because it was quite hard - it was more towards the trance end - which I was never super into but certain people were, so I’d always go along. It was a nice environment, it was kind of liberating to be amongst all these types of people that were really off their faces on drugs and seeing the sense of community that there was. I think that was mainly because everyone was on ecstasy, it was a very different vibe to the vibe in clubs now; it felt like a very loving experience. I don’t really go out so much in London anymore but I’m trying to rectify it, I’m trying to find good places that play good music because I think it’s good to get back to that feeling.
What lyric are you most proud off on the album?
I’m quite proud of the track “Coasting”. I like how that track turned out, I really like the sentiment, you know? It’s a song about the start of a love affair and where it’s kind of super easy going and there’s no baggage or anything. It’s one of my favourite songs.
You mentioned in one interview that you were a fan of James Baldwin, Bret Easton Ellis and Hanif Kureishi. What are you reading at the moment?
I’m reading a book about West African religious practices. It’s about a system that was very prevalent in Africa before the missionaries brought Christianity to the continent and wiped it out and kind of forced it underground. But then with the slave trade the religion kind of travelled around the world and it adapted into other forms. So there’s this kind of splintered religion that’s appearing in places like Cuba, Latin America and the West Indies that comes from Africa. I’m halfway through it. I’m not reading it so fast because it’s kind of dry... [laughs]
What was the last guitar band that really excited you?
I think the last indie rock band that I remember being really excited about was probably The Strokes, it would have been like 12/13 years ago. That was the last rock band that I remember thinking 'This is cool: you can see this is a movement that people are responding to, in terms of not only music but fashion and culture'. I remember when that first record was released because I remember the landscape before it happened and it kind of changed everything and then I guess it affected what Bloc Party were about. Since then there have been no new bands that have made me feel that excited about guitar music. But maybe if I’m honest, that’s probably more to do with me making music... guitar music being part of my job it’s never going to feel as exciting as when I was a teen.
Where is the strangest place you’ve heard a Kele track - and the strangest place you’ve heard a Bloc Party track?
I was in a cinema once and ‘Walk Tall’ was played on an advert. I didn’t know about it but I thought it was cool because music is always so awesome in cinemas, because of the speakers and you’re sat there having to focus on the screens so you can really take in the experience. Bloc Party...I heard it now, I just heard a song being played on the jukebox thing, like just as I was walking in. Weird timing! I don’t know if it’s something to do with Red Bull and they’re playing it because I’m here or not...
What question are you bored of answering?
I used to get annoyed about that sort of stuff but I don’t so much anymore because everyone’s just doing a job, aren’t they? Right now though, for the most part, all my interviews have been with people that have done their homework so I don’t really get so many dull questions. I think even if it is a bad question or if it’s been asked lots of times, I try to approach it from a different angle. There are no bad situations it’s all just a state of mind.
Kele's new album Trick is out now. Check out Kele on Music Unlimited at sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/music
Below: See some of Kele's best on-stage moments with Bloc Party
