Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: While Paul Banks is technically the lead singer of Interpol,
Speaker 2: he sees himself more as a member of a gang
Speaker 2: of musicians. Interpol formed in ninety seven after lead guitarist
Speaker 2: Daniel Kessler invited Paul, who was a student at NYU
Speaker 2: at the time, to watch the band rehearse. In two
Speaker 2: thousand and two, Interpol released their era defining album Turn
Speaker 2: On the Bright Lights, to widespread critical acclaim. At the time,
Speaker 2: they were lumped together with New York City's emerging indie
Speaker 2: sleeve's movement with bands like The Strokes and the Yeah
Speaker 2: Yeah Yeahs. Despite being pigeonholed by critics, the bands surpassed
Speaker 2: expectations with their sophomore album Antics in two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: further evolving their sound. September marks the twentieth anniversary of Antics,
Speaker 2: and to celebrate, Interpol is embarking on an international tour
Speaker 2: Will they play the album in its entirety? On today's episode,
Speaker 2: Rose talks to Paul Banks about how he wrote the
Speaker 2: lyrics to key tracks on Antics. Paul also explains why
Speaker 2: he hasn't listened to rock music in over twenty years.
Speaker 2: He also remembers watching a boxing match with John Fuschante
Speaker 2: and Rizza from Wu Tang and how John forever changed
Speaker 2: the way Paul thinks about musicality and hip hop. This
Speaker 2: is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Mitchman.
Speaker 2: Here's Leah Rose's conversation with Paul Banks.
Speaker 3: Thank you for doing this, Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3: Curious about antics. So you're about to interpose about to
Speaker 3: go out on tour and perform the entire album. Have
Speaker 3: you ever been to any of these shows where a
Speaker 3: band performs an entire album.
Speaker 1: I don't think I have. But the first time that
Speaker 1: I remembered happening that I really wanted to go to
Speaker 1: was was a while ago, and it was Transam playing
Speaker 1: Future World in its entirety, And I feel like that
Speaker 1: was almost ten years ago, and it was like at
Speaker 1: like Union Pool in Brooklyn, maybe even longer, and so
Speaker 1: really like actually like the fact that I even remember
Speaker 1: all of that is because I really wanted to go,
Speaker 1: so anyway, that maybe predisposed me to feeling okay about it.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we've been asked by like non
Speaker 1: like outlets that are not supportive of the band to like,
Speaker 1: come and do one of our records, and I've said
Speaker 1: no because I feel like I don't like this outlet
Speaker 1: and they're not supportive, and I even take it as
Speaker 1: a bit of a dig on the rest of our
Speaker 1: catalog that they're asking us to do this one record.
Speaker 1: So for them, I said no, But for everybody else,
Speaker 1: I feel like I actually don't dislike the concept of
Speaker 1: doing a whole album in a show. I think it's
Speaker 1: actually like a celebration of, you know, a portion of
Speaker 1: your catalog, and it's not really a comment on the
Speaker 1: rest of your catalog, right, But I think the trans
Speaker 1: Am example kind of got me predisposed to be favorable
Speaker 1: towards it, and then I think it's like a new
Speaker 1: thing that's kind of happening now see a lot of
Speaker 1: bands doing it, and rather than see that as some
Speaker 1: kind of like gimmick in any way negatively, I actually
Speaker 1: think it's really cool. And I think in the world
Speaker 1: of music and the business of music, having like a
Speaker 1: package to sell or a reason to motivate an audience
Speaker 1: to kind of like want to come and see a show,
Speaker 1: I think it's like it's good, good, good for us,
Speaker 1: good for other bands that have records that people might
Speaker 1: want to see top to bottom, and I actually enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And I feel like our fan base loves all of
Speaker 1: our records, and I think it's fun to just frame
Speaker 1: an evening around one in particular and just do a
Speaker 1: top to bottom.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I saw an old interview with Daniel and the
Speaker 3: person interviewing him was talking about Interpol's catalog and they
Speaker 3: said the first two albums are master works, and that
Speaker 3: sort of made the rest of the discography seems sort
Speaker 3: of like it wasn't up to par with the first
Speaker 3: two albums. And I felt exactly like what you were saying,
Speaker 3: like it was sort of like a dig on all
Speaker 3: the material, and I felt like it was kind of
Speaker 3: like not the best way to frame the work. I
Speaker 3: wonder about like the divide between critics and then the fans. Yeah,
Speaker 3: do you feel like you have to sort of block
Speaker 3: out the critical voice sometimes?
Speaker 1: I mean, I've blocked out the critical voice for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah. But at the same time, like
Speaker 1: if I was talking to someone that did frame our
Speaker 1: first two records in that way as being like these are,
Speaker 1: you know, master works, I don't take any of that
Speaker 1: stuff personally anymore either. And I think what we were
Speaker 1: saying before this interview start about kind of like the
Speaker 1: some humility that comes with age. It's like, I'm just
Speaker 1: very honored that people care a lot about those first
Speaker 1: two records, and I understand the way that like a
Speaker 1: band's first effort, like the first emergence, is always going
Speaker 1: to have a special place in people's heart. And I
Speaker 1: remember very keenly, like a lot of the second record
Speaker 1: was written towards the end of writing our first record,
Speaker 1: and we had kind of inter band discussions at the
Speaker 1: time like let's not take a break after the first one.
Speaker 1: That's like go, go go, and kind of really sort
Speaker 1: of solidify our entrance on the scene by doing a
Speaker 1: one to two punch. So I think even from our
Speaker 1: point of view before Antics even came out, we viewed
Speaker 1: it as like albums one and two are going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, this bundle in a way of like us
Speaker 1: making our entrance and then you know, not having a
Speaker 1: sophomore slump, but rather kind of like let's really establish ourselves.
Speaker 1: And at the time, Carlos wanted a big break and
Speaker 1: it was like we had to kind of wrangle him
Speaker 1: back to being like, man, this is not the time
Speaker 1: to stop right now. Let's let's keep going. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I cherished the fact that people love those first two records,
Speaker 1: and I think that there is a segment of people
Speaker 1: that are like, that's where they that's where they started
Speaker 1: and ended with us. But that's cool too, you know,
Speaker 1: if you love two records of ours, that's great for me.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting. Like I you know, read some of
Speaker 1: the feedback now from our fans on message boards and stuff,
Speaker 1: and likeur has it's like a new life, and that's
Speaker 1: like the first record post Carlos, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people that were might talk about the first
Speaker 1: two as like their own kind of category maybe wouldn't
Speaker 1: be fans of Elpintur, but our audience is, you know,
Speaker 1: so anyway, I don't take it personally. I don't take
Speaker 1: offense to a critic citing one and two is being special.
Speaker 1: But I prefer listening to the audience, who you know,
Speaker 1: seem to like all of it.
Speaker 3: Do you know what's responsible for Elpintour having a new life.
Speaker 1: It's actually it's not so much a new life. I
Speaker 1: think it might just be that maybe it's kind of
Speaker 1: contrarian for like diehard fans to be like I'm I don't,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not about the first two for me,
Speaker 1: it's about the fifth, you know, totally. But I also
Speaker 1: think Alpinor's is a you know, in our catalog. It's
Speaker 1: a really good record. And I think our fourth one
Speaker 1: was a It was a great record, but very challenging.
Speaker 1: It was a breakup record with Carlos, and then the
Speaker 1: fifth one was sort of us trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to do it as a three piece, and I
Speaker 1: think there was just some magic to it, and I
Speaker 1: think it's aged well with our audience. But I think
Speaker 1: all of our records seem to be aging well. It
Speaker 1: just takes time for people to come around to them.
Speaker 3: How do you feel in general about talking about lyrics
Speaker 3: about lyrics that you've written.
Speaker 1: I don't mind. I just don't know if I have
Speaker 1: anything very meaningful to say about, you know, if anything,
Speaker 1: I think I can talk about like why I write
Speaker 1: lyrics the way I write them, more than like what
Speaker 1: am I writing about? If that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Are you conscious yourself what you're writing about or is
Speaker 3: it more just playing with words and feeling.
Speaker 1: It's more than just playing with words. But there has
Speaker 1: definitely been moments where I was of like trying to
Speaker 1: cultivate an automatic writing process. Like I think technically the
Speaker 1: term automatic writing comes from the Surrealists, and it has
Speaker 1: to do with sort of like just like vomiting out thoughts,
Speaker 1: and I think trying to kind of like stuff a
Speaker 1: straw into your subconscious and just like get that stuff
Speaker 1: straight out. And I feel that that phase that I
Speaker 1: don't even know if I really see myself there now,
Speaker 1: but that phase where I was really into the automatic
Speaker 1: writing component, I think it had to do with this
Speaker 1: idea that like the pure emotion or the pure experience
Speaker 1: of being a person is going to get a little cheap,
Speaker 1: and when I try and put it through a prism
Speaker 1: of language consciously because I'm going to be trying to
Speaker 1: package it for someone's experience of what I'm saying. Right,
Speaker 1: I think the true automatic is like just say what
Speaker 1: the soul is saying. I mean, in the early days
Speaker 1: I looked at it is that I found most lyrics
Speaker 1: and most music to be kind of phony, and like
Speaker 1: it's about kind of trying to package the experiences of
Speaker 1: life into this artificial sort of sit call me kind
Speaker 1: of way of like here's a relatable message, or like
Speaker 1: here's a story I'm going to tell you. And I
Speaker 1: always felt like my experience of life was like way
Speaker 1: more chaotic and visceral and emotional, and so I just
Speaker 1: whether or not it was like something that I was
Speaker 1: intensely trying to do. There was so much that I
Speaker 1: wasn't trying not to do, which was like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be fake and just say some dumb shit
Speaker 1: that is supposed to be relatable in some digestible way
Speaker 1: about this is my experience. It's like life is this
Speaker 1: huge mystery of like alienation and pain for me and
Speaker 1: anguish and desire, and it's all a massive fog of chaos,
Speaker 1: and so why would I write in a way that
Speaker 1: isn't honest to that reality? Yeah, now, on the highest levels,
Speaker 1: I will look at someone like Bob Dylan in a
Speaker 1: song like Spanish Boots of Spanish Leather, which is a
Speaker 1: series of letters from a woman and a man back
Speaker 1: and forth where she's going on a vacation there together,
Speaker 1: and then as she continues writing letters, it becomes clear
Speaker 1: that she's not coming back. And then his final message
Speaker 1: in his last letter is he's been telling her the
Speaker 1: whole time, don't worry about sending me anything. I don't
Speaker 1: want you to do anything for me, just come home.
Speaker 1: And then finally when she says I'm not coming home,
Speaker 1: he says, okay, well, then send me some Spanish boots
Speaker 1: of Spanish leather. And that shit is fucking unbelievable. So
Speaker 1: I believe at the highest level you can use language
Speaker 1: to make very concise messages about the human experience. And
Speaker 1: maybe I'm just not there. But then I also think
Speaker 1: it's that I just don't care to do that because
Speaker 1: I think I like reveling in this sort of chaos
Speaker 1: version that I come from.
Speaker 3: Are you satisfied with what you write? Is there anything
Speaker 3: that you've written that you feel like you've really nailed
Speaker 3: it and you've been able to express yourself sufficiently or
Speaker 3: do you feel like it's always like not even close
Speaker 3: to what you're feeling inside.
Speaker 1: A couple times I've said things that yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I'm very happy with Yeah, but you know, but there's
Speaker 1: never a solution. I think it's maybe just kind of
Speaker 1: like putting words that are evocative of an experience so
Speaker 1: closely that someone might feel less alone when they hear it.
Speaker 3: In your mind, what are sometimes when you've gotten close
Speaker 3: to where you're you're happy with what you've written, or
Speaker 3: you feel like you a publish what you set out
Speaker 3: to express.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we you know on antics, for instance,
Speaker 1: the song not Even Jail has always been one that
Speaker 1: I've been quite proud of. There was a lyric that
Speaker 1: came up I saw someone comment recently about and I'd
Speaker 1: forgotten this one, but it was you reach out to
Speaker 1: emptiness until the reaching out feels empty too. That's off
Speaker 1: of a song on Marauder. That's to me is like
Speaker 1: that's a truthful lyric of experience and a feeling that
Speaker 1: I've had, but it doesn't really provide any solution. It's
Speaker 1: just kind of like that's a way of talking about
Speaker 1: depression and like the struggle of being depressed. And so
Speaker 1: I suppose maybe there's something cheap in that that I'm
Speaker 1: just doing a snapshot of a feeling and I'm not
Speaker 1: actually putting it in a larger context or like providing
Speaker 1: a solution. But I kind of also don't care. I
Speaker 1: don't really feel responsible. I don't feel a responsibility to
Speaker 1: do better with my lyrics. I think I just do
Speaker 1: it for my own satisfaction and benefit. And again all
Speaker 1: so like because I have this view about like what
Speaker 1: language is. Sometimes I even just kind of find it
Speaker 1: kind of funny that, like, you know, like every argument,
Speaker 1: every side of any discussion, I feel like I can
Speaker 1: always sort of formulate like a viable counterpoint of like
Speaker 1: present any argument from any side. And I'm constantly, even
Speaker 1: in politics, I'm constantly trying to listen to sort of
Speaker 1: like how the other side puts together their stream of logic,
Speaker 1: and I'll find like, oh, this is where I feel
Speaker 1: like it gets disingenuous, but it's not really like but
Speaker 1: the way they're doing it is like you know, most
Speaker 1: of the language is true, but then they're kind of
Speaker 1: like getting deceitful with this little thing. But like a
Speaker 1: lot of people aren't going to pick up that. That's
Speaker 1: where they fall into like total bs. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: find like language just to be this thing that's like
Speaker 1: can be used for such manipulation, and I sort of
Speaker 1: feel disdained for participating in the manipulation and the deceit
Speaker 1: that language can weaponize. And so I think that's also
Speaker 1: part of why my lyrics are often kind of like
Speaker 1: they're just like outside of that whole game, Like I
Speaker 1: don't want to convince you of anything. I don't want
Speaker 1: to pretend to summarize anything. And also, these words themselves
Speaker 1: are providing some of the confines to what we're even
Speaker 1: able to express. So by sort of reshaping how words
Speaker 1: get put together, it's almost like maybe different ways of
Speaker 1: thinking can come from that. It's like putting the cart
Speaker 1: before the horse, like rather than you have the thought
Speaker 1: and find the language for it, like you find the
Speaker 1: thought by constructing language, and it's you know that's fun
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how do you get into that state? Like it
Speaker 3: seems like there would be some sort of like transition
Speaker 3: that needs to happen from normal life to a place
Speaker 3: where you're open subconsciously or you're trying to access this
Speaker 3: part of your brain. Is there something that you do?
Speaker 3: Is there something you imbibe? Take smoke sit somewhere particular? Like,
Speaker 3: how do you get into that place?
Speaker 1: I mean smoke weed? But I don't think it's necessary.
Speaker 1: I had a large phase, well no, a couple of
Speaker 1: years where I didn't do anything, and I know my
Speaker 1: work was I like my work from that phase. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's not needed. But I do smoke weed.
Speaker 1: I generally smoke weed when I'm playing music. Or writing music.
Speaker 1: But the other thing I would say about lyrics that
Speaker 1: has to do then it comes to answer your question,
Speaker 1: is that also I found in the first days of
Speaker 1: Interpol when I was I was writing some poetry and
Speaker 1: like doing journaling and things like that, and then I
Speaker 1: tried to put some things that I'd already written into
Speaker 1: an Interpol song and I immediately was like, that's horrible,
Speaker 1: and I hate it because the high hat pattern is
Speaker 1: doing this, and I definitely want the vocal to be
Speaker 1: completely tailor made to the bassline and the drums, and
Speaker 1: I'm not having a single extra syllable or a consonant
Speaker 1: in the wrong place or wrong vowel sound relative to
Speaker 1: the music. And I realized, like the music is first,
Speaker 1: and the kind of like the melody and the cadence
Speaker 1: has to be married to the to the music. I
Speaker 1: think when you hear like you know, Bob Dylan or
Speaker 1: Leonard Cones, sometimes I'll have like a real mouthful of
Speaker 1: a line and it's such great poetry that it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: But like I was more interested in, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to shoehorn in great lyrics into the song if
Speaker 1: the song has a different kind of cadence, So I
Speaker 1: just started writing for the music. So the getting into
Speaker 1: the place to write lyrics has to do with like
Speaker 1: getting into the zone with the music, and that for
Speaker 1: me is just a matter of like I could just
Speaker 1: take a walk with headphones and then I'll start hearing
Speaker 1: vocal ideas and I don't need weed to do that.
Speaker 1: I just like to smoke weed and do that.
Speaker 3: Does that feel like a gift that you can come
Speaker 3: up with vocals and melodic ideas?
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel that way, but I do acknowledge that
Speaker 1: it's not something that I think everybody does and can do.
Speaker 1: And I can't do that, right, Yeah, no, I will
Speaker 1: hear I mean, And that's part what makes my partnership
Speaker 1: with Daniel special. Is also that many times when I
Speaker 1: try and write vocals for other people's music, I will
Speaker 1: just hit my head against the wall and I can't
Speaker 1: get anything. And I can get like the garbagest garbage,
Speaker 1: like the worst fucking lyrics and the worst melodies, and
Speaker 1: even the other person I can sense that they're kind
Speaker 1: of like, shit, that's not that thing that I was
Speaker 1: looking for from you, right, And so I think that
Speaker 1: you know, Daniel and I have a special chemistry where
Speaker 1: like his music in particular, I heard loads of things immediately.
Speaker 1: I hear like, oh I kind of do that, and yeah,
Speaker 1: even more so sometimes than with my own writing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's easier to write vocals to Daniel's chord progressions often
Speaker 1: than it is to write vocals to my own chord progressions. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think it's it's a gift, but it's a
Speaker 1: fickle gift.
Speaker 3: But how cool that you found each other. I mean
Speaker 3: I think about a lot that so many incredible groups
Speaker 3: that exist just happened to like go to high school together,
Speaker 3: you know, like you think about like outcast like big
Speaker 3: Boy and Andre just happen to be in the same
Speaker 3: high school at the exact same time and they're like
Speaker 3: perfect together.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And what you're saying about Daniel, it's like that's
Speaker 3: just so amazing, Like how do you explain that?
Speaker 1: No, I know, I know what you mean. I think
Speaker 1: it's really I guess I was probably thinking about like
Speaker 1: idols the other day too, about kind of like how
Speaker 1: do you get like such like great vocalist and like
Speaker 1: this great guitar player, and like where did they meet?
Speaker 1: And like was that guitar player just like being awesome
Speaker 1: somewhere until some band came up to him and was like,
Speaker 1: do you want to be in this band? And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: So basically to answer, I kind of and I think
Speaker 1: that the answer is sort of yes. I think that
Speaker 1: like when you're someone who's like a born artist, you
Speaker 1: are born to be a musician, You cultivate your own
Speaker 1: thing to such a high degree that you're not really
Speaker 1: interested in anybody that's not kind of at your level,
Speaker 1: and then I think that just automatically weeds out, like
Speaker 1: tons of people, and then you when you do find
Speaker 1: someone that is sort of either has slaved for their
Speaker 1: craft as much as you have or just has a
Speaker 1: similar sensibility and has given as much to their craft,
Speaker 1: then it's like kind of makes it easy. It's like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I feel like safe and like my time is worth
Speaker 1: it to spend it with you because I see in
Speaker 1: you what I see in me, and I haven't seen
Speaker 1: that in anybody else, and that's why I don't like
Speaker 1: bother jamming with anybody else.
Speaker 3: That's a really cool way to think about it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but oftentimes does partnerships come when people are so young?
Speaker 1: I mean, also, I was not looking to meet somebody.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a solo artist. I had no
Speaker 1: interest in being in a band, and I think Daniel
Speaker 1: just saw me. We did a study a broad thing
Speaker 1: in Paris, and I had my guitar with me and
Speaker 1: was trying to busk, and I think he just asked me,
Speaker 1: you want to come and see my band Rehearse like
Speaker 1: a couple. After we'd known each other for like a
Speaker 1: year and a half, and I went and saw him
Speaker 1: and he had Carlos in the band, and it was
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, this music is so excellent that now
Speaker 1: I'm interested in working with other people. But I, you know,
Speaker 1: other people had been around, I had jammed with other people,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't want to be in a band
Speaker 1: until I saw the right band.
Speaker 3: What was it about their sound that you were attracted to?
Speaker 3: Do you remember? Was it an energy thing or was
Speaker 3: it the sound?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's all of those things. And also
Speaker 1: just being like light years ahead of everything else I'd
Speaker 1: ever heard anybody doing, you know. I mean you meet
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are technically proficient, you know,
Speaker 1: within anytime, like within a five mile radius, there's like
Speaker 1: a thousand guitar players that are better than me at
Speaker 1: you know, technically better guitar players, but to be able
Speaker 1: to write music that's compelling like they, you know, Daniel
Speaker 1: and Carlos were playing PDA when I came to the
Speaker 1: first rehearsal, and it's like it was amazing music. And
Speaker 1: Carlos was someone who had ad he was in my dorm.
Speaker 1: He lived in my dorm, and I already like had
Speaker 1: seen him and was like, I love this guy. This
Speaker 1: guy's fucking crazy.
Speaker 3: What was he like back then?
Speaker 1: Well, he was in my dorm. I was like, however
Speaker 1: old you are freshman year of college. I was like seventeen,
Speaker 1: he was probably like nineteen or twenty. And he was
Speaker 1: wearing a monk's cassock priests cassick, like the full length
Speaker 1: black like cloak. Wow. They had like jet black hair
Speaker 1: and like a big crucifix and the yeah, like a
Speaker 1: skirt and like a jet black T shirt like skin tight,
Speaker 1: and he just kind of like glided like no Sperratu
Speaker 1: through like the courtyard. And this is like a college dorm,
Speaker 1: which is like a bunch of dumbasses, and like this
Speaker 1: fucking no Serazu looking motherfucker, like dead serious in the
Speaker 1: elevator and like walking across the courtyard and I was
Speaker 1: just like, man, he you know, that's the real deal.
Speaker 1: That's that guy's out of his mind. And I love
Speaker 1: strange characters, and so I love how he was so
Speaker 1: authentically himself. So I hadn't spoken to him. He didn't
Speaker 1: seem at all approachable, but I did have like I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, that guy's that guy's cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say, how do you approach a
Speaker 3: guy like that? Like what's your opening line?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I just saw him in this. Then I
Speaker 1: walked into this rehearsal, I was like, oh, there's that guy.
Speaker 1: So that was a good, cool, good start.
Speaker 3: Do you remember like how you actually started talking to
Speaker 3: him and like how your impression of him changed once
Speaker 3: you guys were actually able to just kind of like
Speaker 3: shoot the shit.
Speaker 1: I mean it was Carlos was always difficult, but yeah.
Speaker 1: And then also it's kind of like an interesting thing
Speaker 1: is we didn't be We weren't friends, you know, so
Speaker 1: we became friends from writing music together. So it's more
Speaker 1: about like there's the respect that like you're worth my time,
Speaker 1: Like it's okay with me that you're in this room
Speaker 1: writing songs with us. But I think Carlos had like
Speaker 1: there's ego battles that went on. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: I was more, I guess, a little bit more loose,
Speaker 1: and I think he was a little bit maybe more
Speaker 1: guarded towards me. I think I was like a threat
Speaker 1: of something that he had. I think he had something
Speaker 1: going on with Daniel, and I think I actually was.
Speaker 1: I later came to realize like in some way like
Speaker 1: a threat to a like a creative bond that I
Speaker 1: think he felt he had with Daniel. And then I
Speaker 1: was just some pot smoking, you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit looser personality in the mix. So anyway, it
Speaker 1: was the glue that sealed us together was respect. That
Speaker 1: was you know, at the end of the day, I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you guys are fucking amazing musicians, so
Speaker 1: I'm down to put up with whatever weird ego stuff
Speaker 1: is going on. And it was like bumpy in the beginning.
Speaker 1: I like quit in the beginning, and then I rejoined
Speaker 1: on the on the condition that I'd be the vocalist.
Speaker 1: I think was my condition to rejoin, because I wasn't
Speaker 1: even the singer in the very beginning.
Speaker 2: We have to take a quick break. But then We'll
Speaker 2: be back with more from Leo Rose and Paul Banks.
Speaker 2: We're back with more from Paul Banks and Lea Rose.
Speaker 3: Was it hard for you to muster up the confidence
Speaker 3: to be a front person?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Where does that come from? And how has that evolved
Speaker 3: over time?
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting, I think, you know, I've never
Speaker 1: really seen myself much as a front person. I think
Speaker 1: possibly because the bando like it felt like a gang
Speaker 1: to me, and it didn't really need a gangle. It
Speaker 1: seemed to me sort of more like and I like
Speaker 1: the idea of a gang, where like in any given situation,
Speaker 1: like one guy can handle it, or one person can
Speaker 1: handle this situation, then other person handles this situation and
Speaker 1: as a collective you're very strong and it doesn't really
Speaker 1: hinge on having like some leader, but I think all
Speaker 1: dynamics do. And I think as a band, like Daniel
Speaker 1: was sort of the ideological or the strategic leader of
Speaker 1: what we do as a band. Yeah, and Carlos was
Speaker 1: very wasn't really looking to include my songwriting into what
Speaker 1: we were doing, so I never really felt like this
Speaker 1: is my band. I felt like I'm a collaborator in
Speaker 1: this collective and my role is that I'm the singer,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't really it's not really my personality to
Speaker 1: then kind of cop like that. It's something else like
Speaker 1: I'm bringing these guys along with me. It's kind of like, nah,
Speaker 1: we sort of do this stuff all together, and so
Speaker 1: I'm just the one in the center of the stage.
Speaker 1: So I never really like had I didn't really try
Speaker 1: and pretend to be anything that it wasn't, and I
Speaker 1: think that also suited. That's how kind of involved with
Speaker 1: how we got the name, Like Interpol was like this
Speaker 1: idea of it being a collective where it's like it's
Speaker 1: just dudes in black suits and like you don't really
Speaker 1: know who the boss is. You know, it's like everyone's
Speaker 1: very capable, but it's about the group power rather than individual.
Speaker 3: Right, So you're not like the Mick Jagger in the front,
Speaker 3: like having to be.
Speaker 1: Like no, I mean even when I do solo stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm not that kind of performer anyway. So that's what
Speaker 1: I mean. I'm like, even in or out of Interpol,
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of not I just like an artist.
Speaker 1: I don't really view it as like that kind of
Speaker 1: performer streak, but I love crazy performers. You know, I
Speaker 1: love Carlos, and I love Mick Jagger, and I love
Speaker 1: you know, Perry Farrell. Yeah, Kurt Cobain was someone who
Speaker 1: sort of didn't seem to be that fussed with trying
Speaker 1: to be like a performer in that regard. And I
Speaker 1: say this from experience because I saw them live. He
Speaker 1: seemed kind of like, I, you know, he's doing his thing.
Speaker 1: It's not about like entertaining you with what his body's doing.
Speaker 1: It's more like that his music is coming out of him.
Speaker 1: And I think I'm sort of that way.
Speaker 3: How old were you when you saw them?
Speaker 1: Probably fourteen or fifteen. I saw them in a bull
Speaker 1: ring in Madrid, Spain. It was in utero front row,
Speaker 1: front row, yep. Yeah, I was like, I was the
Speaker 1: biggest Nirvana fan. I was, yeah, the biggest.
Speaker 3: What do you remember from the show?
Speaker 1: I was interested in the way that Kurt, like, like
Speaker 1: how he kind of moved and held his guitar. He
Speaker 1: had this kind of like swimmy sort of thing, like
Speaker 1: he'd stay like in one spot but sort of like
Speaker 1: it's I had this kind of swimmy thing that he
Speaker 1: was doing. And I remember, for some reason watching pat'smer
Speaker 1: a lot it's again kind of like the live stuff
Speaker 1: has never really been. It wasn't so much about like there,
Speaker 1: It was a records that meant everything to me. And
Speaker 1: I mentioned seeing them live for the kind of like
Speaker 1: historic trivia of that, but not Yeah, it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: And then I saw them live and everything changed, like
Speaker 1: everything had already changed, and then I saw them live.
Speaker 3: You know, have you gotten to meet Chris nova Selk
Speaker 3: or Dave Grohl?
Speaker 1: And met Dave Grol once. I'm pretty awkward, so you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't really capitalize on that situation. But he just
Speaker 1: mentioned that he loved the snare sound on our first record.
Speaker 3: Oh that's cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he seems like a really cool dude, and yes,
Speaker 1: so much respect.
Speaker 3: All right, let's run through some of the tracks on Antics.
Speaker 3: Let's see so okay, so if there's any memories you
Speaker 3: have of like writing these songs, performing the songs, Okay,
Speaker 3: how about next exit, Let's just start at the top.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was that was fun. I think fondly of
Speaker 1: that one. I think we were aware after the first
Speaker 1: record that you know, we were being when we started.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about post punk, we didn't talk about
Speaker 1: the bands that represent post punk or if they were
Speaker 1: talked about around me. I didn't know that there was
Speaker 1: genre by that name and that these bands were the
Speaker 1: ones that you know, represented it. I think Carlos and
Speaker 1: Sam definitely did know all that shit, but it was
Speaker 1: sort of like I was like into Nirvana and the Pixies,
Speaker 1: and it was a little bit kind of like off
Speaker 1: putting to me when the first record came out and
Speaker 1: I realized that we were just being contextualized as like,
Speaker 1: what this band is doing is derivative of and a
Speaker 1: callback to this very specific thing that already happened. Because
Speaker 1: in my mind it was like, actually, I thought I
Speaker 1: found like three geniuses and we're doing like dope shit together,
Speaker 1: and that's what I thought was happening. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that we're actually this thing that you're telling us that
Speaker 1: we are. Now I understand it's all completely founded. All
Speaker 1: of those assessments and comments make perfect sense to me now,
Speaker 1: but I was, you know, young and naive anyway. I
Speaker 1: don't know who it was that sort of came up
Speaker 1: with the concept for Next Exit, if it was a
Speaker 1: Daniel thing or if Carlos went to the Oregon straight away,
Speaker 1: but I loved how it sort of represent into something
Speaker 1: very unlike what we were seemingly known for. So it's
Speaker 1: like a little bit of just like dusty Americana. Even
Speaker 1: just that the fact that I felt like Americana, I
Speaker 1: kind of felt like, I really like that we're doing
Speaker 1: this song, and I really liked that this song is
Speaker 1: the first one that we're you know, kind of constructing
Speaker 1: like an intro to a record, because it's not what's expected.
Speaker 1: It's not cold, it's not you know Dad, it's you know,
Speaker 1: like got a completely different vibe and I and I
Speaker 1: really liked the dashing of expectations in a way that
Speaker 1: was very honest and earn it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like we're also huge Roy Orbison fans, like everybody
Speaker 1: in the band for instance, so it's like genuine to us.
Speaker 1: But it felt like, but this is going to be
Speaker 1: a little bit of a you know, a left turn
Speaker 1: for some people who are expecting something else from us.
Speaker 1: So I liked that we did that song.
Speaker 3: How does sequencing work in the band? Who comes up
Speaker 3: with the final sequence and what is that process?
Speaker 1: Like? It depends like I sequenced Marauder, Daniel sequenced the
Speaker 1: most recent record I think Antics was probably Daniel, but
Speaker 1: I think we did kind of debate it and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe did some reorganizing. It was likely a group effort,
Speaker 1: I think on that one, or maybe we all took
Speaker 1: home CDs and like tried to sequence it. I don't remember.
Speaker 3: Seems so hard because there's so many songs. There could
Speaker 3: be an infinite number of sequences to sort of like
Speaker 3: settle that debate.
Speaker 1: It seems tough, but you know, the music in such
Speaker 1: a different intimate way when you've made it so that
Speaker 1: it's like everything is so familiar to you, and I think.
Speaker 3: That you it sort of makes sense.
Speaker 1: It sort of makes sense. Yeah, it's not that hard.
Speaker 3: Were there other songs that were recorded that were left
Speaker 3: off the final version of Antics?
Speaker 1: Good question? Yeah, I think yeah, oh yeah. We tried
Speaker 1: to finish this song called that came out later called
Speaker 1: we called it Gavalon when it came out, but it
Speaker 1: was called Cubed at the time, and that was like
Speaker 1: one of our best things that we ever wrote. And
Speaker 1: I just couldn't get the fucking lyrics together on that one,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why it didn't happen. And I
Speaker 1: think song seven also was a a case I just
Speaker 1: didn't like that song. That's why that didn't come out,
Speaker 1: but its sins come out and I think I think
Speaker 1: the fans really like it, but it wasn't my fave. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't remember other B sides from that record though,
Speaker 1: all right?
Speaker 3: What about Evil?
Speaker 1: Evil was one that I spent like a lot of
Speaker 1: time on the lyrics and I really enjoyed writing that,
Speaker 1: and I felt like that was like a yeah. Actually
Speaker 1: for me, it's kind of one of those songs that
Speaker 1: was a single for us that I really like. And
Speaker 1: I think sometimes the singles are the ones that I'd like,
Speaker 1: you know, not as much as some other songs, but Evil, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed writing the lyrics to that, and it's
Speaker 1: a good song. I like that one.
Speaker 3: How do you usually listen to mixes? Do you take
Speaker 3: stuff home with you? Were you burning CDs and listening
Speaker 3: to them in like your car or in like a
Speaker 3: discmand What was the process for you for really hearing
Speaker 3: what had been tracked?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love listening on car stereos, but I think
Speaker 1: at the time it would have been like a CD player,
Speaker 1: a portable CD player, and for me that would be
Speaker 1: because like that's how I listened to my at that time,
Speaker 1: we were doing antics. That's how I listen to my
Speaker 1: transam and my stereo lab and my John Fruciantes, you know,
Speaker 1: on my CD player. So yeah, popping it into the
Speaker 1: same format that I listened to music I'm enjoying at
Speaker 1: the time, That's how I would you know, reference it
Speaker 1: and see how it kind of if I get a
Speaker 1: vistual kick that way. And then there's you know, this
Speaker 1: funny thing with music. It's like there's the honeymoon phase
Speaker 1: right around when you're mixing and mastering, where like I
Speaker 1: love it and I my heart is totally open to
Speaker 1: it and it's like great, and then that ends and
Speaker 1: then I like kind of can't listen to it anymore
Speaker 1: because I'll only hear shortcomings and things that bother me
Speaker 1: about it. Once it's out, yeah, once it's out, yeah,
Speaker 1: or even once it's a soon to be out.
Speaker 3: Do you think it's because at that point you're letting
Speaker 3: go and you don't you're not able to tinker anymore.
Speaker 1: Possibly are also just like now everybody else is like,
Speaker 1: you know, are going to get all over it, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to deal with like people's you know,
Speaker 1: the you know there's expectations and then there's like the
Speaker 1: actual reaction, and I think it's once it's in the
Speaker 1: field of like now people are gonna be satisfied or dissatisfied,
Speaker 1: and it's this whole world of like now judgment is
Speaker 1: being passed on this music, and I think the moments
Speaker 1: before that enters my perspective is a great phase and
Speaker 1: then it have to like just turn away from it.
Speaker 3: Now, how do you deal with haters? Like if you're
Speaker 3: in comments and you're reading what people are saying, like,
Speaker 3: do you are you of the mind that you have
Speaker 3: to just have a thick skin and sort of like
Speaker 3: keep on or how do you how do you deal
Speaker 3: with it?
Speaker 1: I think I read like the first half of a
Speaker 1: review of like our second or our third record, and
Speaker 1: that was the last thing I ever read like critically
Speaker 1: about the band, and then I didn't read or pay
Speaker 1: attention to anything until like the last record, and then
Speaker 1: I guess, like getting more familiar with sort of the
Speaker 1: world of Instagram and stuff and like seeing things on YouTube,
Speaker 1: I actually, like, do now read comments. I don't read
Speaker 1: any critical anything, but I read like audience comments and
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's generally pretty nice, is
Speaker 1: what's what I found. It's actually like so, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure of the cret If I read any kind
Speaker 1: of like actual official review, i'd probably be super pissed
Speaker 1: and bummed. But I just haven't done that since like,
Speaker 1: oh six.
Speaker 3: Do you read reviews of other bands that you like?
Speaker 1: No, I don't give a shit. No, No, I mean
Speaker 1: I and I like, I support the form of criticsism,
Speaker 1: you know, I actually I think it's important and I like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like no disrespect, but no, it's not really for
Speaker 1: me and I it's even like laughable to even think
Speaker 1: about that. I generally kind of know what I like
Speaker 1: when I hear it, and that's all I need to know.
Speaker 3: You know, No, that's great. I imagine it could be
Speaker 3: soul crushing to put so much into something and then
Speaker 3: have somebody who's not even a musician just kind of
Speaker 3: like shit on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they can be so yeah, it's like brutal.
Speaker 3: And it can be so persuasive too, because they can
Speaker 3: write a story or for you know, sort of like
Speaker 3: subconsciously form an opinion in people's minds about the whole
Speaker 3: like impetus of a project or the motivation and then
Speaker 3: people just like think that that's reality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also it's like it's really out of sync
Speaker 1: with like like I just felt like my process is
Speaker 1: more pure than that and like less contrived than that.
Speaker 1: And the way they write it is though like, oh,
Speaker 1: they were trying to do this and they failed, and
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know. I was just trying to
Speaker 1: do cool shit that felt fun actually, and like I
Speaker 1: don't really know if I could fail at that, but
Speaker 1: you framing it like they were trying to do this
Speaker 1: or that. But I mean it's also sometimes criticism is
Speaker 1: great and insightful and blah blah blah, but I don't
Speaker 1: need to hear about it from my own work totally.
Speaker 3: How did you find John Frschante's work? I think think
Speaker 3: it was his first solo that you.
Speaker 1: Really liked, neanderalads.
Speaker 3: What was your experience finding that album?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was in a dorm freshman year at NYU
Speaker 1: and my roommate was this kid named Phil. Well, we
Speaker 1: had seven of us in this dorm, but Phil he
Speaker 1: was Chinese American but I can't I can't remember his
Speaker 1: last name. And he introduced me to Centradeau and Sebado
Speaker 1: and he introduced me to that John Frechiante record Neanderlades
Speaker 1: and usually just a T shirt. Yeah, he had some
Speaker 1: great music that he was into. But for me, you know,
Speaker 1: like Blood Sugar Sex Magic Is was a huge record
Speaker 1: for me, and the song I could Have Lied was
Speaker 1: one of the most important tracks, you know, in the
Speaker 1: early days of starting to play guitar, even before Nirvana,
Speaker 1: was the thing that made me decide like that's what
Speaker 1: I'm going to do with my life. But you know,
Speaker 1: right before that with Blood Sugar, Sa Sex Magic, like
Speaker 1: and it's particular like the guitar in Under the Bridge
Speaker 1: and the guitar solos and I could Have Lied where
Speaker 1: I felt like goosebumps and as like like my thirteen
Speaker 1: fourteen year old brain was like going like holy shit
Speaker 1: with the with the feeling that this is giving me.
Speaker 1: And then you see John Freiantay in the video for
Speaker 1: Under the Bridge, It's like, Okay, that's also the coolest
Speaker 1: guy to ever do it. Yeah, the whole thing, like
Speaker 1: the slouch, just the whole thing, Like he's the fucking goat.
Speaker 1: And so that was the impression I had. So when
Speaker 1: I heard he's got a solo record, I was like
Speaker 1: already kind of like, oh cool, I want to hear that,
Speaker 1: and then I just love, love, love love that record.
Speaker 3: Have you met John?
Speaker 1: I did meet John with Rizza. Yeah, and again, you know,
Speaker 1: start just refer back to my Dave Grohl comments. I
Speaker 1: just you know, I don't know. If you give me
Speaker 1: like sixteen visits with somebody, then I'll break through. But
Speaker 1: you can I got to make an impression, like one time.
Speaker 1: It's just I think I I think I failed. He
Speaker 1: was fascinating. I was at his house to watch a
Speaker 1: Mayweather Canelo fight actually because Riza and him are like besties,
Speaker 1: and so I was working with Riza and they just
Speaker 1: brought me along and I mean it was epic. I mean,
Speaker 1: Fruchiante was working on a hip hop record that he
Speaker 1: was producing at the time, and he played that to
Speaker 1: me and I was floored. It was incredible. And some
Speaker 1: of the things he told me about hip hop I
Speaker 1: had never thought about, and like, you know, I was
Speaker 1: very impressed. He's a very incredible individual. But I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, we yeah, I don't. I didn't
Speaker 1: give him my phone number anything.
Speaker 3: And that was that he had him become bestie. No,
Speaker 3: that's like a proper hang though. I thought you were
Speaker 3: going to say, you like crosspaths at backstage at a
Speaker 3: festival or something.
Speaker 1: Uh No, No, it was you know, we had some chests,
Speaker 1: we had some chats.
Speaker 3: That's cool. Do you remember what he was talking about
Speaker 3: with hip hop?
Speaker 1: Well, one thing was I was talking about how I
Speaker 1: love like the cadence and how I've always felt like
Speaker 1: it was I'm just more interested in hip hop than
Speaker 1: rock music since like the beginning of intropol. Basically, I
Speaker 1: haven't listened to rock in my free time at all
Speaker 1: in the last like twenty years. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I say about hip hop or in the early
Speaker 1: days was that it was just like a much more
Speaker 1: fertile genre. Like that's what I say in like oh
Speaker 1: two when we were doing our first like that I
Speaker 1: don't care about the genre of rock and I just
Speaker 1: care about this other genre. But what I would say is,
Speaker 1: like the lack of melody in the vocal means that
Speaker 1: the lyric has to be a little bit more impactful,
Speaker 1: and also like the flow and the rhythms are more interesting.
Speaker 1: And like I was saying that kind of standard thing
Speaker 1: that I say about hip hop to John frascionte and
Speaker 1: he's like, who wha, whoa, whoa, whoa. There definitely is
Speaker 1: melody in the lyrics of hip hop. And I was like,
Speaker 1: huh okay, and he basically explained to me that, like
Speaker 1: it's not what would you would call like, it's not
Speaker 1: like the absence of pitch, like there is pitch in
Speaker 1: like there is no choice in a rap lyric. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And now I kind of see him like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of obvious or it would sort of
Speaker 1: sign sound clash. But in the same way, I almost
Speaker 1: looked at like spoken word, it's indeterminate pitch. I guess
Speaker 1: you call it like it doesn't matter what note the
Speaker 1: voice is hitting. And I looked at hip hop that way,
Speaker 1: and he kind of corrected me. I think he also
Speaker 1: said some stuff about like drum production that I can't
Speaker 1: remember offhand, but like it's it's definitely some like mad
Speaker 1: genius kind of stuff. Yeah, he's definitely on another level.
Speaker 3: Like somebody who has perfect pitch and can hear pitch
Speaker 3: and everything.
Speaker 1: More than that, it's like they just can like see
Speaker 1: details in everything and in like keep track of them
Speaker 1: in their mind and have kind of like aesthetic preferences
Speaker 1: over dimensions that most of us don't even notice.
Speaker 3: So cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it's kind of like a wizard perspective.
Speaker 1: It's as I say, it's like it's like having preferences
Speaker 1: in things that the rest of us might just be like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know you could have a preference on that matter.
Speaker 3: Right, Spending so much time with Rizza, did you get
Speaker 3: a wizard feeling from him as well? What was your
Speaker 3: impression of Rizza?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rizz is a bona fide genius. Whatever lore or
Speaker 1: aura people attribute to him without knowing him, I would
Speaker 1: say that it's definitely true. You know, he's definitely not
Speaker 1: a regular person. He's really a genius musically and kind
Speaker 1: of someone who's done a lot of work on themselves spiritually.
Speaker 1: You can tell. I've never heard him say a negative
Speaker 1: thing about anyone ever, which is like, I think he's
Speaker 1: the first person I've ever been around that's like that
Speaker 1: where it's like he doesn't operate in the kind of
Speaker 1: like pettier levels that a lot of people, myself included do.
Speaker 1: He's just sort of like geared around I think joy
Speaker 1: and creativity, and he's like a really affable person and
Speaker 1: just really really really intelligent and gifted.
Speaker 3: That was the feeling I got watching the Hot Ones
Speaker 3: when you guys were on Hot Ones like ten years ago.
Speaker 3: He just seemed like so much fun to hang out
Speaker 3: with and just kind of like down for whatever and
Speaker 3: like a really outlook.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, but it's not entirely without intention,
Speaker 1: Like what you perceive there would be that he's made
Speaker 1: the decision I'm gonna go do this show that Paul
Speaker 1: said we should do, and I'm obviously not going to
Speaker 1: try and have a bad time or have an attitude.
Speaker 1: I'll go and like like he chooses to go have
Speaker 1: a nice time and be light about it. So like
Speaker 1: there was an instance for like I've we did this
Speaker 1: thing with like the Spike Awards. Actually Kobe was there
Speaker 1: that time. It was the first time ever saw Kobe
Speaker 1: speak in person. Rip. Yeah, I had no idea it
Speaker 1: was like super intelligent guy. I was like, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware at the time how intelligent Kobe clearly was.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so like Rizzy gets up and he like
Speaker 1: does this like like presents like the next awards. So
Speaker 1: like first we're like at a table together like in
Speaker 1: these nice suits that we got for the event and
Speaker 1: like and then he gets like ushered away to go
Speaker 1: like you know, perform like the intro to some category
Speaker 1: on camera, and he just like nails it. And he
Speaker 1: even like kind of I could tell he sort of
Speaker 1: like improvised off of what the teleprompter was saying. He
Speaker 1: was just like completely relaxed, excellently charismatic and funny and
Speaker 1: likable and blah blah blah. And he came back to
Speaker 1: the table and I was sort of like, man, how
Speaker 1: do you do that? How do you just go up
Speaker 1: there and just go to like fucking hit a home
Speaker 1: run like that? He said like, well, I just think
Speaker 1: about the fact that, like I'm the guy in the
Speaker 1: cool suit, so the guy in the cool suit would
Speaker 1: like be cool. And I realized it sounds like so simple,
Speaker 1: it's like don't overthink it. But he like inhabits the
Speaker 1: mode that he chooses to inhabit in that moment. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us are sort of more at
Speaker 1: the subject to the environment we're in to impact how
Speaker 1: we conduct ourselves, and I think he's someone who chooses
Speaker 1: how he's going to conduct himself, and the environment is
Speaker 1: sort of you know, the recipient of that rather than
Speaker 1: affecting that.
Speaker 3: Right, No, that's incredible. Did you get a chance to
Speaker 3: ask him like stories about Wu Tang or did you
Speaker 3: learn anything about the history of Wu Tang or any
Speaker 3: sort of like anecdotes about the group that kind of
Speaker 3: blew your mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was one thing that he said about how
Speaker 1: like when they would want to go to like a
Speaker 1: concert or something. I think he said they'd bum rush
Speaker 1: the door because he'd be like, because we'd just be like,
Speaker 1: you know, eight or nine giant dudes, and like the
Speaker 1: bouncers would be like, what are we going to do?
Speaker 1: So we would just bumb And I was kind of
Speaker 1: like because I met Also, like method Man and ghost
Speaker 1: Face are huge people. I don't know if you know that,
Speaker 1: but they're like large dudes. And Riz is big too,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's just kind of like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: this idea of them kind of rolling around Brooklyn being
Speaker 1: scary as hell. Also, I mean, I guess like the
Speaker 1: miniseries now that Rusa has done has shown some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. But like he told me some stuff about
Speaker 1: the actual criminal exploits of certain members and how they
Speaker 1: were like really legitimately scary dudes.
Speaker 3: Any odb stories.
Speaker 1: I just got the feeling that he really really loves ODB. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think I think it was like had a
Speaker 1: special place in Rizz's heart. I think Odb's like they
Speaker 1: really pure, unadulterated creativity that I think was maybe just
Speaker 1: like really something to behold.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 1: Like even the you know, one of his names, like
Speaker 1: there's no father to his style is something that they
Speaker 1: would say, and I kind of think that's, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great way to look at ODB. It's like that
Speaker 1: just comes from nowhere. Yeah. I remember like when I
Speaker 1: first started working with Rizz, I was like trying to
Speaker 1: tell my mom, like, you know, the basically, like the
Speaker 1: Wikipedia article on this person is not at all going
Speaker 1: to give you the entire picture of how important this
Speaker 1: person is. Like this person as the years go on,
Speaker 1: people will start to give him the credit of being
Speaker 1: someone very important in the history of music on a
Speaker 1: number of levels. And yeah, really magical, magical person.
Speaker 2: After this last break, we'll be back with the rest
Speaker 2: of Leo Rose's conversation with Paul Banks. We're back with
Speaker 2: the rest of Leo Rose's conversation with Paul Banks.
Speaker 3: All right, let's talk about a couple other tracks from antics,
Speaker 3: just so I don't leave that just high and dry.
Speaker 3: Is there any any song in particular that stands out
Speaker 3: to you that you remember like recording or writing.
Speaker 1: Take You on a Cruise was a special one because
Speaker 1: that was a song that I had no vocals for.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes I would sort of just be focusing on writing
Speaker 1: my guitar parts while we were writing songs, and there
Speaker 1: would just be like that was a song that was
Speaker 1: an instrumental until we're in the studio and then I
Speaker 1: remember it was the one time where there was like
Speaker 1: a pro tools rig set up downstairs for me, and
Speaker 1: I just like worked by myself, I think even overnight
Speaker 1: and wrote the vocal top to bottom, and then I
Speaker 1: think the next day, like Daniel came in and like
Speaker 1: you know, they played it back for him. Daniel often
Speaker 1: mentions that that was like a very powerful moment for
Speaker 1: him because it went from like having no vocal to
Speaker 1: having like the complete treatment to Take You on a Cruise.
Speaker 1: It was also kind of good because that song has
Speaker 1: like a little bit more of a low key temp
Speaker 1: than a lot of the other music, and it has
Speaker 1: to do with the fact that it was written by me.
Speaker 1: Just like this, like with a microphone in front of
Speaker 1: a computer, rather than in the rehearsal room like yelling
Speaker 1: over Sam's drums. It was more intimately composed, and I
Speaker 1: think that was like a good thing to put in
Speaker 1: our body of work at that time. Like it's a
Speaker 1: little different, and I love that song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when the album was out and people were listening
Speaker 3: to it and you started playing live, what songs could
Speaker 3: you see the audience responding to.
Speaker 1: First Evil was a big one. Uh, Slow Hands was
Speaker 1: a big one. Nark is one that to this day
Speaker 1: people really like, and I really like Nark. That's probably
Speaker 1: a personal favorite for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talk about Nark. Anything you remember from writing that
Speaker 3: or recording it.
Speaker 1: I remember writing some of the lyrics in Tompkins Square
Speaker 1: Park while I was walking around, And it's interesting that
Speaker 1: I would remember such a specific moment, but I literally
Speaker 1: remember kind of like choosing to like hold off on
Speaker 1: a vocal delivery until the second chord of my guitar
Speaker 1: progression like blim, Like I remember mapping out where I
Speaker 1: would sing in the verses while walking around Tompkin Square
Speaker 1: Park on like a sunny day, And then I remember
Speaker 1: writing more of the lyrics to that song. Arc in
Speaker 1: a cemetery next to the studio in Connecticut. So obviously
Speaker 1: I didn't write everything in Tompkin Square Park. It was
Speaker 1: still some stuff I was doing while we were recording
Speaker 1: the record. So yeah, it's funny I remember two different
Speaker 1: lyric writing sessions and where I was for that one song.
Speaker 3: Is there anything that you've gotten specifically from listening to
Speaker 3: hip hop? Like I know you were talking about cadence.
Speaker 3: Is there any inspiration you've gotten with your own performance
Speaker 3: or your own writing style.
Speaker 1: I used to subvert, like I loved the braggadociousness of
Speaker 1: like a lot of hip hop, the kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, I'm the shit and like this is all
Speaker 1: my cool shit that I do. And I felt like, obviously,
Speaker 1: I like don't feel like that, but I like the
Speaker 1: idea of a person with a microphone. So I will
Speaker 1: have lyrics where like I'll say something like the tone
Speaker 1: is that I'm bragging, but what I'm saying is something
Speaker 1: crazy or like I'm timeless, like a broken watch, I
Speaker 1: make money like Fred Astaire. That's sort of my Like
Speaker 1: imagine if a rapper was saying that, it's kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: what is that even something to brag about? I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you even mean? But sort of like my
Speaker 1: surrealistic bent on on the braggadociousness of like of the
Speaker 1: self aggrandizing tropes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how many different languages? Do you speak?
Speaker 1: Spanish? Well in French, pretty well in English and Spanish.
Speaker 3: So you speak Mexican Spanish and Spanish Spanish. It's a
Speaker 3: little bit different, right, like different yeah dialects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my accent is much more natural in the Mexican dialect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I learned the Spanish one. I lived in Spain
Speaker 1: for four years and then Mexico for one year. But
Speaker 1: the one year in Mexico, my accent became better with
Speaker 1: Mexican Spanish than it ever was with Castilian Spanish.
Speaker 3: Is it a little sort of like looser the Mexican Spanish?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Spanish Castilian Spanish has like a real
Speaker 1: like kind of like an edge to it. It's like
Speaker 1: a like a thickness yea. And Mexican Spanish is more
Speaker 1: sing song and then slang in Castilian Spanish and Castiano
Speaker 1: is like a really fucking edgy and like dark and
Speaker 1: like they say crazy shit, like the turns of phrases
Speaker 1: like Mechicago and la leche and like all these things
Speaker 1: that are like just I don't want to translate it,
Speaker 1: but like like it's like offensive and edgy kind of
Speaker 1: ways of saying like holy shit. And then Mexico, the
Speaker 1: slang is a lot more kind of like playful, and
Speaker 1: there's like a lot of it spoke more to me.
Speaker 1: The kind of the dialect in Mexico and the word
Speaker 1: play and the language feels like very alive and like
Speaker 1: they say really funny like turns of phrase and just
Speaker 1: like it's like a it's like on a wavelength that
Speaker 1: really resonated with me. And then I had friends that
Speaker 1: were just like really genius, like very funny. And also
Speaker 1: in Spain, no one spoke to me in Spanish. But
Speaker 1: in Mexico I was like the the weddo gringo who
Speaker 1: spoke Spanish, so they actually would speak to me in Spanish.
Speaker 1: So I got like kind of more practice.
Speaker 3: There was it hard moving to new I mean not
Speaker 3: only going to new schools, but going to new countries.
Speaker 3: How did you make friends? Did you have like a
Speaker 3: strategy for getting in with people?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, I mean I did. I went to three high
Speaker 1: schools in three countries.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: But I was like badly bullied before I moved to Spain,
Speaker 1: like badly bullied, really like assaulted at school.
Speaker 3: Is that in Jersey?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like collective bum rushed Like yeah, I got the
Speaker 1: shit kicked out of me a lot in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like five or six instances of pretty dramatic violence
Speaker 1: like at school. So when I moved to Spain, it
Speaker 1: was like, cool, let's fucking let's get the fuck out
Speaker 1: of here. And then when we moved from Spain back
Speaker 1: to New Jersey, and that was where I was sort
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, same school system, same house, and I
Speaker 1: just had this incredible experience like going out to bars
Speaker 1: and like bonds with like my best friends now are
Speaker 1: friends that I made in Spain. Then so coming back
Speaker 1: to New Jersey after that, I was kind of like
Speaker 1: a little bit like and you know, this is for everybody.
Speaker 1: I don't want anything to do with any of y'all,
Speaker 1: like at all. And yet I did meet some lovely
Speaker 1: people and like, obviously the kids are kids, So even
Speaker 1: some of the people that had been kind of like
Speaker 1: the bullies, you know, I even became friendly with some
Speaker 1: of them, and you know, but you never really get
Speaker 1: rid of that stuff, Like it definitely like shaped how
Speaker 1: I view everybody I think, you know, bullying at that
Speaker 1: young age. Yeah, but so that was that was interesting.
Speaker 1: It was going back to that and then leaving that
Speaker 1: was to go to Mexico, which again was kind of like,
Speaker 1: I'm good, Like Spain turned out to be so dope,
Speaker 1: then I'm open to see what Mexico has for me.
Speaker 3: You know, were you angry at your parents for moving
Speaker 3: so much or were you did you just.
Speaker 1: Like when we went to Spain, I was like, cool,
Speaker 1: let's fucking go. I fucking hate New Jersey, so thank
Speaker 1: you mom and dad. And then I didn't like Spain
Speaker 1: when I got there, But then like a year and
Speaker 1: a half in, I think once I realized like, oh
Speaker 1: wait a minute, like I didn't like it at first
Speaker 1: and now I love it. Maybe that's what it's like,
Speaker 1: if you go anywhere in the world, you're not used
Speaker 1: to it at first, and then you come to love it.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's why everybody wherever they're from like likes
Speaker 1: where they're from. So once that clicked, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I could just go anywhere and eventually I
Speaker 1: would find my way to love the place. And I've
Speaker 1: always been kind of an introvert, so like I always had,
Speaker 1: Like I always had friends. It wasn't I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't need more friends. I didn't feel friendless in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: I did, but that was kind of all, as I say,
Speaker 1: because I was like, fuck all, y'all.
Speaker 3: What was your relationship like with your parents? Were you
Speaker 3: close with them? Were you rebellious?
Speaker 1: Yeah? But you know, I never shoplifted and I didn't
Speaker 1: skip a lot of school, but I'm yeah, I got
Speaker 1: in trouble at school a lot for acting out in
Speaker 1: a goofy way. Yeah, but then you know, I also
Speaker 1: got good grades, so it's like it never never was
Speaker 1: that bad.
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk about being a dad at all?
Speaker 3: Are you open to that?
Speaker 1: Sure? Yeah, it's the best, the best. I really love
Speaker 1: being a dad.
Speaker 3: Has it been a big change for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has. It's it's very very simplifying, kind of
Speaker 1: makes the career not matter to me as much, but
Speaker 1: at the same time makes me want to do better
Speaker 1: at my career because I want to, you know, provide
Speaker 1: and just do a good job and be a good example.
Speaker 1: But I don't care about like accolades or recognition anymore
Speaker 1: because it's like the only thing that matters is that
Speaker 1: this dude is happy and yeah, adjusted and stuff.
Speaker 3: It's awesome you're getting that experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the sappiest thing that I can say
Speaker 1: about it too, is that I definitely I feel like
Speaker 1: there's a capacity for love that I had my whole life.
Speaker 1: But it's never been entirely safe to turn that like
Speaker 1: high beam all the way on. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: because relationships are complicated and you know, we all have
Speaker 1: some defenses up. So then to have like a baby
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh wait a minute, like the to
Speaker 1: turn on the sort of love beam all the way
Speaker 1: like without any need to sort of hide any of it.
Speaker 1: It's really like a beautiful experience. And I love that
Speaker 1: little dude so much. It's crazy.
Speaker 3: Oh did it take you a while? I've heard that
Speaker 3: sometimes with dads it can take a little while for
Speaker 3: that connection to form. No, or was it instantaneous?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: But I believe in kind of like normalizing the fact
Speaker 1: that that happens, because yeah, I've heard that, Like I've
Speaker 1: heard it happens from moms too, sometimes they don't have
Speaker 1: a bond, and so I I think it's important to
Speaker 1: kind of like say that that's totally reasonable and talk
Speaker 1: about it and you know, but no, I immediately felt
Speaker 1: a huge magnetism and connection to him.
Speaker 3: Amazing, amazing. Congratulations. Yeah, well, thanks so much, Paul. I
Speaker 3: appreciate you for hanging out for so long.
Speaker 1: My pleasure. Yeah great, thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks again to Paul Banks for talking about the making
Speaker 2: of Antics and his creative writing process over the years.
Speaker 2: You can hear our favorite Interpol songs, along with some
Speaker 2: of Paul's solo material on a playlist at broken record
Speaker 2: podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
Speaker 2: dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you can find
Speaker 2: all of our new episodes.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Speaker 2: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
Speaker 2: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
Speaker 2: is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
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Speaker 2: are theme music's by Anny Beats.
Speaker 1: I'm Justin Richmond,