Interpol on their upcoming new album: “This might be super fucking different”
Interpol have given insight into their forthcoming seventh album, describing it as “super fucking different”.
As reported earlier this year, the New York band are currently at work on their next studio effort – the follow-up to 2018’s ‘Marauder’ and 2019 EP ‘A Fine Mess’ – with producers Flood & Moulder.
The as-yet-untitled record is expected to arrive next year via Matador Records.
Speaking in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Interpol frontman Paul Banks revealed that the group were finishing up recording for the album at a “very vibey, very English” studio in North London.
“It definitely feels like us,” Banks explained of the new material. “It’s the heart and soul of our band – like, there’s a DNA to our sound. Another part of me thinks, ‘This might be super fucking different’.”
He added: “A few of the songs in particular have really unabashedly positive sentiments. Something that feels good is the aspiration.”
Elsewhere, Interpol spoke of beginning work on the album during the early days of COVID. Banks – who has a UK passport – “wound up staying in Edinburgh for the first year of the pandemic”, while Daniel Kessler and Sam Fogarino were in Spain and the US, respectively.
Speaking of starting to collaborate on new music via email, Kessler explained: “It was a bit of a challenge, because we’re still an old-school band, where we get into a rehearsal space and hash out the songs, and the songs have to prove themselves there.
“Strangely enough, I got pretty into it. There was nothing else to do. It helped keep your brain on the right side of things, despite everything else happening around you.”
Banks attempted to write vocal melodies to Kessler’s chord progressions in “real-time”, a process he likened to “a surrealist experiment”.
“You’re free-writing, but you’re also reacting to an architecture that Daniel has probably really pored over,” he said. “As a singer, it becomes a real wilderness, with a boundless potential.”
Interpol have since been able to reunite in person. “It was fun, man,” Banks said. “It was cosy, too.”
He continued: “Flood made a point of experiencing the music we sent him by itself, rather than going back and studying our catalogue. This round of songs exists as a brand-new thing devoid of any baggage.”
Announcing the project back in September, Interpol said: “We are overjoyed to announce Flood & Moulder will be producing and mixing the next Interpol record. We are longtime admirers of their work and delighted to be in the studio with them.”
Interpol will return to the UK for a headline show at the Roundhouse in London on June 14, 2022.
