Interpol celebrated two decades as a band last year and are now on the cusp of releasing their sixth album.
Entitled Marauder, the album – their second as a three-piece after the departure of founding bassist Carlos Dengler – continues the strong form displayed on 2014’s El Pintor. A strong sense of urgency is littered across Marauder. Speaking to lead guitarist Daniel Kessler from a hotel room in Rome, he says it’s due to the fact that being a three-piece is still quite a new state for the band.
“It still feels very fresh and new, so I think that contributed to the urgency and vibe of this record. I think we’re evolving on our own and my bandmates are pushing themselves individually to take a more experienced approach to their instruments and collective songwriting,” Kessler explains.
Kessler feels that this new album encapsulates the band’s approach of being true to themselves, and worrying less about external noise and opinions. “First you want to feel what you want to feel and say what you want to say and be honest with yourself. It’s for you. I don’t think first about how other people are going to react at all.”
That sentiment prompts the question of whether he still gets nervous before an album is released six albums in. He’s pretty quick to answer no.
“Once we decide we’re comfortable collectively that this is what we wanted to say, then after that I get a little bit of calm. The rest is out of my hands. After the second record, I realised ‘What can I do?’
“What I can do is basically make it and feel good about it and know that this is what we want to say and be excited about sharing it with the world.”
Whether people like it or not is down to personal preference and tastes. “You can go see a film with a friend of yours and you could walk out of that theatre being like, ‘I loved that thing, that was great’ and your friend could say ‘You’re crazy, I hated that,” Kessler says.
“After that it becomes subjective. We started this by doing it for ourselves. We wanted to express something, how people react to it is sort of unpredictable.”
It was the change of scenery after wrapping up touring for El Pintor that triggered the inspiration and ideas for the new songs on Marauder.
“Suddenly it’s not about performance, it’s all about creativity,” Kessler says. “You don’t always know if [creativity] is going to be there. For me, these songs started to reveal themselves as little ideas.
“All of a sudden they revealed this energy, the songs have an urgency to them,” Kessler elaborates. “We were writing a very lively record as we played together in our rehearsal space. We’re the kind of band that still really plays together to know if we’re ready to enter the studio. The tracks have to be sort of ‘live-ready’.
“The songs started having this attitude to them, this rawness. It’s us trying to get to a very honest moment, and this is what we felt like saying,” Kessler says. “I think rawness and urgency is definitely something I was feeling, and strong emotional direction and not being passive.”
For Interpol, Marauder isn’t an easy-listening album, in fact, Kessler says it jumps off your stereo, demanding attention.
While Kessler and the band might not give too much thought on how the album is received, he is thankful for the support the band continues to receive. “I’m pretty aware that it’s something to appreciate and not overlook,” he says.
“I never got further than wanting to make a first record, so the fact that we’re still doing this and the fact that people are still interested in what we’re doing and come to our shows is a really humbling place to be.”
