CREEM ONLINE: Interpol — TV and Panties

Thinking about touring-machine Carlos Dengler’s past year is a little like tracking the progress of a flame burning a ridiculously long wick. After a couple of yards you figure the flame can’t possibly stay motivated much longer, it’s gotta burn out. Same applies for Carlos. He started this tour with Interpol a full year ago and has played over 150 shows since—in Australia, Japan, the U.S. and Europe—averaging roughly a concert every other day. He’s nursing a beer backstage at the Riviera Theatre in Chicago the day of show number 136, by my estimate, and the mere mention of all this traveling seems to momentarily wear him out.
Contrary to belief, this isn’t really a voluntary decision on Interpol’s part anymore, Carlos says. It’s those bloodthirsty fans.

"These aren’t the decisions that we make. Basically record sales dictate that we should be visiting towns more often," Carlos says. "There’s like, increase of record sales so therefore there’s all these people who haven’t seen us live because they just bought the record, so we come back and do it again."

Not to say that Interpol is a household brand just yet. The fan base may be scattered, but it’s still modest, he says.

"It’s still kind of on the cult level. Which is fine. Though it is getting a little out of hand." If the touring ever stops, which it should at the end of October, the band will start working on the follow up to Turn On the Bright Lights. They’ve already got a batch of new material they’ve been testing out; one new song, "NARC," will debut tonight. On the next album, which they’d like to release by fall 2004, they’re going to try and stay true to their post-punk, brooding selves while also not recycling too much of the old sound.

"We kind of know what we’ve done so far and we take the same attitude that we have always taken toward each new song, whether it’s part of the first album or going into another album. We just look at it as, you know, lets not try to repeat anything

that we do in any other songs. But then there is a stylistic thread that I think you can definitely detect in the new material, which is sort of Interpolian, if you will. But it’s not, I wouldn’t say that it’s Turn On the Bright Lights: Part II or anything."

Their first worldwide tour has been a bit of an eye-opener on the ways of European prostitutes, wily female fans, and boozing it up on the road. Carlos even has an anecdote about a fan who chucked a pair of red lace underwear onstage.

"Oh the panty thing. Honestly it was a joke, really. Yes I’m sure in the past women have thrown their underwear at guys in bands as some sort of invitation or an announcement of their enthusiasm, sexual enthusiasm—um, I really doubt that that was the case with this one. It was very much tongue-in-cheek, I actually met the girl afterwards, she was very smart."

Because obviously there’s no way women could find Interpol sexy. I mean, what woman would be attracted to a bunch of hot young metrosexuals from New York who play every show in tailored Burberry suits? You’re right Carlos, that’s just ridiculous. Do you want my underwear though? Seriously, you can have them, just give me a second.

"No it was an intellectual, it was an abstract thing. But why I got off on it so much was just the fact that it occurred. It just seemed so weird to me—playing a really emotional, serious song like we are wont to do onstage, and then, I think it was during "NYC" which is really, that’s like a ballad almost, you know? And then—"

Here Carlos traces the trajectory of an imaginary pair of panties with his arm, imitating the slow whistle of them falling.

"—plop. It was all in slow motion. And I’m like ‘No?’ and then I’m like ‘Yes!’ And then actually the crew made it a joke by every subsequent show of that tour they hung up the panties on my bass. So for every show after that the red lace panties were visible."

Some indie fans might be worried that Interpol is going to let all this lingerie and attention go to their heads, causing the music to suffer.

"I think that’s like one of the most myopic attitudes to have towards music because there is no correlation between popularity and quality of music," Carlos said. "Anyone who makes that correlation is being extremely obtuse. And a lot of those kinds of people, those so-called music nerds, are very much like that.

"I completely and wholeheartedly agree that it is possible for a band to sell out, for a band to disenfranchise their audience and to completely betray the following that they had before.

"Case in point: Metallica, which is my favorite example of this sort of thing. I was a huge Metallica fan, I still am. On that black album, which has some really decent songs on it—you know that’s the one that had "Enter Sandman—"

He elaborates with a little air guitar: "‘DOWno wan-na now, DOWno wan-na now’—and I mean, I still like to rock out to that song too. But literally when that, I became obsessed with them when Justice for All came out. That was sort of the apex of their creativity. After that they kind of took a step aside, and then I started to realize all the new fans that listened to them virtually didn’t even realize that there were four huge, huge major albums before the black album."

The new Metallica fans weren’t anything like him.

"There were all these fucking tool boxes, like jock ass-wipes that used to like beat me up after class, now they’re wearing a Metallica shirt. For me like wearing a Metallica shirt back in the day was like me saying ‘fuck you’ to all those mainstream ass-wipes. You know so for them to even be able to entertain the notion of wearing a Metallica shirt is like the most preposterous betrayal of fans that you can imagine."

That’s when they started to sell out, and, consequently, to suck.

"Metallica meant something to certain a group of people, a kid like me, who were kind of left-of-center, who didn’t feel like they were part of like, you know they kind of got picked on all the time. They just felt different, and they kind of wanted a piece of music to represent that alienation. That music no longer represented that because they were now on MTV. That I could see would be selling out. I don’t think we’re that kind of band."

Still, Interpol has done their fair share of marketing in the last year. There’s been a spot in the New York Times Magazine (the fashion special), and in the line up of the WB’s music show, Pepsi Smash! Not to mention the various times they’ve lent a song to shows like NFL Today and most notably Friends—the song "Untitled" played during a scene in the season finale.

"Yeah, that was a ahh… I mean you know, to me that’s a victory. The fact that such a mainstream show would be able to even understand a band with the roots that we have and be able to put it into one of their episodes—and not only that but the final seconds of the season finale—I mean that’s pretty major. And I saw it, and you know."

Carlos even knows the plot.

"Rachel was waiting for Joey, Joey had just realized that Ross had betrayed him by making out with his ex-girlfriend. And so he made like this resolution. He suddenly changed his mind about Rachel because he didn’t want to do anything with Rachel because Rachel had already been with Ross. Out of loyalty to his friend he didn’t want to go there but then when he saw that his friend had no such notion for him he was like ‘Fuck that, I’ll hit that shit.’ You could see the transformation in his face and the music starts and he turns around and he turns and the door opens, shuts. Brilliant. It was great.

"For the very first time ever I was so captivated by that last scene that I forgot that I was listening to my own music."

Later that night I’m surrounded in the crowd by several Carlos hair-a-likes, with long black bangs parted hard to the right. A couple hundred kids pack the theatre, and there’s barely room to move, much less ash a cigarette. It reeks of socks and beer.

Interpol comes out bathed in indigo light. A cigarette dangles from Carlos’s mouth and smoke pours from his nostrils while he plays. Paul Banks, the lead singer, stares stonily ahead as if singing to nothing but an empty auditorium. They’re grave and almost disturbing in their intensity.

You wouldn’t think it to look at them, but they’ve got 23 more shows to go. And they better not burn out completely, because the world needs more Interpolians.

—Katy Boss
October 2003

Photos Sarah Krause, Live Photo by Eric Krause