Ahead of his solo show in the Academy this Sunday (20th January 2013), Interpol’s Paul Banks gave David Dooley a whistle-stop interview to chat about how he approaches his solo gigs, why he loves sampling and even some handy advice for new bands.
The last time you played in Ireland you were headlining the first night of the Electric Picnic festival with Interpol and now you return on Sunday for a solo show in the far more intimate Academy. Do you approach them differently given you’re the frontman for both bands?
Well yeah, I mean, hmm. It feels incredibly different as it’s a different band and different songs. My approach is to get up there and play songs and have fun, so that’s about it. I guess it’s a bit like apples and oranges with what we’re playing and what I expect from the audience.
You primarily write your songs on guitar, so do you think there will come a time when you make a serious stylistic departure with your solo project.
I mean I’ve done music like that. I’ve done hip-hop instrumental music that is sans guitar and I do intend to do something with that at some point.
There’s been more sampling on ‘Banks’ than on ‘Julian Plenti … is Skyscraper’, is that a direct correlation to your love of hip-hop?
You know I don’t think I did do more, I think there’s a bit more on the first one but it’s very quiet.
Oh, really?
Yeah, if you put on headphones for the first one, there are little noises all over the place. I think in both cases yes. It definitely was inspired by hip-hop. It’s the kind of thing I’ve always loved what it did to a song. When you hear that sort of static from a vinyl, because they’re sampling some old vinyl record for the beat or for horns section. Or when you have this voice from the past jump up in the middle of a song. That’s something that has always spoken to me as being something with resonance and kind of magical. It’s something I’d rather gear towards, you know if your painting was sound it would be a very special hue when it’s a borrowed piece of audio.
Yeah, you’re taking from what someone else has done and reimagining the whole thing.
I think the best analogy I’ve come up with to describe why I think it’s relevant is in the movie Lost Highway by David Lynch, there’s lots of footage that is like video footage. This guy keeps getting these little VCR cassettes by his door and he puts them in and it’s some guys shooting video in his house. It’s a creepy setup but it’s made all the more creepy as you’re all of a sudden seeing a degenerated medium. You’re seeing another sort of, video instead of film, it’s like a level within a level. It gives something, a new dimension, it makes it even more eerie. That same thing applies to audio. Looking at something in film and then it suddenly cuts to a sequence in video, there’s a dramatic effect as a viewer and I think that applies to audio too.
It’s almost like a jarring effect between two different mediums.
Exactly! And then it’s sort of communicates the way that art lives on. It does it in an extra dimension and resonance to the modern piece that’s using that piece.
How do you think you have grown as a musician?
I feel like its been a process of learning to externalise what I hear inside. I’ve always heard quite elaborate music in my mind but it wasn’t until I tried to tackle my first solo record that I started getting my head around how to do it, outside of my mind. Which basically came about from using a computer program. It ain’t a 4-track, it’s a 48-track where you can call up any instrument in the world. Whereas when I used to do 4-track recordings it was me, a guitar and some sound effects. When I learnt to use this program I was like, I wanted to use big fucking string pieces in my music but could never do them but now I can do them. It’s a process of learning to externalise what’s in my mind, and I’m getting better at that.
But then on the other hand do you think musicians have too much choice? Where if you sit down with them 48 tracks in front of you, you have the world at your fingertips.
Yeah but I saw this great snippet of a Pink Floyd documentary where they were given a bunch of shit because they started using synths at one point in their career. One of the guys was fed up with everybody breaking his balls about it so he said this very interesting thing which was “Dude, it’s not the synthesiser, it’s the guy using the synthesiser”. The synthesiser is not writing the Pink Floyd song, I’m writing the Pink Floyd song with it. So it’s a bit like that with technology.
So have you any musical aspirations left besides writing music? Have you ticked all the boxes you want to tick?
No. I’m more than happy to continue ticking the same boxes as I totally enjoy it, that’s fine. If I were to just keep doing Interpol records and solo records that sounds ok. But I would very much like to score a film, and I would like to explore instrumental music and hip-hop instrumental music. Or hip-hop where other people rap on my beats.
Ok I’ll race through another question or two! You’ve said recently that you hear a lot of bands and you want to tell them that they need to cut a bunch of shit out. Would you have any advice for bands now as someone who has been successful for over a decade?
The only thing I’ve really said is that persistence is key. If you believe in what you’re doing then just keep doing it and eventually people will come around. I think a key aspect of learning to write songs is editing. To keep it interesting and keep it punchy. From a more spiritual standpoint, if you believe in what you’re doing keep doing it, don’t worry about whether people get it immediately.
With Carlos gone, do you think the bass will be neglected on the new Interpol album given he was such a unique musician.
He will be sorely missed, he was a major, major part of the band but we won’t put something out if it’s shitty. If we can’t make a good record we won’t release it so the bass will be ok.
Paul Banks plays the Academy this Sunday, January 20th.