Left to right: Matt (drums), Russell (guitar), Kele (vocals, guitar), Gordon (bass)
Guitarist Russell Bloc Party admits he gets seriously embarrassed doing interviews, which is why you'll never see him doing a real interview that often. We were lucky enough to have been successful with the begging. As we will have discovered, his ultimate unrealistic goal might have already come true by now. Bless you Russell Bloc Party, we love you!
SS:A brief history of the band please, where do you come from and where did you meet and so on…
Russell Lissack: Me and Kele are from East London, Matt is from Bournemouth, and Gordon is from Oxford. I met Kele through mutual friends as we attended schools that were within 5 minutes of each other, and we bonded after realising a shared musical love at the Reading Festival in 1998, and a brief guitar jam at a house party. We placed an advert for band members in NME, and met Gordon through this after a series of less competent bass players. Finding a drummer took a while longer though, and after a very gruelling process involving a vast amount of drummers we finally met our man about 2 years ago, and Bloc Party finally got under way.
SS: How would you describe your sound? What makes you different?
Russell: Our sounds.... Well, trying to put your music into a category is always a difficult task, but i guess I would describe it as intense rock music, with a big focus on rhythm, and strong elements of both punk and dance.
SS: What’s the name of the new album, what is it about and when does it come out?
Russell: The new album is titled "Silent Alarm", and is currently due out Valentines day, Feb 14th in the UK.
SS: A lot of Russell’s influences are of the 90’s bands that SUPERSWEET loves, while the others’ are more varied. How do you think these influences are applied to shape Bloc Party’s own sound? Is there anything else totally outside music too?
Russell: An important part of this band is that whilst we have our similarities, we also have our own influences, and thus we each bring something completely different to the songs, and I guess we are pretty lucky to have formed like this. If friends all grow up together listening to the same music, then its perhaps inevitable that they'll end up sounding just like these bands. Outside of music, I don't know if this is completely random, but Anime has always been very exciting and important to me, as well as many other elements of Japanese culture. Anime in particular though, and the strong romantic elements.. I guess I'd like to think that these elements affected my personality as I grew up, and this in term formed the way I hear, and write music. But hey...
SS: The words to 'The Marshals Are Dead' are very interesting, can you expand on that please?
Russell: Kele and Gordon wrote these, so I wouldn't want to step on any toes...
SS: The bio and website look really sophisticated and intellectual. Is that how you like seeing yourselves being presented?
Russell: Again, Gordon runs the website...
SS: How did the opportunity to support Interpol come about? Your music and theirs are so different.
Russell: Well, I'm now sure how it was organised, but apparently they heard our music, and were really keen on us doing the tour. We're all big fans, so we were delighted. We do sound different, but I think they are one of the few, perhaps only bands that I feel completely comfortable supporting, as I think their fans will understand exactly where we are coming from with our music, as there is certainly a shared intensity.
SS: What’s the ultimate unrealistic goal for you?
Russell: Unrealistic? Well, I never thought we'd go to Japan, and we've already done that so I guess I should aim ridiculously high... How about, a 17 week number one single? I'm sure everyone would be delighted with that!