An afternoon (38 minutes) with Paul Banks.
On a predictably grey and damp mid-week afternoon we’re sat
in the bar of the Midland Hotel, which if you don’t know, is the North’s
premier sleeping establishment, where a location to spend eight-hours unconscious
costs about the same as Apple don’t pay in tax.
It’s hard not to feel out of place surrounded by people who to
a man share both the appearance and decorum of investment bankers and former members
of John Major’s cabinet.
Although I strongly suspect they were pondering the nature
of our visit. ‘Are they the vanguard of another Bolshevik Occupy Movement or
even worse, lottery winners?’
Well Mr Lamont, no need to worry. We’re only here to bloody
interview Interpol frontman and solo artist Paul Banks, who is only here on a promotional
tour of his sophomore solo album the aptly titled BANKS; so shove that down
your Maastricht treaty and choke on it.
DAS RANT!: Welcome to Manchester, have you been here much
before?
Paul Banks: Yeah, I
have been here with Interpol many times. I remember coming here with my Julian
Plenti thing also.
DAS RANT!: Do you have any memories of the city? Socially
rather than just playing.
Paul Banks: In the early days it’s all a bit of a blur, but
I know we did party pretty hard in Manchester. Erm, I kinda remember more about
the energy of the city, a lot of cities aren’t interesting or just don’t have
grit, and this is a city that I’ve always thought ‘ah yeah, this is a place
that can produce some sharp edges,’ you know what I mean? There is some
cultural energy here, real shit can happen.
DAS RANT!: In the last three-decades Manchester and New
York, which is your home-base have spawned arguably the most innovative and
exciting music.
Paul Banks: Thank you.
DAS RANT!: Do you think there is any reason for that? And do
you see any similarities between the two cities?
Paul Banks: I don’t know, I think it probably has something
to with cultural factors and urban factors; that’s what I meant about grit.
Because I think there is a kinda edginess here, like San Francisco,
surprisingly has an edge;so does Chicago. But then you’ll go to equally urban
areas and you don’t feel it, you feel like it’s a little more sanitised or
sterile and there just isn’t angsty people there who feel compelled to go and
make great rock-music. But I guess some places just have a tension to them or
they are built on lay-lines or some shit.
Tom Conry: Any common factors or anything that makes it like
that?
Paul Banks: I don’t know man, there is something austere
here, it can be a little grim in the way New York City can be grim. There are areas here that are
industrial, bleak looking, where you would get your ass kicked like you would
in New York.
DAS RANT!: Moving on. We’ve been fans of Interpol ever since
the black ep ten years ago and I remember reading an interview with you guys in
Q magazine from around that time where they portrayed you, Paul Banks, as being
aloof and possessing all the traits of the stereotypical troubled musician. In
fact, if remember correctly, you walked out of that interview and they actually
put more emphasis on that than the actual content of the interview. Is that
something you noticed the media doing in general at the time? Especially with
the absence of a Richey Edwards or a Cobain.
Tom Conry: Was it a character you tried to create or was it
a persona they forced upon you?
Paul Banks: No, because I wouldn’t care about that actually.
I think it’s more when you’re a young artist there isn’t any kind of guide
book. IT meant everything to me when we made that record; and music critics
have this whole world around them which I was unaware of. The guys in my band
were more the encyclopaedic rock fans, they knew genres, sub-genres, historical
context of one band influencing another etc… and me because maybe I grew up
internationally or maybe because of my personality I didn’t give a fuck about
what you were supposed to like if like that band or that band. I just don’t pay
attention to history of a lot of music, in that sense I was not naïve but
ignorant to a lot of music; I liked what I liked. And what I was doing or thought I was doing
was entirely different to what the world of music-criticism said I was doing,
and I was young and took offence to that, I was insulted by people saying ‘oh,
you’re this post-punk resurrection’ And I was like ‘I could spend three hours
talking about all the bands that I love and that influenced me, but you just
want to talk about this one band (Joy Division)’ who I knew ,but weren’t at the top of my album collection.
DAS RANT!: Did you not like them putting a label on you?
Paul Banks: They were just trying to say that we were Post-Punk
and that we were JUST influenced by Joy Division. I just felt like and it’s
really complicated to describe, but as an artist it’s kind of like having a big
ego but it’s also like you’re just protective over what you do and I just felt
like ‘argh, I don’t think you’re really hearing what we’re doing, man’. I mean it’s
okay if you’ve gotta put us in a box, but that’s a really small box and it’s
really small compared to how I see it.
Now I’m older I realise that it’s ‘no harm, no foul’ that’s
just the way it is, that’s the nature of music journalism, in-fact it’s the
nature of all things, that you need a reference point. But as a young artist,
it was like, you know, the fact you’re not just saying that this is awesome is
pissing me off. At the same time I didn’t need to read it that negatively, but
I took it extremely negatively as-like a personal insult to me, because I just
felt like that what we were doing is innately very original and you’re telling me
that it’s derivative and you’re telling me that I listen to that band (Joy
Division) when I don’t; so fuck you all. I just felt really defensive and
really insulted by the fact that I-felt-I was being underestimated and
pigeonholed.
Tom Conry: Is that a natural reaction?
Paul Banks: I think it’s sad, because new artists are gonna
come up and they aren’t going to know that it’s not that big of a deal. At that
age it felt like such a big deal that I was being misrepresented and
misunderstood. Now I just realise, like ‘who the fuck cares, man’ it was just
great we were getting the press anyway.
DAS RANT!: You have to admit though, it helped you build a
fan base; especially over here.
Paul Banks: Yeah, and it made a good story. I’m not saying that
people were wrong, I’m just saying, at that age it just bothered me because I
felt that there was more to what we were doing than they were allowing for in
their reviews and I also felt like it’s one thing saying that a band sound like
someone like Sonic Youth, I would be excited to hear that band, I would not assume
that they suck because they sound like Sonic Youth. However, if you said
‘they’re just a Sonic Youth rip-off’ then all of a sudden that sounds really
band and I don’t want to know about that band. We didn’t always get the good
kind of comparison (to Joy Division) the ‘they remind me of Sonic Youth’ we
often got the ‘they’re a rip-off of’.
DAS RANT!: I assume you know quite a lot of musicians and
actors etc… Do any of them ever come to
you for your opinion on their work? Are you honest, so if it’s a piece of shit
do you tell them or not?
PAUL BANKS: I wish some of my friends would ask for my
opinion on their work. Musicians are usually pretty prickly, I’m friends with
Mike from Ratatat and Evan the other member and I think they’re amongst the
most brilliant artists going in music, personally. Mike would never ever ask me
about something he was working on. I’ll always check in with him and tell him
that I’m I big fan whatever he has done after I’ve listened to it. They’re
generally very self-sufficient a lot of these dudes, and he’s an example of
someone who would absolutely not ask me for an opinion. Other artists, yes,
Bono is very keen to know.
DAS RANT!: Are you honest with them?
Paul Banks: That depends, if I think they’re onto something
and I have some criticism then I’m very forthcoming. If I feel that they are
far from being onto something, then I’ll probably withhold the criticism,
because it’s not really going to matter, because there is nothing I can do to
save it, if it’s like superbad, so I might just say ‘it’s okay’.
Tom Conry: There’s got to be a positive element?
Paul Banks: If I think that there’s something really good going on, then
I will be critical but I get excited and invested. But if not, it’s like my mum
used to say ‘If you don’t have anything positive to say then just don’t say
anything at all’ so if I don’t think there’s anything positive, I’ll probably
just say ‘that’s great’ and move on.
Tom Conry: How about in reverse? If someone says that you
could have done something better, how would you react to that?
Paul Banks: I don’t know; it depends.
Tom Conry: Is that something that’s happened to you already?
Paul Banks: I mean in some ways. A lot of times with
musicians and such, they don’t really wanna’ hear it. I think everybody wants
validation that you like what they are doing, but at the same time because it’s
kind of a personal self-expression that deep down, people want you to hear it,
but they don’t really want your feedback because then it becomes yours and
their expression somehow. If someone is trying to express themselves, then
there is no way you can advise them or correct them or change what they’re
doing.; Because they do and should just stick to trying to represent
themselves.
I think if you’re in a band who just like playing music like
us, then you aren’t really into self-expression so much; we just wanna write a
great song. Those Kinds of musician’s
will take feedback, that’s a healthy and fun thing as-well. Or if you have your
own ideas and you wanna write a hit then you probably should get feedback
because hits have formulas and you can pretty much point out why a song is not
going to be a hit and a producer can say ‘sort that part for something more
hit-ish’ and then you can be onto something and that cool. I actually kind of
admire those songwriters than just get hired to write a hit because it’s
fucking hard, I find it fascinating that the formula can be so limited, because
it’s always the same fucking song-structure down to a math.
DAS RANT!: Do you feel there is less pressure on you as a
solo artist to produce a hit than in Interpol? Because you have sold so many
albums in that band is the solo stuff both as Paul Banks and as Julian Plenti
and opportunity to start a -fresh and do something almost therapeutic?
Paul Banks: I just have to do it, you know. It just took me
a long time to make my first record (Julian Plenti is…skyscraper) and that album was my original intention. I
joined Interpol in a sense begrudgingly, I didn’t want to be in a band, I was a
solo artist before Interpol and my goal was to take that somewhere. However, I
don’t think I could have taken that to the places Interpol went, when I met
those guys, my instinct told me ‘this is a good thing’ and I was inspired to
work with them.
Making my own music is something I’ve always felt compelled
to do, but if kinda do it by halves, like if I was to just make records and
upload them onto Soundcloud and went back to Interpol immediately then I
wouldn’t really be giving it a fair shot. So I feel it’s my job to serve the
material and give it a hope to flourish in the world by playing live shows,
because I would like to be doing this for the next thirty-years, I would like
to build a studio in my house and make records forever. That requires funds and
I would like that business to be self-sufficient, then I have to go to commit
this time to trying to develop it.
DAS RANT!: Because you play all of the instruments does that
mean that your solo stuff is a better representation of the sound in your head
than Interpol is?
Paul Banks: Yeah, sure. But at the same time HMMM….
Tom Conry: Is it less of a compromise? Is better than having
to accommodate other people’s ideas and other people’s opinions?
Paul Banks: There’s not a negative angle to it like that, I
think it’s really because Daniel (Kessler) introduces the songs in Interpol and
they inspire me to write vocals and guitar-parts and then they inspire Sam
(Fogarino) and they used to inspire Carlos (Dengler) and then we would make
something together than none of us could make by ourselves and that’s really
beautiful.
There were times where I would want a different drum-beat or
a different bass-line and someone would just tell me to ‘fuck off! This is what
I’m going to do’ so that’s a kind of a compromise but you also gained this
crazy thing, like, I couldn’t write those songs by myself. Those songs could
only happen with the four of us collaborating and that’s really beautiful and
wonderful. So, it’s like apples and oranged when you’re talking about the solo
material, I’m satisfied because, yes, I can explore my ideas without any
compromise and I can exactly what I wanna do and that’s really gratifying. But
it’s not better than being in a band, because being in a band just has its own
magic to it.
Collaborating is beautiful, working by yourself is sort of
self-reflective and self-involved even narcissistic I guess, but it’s also
really cool that can make something that’s exactly as you want it and that’s
the ultimate satisfaction as an artist, just getting an idea out.
DAS RANT!: Are you enjoying the smaller shows?
Paul Banks: I do,
yeah. I’m just happy when the reaction is good from the audience, it doesn’t
really matter how many people there are at the show. I’ve done some in the
States that were not big; but the people that were there had a great time, and
that still gives me that same charge.
DAS RANT!: Has what you listen to for pleasure when you
started Interpol and what you listened to now changed? And what were the
influences on you at the beginning?
Paul Banks: The first Interpol records, I was listening to a
lot of Stereolab, a lot of Velvet Underground, Trans AM…just after they had
done Future world… I fucking love
them. Erm, blonde-redhead, Sonic Youth a lot
and I had just been introduced to Television right when we were writing out
first record.
DAS RANT!: You mention Television, who were the band which The Strokes got
compared to and measured against in the same way you got Joy Division, again,
do you think that was just the music press romanticising or was there something
in it?
Paul Banks: Here’s the thing I’ve realised with age, as I
said, it really bugged me and I took it as an insult when the comparisons were
made as consistently as they were made. Now I sort of realise, if some band
came along tomorrow that had a grunge feel, now I’m in my thirties, I might say
‘it reminds me of Nirvana, I’m so excited about that band’ and I realise that
band might have the reaction I used to have, which would be like ‘Fuck you,
man! We’re not like Nirvana, we’re doing our own thing!’ but I would be like,
oh, wait! I’m only actually saying that I fucking love Nirvana, and this is
reminding me of that, and I fucking love what you’re doing. I would be coming
from a place of positivity, but that guy in that band might read it negatively.
So that sort of revealed to me that I had this negative
reaction because journalists that were probably very passionate about the bands
we were reminding them of put that enthusiasm on us, but because I wasn’t very
passionate about those bands I had the wrong reaction. I should have just
realised ‘hey, enthusiasm is enthusiasm and I’m glad that people are enthused’
and I should have left it at that.
DAS RANT!: When you were working for magazines, did you ever
consider working for music magazines?
Paul Banks: No, I tried doing music reviews but I was
terrible at that. I was really really
not good at my job.
Tom Conry: How come?
Paul Banks: Because, to be a music reviewer you do need to
know all that historical context and bands. So my impulse when writing about
Trans AM was to just say ‘this is awesome’.
DAS RANT!: Like a sycophant?
Paul Banks: Exactly, you have to be more detached and say
something that can give someone else a sense of what you’re talking about
besides from the fact you think ‘it’s awesome’ and I just wasn’t very good at
that
Tom Conry: Do you
ever hear someone else's music and think ‘I want to bring this person in on my
sound and work with them’?
Paul Banks: Loads.
Tom Conry: Realistically.
Paul Banks: UUMMMM…I don’t know how realistic it is though.
Someone who you think is unrealistic, you might call them and they could be way
into it. Or someone you assume might want to work with you might just say ‘Fuck
off’.
I admire Julian Casablancas a lot; sometimes I think that
wouldn’t be craziest thing. Maybe when we’re both old and we do some duet shit.
DAS RANT!: Maybe you, Julian and Adam Green could have some
light-entertainment show with guests and duets; like Johnny Cash did.
Paul Banks: The melodies that band creates and the
tightness. Have you ever seen that band (The Strokes) live?
DAS RANT! And Tom Conry: Yeah.
Paul Banks: They’re like a fucking machine; those guys are
really really good.
Mike from Ratatat I’ve always wanted to collaborate with,
I’ve been harassing that guy for years to do something with me.
The drummer from the Walkman I would love to work with one
day.
And there’s a bunch of HIP-HOP artists I would like to work
with or already working with.
Ian Brown, huge fan. He’s someone I would love to work with.
Tom Conry: The Stone Roses or just Ian Brown?
Paul Banks: Both. Their record was a huge influence on me;
what was it called? The great one.
DAS RANT! And Tom Conry: THE
STONE ROSES!!
Paul Banks: Yeah, yeah. With Waterfall and I wanna be
adored.
Anyway guys, time to wrap it up.
END
Words by Paul Brian Stafford
Photo by James Edward Stafford
Words by Paul Brian Stafford
Photo by James Edward Stafford
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