Interview with Bloc Party

this critically acclaimed British indie
rock band mixes many different styles
and genres into their sound hi my name
is Stephanie and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re speaking
with block party how would you say block
parties music or sound has evolved since
your debut silent alarm I think we’ve
matured more as people I think we learn
where our strengths lie rather than
ruffington and battling against each
other trying to make music I think we
finally reached the point where we’re
all actually working together in harmony
without you know any egos or any issues
so we’re in a good place musically
can you talk to me a bit more about the
songwriting recording process we kind of
went back to basic it’s just just the
four of us in a room just kind of
jamming on our own ideas that each of us
support along and we just spent a few
months doing that when we male producer
and then we spent even more time in the
rehearsal room just was playing and
playing playing the song still till we
knew them quiet
bang yeah and then when we went into the
studio and did everything in one take
and had it recorded in three days
can you talk to me a bit about the
lyrical or even the musical themes on
fourths
I feel like for Kelly likey you know it
was a conscious effort to move away from
having like a an overarching theme to
this record I think he was adopting with
a loose approach to lyric writing this
time around he might even say a bit more
freeform perhaps maybe you could draw
comparisons to some big writing on
silent alarm which is a bit more
abstract and you know less spelled out I
suppose
so the first single is called octopus
can you talk me a bit about that it’s
actually one of the last songs we wrote
for the record it kind of came maybe in
the last kind of week of rehearsals
Russell had a new guitar pedal that he
wants to kind of showcase and it really
kind of came about through I guess his
kind of interplay with with Gordon you
know our bass player Kelly says it’s a
song about facing your worst fears
there’s a really really great guitar
solo in the middle which is a real real
moment you’re welcome
I believe that you guys have been
documenting a bit of the the process of
making the album for example with those
photos and videos on your website can
you talk to me a bit about your use of
social media social media is something
that we’re just trying to get more
involved with now because it’s really
growing during during the time that
we’ve been away I think we’re all kind
of trying to capture moments as much as
we can and that saw an in-house
videographer or director his needs there
inadvertently falling into that
something he’s got a natural talents
friend tell us about it what can I say
you know I get bored sometimes I you
know I know you know that goof around on
my computer and then something you know
something happens
when we did begin you know talking about
writing this record we were one thing we
also spoke about was actually it would
be nice to document the process no such
it’s a technology we have now you can
film a lot of stuff on the phone and it
looks great and you can put it together
on your computer and you don’t
necessarily need to have like a degree
from film school in order to kind of
make something that has a kind of a
vague narrative we’ve got like a pile of
footage and photographs that were
waiting to kind of edit together in some
kind of way all that footage I read that
you guys might be working on a
documentary is that true I guess we
inadvertently working on there we’re
just trying to account for as much
footage as we can you know I don’t if
there’s concrete plans yet but I’m sure
that we’ll be able to put together an
amazing three-hour documentary sometime
between now on the show yeah yeah
Scorsese’s The Last Waltz where we’ll
have nothing on what what I come up with
that’s for sure