Bloc Party
Interview with Gordon Moakes
Words: Michael Rabinowitz
Photos: Courtesy of Vice Records

Appearing:
May 27, 2007
Pompano Beach Amphitheater, Pompano Beach

May 28, 2007
Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg

May 29, 2007
Club Firestone, Orlando

Dubbed the patron saints of teenage malaise, Bloc Party burst through the pack of post punk revivalists (a heady group of Maximo Park, Hard-Fi, and The Rakes) in 2004 with Silent Alarm.  The East London crew, headed by the unfiltered Kele Okereke, balanced politics and adolescent unrequited love songs with hits such as “Price of Gasoline” and “This Modern Love” all set to an accessible groove.  The theme was alluring, as if being young and in love in and of itself is a political stance.  The cross Atlantic success was notable considering relations between the US and Europe.  Not since Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA has America boogied to a dance record without realizing its political undertones.  With the release of their sophomore album, A Weekend In the City, the political thought was once again shown brightly on their sleeves with tracks about drug indulgence and the 2005 London Underground bombings.  Gordon Moakes, Bloc’s bassist, was kind enough to break from touring to talk about the group’s embrace of their political leanings, the intercontinental translation of dance music, and the inescapable ubiquitousness of German heavy metalers, The Scorpions.

REAX:  What were the differences in writing an album when you are an unknown and then attempting to write a follow up in the midst of a media cyclone?
Gordon Moakes:  The problem with touring, as someone pointed out to me yesterday, it ends up being 80 percent of what you do as a band.  And when you set out as a band, it’s not necessarily what you planned to spend most of your time doing if you are creative people, and we are.  You kind of start a band to make music.  So, in a way, touring can become an obstacle to that original creative process.  For us, it became almost second nature to make more music from whatever time we had available.  I don’t think we were thinking too much about what the outcome would be and what the record consist of.  It was just important for us to spend as much time to create as we could.

REAX:  Then what are your logistic preparations when writing music? 
GM:  For the music we make, there are certain kind of rules as musicians.  For me, it’s spontaneously responding to what someone else is playing.  Instead of sitting down saying, “Today we are going to write a song that is like this.”  You hone it down and you refine it.  It takes a little while to find the part you are after.  That certainly makes life easier for me because I don’t have to sit endlessly playing a guitar in my room to come up with ideas.  I just spark off other people.  I don’t tend to pick up my bass guitar between gigs or sound check actually.  I respond on the spot.  We are all big readers.  We read newspapers.  We follow what is on TV and we consume ideas.  I think that it all goes into the pot, as it were.

REAX:  In the last album, you guys swore it was not political.  Yet, on tracks like “Hunting for Witches” on the new album, the lyrics are undoubtedly political, referring to the London Underground bombings.  Have you changed your stance?
GM:  It’s obviously not innate to every musician because it’s still an issue.  When an album like this comes out it’s noteworthy.  We’ve been affected by things outside ourselves and people still comment on that.  It’s not something every band does.  It’s weird.  I’m quite interested to see how that would manifest itself in the future with our music.  I am sure you realize that the record has this concept behind it which is the city.  The political stuff is part of how we’ve represented that.  In the future, if anything, I think we’ll go more toward that idea of trying to sum up exterior things rather than going from the interior.  I’m kind of conscious of it.  I felt with this record, it was much more of a conscious effort to do that.  In the past when asked this question we’ve said, “No we’re not a political band.  You’ve misconstrued us.”  With this record we get those questions a lot more and I am quite happy to say yeah, we’ve done in a way what we’ve said we never would do which is (laughs) make a political record. 

REAX:  It is strange because you are probably the most popular band in America that is political, and you’re not even American.  Is this common in the UK, fusing pop music with politics?
GM:  It’s just really difficult to do it well.  Because if you’re expressly political, which we’re not, it washes over people’s heads or it becomes distasteful.  To kind of balance it out where it’s an element of music that is an important part where the idea’s come and the lyric content. .. it’s behind what we do but it’s not explicitly the most important thing.  And, it’s hard to get that balance, to be effective.  I think it’s arguable that we could’ve had the same kind of success—probably more, actually—if we hadn’t that and all our songs were kind of lighthearted and sort of empty (laughs).   But, you’re right.  I don’t think it’s been done very effectively.  And, we don’t aspire to be Rage Against the Machine, where it’s outright and very explicit, almost like a weapon that you wield.  We always try to be as subtle as possible and just weave it into how we express ourselves.

REAX:  Do you find that when you tour the States the audience seems to grasp more the hook or melody of the song rather than the message?
GM:  Sometimes.  People listening to the music in the States, what’s memorable is the melody and hook.  You are not listening to the lyrics when you are listening in that casual way.  In the UK, it’s the same.  I think when we first played in America, we reached a thinking audience who were really interested in new music and new bands.  We played to those people and that was part of what our initial fan base came from.   But, if you want to get to a wider audience you have to extend beyond those people to the people who don’t really read lyrics or think too much about the content of music.  There is a limit because we don’t want to be like U2 or Coldplay where you reach everyone, full stop, and it doesn’t matter really what reasoning people come with.  I don’t think we’re about huge audience at any cost, you know?  I think of a band like LCD Soundsystem and I think there is a lot of politics in their music, but they are not as successful as we have become.  Although they were quite influential on us. 

REAX:  Were they influential on this album?
GM:  Not so much on this record because what LCD Soundsystem does is that kind of groove thing were you latch into a beat and just keep going.  And, we never had a song that was like that.  But, we can appreciate how that kind of thing works on a dance floor or in a club and we were trying to tap into that initially.  Now we’ve broadened our horizons, as it were, and that is just one of the kinds of music we are into. 

REAX:  Do you find that dance music is a tougher sell here in the States?
GM:  There is a lot going on in Europe and the UK.  We have a different tradition of dance music which is not just the simple beats end of dance or the rave kind of thing but really complex drum and bass and the Warp Records thing which is a very extreme electronica.  That is something that has been more accepted in the mainstream than it has in the States.  On the other hand, in places like Germany and France, rock music has never gone out of style.  The worst kind of clichés of rock music are almost the most popular forms.  Everyone knows about The Scorpions and bands like that, the most retrogressive kind of rock bands and . . . they sell like millions of records in Germany. (laughs)  So, if you’re in a rock band you can do really well in Germany.  I think we tapped into different elements.  That LCD Soundsystem thing, which is even now quite a cultish sort of idea.  There is that electronica, there is indie rock, there is rock.  We just have lots of different camps really. 

REAX:  I know you’ve heard a lot of comparisons of Bloc Party to Gang of Four.  But unlike Gang of Four, whose rhythm section was so robotic, you and drummer Matt Tong are so free to play within each song.  Is this due to your diverse musical background?
GM:  Musically, I’ve broadened out from where I started.  But, bass has always been my first love, really.  And, I am not a frustrated guitarist.  One thing we’ve done as a band is to mentally challenge ourselves completely, to say it doesn’t have to be that way when you watch a band.  Why not do something new?  Also, the whole idea of a machine is something that we tried to get on this record, to make it sound like a machine is playing it.  As players, Matt and I are quite loose, but also we connect very well together which is the heart of a good rhythm section.   However kind of loose you are, as long as you follow together, hand-in-hand as it were, then it works. 

REAX:  I understand you played a lot more instruments on this album.
GM:  Yeah, partly in the spirit of experimentation, let’s throw everything in you can.  The first record had been restrained in that sense.  We played our parts and as afterthought in places we did a bit here and there.  We tried not to overload it with stuff because we felt the songs were strong enough on their own.  With this record, just trial and error and throwing things at the music we all got involved in playing whatever was lying around.  That was one of the integral parts of the process for me, just to hit things and make noises.  (laughs)

REAX:  Do you see Bloc Party’s future as becoming more progressive, adding more instruments?
GM:  That is certainly something we will investigate.  And Matt is a really interesting musician.  He plays piano.  He’s kind of classically trained in that.  Matt can do things on a keyboard that some of us couldn’t do.  It would be nice to see Matt freed up to do other things.  I think that would be really interesting.

REAX:  A common theme on “Weekend” is the suburban mundane life of a teenager of the week and the debauchery adolescent excess of the weekends.  Is that what connects you most to your fans, the common feeling that life is a repetitive circle with only brief glimpses of spontaneity?
GM:  Maybe.  The irony is that in a band, your life is anything but that.  For start, you never know what day of the week it is when you’re on tour.  But, I’ve worked a nine to five job.  I did that for a long time before the band kicked off.  I know what’s that like, to be frustrated and have yourself pent up and frustrated all week for it to explode for the weekend.  I think we’ve just pointed out something that is not rocket science.  There is an appeal in that way of life but, we’ve pointed what nobody seems to have made explicit which is that its quite empty.   Even though we don’t work desk jobs from Monday to Friday and take it to the weekend, that is something that we are crucially aware of.  That’s what connects us to our fans.  Its this awareness.  We can’t preach by example but at least we are aware of it.

REAX:  Does this yin and yang of work and play fall into some of the drug references in your lyrics, like in “Song for Clay”?
GM:  When you are in a band you’re in a unique position to have that perspective.  Although personally I’ve never been much for that kind of lifestyle.  I think the record is an exploration of that more than anything.  It doesn’t come down too hard one way or the other.  It just explores it.

REAX:  Does touring affect your writing?  For example, a song like “Kreuzberg” is about East Germany.  Did touring central Europe inspire that song?
GM:  I think so.  For me it’s a reminder on that record that it needn’t simply be about life in London.  I am pleased to show it’s not just about that.  It’s about a global perspective.  And we have seen a lot of the world.  But, you never really get the time in a city that you need to write a song about it.  You need a bit more than six hours in a city to really have enough material about that town.  (laughs)

REAX:  Are you even available to walk around when visiting a town?
GM:  Yes, sometimes.  I mean we are in a town in North England, called Blackburn.  I’ve had a quick walk round and I used to have a girlfriend that lived up in this area and it reminded me of that time.  Seeing how things haven’t changed in almost 10 years.   You sort of process and thinking about how it fits into the grand scheme.  But, it’s only later when you can really analyze it. 

REAX:  What is it like when you return to your own home after touring for so long?
GM:  On the one hand, touring England is enjoyable, there is no language problem.  We are understood wherever we go.  For me, it just reminded me of what life could’ve been like if I hadn’t joined the band and things that happened to us.  I start to sort of reminisce.  (laughs)  Not necessarily about life before being in a band but remember things I’ve forgotten.  When I’m off tour, I’ve moved around two, three times in the last three years.  So, I am not terribly settled.  I’ve been going through a growing process in the last three years.  But, I do like seeing these towns.  It’s a reminder of where we’re from.