Interpol shares the video for “Something Changed” and the video follows the further adventures of denim and dancing.  Watch below!

Last week, Interpol premiered “Toni”, the first single from their new album ‘The Other Side Of Make-Believe’, released July 15th on Matador. The song was accompanied by the opening installment of a two-part film directed by Van Alpert (Post Malone, Machine Gun Kelly), which has since garnered over a quarter of a million views on YouTube.

Today, Interpol release the second and concluding part, as well as unveil new song ‘Something Changed.’ Watch HERE. Singer Paul Banks says: “In “Something Changed,” part two of our short film with Van Alpert, reality and reverie converge and our two lead characters find themselves in a kind of dream state – being pursued inexorably by an ominous figure (played by myself.) The lives of the three are intertwined in a nebula of fear, retribution, desire, and defiance. Who will receive their just deserts? Stay tuned and find out.”

Director Van Alpert: “Paul and I like the idea that ‘Something Changed’ would be like a dream. It’s as if our two main characters wake up from what happened in ‘Toni’ and their lives are irreparably different. They are now on the run from some dark force that is a bit more primal and encroaching.”

Still in shape, my methods refined,” sings Paul Banks on “Toni”, the opening track from Interpol’s 7th LP ‘The Other Side of Make-Believe’. The album breaks fresh ground for the group: parallel to exploring the sinister undercurrents of contemporary life, Interpol’s new songs are imbued with pastoral longing and newfound grace. Daniel Kessler’s serpentine guitar arrangements crest skywards, Samuel Fogarino shatters his percussive precision into strange meters, while Paul Banks’ sonorous voice exudes a vulnerability that is likely to catch most long-term fans of the band off guard. After all, says Banks, “there’s always a seventh time for a first impression.”

Interpol play the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn for two nights on May 14-15 and some of their biggest worldwide shows to date throughout the year, including the Rose Bowl Stadium in Los Angeles and City Palacio De Los Deportes arena in Mexico City. Full dates, album tracklisting and artwork can be found below the album bio by Gabriel Szatan.

‘The Other Side of Make-Believe’ began remotely across 2020. In early 2021, Interpol reconvened to flesh out new material at a rented home in the Catskills, before completing it later that year in North London, working for the first time with production veteran Flood (Mark Ellis), as well as teaming up again with former co-producer Alan Moulder. 

Writing on their own in those geographically-dispersed early stages gave the members a way out of their respective heads: “We really extracted the honey out of this situation”, says Fogarino. Kessler echoes the sentiment: “Working alone was raw at first, but has opened up a vivid new chapter for us.” In the Interpol Venn Diagram, each member found a way of expanding their individual circle in perfect harmony.

As Banks was grounded in Edinburgh for close to nine months, he got cosy in a window-side chair with a pen, pad and atypically cream-colored bass guitar. “We usually write live, but for the first time I’m not shouting over a drum kit,” he says. “Daniel and I have a strong enough chemistry that I could picture how my voice would complement the scratch demos he emailed over. Then I could turn the guys down on my laptop, locate these colorful melodies and generally get the message across in an understated fashion.” Banks adjusting his personal volume dimmer to a hush chimes with a period of global disquiet and the yearn for reconnection: “Flood told me the vocals on the demos evoked Mickey Rourke in “Barfly,” singing to a patron at the end of the tabletop, and we never felt the need to flip that smoky intimacy into something big and loud when it came to rehearse and record. I got a real kick out of doing the opposite.”

Coming from a group whose early material was characterized by Polish knife-wielders and incarcerated serial killers, you might expect Interpol’s take on the present day to be an emotional tar pit — perhaps doubly so, given the towering credentials of Flood and Moulder’s history with Nine Inch Nails, Curve, Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and more.

Yet Banks felt the call to push in a “counterbalancing” direction, with paeans to mental resilience and the quiet power of going easy. “The nobility of the human spirit is to rebound,” he says. “Yeah, I could focus on how fucked everything is, but I feel now is the time when being hopeful is necessary, and a still-believable emotion within what makes Interpol Interpol.” Kessler concurs: “The process of writing this record and searching for tender, resonant emotions took me back to teenage years; it was transformative, almost euphoric. I felt a rare sensation of purpose biting on the end of my fishing rod and I was compelled to reel it in.”

Even with spare piano caressing the intro of “Something Changed,” open-hearted cyclical chord progressions on “Passenger,” or anthemic waves of Kessler’s cresting guitar on “Big Shot City,” it doesn’t mean Interpol are entirely stopping to smell the roses, though. ‘The Other Side of Make-Believe’’s title, cover and a frequent lyrical lean toward fables, smokescreens and the mutability of truth reflect Banks’ disgust with the curdling of the information age. “I feel like the slipperiness of reality, and being willing to get violent on the basis of a factual disagreement, has had a super strenuous effect on the psyche of everyone in the world. Although,” he laughs, “I was talking about it so often that it kind of spooked my bandmates, so I found a way to express my concerns more through the lens of human beings’ non-rational faculties, and less civilizational collapse.”

On ‘The Other Side of Make-Believe,’ a deep interpersonal understanding means each member respects the other’s respective strengths better than ever, letting Interpol’s elemental qualities shine through. Song by song, Kessler sketches the architectural blueprint (invariably while watching a film — locus of inspiration for almost every song in the band’s catalogue), Banks frames artwork on the wall, then Fogarino arranges the furniture to have a certainpositioning and intent. 

Fogarino highlights Flood’s part in this equation “was to hyperbolize all of our good qualities. Our band has never exploited rock ‘n roll tropes, no big drum fills or wailing solos, so he located the core honesty in our sound and found a way to widen it. There’s a phrase I love about drumming: ‘the rhythm hates the melody’ — the best kind of drumming either totally accentuates what’s being conveyed, or ploughs through it.” So what does the splashy, dramatic beat on songs like “Renegade Hearts” and “Gran Hotel” imply? The answer comes back with a grin: “I guess Flood gave me room to plough.”

‘The Other Side of Make-Believe’ will soon feel as familiar in the public consciousness as it is to Paul Banks, Daniel Kessler and Sam Fogarino. Ever the paradox, the noir-ish trio have weathered nearly seven albums’ and several line-ups’ worth of rollercoasters far better than anyone might have predicted, never letting their sense of purpose escape. Over time, tags like ‘alternative’ and ‘indie’ have even faded from view. They are simply a rock group nowadays; one of the most distinctive, consequential and enduring rock groups of the 21st century so far. And a quarter-century into their lifespan, the band are all fired up again.

Interpol: their methods refined, still in terrific shape.

– Gabriel Szatan

The Other Side Of Make-Believe

Tracklist

1. Toni

2. Fables

3. Into The Night

4. Mr Credit

5. Something Changed

6. Renegade Hearts

7. Passenger

8. Greenwich

9. Gran Hotel

10. Big Shot City

11. Go Easy (Palermo)

INTERPOL TOUR DATES 2022:

Apr 25 Dallas TX, US The Factory in Deep Ellum

Apr 26 Austin TX, US Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater

Apr 28 Tempe AZ, US Marquee Theatre

Apr 29 San Diego CA, US Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre at SDSU

Apr 30 Berkeley CA, US Greek Theatre

May 2 Salt Lake City UT, US Union Event Center (The Union)

May 3 Denver CO, US Mission Ballroom

May 5 St. Paul MN, US Palace Theatre

May 6 Chicago IL, US Aragon Ballroom

May 7 Detroit MI, US The Fillmore

May 8 Cleveland OH, US Agora Theatre & Ballroom

May 10 Washington DC, US The Anthem

May 11 Boston MA, US Roadrunner

May 13 Philadelphia PA, US The Met Philadelphia

May 14 Brooklyn NY, US Kings Theatre

May 15 Brooklyn NY, US Kings Theatre

May 21 Pasadena CA, US Just Like Heaven Festival

May 28 Mexico City, MX Palacio de los Deportes

Jun 8 Barcelona ES, Sala Apolo

Jun 9 Barcelona, ES Primavera Sound Festival

Jun 11 Porto, PT Primavera Sound Festival

Jun 12 Berlin, GE Tempelhof Sounds Festival

Jun 14 London, UK The Roundhouse

Jun 15 London, UK The Roundhouse

Jun 16 Brussels, BE Ancienne Belgique (AB)

Jun 18 Paris, FR Salle Pleyel

Jun 19 Landgraaf, NE Pinkpop Festival

Aug 25 Asbury Park NJ, US Stone Pony Summer Stage

Aug 26 Toronto ON, CA Budweiser Stage

Aug 27 Portland ME, US Thompson’s Point

Aug 28 Providence RI, US Bold Point Pavilion

Aug 30 Columbus OH, US KEMBA Live! Outdoor

Sep 1 Cincinnati OH, US Andrew J. Brady Music Center

Sep 2 Atlanta GA, US The Eastern

Sep 3 Asheville NC, US Rabbit Rabbit

Sep 6 Pittsburgh PA, US Stage AE Outdoors

Sep 8 Indianapolis IN, US TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park

Sep 9 St Louis MO, US Stifel Theatre

Sep 10 Oklahoma City OK, US The Criterion 

Sep 13 Las Vegas NV, US The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas

Sep 14 Paso Robles CA, US Vina Robles Amphitheatre

Sep 16 Seattle WA, US Paramount Theatre

Sep 17 Portland OR, US Pioneer Courthouse Square

Sep 18 Portland OR, US Pioneer Courthouse Square

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