Watching this year’s Reading Festival I couldn’t help but be reminded of that quote along the lines of, ‘you either die a hero or stay around long enough to become a villain’. I think it was from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietszche. Or it might have been from one of the Spiderman films. But regardless of its true source, I never felt it to be more true than when I watched Interpol’s performance on the Sunday afternoon. The musicianship wasn’t that bad, even if it seemed that they were at times running through the motions, and seemed to largely base their setlist on their second album, Antics, (aka The Interpol Album That Everyone Has), but what was more worrying, nay, disturbing, was the decline in their sense of style.
When they burst onto the scene in the middle of the last decade they were the last word in New York cool; whilst the predictable indie kids dutifully did what the NME told them and worshipped the Strokes we must never as a society forget that not only did that band peddle nothing but skinny-trousered, tousle-haired, trust-funded clichés (of both the musical and sartorial varieties) but that they would give rise to the reprehensible Razorlight and, even worse, the Kooks, a band whose existence surely ranks amongst the Western world’s greatest shames. (Indeed, I can only hope that the painfully skinny jeans that R
azorlight and the Kooks were poured into were part of a secretive conspiracy to cut off the blood flow to their nether regions and ensure they were unable to procreate; after all, who wants to live in a world where the likes of Johnny Borrell and Luke Pritchard are allowed to propagate their genes?)
Interpol, however, were different; gaining extra kudos for being a New York band whose singer was born in Clacton-On-Sea (which is far cooler than being born in, say, LA) they also had a unique stylistic trump card in their hand in the form of bassist Carlos Dengler, aka Carlos D. He was far too cool to lower himself to wearing skinny jeans or the sort of t-shirts that are meant to look second hand but are invariably from pretentious Lower East Side boutiques that only trustafarians can afford to shop in, and instead forged ahead with his own unique style that took the form of a quasi-fascist look involving ties and waistcoats, a striking combination of blacks and reds, gun holsters, armbands and vaguely Hitlerish hair. A kind of Nazi Rock Dandy, if you will. His
idiosyncratic flair, along with his aloof stage persona and low slung bass guitar led him to become the most famous member of the band, despite not being the singer.
But at Reading, everything had changed. With Carlos D having left the band the year before they seemed to have lost their way not only musically but stylistically. The new bassist looked confused in his charity shop suit and whilst Sam Fogarino and Daniel Kessler were trying their best to keep the look going, singer Paul Banks had bizarrely opted to wear a tracksuit. What happened? Did he leave his suit at the dry cleaners? Did he not want to risk getting it dirty in a festival? Or did he just become enamoured of Oasis and decide that adopting their look was the way forward?
Well, whatever the reason, it could now be an uphill struggle for the band. As for Carlos, he has now retired much of his extravagant look, claiming it was best suited to a rock star and he now prefers the anonymity of not dressing quite so flamboyantly. But perhaps a future as the alt-rock Gok Wan beckons, teaching confused rockers to develop a new sense of style? And, let’s face it, there are plenty of people who could do with his help. He could start with Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit; how can you not like anyone who has, in the press, advised that overblown, overage and overweight pitiful excuse for a rock star to ‘stop looking like a homophobic, misogynistic date-rapist jock from Michigan’?
Amen, brothers.
azorlight and the Kooks were poured into were part of a secretive conspiracy to cut off the blood flow to their nether regions and ensure they were unable to procreate; after all, who wants to live in a world where the likes of Johnny Borrell and Luke Pritchard are allowed to propagate their genes?)
Interpol, however, were different; gaining extra kudos for being a New York band whose singer was born in Clacton-On-Sea (which is far cooler than being born in, say, LA) they also had a unique stylistic trump card in their hand in the form of bassist Carlos Dengler, aka Carlos D. He was far too cool to lower himself to wearing skinny jeans or the sort of t-shirts that are meant to look second hand but are invariably from pretentious Lower East Side boutiques that only trustafarians can afford to shop in, and instead forged ahead with his own unique style that took the form of a quasi-fascist look involving ties and waistcoats, a striking combination of blacks and reds, gun holsters, armbands and vaguely Hitlerish hair. A kind of Nazi Rock Dandy, if you will. His
idiosyncratic flair, along with his aloof stage persona and low slung bass guitar led him to become the most famous member of the band, despite not being the singer.
But at Reading, everything had changed. With Carlos D having left the band the year before they seemed to have lost their way not only musically but stylistically. The new bassist looked confused in his charity shop suit and whilst Sam Fogarino and Daniel Kessler were trying their best to keep the look going, singer Paul Banks had bizarrely opted to wear a tracksuit. What happened? Did he leave his suit at the dry cleaners? Did he not want to risk getting it dirty in a festival? Or did he just become enamoured of Oasis and decide that adopting their look was the way forward?
Well, whatever the reason, it could now be an uphill struggle for the band. As for Carlos, he has now retired much of his extravagant look, claiming it was best suited to a rock star and he now prefers the anonymity of not dressing quite so flamboyantly. But perhaps a future as the alt-rock Gok Wan beckons, teaching confused rockers to develop a new sense of style? And, let’s face it, there are plenty of people who could do with his help. He could start with Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit; how can you not like anyone who has, in the press, advised that overblown, overage and overweight pitiful excuse for a rock star to ‘stop looking like a homophobic, misogynistic date-rapist jock from Michigan’?
Amen, brothers.
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