dandysweets
Member
Hi all.
Here's an interview, someone put up on Bloc Party Forum (I copied and pasted it), with Kele from Bloc Party in Attitude Magazine. He mentions Morrissey, not surprisingly in connection with sexuality. I think he's being a bit hypocritical in his criticism of Morrissey, considering he is equally vague about his sexuality, but nevermind...
PART ONE OF THE INTERVIEW (I apoglise for grammar & spelling mistakes)
Kele Okereke is hungover, mightily. He mutters something about two bottles of vodka, shared while helping out at a DJ gig with his band mate Russell Lissack, at the universty of Loughborough last night. That sounds like a lot of vodka "It was!" he says, rubbing his sore head.
If there is a sense of nervousness about the Bloc Party singer doing an Attitude interview, it isn't without reason. When the press tired of asking the race question (What does it feel like being a black man being in a rock group?) which shadowed him for most of the promotional circus around the release of the group's first million selling record "Silent Alarm", Q magazine brought up the issue of his sexuality. Kele dealt with it with a complicated mix of aversion, privacy and discomfort and the resulting piece was a spiky read. It left him looking like a tricky customer, though the truth is rather plainer than that. Kele is shy. And shy people mostly baulk at the idea of discussing their personal details in public places.
Fittingly, we meet him in a bar of a recording studio in East London. After brief stints as an infant in Liverpool and Edinborough, Kele was East end bread. He still lives here and can often been seen wandering through the streets of the area in an overcoat and battered Converse Allstars, or propping up the bar at one of its less gilded boozers. Kele can sometimes look a little sullen, glum even, as many can who carry an air of thoughtful intensity and shyness about them. He has a contradiction at his heart that you can see in the slightly awkward way he presents himself, both on and off stage. It is part of what makes him one part f*** you defiance. He has a stammer which grows with nerves, though disappears when sings. Some of this might go some way to explaining the previous evening's vodka measures.
Bloc Party have just released their second album, A weekend in the city, to a round of critical garlands. It's a clever, driven, forceful and very modern record, more emotionally guided than their debut. "Its Honest" begins Kele, by a way of direct explaination.
Is A Weekend in the city a more emotional record than Silent Alarm
Yes it is. The songs that still live with me from the first record are the songs with a real sense of honesty to them. That was in the back of my mind when I was writing A weekend in the city. I wanted to make a document of the way that I was thinking and feeling at this moment.
What makes you write a song?
It tends to be other music, actually. You hear something that sounds like nothing you've heard before and you want to try and break it down. Whenever i hear a song by a guitar band on the radio these days my first thought is "We could do something so much better than this" Everyone seems to follow the same set of rules and influences. Whereas we'll put on something like a Nelly Furtado record, and analyse the way it's constructed. I heard an amazing song called afraid by her. It's almost DJ Shadow- esque. That to me is far more exciting than the Kooks or Razorlight. Theres something about it that is slightly over worldly. The music that's always resonated with me tends to have a kind of fantastical quality to it. Listening to it transports you into a different place, like Kate Bush or Bjork. You're required to make an investment with the music and that what we've always aimed for.
Rufus Wainwright says that Kate Bush is one of the onlyy people who can make being an outsider feel like the best to be. Isn't that amazing?
Yeah thats perfect. Shes one of the only two artists who are really fascinatingly interesting that have also been hugely successful in the mainstream.
Who would you say the other one is?
Queen, I was listening to A Night At The Opera and Sheer Heart Attack, when we were making this record. Everyone harks on about the Beatles but i think that what Queen could do musically was so much more impressive to me.
What about Freddie as a person
Freddie's sexuality probably lead to them being written up as some sort of a gimmick. They aren't taken as seriously as they should be. I'm amazed that the gay community haven't made more of him. He was a fantastic songwriter that took the gay experience to a lot of different places while doing something fundamentally interesting with rock music. He gave it a sense of humour.
He also feminised it by being super masculine, which was kind of brilliant contradiction, no?
Absoulutely. I mean, its very idiosyncratic that this supercamp character was taken in by the straight masses. You couldn't predict that that would happen or a mass level.
I guess it was a different era, though.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Liverpool, we moved to Scotland then I grew up in east london. I moved here when i was 8 years old. I can't really remember anything from before then.
Have you got brothers and sisters?
A sister; one year older. She's a teacher. She has a more admirable and honourable profession than me! The upbringing of the young people of this country is of paramount importance and its amazing that there isn't more money put into it. To paraphrase Whitney, the children are our future.
PART TWO (Again apoligises for mistakes)
When were your first sexual awakenings?
I guess when i was about 14. I always -crumbs- had girlfriends but I was always aware that there was something else. I think bisexuality in this society is percieved in a really odd way. There seems to be a real gender difference. I was in a pub the other day with the girlfriend of a friend;. She was asking us about our sexuality and we were asking her and- even though sshes a heterosexual woman- she finds herself having sex with girls sometimes, if she finds them attractive. It seems to be encouraged for women to explore or be seen to be exploring their sexuality.
But lesbianism is something that is titillating for straight men in a way that homosexuality isn't surely?
It's seen as an empowering thing to do, too. It makes women seem cooloer or somehow more adventurous. You can see it with someone like Angelina Jolie. Yet with guys it's seen as a very emasculating thing to admit that you could find the male image desirable at all.
Do you think that is fundamnetally a lie?
Yes, i think it is. Look at it historically. Whole societes were based on the admission of bisexuality. Even in our generation you see men being conditioned to be bisexually responsive. Just look at the way the male image is used in adverts, or pop videos, or billboards. That isn't just titillating for women.
James Bond is a great example It's being marketed in the most homo-erotic manner, with an image of Daniel Craig in his pants aimed directly at straight men.
That's excatly what i mean, If you look at most heterosexual porn you see the guys with huge cocks and defined bodies f***ing these girls- there's a definately a bisexual impluse going on there. But i dont think that many people are very comfortable to talk about it. It just seems like an odd double-standard.
Can you remember a male image that had effect on you?
There were some... it wasn't particurlarly an image. It was more about developing crushes on friends, as I think a lot of people do. Theres a song called "I Still Remember" on our next record that is trying to specifically address that.
Everyone's been through it
Yes, and it isn't especially about boys that end up being gay. A lot of my straight male friends have said to me when they were younger they had this...
Romantic Friendships?
Yeah.
How do you feel about a group like Franz Ferdinand playing with that idea on Michael? Is there something a bit opportunistic about it?
Michael is actually one of the reasons I wanted to write I Still Remember. That song seemed to take a really shallow, glib idea of what feelings are and I wanted to make something that had a truer sense of desperation and longing to it. Lots of young people will know that feeling, they will know completely what it is to reach over and touch someone and not really be able to. I read a collection of poems of Walt Whitmen and the way that he infuses everything with this same sex desire and melancholy seemed so powerful to me. I wanted to touch on something that went to these places.
Your Stammer is really sweet, Theres something very affecting about hearing someone battle to communicate, especially when they have something to say..
Actually, it does warm me when I hear it in other people.
Do you know where it comes from?
No, I've had it for as long as I can remember. I had speech therarpy lessons when i was younger but they just dovacated that I take deep breaths and because certaimn phonetic sounds are harder than others they'd concentrate on those. It gets worse the more nervous I am.
Does it feed into the performance at all?
Not really. Im just like Gareth Gates [laughs] ................
Here's an interview, someone put up on Bloc Party Forum (I copied and pasted it), with Kele from Bloc Party in Attitude Magazine. He mentions Morrissey, not surprisingly in connection with sexuality. I think he's being a bit hypocritical in his criticism of Morrissey, considering he is equally vague about his sexuality, but nevermind...
PART ONE OF THE INTERVIEW (I apoglise for grammar & spelling mistakes)
Kele Okereke is hungover, mightily. He mutters something about two bottles of vodka, shared while helping out at a DJ gig with his band mate Russell Lissack, at the universty of Loughborough last night. That sounds like a lot of vodka "It was!" he says, rubbing his sore head.
If there is a sense of nervousness about the Bloc Party singer doing an Attitude interview, it isn't without reason. When the press tired of asking the race question (What does it feel like being a black man being in a rock group?) which shadowed him for most of the promotional circus around the release of the group's first million selling record "Silent Alarm", Q magazine brought up the issue of his sexuality. Kele dealt with it with a complicated mix of aversion, privacy and discomfort and the resulting piece was a spiky read. It left him looking like a tricky customer, though the truth is rather plainer than that. Kele is shy. And shy people mostly baulk at the idea of discussing their personal details in public places.
Fittingly, we meet him in a bar of a recording studio in East London. After brief stints as an infant in Liverpool and Edinborough, Kele was East end bread. He still lives here and can often been seen wandering through the streets of the area in an overcoat and battered Converse Allstars, or propping up the bar at one of its less gilded boozers. Kele can sometimes look a little sullen, glum even, as many can who carry an air of thoughtful intensity and shyness about them. He has a contradiction at his heart that you can see in the slightly awkward way he presents himself, both on and off stage. It is part of what makes him one part f*** you defiance. He has a stammer which grows with nerves, though disappears when sings. Some of this might go some way to explaining the previous evening's vodka measures.
Bloc Party have just released their second album, A weekend in the city, to a round of critical garlands. It's a clever, driven, forceful and very modern record, more emotionally guided than their debut. "Its Honest" begins Kele, by a way of direct explaination.
Is A Weekend in the city a more emotional record than Silent Alarm
Yes it is. The songs that still live with me from the first record are the songs with a real sense of honesty to them. That was in the back of my mind when I was writing A weekend in the city. I wanted to make a document of the way that I was thinking and feeling at this moment.
What makes you write a song?
It tends to be other music, actually. You hear something that sounds like nothing you've heard before and you want to try and break it down. Whenever i hear a song by a guitar band on the radio these days my first thought is "We could do something so much better than this" Everyone seems to follow the same set of rules and influences. Whereas we'll put on something like a Nelly Furtado record, and analyse the way it's constructed. I heard an amazing song called afraid by her. It's almost DJ Shadow- esque. That to me is far more exciting than the Kooks or Razorlight. Theres something about it that is slightly over worldly. The music that's always resonated with me tends to have a kind of fantastical quality to it. Listening to it transports you into a different place, like Kate Bush or Bjork. You're required to make an investment with the music and that what we've always aimed for.
Rufus Wainwright says that Kate Bush is one of the onlyy people who can make being an outsider feel like the best to be. Isn't that amazing?
Yeah thats perfect. Shes one of the only two artists who are really fascinatingly interesting that have also been hugely successful in the mainstream.
Who would you say the other one is?
Queen, I was listening to A Night At The Opera and Sheer Heart Attack, when we were making this record. Everyone harks on about the Beatles but i think that what Queen could do musically was so much more impressive to me.
What about Freddie as a person
Freddie's sexuality probably lead to them being written up as some sort of a gimmick. They aren't taken as seriously as they should be. I'm amazed that the gay community haven't made more of him. He was a fantastic songwriter that took the gay experience to a lot of different places while doing something fundamentally interesting with rock music. He gave it a sense of humour.
He also feminised it by being super masculine, which was kind of brilliant contradiction, no?
Absoulutely. I mean, its very idiosyncratic that this supercamp character was taken in by the straight masses. You couldn't predict that that would happen or a mass level.
I guess it was a different era, though.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Liverpool, we moved to Scotland then I grew up in east london. I moved here when i was 8 years old. I can't really remember anything from before then.
Have you got brothers and sisters?
A sister; one year older. She's a teacher. She has a more admirable and honourable profession than me! The upbringing of the young people of this country is of paramount importance and its amazing that there isn't more money put into it. To paraphrase Whitney, the children are our future.
PART TWO (Again apoligises for mistakes)
When were your first sexual awakenings?
I guess when i was about 14. I always -crumbs- had girlfriends but I was always aware that there was something else. I think bisexuality in this society is percieved in a really odd way. There seems to be a real gender difference. I was in a pub the other day with the girlfriend of a friend;. She was asking us about our sexuality and we were asking her and- even though sshes a heterosexual woman- she finds herself having sex with girls sometimes, if she finds them attractive. It seems to be encouraged for women to explore or be seen to be exploring their sexuality.
But lesbianism is something that is titillating for straight men in a way that homosexuality isn't surely?
It's seen as an empowering thing to do, too. It makes women seem cooloer or somehow more adventurous. You can see it with someone like Angelina Jolie. Yet with guys it's seen as a very emasculating thing to admit that you could find the male image desirable at all.
Do you think that is fundamnetally a lie?
Yes, i think it is. Look at it historically. Whole societes were based on the admission of bisexuality. Even in our generation you see men being conditioned to be bisexually responsive. Just look at the way the male image is used in adverts, or pop videos, or billboards. That isn't just titillating for women.
James Bond is a great example It's being marketed in the most homo-erotic manner, with an image of Daniel Craig in his pants aimed directly at straight men.
That's excatly what i mean, If you look at most heterosexual porn you see the guys with huge cocks and defined bodies f***ing these girls- there's a definately a bisexual impluse going on there. But i dont think that many people are very comfortable to talk about it. It just seems like an odd double-standard.
Can you remember a male image that had effect on you?
There were some... it wasn't particurlarly an image. It was more about developing crushes on friends, as I think a lot of people do. Theres a song called "I Still Remember" on our next record that is trying to specifically address that.
Everyone's been through it
Yes, and it isn't especially about boys that end up being gay. A lot of my straight male friends have said to me when they were younger they had this...
Romantic Friendships?
Yeah.
How do you feel about a group like Franz Ferdinand playing with that idea on Michael? Is there something a bit opportunistic about it?
Michael is actually one of the reasons I wanted to write I Still Remember. That song seemed to take a really shallow, glib idea of what feelings are and I wanted to make something that had a truer sense of desperation and longing to it. Lots of young people will know that feeling, they will know completely what it is to reach over and touch someone and not really be able to. I read a collection of poems of Walt Whitmen and the way that he infuses everything with this same sex desire and melancholy seemed so powerful to me. I wanted to touch on something that went to these places.
Your Stammer is really sweet, Theres something very affecting about hearing someone battle to communicate, especially when they have something to say..
Actually, it does warm me when I hear it in other people.
Do you know where it comes from?
No, I've had it for as long as I can remember. I had speech therarpy lessons when i was younger but they just dovacated that I take deep breaths and because certaimn phonetic sounds are harder than others they'd concentrate on those. It gets worse the more nervous I am.
Does it feed into the performance at all?
Not really. Im just like Gareth Gates [laughs] ................