News : Interpol “pumped” to be working on a new “rock” album: “My favourite tracks so far are quite high energy”

Interpol‘s Paul Banks has shared that he’s “pumped” at the new material the band are working on. Find out more below.

Last month, it was reported that Interpol were back in the studio, with drummer Sam Fogarino returning to playing following his recovery from spinal surgery.

Now, in an interview with NME, Banks has shared that they are in fact working on “a rock record”. “I’m pretty pumped about the stuff that we have worked on so far,” the frontman said. “That’s all I can really say: it’s an enthusiastic ‘yes’. It’s pretty cool.”

Interpol’s last album ‘The Other Side Of Make Believe‘ was released in 2022, which Banks told us he sees as “really intimate”. “It stretches out in different ways and has new energies. We worked with Flood who is a very talented genius in the studio too.

“It sounding weird is probably one of the benefits of writing it more remotely. Having written in the lockdown, and then rehearsing a bit allowed for a certain characteristic,” he said.

“With this [next] record, we’re getting back to writing together in a room and my favourite tracks so far are quite high energy.”

Banks also shared that the new sonic direction was, in part, influenced by the band’s recent tour with the Smashing Pumpkins, saying: “I just came away being inspired by the songwriting of that band, across the spectrum. It was good eye-opener for me.”

He added that it’s “possible” the record would be released next year, but that due to touring schedules they “might want to take a little bit of time to regroup and just be people.”

Interpol are currently on their ‘Antics’ 20th-anniversary tour that sees them playing their seminal 2004 album in full. They’ll continue through Europe before arriving in the UK next month. Visit here for tickets and more information. The band will then visit the US for a run of headline dates, and tickets can be found here.

To celebrate 20 years since the album’s release, the band have shared a newly expanded reissue available on digital services (including new-to-streaming and digital exclusive B-side ‘Direction’), and will this Friday (27) be streaming the band’s legendary, never-seen-before 2005 performance at Mexico City’s Palacio de los Deportes.

A made-to-order triple LP vinyl box set that includes the album, a 30-page booklet, and the complete Palacio de los Deportes concert is expected to arrive in early 2025, as well as a limited-edition single LP red vinyl reissue available at record stores worldwide (available from October 18 and October 25 in the US and Canada,). Pre-order it here.

A limited tricolour LP in red, white and green will also be exclusive to Mexico and sold at a Matador Records pop-up at Vavava CDMX in Mexico City from November 9-14.

Check out the tracklist for the 20th anniversary editions of ‘Antics’ below:

1. ‘Next Exit’
2. ‘Evil’
3. ‘Narc’
4. ‘Take You on a Cruise’
5. ‘Slow Hands’
6. ‘Not Even Jail’
7. ‘Public Pervert’
8. ‘C’mere’
9. ‘Length of Love’
10. ‘A Time to Be Small’
11. ‘Direction’ (digital-only)

Interpol Live At Palacio De Los Deportes, 2005:

1. ‘Next Exit’
2. ‘Say Hello to the Angels’
3. ‘Narc’
4. ‘A Time to Be Small’
5. ‘Slow Hands’
6. ‘Public Pervert’
7. ‘Not Even Jail’
8. ‘Leif Erikson’
9. ‘Evil’
10. ‘Obstacle 1’
11. ‘Take You on a Cruise’
12. ‘PDA’
13. ‘NYC’
14. ‘Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down’
15. ‘Roland’

Interpol’s last record, ‘The Other Side Of Make Believe’, was describe as “hypnotic and woozy” in a four-star review from NME, with Andrew Trendell writing: “Far from a total reinvention, but all adds up to a confident, rewarding and subtly adventurous new chapter for Interpol – or, as Banks sings himself on the aforementioned peak of ‘Toni’, “Still in shape, my methods refined”.