BLOC PARTY

CONFRONT: Hi

GORDON: Hi there.

CONFRONT: How are you?

GORDON: I’m pretty good, happy to be in Montreal and play for you guys tonight.

CONFRONT: Well we’re very happy too, thanks to you guys for coming by!  Ok, now I want to explain to you what the concept of our magazine is, and what we want to do as a new magazine.  Our motto is Dare, Defy, Provoke. Dare to Listen, Defy Stereotypes, Provoke Change.  We want to make sure we are ahead of the curve; we want to make sure that our readers know about all types of music, and that the only type of music is not necessarily mainstream.

GORDON: Well this is a cool concept.

CONFRONT: Talking about mainstream, today what would be your personal definition of mainstream?

GORDON: Mainstream… (Thinking) Wow I think increasingly it’s kind of what we used to imagine was sort of quite edgy and punk rock, to me now mainstream is Fall Out Boy.  Music that pleases people. I mean you know if you ask me about music, you know, there is a lot of these kinds of band that have their roots in the alternative world.  I think that through time mainstream has become more or less the same thing, coming back in a circle with different costumes you know.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, it’s all about the culture and the social representation in the time and place this artist is playing…to me this is mainstream.

CONFRONT: I agree.  So the next few questions are part of our CONFRONT questions, which we ask all of our interviewees.

GORDON: Great.

CONFRONT: Your first and last CD or cassette or record bought?

GORDON: The first record I bought was, I think it was Whitney Houston’s `Whitney` album it was either that or Michael Jackson’s `Bad` I bought these around the same time and the last thing I bought was `Zone Arcade` by Huskadoo.

CONFRONT: Very good music.

GORDON: Definitely.

CONFRONT: Your first and last concert attended as a fan?

GORDON: Uh…the first one was Uncle Suede in 1993 and the most recent concert I attended which I was there as an artist but got the chance to see The Dears in Texas when we were at South for South West.

CONFRONT: Cool a band from here.

GORDON: Yeah I know, pretty cool band!

CONFRONT: What would be one of your musical guilty pleasures? Something that you tell yourself I don’t want anyone knowing that I’m listening to this when I drive alone in my car…

GORDON: … I don’t know, it’s funny because in the last few months we’ve been listening to a lot of soft rock on the bus, you know stuff that we would not normally listen to, bands that are considered a bit cheesy you know…Barry White, Tori Amos, Boston and stuff like that you know, so I would consider this as my guilty pleasures lately.

CONFRONT: Cool. Now, the new album `A Weekend in the City` is your second studio album. How do you feel you’ve evolved as a group since your first EP?  How do you feel you’ve evolved as a musician?

GORDON: I think we’ve become older and wiser and we’re more accomplished professional musicians.  You know if you listen to the stuff we did on our first EP, you know this is definitely stuff you do at home you know… it’s not that professional. We work on the harmonies and the orchestrations now. I think that’s the key, we’re professionals now

CONFRONT: I can understand that, and talking about evolution, there seems to be a noticeable difference between the first and `A Weekend in the City` your second studio album, do you think this has something to do with the evolution you’re talking about here?

GORDON: Exactly yet again this is the key of the difference.  This is something planned, we did this intentionally, we wanted to make a difference , we wanted our songs to mean something instead of having so many abstract ideas, we’re changing the way we do music. Our style/type of music evolves as we evolve and I think that’s the key.

CONFRONT: The important thing now is to do music that make sense to you and to your fans.

GORDON: I think this is actually the crucial thing.  It does not make sense to make music just to make music.  We all know artists are doing this because they love to express themselves.

CONFRONT: I think this is a great thing to do and of course as long as the fans follow it’s great.

GORDON: Yeah I think our fans are happy about this, it shows them we can evolve and grow as a group.

CONFRONT: For sure this is important. Now, since we’re a bit short on time I’m jumping right away to the fan question I have for you.

GORDON: Fan question cool.

CONFRONT: For sure, Anna wants to know more about “I Still Remember” your new single here… She wants to know how did that come about.

GORDON: Well I can’t really speak on behalf of Kele, but I can at least let you know when we started working on this song…back in June of 2005 and we were jamming in studio.  Lyrically it changed a lot in the past two years.  I know now that it’s all about the past, about the memories of the past that you still want to remember.  

CONFRONT: Ok last one…what would you want your legacy to be?

GORDON: Well right now I’d love to be remembered for this album, this was never meant to be an instant record, and I feel that we want to be making music as much as possible and enjoy it.

CONFRONT: Well thank you very much.

GORDON: No thank you this was a very interesting interview.

CONFRONT: Well thank you.