Daniel, being friends with him, hears other things he’s been working on with different artists and knew what he was capable of as well. We just talked about having somebody produce and help us, because we needed to do something new with this record. I’ve done a lot of things outside of Interpol. I’m pretty comfortable doing different things. But I think for Daniel, it was really important for him to be with someone that was familiar so he didn’t have to go through that process of getting to know a new person while in that vulnerable creative space. It just felt right.
When we did the first writing sessions we ever did with Andrew, we came up with a ton of ideas, and his contributions on the song “Iron City” came out right from the beginning. He added a glockenspiel and countermelodies that informed what I did vocally. We all were like, “Holy shit, he just made everything better right away. He gets it and it’s helping this process.” What he brought to this record is incredible layers of arrangement and other instrumentation, from oboe to clarinet, to strings, to live strings, to slide guitar.
There’s a lot going on. It’s cohesive, but expansive. It’s amazing.
Thanks. He’s a genius, and his aesthetic really overlapped well with ours. He had a real vision of what he wanted to do with our band, while respecting the history of our band, while also doing something that felt new and timeless. It was a really good collaboration.
When did you first become interested in clothing and style?
I mean, dude, always. I remember when I was four having a fucking ’80s striped polo in my fucking nursery school that I would pop the collar on and feel so cool. I had a T-shirt that I guess was from Georgetown. I don’t even know about that school, but it had a big bulldog on it. It said, “How about them dogs?” on the back. And I remember as a five-year-old, I was like, “When I’m in this shirt, I’m the fucking man.” When I was 10, I got my first pair of blue jeans. I had my Simpsons T-shirt and my blue jeans, and I remember we took a family trip to New York City, and I was just like, “Ladies, what’s up?” I was just a little fat kid, but with the jeans on, I felt like the man.
I’ve always found it to be a great form of self-expression. I’m somebody who just loves aesthetics. My whole life I’ve been a great admirer of the way people wear clothes. One thing is whether or not it’s just a really original idea. But another is someone who’s put together really well and the way that the clothes hang on them, man or woman. It kind of boils down to genetics a lot of the time. That’s one facet that I’ve been really into since I was a kid—the part that someone doesn’t really have a lot of control of, just natural God-given beauty. Then the reality is you can get some fat guy with a lot of confidence in a fucking blue suit killing it. I don’t think anybody that’s been on Earth long doesn’t understand that it’s really more about personality and flare and confidence. That really is what ultimately matters in fashion, and being attractive is not about being buff or thin or whatever. It’s just a wonderful way of self-expressing and of communicating to the world that you see the art in existence. I think that’s what is said when you put some effort and energy into your outfit.
