On the first night of their current world tour, Interpol delivered the live debuts of four songs from their upcoming seventh album, ‘The Other Side Of Make Believe’.
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The show took place at The Factory in Deep Ellum, Texas on Monday (April 25). In addition to singles ‘Toni’ and ‘Something Changed’ – both of which dropped earlier this month with the announcement of their new record – Interpol performed two previously unheard songs, ‘Fables’ and ‘Into The Night’.
For their performance of ‘Toni’, lead guitarist Daniel Kessler played the song on electric piano – a live first for Kessler, who has played piano on the band’s albums since 2010, but never performed the instrument live with them.
The rest of the 20-song setlist featured tracks from all six of Interpol’s previous albums. 2002’s ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’ and 2004’s ‘Antics’ were given the most attention, with five songs from each being played. 2010’s self-titled album and 2014’s ‘El Pintor’, on the other hand, were given only one song apiece.
Take a look at fan-shot footage of Interpol performing ‘Toni’ and ‘Fables’ below:
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Interpol’s North American tour continues in Tempe tomorrow (April 28), following a second Texan gig – this one in Austin – last night (April 26). They’ll play 14 more shows around the US in April and May, before rounding out the month with a sole show in Mexico City.
June will take them over the Europe and the UK for an eight-date run, before they return to North America for a further 17 shows. Find tickets for North American shows here, and Europe/UK ones here.
‘The Other Side Of Make Believe’ is due out on July 15 via Matador. It’s been described by frontman Paul Banks as “super fucking different” and being “imbued with pastoral longing and newfound grace”, with the band having written and recorded most of it remotely throughout 2020.
They eventually met up at rented home in the Catskills to flesh the songs out, before completing the record in North London with co-producers Flood and Alan Moulder.
“Working alone was raw at first, but has opened up a vivid new chapter for us,” Kessler said in a press release, with Banks recalling how he took to writing while the global pandemic saw him living in Edinburgh for nearly nine months: “We usually write live, but for the first time I’m not shouting over a drumkit.
“Daniel and I have a strong enough chemistry that I could picture how my voice would complement the scratch demos he emailed over. Then, I could turn the guys down on my laptop, locate these colourful melodies and generally get the message across in an understated fashion.”
He added: “It’s like Mickey Rourke in Barfly, singing to a patron at the end of the tabletop, and we never felt the need to flip that smoky intimacy into something big and loud when it came to rehearse and record. I got a real kick out of doing the opposite.”