turn on the bright lights

Interpol established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the stylish grooves of their gloomy, post-punk revivalism.  The New York band released three EP's on three different labels before they recorded their debut album for Matador Records.  'Turn on the Bright Lights' was recorded at Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Connecticut and co-produced, mixed and engineered by Peter Katis and Gareth Jones.  with Paul Banks on lead vocals and guitar; Daniel Kessler on lead guitar and backing vocals; Carlos Dengler  "Carlos D"  on bass and keyboards; and Samuel Fogarino on drums and percussion. 

Banks remembers: "It wasn’t until we did a Peel session, as John Peel liked us early on and heard our first demo, which is what got Matador’s attention and then we got a record deal. But by the time we were signed to Matador we already had a fanbase and were doing pretty good shows in Boston and New York. We were just doing our thing and waiting for people to get with it rather than changing our thing to get with the people so we were just doing our shows and trying to get a record deal. I think there have only been three songs in the history of Interpol that have been scrapped. Pretty much anything we ever wrote is here. We weren’t tinkering with our sound to accommodate people."

The sound of the album was compared to that of British bands like Joy Division, Gang of Four, the Smiths, and Echo & the Bunnymen.  Kessler says: "I don’t think our band were directly inspired by any of the British post-punk bands although I’ve always loved Wire and Gang Of Four. I lived in England until I was six and I lived in Europe until I was eleven but I spent my formative years in Washington DC where there was a pretty healthy underground punk scene there and so I actually got a lot of my guitar sound from that and influenced by all of that. So what people confuse British post-punk has actually been to me Washington punk."

'Turn on the Bright Lights' went to one hundred and fifty-eight in the US, one hundred and one in the UK, sixty-two in France, and peaked at number five on the US indie album chart.  It has been certified gold in the UK and the US.  The album placed prominently on several critics lists as one of the best albums of 2002.  

Dengler admits:  "It's incredibly flattering. All the press that was happening before was really promotional -- an editor of a magazine deciding to put a photo of this month's band-on-the-scene. It was also due to the publicist at our label. That was all great, but the end-of-the-year stuff is more meaningful in a sense that it's critics and basically people who work at magazines responding to fan bases and to other people's tastes, which is awesome. That's the flattering part about it. All those lists we made at the end of the year -- we know that our CD did something."

Fogarino says:  “It’s one thing to be the flavor-of-the-minute, the whole Andy Warhol thing, it’s another thing to be accepted and to hit a level of establishment and not be taken lightly, and to be able to tour every record and have your fan base keep growing and returning...You work toward it and keep a close eye on the integrity of the band and try to expand without making a fool of yourself and watering down what got you to this position to begin with.”








http://interpolnyc.com/

@interpol






'Obstacle 1'
"Her stories are boring and stuff
She's always calling my bluff"





'NYC'
"Subway she is a porno and the pavements they are a mess
I know you've supported me for a long time
Somehow I'm not impressed" 





'PDA'
"Yours is the only version of my desertion
That I could ever subscribe to."










'Turn on the Bright Lights'  full album:



All songs written and composed by Interpol.

1. "Untitled"   3:56
2. "Obstacle 1"   4:11
3. "NYC"   4:20
4. "PDA"   4:59
5. "Say Hello to the Angels"   4:28
6. "Hands Away"   3:05
7. "Obstacle 2"   3:47
8. "Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down"   6:28
9. "Roland"   3:35
10. "The New"   6:07

11. "Leif Erikson"   4:00