Bloc Party

Photo gallery
See our exclusive slideshow from Bloc Party's Horden gig in 2008!

On life fulfilment:
We tend not to party too hard on the road. We don't drink, or do anything really. When I got back to London, I hit it pretty hard and was waking up on people's floors wondering where I was. It seemed to me that there was too much emphasis on a hedonistic weekend. No one I knew was enjoying their jobs or finding life fulfilling. So to have fun it seems you have to get completely messed up. I just wanted to discuss why people have to drink themselves into oblivion. Why is that considered leisure? That sort of behaviour completely disassociates oneself from reality rather than enhances it.

On drugs:
I'm not a saint but I'm a creative person. I enjoy making things - that's my buzz. Whenever I take drugs I always feel guilty. It never really moves me and I know what it feels like to be moved. I've always been really suspicious of those pastimes. I know that sounds prudish but I do something I enjoy every day and that gives me a sense of wellbeing, not jabbering away to strangers snorting cocaine in a crappy toilet.

On teen culture:
I'm just frightened by the future ultimately and where I see culture and teen identity heading. I saw this documentary called Merchants of Cool, which is about how teen culture is prescribed by your Viacoms, Coca-Colas and Nikes. They are shaping the way that young people think. They only ever see the two archetypes on MTV: the bored, shouty adolescent male of Ashton Kutcher or the super-sexualised young girls like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera. Those role models promote a sense of uniformity and of apathy; a message that disinterest is cool. It almost doesn't matter that people don't engage anymore because your personality is in a pair of trainers. There aren't any avenues for anyone to have any genuine experiences. The language of consumerism is the only language people now speak.

On the music industry:
Any sort of critical stance in music right now is deemed overly intellectual. Why has there been such a move to euphoric feelgood music that doesn't mean anything? The success of Oasis and Coldplay are doing a real disservice to the British music industry right now – the only thing that is allowed to be popular is a beer-swilling anthem.

On racism:
My cousin was killed in a racist attack. I think race has always been an issue in the UK. You only have to look at the newspapers to see the sinister, xenophobic subtext. They talk of 'floods' of immigrants. Black teenagers are described by the likes of [UK opposition leader] David Cameron as 'hoodies'. And look at how Muslims are represented across the world right now. To me as a second generation African in the UK, my perspective is not the same. I completely understand and appreciate what constitutes the sense of Other. You realise the divisions that are being drawn.

On world peace:
The culmination is that you realise we're not in quite such a harmonious society after all. The rise of empathy for the right is worrying. Europeans don't actually want multiculturalism or integration, and that is a worrying thing.

STOP PRESS! Bloc Party play an exclusive show at the MCA on Tue 28 July, as well as the sold-out Splendour in the Grass in Byron Bay, Sat 25-Sun 26 July. Read the live review of their last Sydney gig.

Intimacy is out now through Shock.

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