Every band who have a big-hitting debut, as Interpol did with the louche, post-punk-tinged indie-rock of their 2002 Turn On The Bright Lights, are both eager and anxious to see if their follow-up can connect in the same way. For the New York then-quartet, though, that moment arrived prematurely when second album Antics leaked months before it was scheduled for release. It did nothing to harm the record’s impact, sealing Interpol’s reputation as one of the most exciting guitar bands of the ‘00s and an album that remains as exhilarating and brilliant almost two decades on. It turns 20 later this month, an anniversary Interpol will celebrate with a UK and Irish tour in November.
But back to that leak: a few years ago, guitarist Daniel Kessler told this writer about the odd sensation of your brand new record being out there when it shouldn’t be. “Antics leaked 10 days after we finished it,” he recalled. “It was 2004 and we were about to go on tour with The Cure and Mogwai. It leaked and you’d go to every city and someone would be talking about your record. You're like, ‘Yeah, it's not coming out for another three months!’. But I never got upset about that. I was pretty accepting and I felt pretty grateful that with Bright Lights…, I’d got to go through a record industry that had more in common maybe with The Beatles than it does with what was happening at that moment as far as the cycle of how people discover things, which is pretty crazy.”
-copy-dd1f2bf0.jpeg?w=600)
