Kele tells all in his latest blog post.
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I met Krissi murrison the editor of the NME at a party last year. I didn’t recognise her and when she went to hug me I stopped her in her tracks and I told her that I had my reasons for not wanting to be hugged by the editor of the NME. I realised that that might have seemed harsh and I didn’t want to be a jerk because I'd never met her before so we spent the evening chatting. she seemed nice. She told me that a big problem that the NME faced was that older bands didn’t want to do anything with them for fear of being stitched up. She didn’t seem to understand this so I kept my mouth shut but Krissi how your magazine has acted this week is the reason why I didn’t want to hug you.
I’m glad that you put the transcripts of the interviews online as it is clear to anyone that listens to them that I am obviously making up what I'm saying on the spot. I haven’t listened to what Russell says so I can’t really comment but I know he likes doing interviews even less than I do so my guess he was trying to be evasive rather than deceptive. Anyone that actually reads any interviews that I do will know that they have to be taken with a pinch of salt. I don’t really have much faith in the interview process so i say absurd things to call the journalists out and they know this. its been that way with me for a very long time, its not a surprise to anyone. All the hype and bluster that you might have read this week has come from the pages of the NME not from bloc party. the NME love this attention as it means people are clicking on their website. whatever. After 7 years of dealing with the NME I know this is how they operate and to be honest I don’t have a problem with it, but suggesting that we are trying to deliberately mislead our fans is a step too far.
Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t like doing interviews, I’ve always objected to the fact that you talk passionately about making music, something that you care so strongly about and the only thing that gets used is the 2 lines when you absent-mindedly cuss someone out. It is somewhat depressing but I reconciled myself to this years ago. Dealing with the sensational aspects of the British music press is essential if you in are in a British band. So its really not worth complaining about I just try to have a sense of humour about it. And besides, that was one of the reasons why I started this blog. So I could speak directly with the fans, show them the sort of things that I'm interested in and the sort of things that make me laugh, where there would be no slant from some lazy journalist to contend with.
So I hope this doesn’t read badly (other than my atrocious grammar) I really don’t have a problem with the NME. I don’t read it and I don't visit its blog. I understand that it has been supportive and critical of my band in the past and I am thankful for the fact that they have brought us to the attention of so many people. In fact I am supposed to be doing an interview with the NME about my new ep this coming Friday. they were supposed to fly out to New York to interview me and I hope it still goes ahead. It would be very unsporting of them to cancel and besides, how can they resist another bout of world famous Okereke half truths? Hmm, no not really, I will be good this time. I want to talk about this ep because I am very proud of it and I want a chance to clear up these rumours in the pages of the magazine but don’t worry guys, if it goes ahead I will be making sure that I record everything that I say this time, you know, just in case…
Kele
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