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 Bloc party frontman Kele Okereke.(Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun) |
Kele Okereke, frontman for the British rock band Bloc Party, struck out on his own for his recently released electronic-influenced solo debut, The Boxer.
And despite the fact that Bloc Party released three critically acclaimed albums between 2005 and 2008, Okereke feels like he's been musically reborn.
"It is exciting, it feels like I'm starting again," said the Liverpool-born, London-based Okereke, 28, recently in Toronto leading up to a solo show in which he'll play both solo and reworked Bloc Party material.
"I was trying this process of writing that I'd never really done before. Going in, just by myself, with an engineer, and constructing music just on the computer program and I've never done that before and that's what was exciting about the process for me. I'm a creative person. And it was about just trying something new, trying something I'd never done before."
Okereke started recording The Boxer in London but ended up in Brooklyn working with producer
XXXChange (Alex Epton) -- known for his work with Spank Rock and The Kills -- to finish it off.
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"In the same year, I started writing a selection of short stories I'm hoping to release at the end of this year; more realistically, probably the start of next year. But I enjoy putting myself in these situations where you're forced to come up with something new. It's exciting."
Okereke said he felt that Bloc Party, currently on hiatus, was on an endless "conveyor belt" of forced creativity.
"We just didn't take any time off. We'd go from writing a record to recording a record to touring it for a year and then going straight to recording another record. And I don't really feel that there was enough time for us to breathe and I think you should breathe."
He said Bloc Party will go back to making another album, but in the meantime he's enjoying his newfound freedom.
"We're just doing other things for awhile," said Okereke. "I think maybe we were just a bit tired of each other. We'd been on the road for a very long time and I think we just needed to get some space. But you know we'll get together at the end of the year to discuss our plans for the future."
And while not a fan of fighting of any kind, he chose The Boxer as the solo album title to make a point about how he felt going into the project.
"It was more how a boxer has to rely on nothing else but himself to achieve what it is that they want to achieve. They have to dig down deep and summon the willpower and the resourcefulness from inside themselves. 'Cause no one else is going to help them. They have to rely on themselves to go the whole 12 rounds. Even though you'll be hit and you'll be knocked down, it has to come from within you. I thought it was just an inspirational image."
Okereke said it's not like he was taking any punches but the solo album did put him through his paces.
"I feel like making this record, I definitely had to find something within myself that I wasn't sure existed. It's been a very galvanizing experience for me."
Okereke no fan of soccer
Kele Okereke may be from England, but he's no football -- er, soccer -- fan.
For example, the Liverpool-born frontman of U.K. rockers Bloc Party said he had no interest in the recent World Cup.
"In the U.K. the people who like football and the people who play football aren't really cool people," he told QMI Agency recently while promoting his solo album, The Boxer.
"You're always hearing horrible stories about them. Football players are generally overpaid and kind of really bratty. And football hooligans are just gross. So I try to avoid it as much as possible."
Just try to go home now, Kele.
jane.stevenson@sunmedia.ca