{"id":290390,"date":"2025-07-25T10:54:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T10:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/290390\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T10:54:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T10:54:13","slug":"daniel-kessler-on-the-return-of-big-noble-and-whats-next-for-interpol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/290390\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Kessler on the return of Big Noble and what’s next for Interpol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interpol<\/a> guitarist Daniel Kessler has returned with side-project Big Noble<\/a>. Check out new single \u2018All The Marbles\u2019 below, as Kessler tells us about the cinematic new album and what\u2019s next for the NYC indie icons.<\/p>\n

Now 10 years on from debut album \u2018First Light<\/a>\u2018, Kessler and sound designer Joseph Fraioli (Tenet, Fallout, Lady Gaga<\/a> collaborator) have announced details of their sophomore effort \u2018It\u2019s Later Than You Think\u2019. Released next month, it comes previewed by the thundering yet atmospheric lead single \u2018All The Marbles\u2019, which was released alongside a moody video directed by Atiba Jefferson (Turnstile<\/a>, Tyler, The Creator<\/a>, Dinosaur Jr.<\/a>) and featuring pro-skater Cody Chapman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first record was more improvised,\u201d Kessler told NME. \u201cFor this record, it was a bit more song-oriented. \u2018All The Marbles\u2019 has that. I live between Barcelona and New York now, so I was mostly in Spain when we were doing this while Joseph was in Los Angeles. It was a long-distance collaboration. This song has a movement to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This sense of movement follows the album being described as what Kessler called \u201cthe soundtrack to the listener\u2019s own personal movie \u2013 when they\u2019re walking down the street, when they\u2019re looking out the window of a train, when they\u2019re watching people walk by a window in a caf\u00e9\u201d.<\/p>\n

Check out our full interview with Kessler below where he told us what went into the record, recalled collaborating with members of The Strokes<\/a> and TV On The Radio<\/a>, discussed his own love of movies, and nearing completion on Interpol\u2019s \u201crock\u201d-leaning new album.<\/p>\n

NME: Hello Daniel. What do you get out of Big Noble that made you want to return to it after a decade?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daniel Kessler:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019ve known my collaborator Joseph forever. I used to work at a record label and he was one of the artists on it. We remained friends, even when we both became quite busy. He\u2019s a very talented musician and artist, and a lovely person as well. I was very excited to do something outside of the spectrum of Interpol. I made it a challenge to myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first record, I was living in Brooklyn at the time and Joseph didn\u2019t live too far away. He would come over to my apartment where I would improvise piano and guitar stuff, and he would do a field recording before taking it back to his \u2018laboratory\u2019 to add atmosphere. We didn\u2019t know what it was going to be or where it was going to go. We just wanted to explore, and I wanted to do something different with an old friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DanielDaniel Kessler of Interpol performs at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. (Photo by Debbie Hickey\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Is this more about drawing upon something more instinctual rather than angling towards more of a \u2018pop song\u2019 like you might with Interpol?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEven for Interpol stuff, I\u2019ve started every single day since forever just by playing guitar and watching a film. All of the stuff I\u2019ve written for Interpol has been in that format of me just drinking coffee and watching a film to come up with something. I\u2019ll have an idea and then try to expand upon it. Film is probably the biggest influence on me, more than music, and especially now. It\u2019s just a big constant in my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made sense to do something that was inspired by \u2018music for film\u2019. Whether it was ever going to be put into a film or not, it\u2019s more about that notion that you can be transported. If you\u2019re travelling, you can just check out. If you\u2019re in nature, then the sounds will all bleed into the music. That really intrigued me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really love writing songs for Interpol and the format of verse and chorus. It changes and I enjoy it as much now as when we first started, but this is a different thing. It\u2019s about repetition and leaving Joseph room to do his thing. It\u2019s a nice change of pace, and the two modes of thinking work together. I\u2019ll come up with something for Big Noble or Interpol, and one feeds the other.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Is it a certain type of movie that inspires you? Do you get the same thing from watching an A24 film or flicking through MUBI as if you turn on the TV and they\u2019re showing Marley & Me?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d be surprised! Sometimes it\u2019ll be like a Terrence Malick film or an A24 sort of thing, but sometimes it could be like a big Hollywood thing. That\u2019s good! As long as I\u2019m enjoying it. It doesn\u2019t have to be a moody foreign film with a lot of atmosphere. It could just be something that gets my chemicals going in a certain way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have any predictability on what\u2019s going to work. I can start the day thinking I\u2019m going to be inspired and then I\u2019m still sat there four hours later. Since I was a teenager, I\u2019ve felt very fortunate to have that euphoric feeling or sensation when you do come up with something. It\u2019s more about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like: \u2018Oh cool, Flubber is on!\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cExactly!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Interpol,Interpol, live at Glastonbury 2019. Credit: Andy Hughes for NME<\/p>\n

The album features a \u2018radical reworking\u2019 of \u2018All the Marbles\u2019 from TV On The Radio\u2019s Tunde Adebimpe<\/a> and his musical partner Wilder Zoby. How did that come about?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve known Tunde longer than I\u2019ve known anyone in Interpol. We went to university together and we\u2019re old, old friends. Even when we were at university, I had a digital fanzine and he did the comic strip for it. He\u2019s a great illustrator, and I didn\u2019t realise that he was such a great musician, singer and songwriter until I ran into him years later. TV On The Radio had just recorded their first demo in Brooklyn, and he gave me one. He directed a video from \u2018First Light\u2019 as well. I\u2019m very proud and honoured to have had such a long-term friendship with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were many different chapters of our lives and so forth, so he\u2019s the first person I think of collaborating with. He and Wilder did a great job and put a great spin on that track. They made it almost a completely new track. All the other tracks are instrumental so I was hoping that Tunde would sing, and there he goes!\u201d<\/p>\n

The record also features a different version of the song \u2018No Sharing in Tech House\u2019 by The Strokes\u2019 drummer Fabrizio Moretti and his brother Leo\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really leaning on my friends here, aren\u2019t I? Fab and I are good friends. He\u2019s always been really supportive of Big Noble. Years ago, on the first record, I was doing a presentation of all the music videos in Paris with a Q&A and I ran into him in a cafe beforehand. He came to the presentation and he was super supportive. He really got the music and the album. I gave him an advance copy of this album so it made sense to see what he would do to this song. They really paid attention to the details and it\u2019s another great reinvention of the song. It\u2019s really beautiful and a great counterpart to the original.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Interpol.Interpol. Credit: Ebru Yildiz<\/p>\n

When it came to the filmic element of the album, were you imagining these scenes yourself or is that up to the listener?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s up to the listener, for sure. The songs are quite different, and it switches quite a bit. I\u2019ve always loved albums from start to finish. I don\u2019t really think about \u2018tracks\u2019. I just love something you can put on for 40 minutes or so, then you\u2019re transported to somewhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose little sacred things I loved as a kid that just took you out of whatever your environment was and took you somewhere else. Especially when I\u2019m travelling, the music can add to the escapism. It\u2019s great when it just fits. What you\u2019re seeing when you\u2019re travelling becomes the film to your soundtrack.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got the skateboarder Cody Chapman in the music video. Beyond that, do you think you might have a full movie of the album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat has a great skate video aesthetic. We have little things that we\u2019ll be putting out as great companion pieces to most of the songs. I\u2019d love to go into a full film, that would be ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you imagine you\u2019ll tour it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cProbably not. I\u2019m too lazy in that sense! It would be such an endeavour to actually bring it into fruition and to find a way to make it work. Right now, there are no plans to tour. It\u2019s more like finding visuals and videos. That\u2019s probably the closest we\u2019ll call it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been three years since Interpol\u2019s last album \u2018The Other Side Of Make-Believe\u2019<\/a>. How are things progressing with the next one?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGood, we\u2019re very far along. It feels great. We\u2019ve still got a little bit of work to do, but it\u2019s really getting there. We\u2019re all really excited about the results and the feel of it. It will be coming out next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

We spoke to Interpol frontman Paul Banks last year<\/a>, and he said the new stuff had more of a \u2018rock\u2019 and full band edge to it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s got a bit of both. There are some upbeat tracks, but also some different atmospherics that I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve had before. There are different moods. It\u2019s not all rock; some of it is more upbeat in a different kind of way to what people might think of Interpol. It\u2019s been a really fun process. We finished touring after two and a half years in December and then started making the record in January. It just worked out calendar-wise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first album we recorded in New York in 10 years, and it has a very winter-time New York feel to it. The studio had an open floor, we could see the skyline, and it had this Gotham kind of setting for us. It\u2019s got a sense of that, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

And finally, what was the last good movie you watched?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI just rewatched Sexy Beast. I\u2019ve seen it before, and you never know when you go back to a film if you liked it due to the time and place \u2013 but that film is pretty timeless. It\u2019s for the ages in every which way. The acting is great, the music is great, the story is great. It\u2019s a different kind of gangster story with a twist. It\u2019s aged really well. Ben Kingsley, known for Gandhi, but I buy it \u2013 he\u2019s really scary!\u201d<\/p>\n

I think of it as one of those really watchable films I\u2019d like to unsee and then see again for the first time \u2013 like In Bruges\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cExactly! I just watched that again recently as well. These films have great dialogue and just become plays. With In Bruges and Sexy Beast, you can enjoy it as much as you did the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BigBig Noble\u2019s \u2018It\u2019s Later Than You Think\u2019. Credit: Press<\/p>\n

Big Noble release \u2018It\u2019s Later Than You Think\u2019 as a digital exclusive on Bandcamp on Friday August 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interpol guitarist Daniel Kessler has returned with side-project Big Noble. Check out new single \u2018All The Marbles\u2019 below,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,481,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-290390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-indie","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114913507114934067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}