IDLES' Joe Talbot talks politics, showing love on 'Tangk' and headlining Reading
To celebrate their heart-driven new album 'Tangk', Idles frontman Joe Talbot sits down with NME to tell us about overcoming his past trauma with love and self-worth, working with Kenny Beats and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, shunning social media, the state of politics, and the chances of them headlining Reading & Leeds or Glastonbury in the not too distant future
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00:00 It's the fable of the sun and the wind.
00:02 You can fucking blow as hard as you can
00:05 and just keep screaming down the fucking barrel of the gun
00:10 and it ain't gonna change shit.
00:11 But if you shine and you show people compassion
00:14 and you listen and you have an open heart,
00:17 then maybe that connection will be made.
00:19 Hi, I'm Andrew Trendall.
00:27 You're watching Enemy's In Conversation.
00:29 We're here today, Joe from Idols.
00:31 All right.
00:31 How you doing, man?
00:32 I'm hot.
00:33 I've worn lots of woolly stuff for an indoor interview.
00:37 Yeah, well you just...
00:38 I'm not taking it off either because I'm balding and fat.
00:40 But you would wear mohair, which I've just learned is made of...
00:43 Goats.
00:43 Goat hair.
00:45 Yeah.
00:46 Apparently, I mean, I might be wrong.
00:49 I told you that as a fact, didn't I?
00:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:51 I've got this thing where when I say things with authority, people believe me.
00:57 I mean, this is not just because I'm in a band or whatever.
01:00 I say shit, people walk away like, "Wow."
01:03 I don't know why I'm convincing like that.
01:06 I'm basically like a very cheap think tank,
01:08 you know, where I just make shit up and then tell people.
01:12 Very cheap think tank.
01:12 That'd be a good album name too.
01:14 What? A very cheap...
01:16 Very cheap think tank.
01:17 Yeah.
01:17 It's a very mid-2000s band name, isn't it?
01:20 Yeah, yeah.
01:20 But we're here to celebrate the release of
01:25 Moderately Priced, Well Thought Out Tank.
01:28 Oh, that was so tenuous.
01:30 Wait, wait, Moderately Priced?
01:31 You fuckers are getting it for free.
01:33 That's true.
01:34 Yeah, so let's cut that out.
01:37 We'll just call it Tank.
01:39 Don't cut it out.
01:41 But that's arriving Valentine's Day week.
01:46 Is it?
01:48 Which seems quite fitting because it's a record full of love, right?
01:52 Yeah. I don't know if that was on purpose.
01:53 I don't know, you'd have to ask Partisan Records.
01:55 Yeah.
01:56 Maybe it was.
01:57 They like puns and that.
01:59 Yeah.
01:59 People, don't they?
02:00 Love is the thing on a Valentine's Day card.
02:03 I can see it.
02:04 Yeah, I think I'm on a Valentine's Day card.
02:08 Yeah.
02:08 I fucking love you.
02:10 Yeah.
02:10 And it's me, like, with a horrible stage face.
02:12 Mixed messages.
02:15 Yeah, tragic.
02:17 Yeah, so a record driven by love.
02:21 And last time we spoke was just before Dancer came out,
02:24 and you spoke about how it was quite intentional where you turned to Bowen and said,
02:28 "I need to make a record where people experience the love that I need in my life."
02:34 I mean, what can you tell us about that gap after Crawler,
02:38 where what you're working through and what you wanted to manifest in the music?
02:43 I guess it's a thing like I started therapizing again, you know?
02:50 And what you need to do often is nominate your need in a relationship,
02:58 whatever that is.
03:00 And at the time it was myself.
03:02 I was starting to go through the same fucking bullshit cycles of behavior,
03:07 and I wanted to stop it.
03:10 And it's surprising how much more it takes than I think to break those cycles.
03:17 So I looked within and I found that I needed love.
03:23 I understood that writing love songs seemingly has been done,
03:28 but it hasn't for me, so I don't fucking care.
03:32 And I'm interested in showing the different facets of love
03:38 that are not so conventional, but very fucking important.
03:43 Empathy, patience, honesty, communion, hard work, and recovery, forgiveness.
03:51 So yeah, that's what I wrote about.
03:56 I'm still there.
03:58 I'm still going to need to go through it,
03:59 and I'm still very much interested in writing about love forevermore.
04:06 That might not be the case.
04:08 I might change my mind and write about mohair, but for now it's love.
04:13 I find it fascinating and empowering and interesting.
04:19 Yeah, you're finding it more interesting than when you were kind of wearing your anger
04:23 and your rage on your sleeve a bit more.
04:24 I was not wearing anger on my sleeve.
04:26 I was wearing a passion and a violence on my sleeve.
04:32 The anger was what I realized was putting me in very bad places.
04:37 I wasn't holding myself accountable for the things I was doing,
04:41 and I needed to create a new avenue in which to heal and better myself.
04:50 So I started a band.
04:51 People misread it as anger, and they like to write about it as anger because it's easy.
04:55 It's not anger.
04:57 It's violence.
04:59 It's a brushstroke.
05:00 It's a cadence.
05:03 It's a tone.
05:04 It's a fucking guitar sound.
05:06 It sounds angry if you just, you know.
05:11 And I get that.
05:12 People do that because I was presenting it as very basic and simple
05:16 because I wanted to address complex issues with a sense of compassion.
05:21 And simplicity, which is the human condition, is very complex.
05:26 But, you know, the basic needs and the shit, when you really talk about it, are quite simple.
05:32 When you get to the crux of that, you can start, you know, making a change on
05:36 your relationships, who you vote for, the drugs you take, the drugs you don't take,
05:41 et cetera.
05:41 But I know, you know, because I shouted, it was easily pigeonholed.
05:48 And that's no fault but my own.
05:51 Well, that's it.
05:51 You were shouting, "I fucking love you" at the same time.
05:53 Exactly, yeah.
05:54 But obviously, the complexities are there for me.
05:57 I tried to talk about it.
05:59 Sometimes worked, sometimes didn't.
06:00 That's why I'm still here, working at it.
06:02 But yeah, for me, it's always about the human condition.
06:05 I wanted to connect to something bigger than myself.
06:07 That's all it's ever been.
06:09 But that applies to the sound, too.
06:10 I mean, especially on this record, it's too much of an oversimplification to just say,
06:14 "Oh, Idols are a punk band," which is why I found it really interesting that you work
06:18 with LCD Sound Systems.
06:19 They've got a similar thing where people would say, "Oh, they're dance punk."
06:23 And you're like, "You're also like punk, people can dance to."
06:25 It's what people would say.
06:26 But the truth is, you similarly come from a place of such an amazing amalgamation of
06:30 different influences, and you end up just making a racket that people can move to.
06:34 Yeah.
06:34 And that's not dance, it's not punk.
06:36 It's its own beast, right?
06:38 Well, yeah, it's just joy, isn't it?
06:40 Yeah.
06:40 Like, you know, I think most musicians want the same thing.
06:45 There's a lot of, you know, artists are often people with delicate egos, and they either
06:53 use art to break it down and to show themselves better, or to build up a really beautiful
06:59 shield and a mask and create a different kind of conversation.
07:02 But it's always around existential growth.
07:05 Yeah.
07:06 Normally, I mean, unless it's rapid music, which is, again, fine.
07:10 I'm not here to bark at anyone.
07:12 But my interest is about having a connection to the universe.
07:17 It sounds wanky, but it's true.
07:19 I was, when I started the band, I was very lonely and scared.
07:23 And I wanted to build something that I could feel safe in.
07:27 There's an energy created in a room when everyone just connects and dances to the same beat.
07:32 It's fucking magic.
07:34 But you saw that, I mean, you and LCD are obviously very different vehicles, but it's
07:38 all about kind of having that communal, out-of-body spiritual thing.
07:42 I just wondered if you kind of talked about that when you were on the road together.
07:44 Was it like a kinship?
07:45 Well, we didn't need to talk about it, really, because we were touring together.
07:51 So, like, we were doing it, feeling it every night.
07:54 What we did talk about was all the other stuff, that when you connect with people, you know,
08:02 once you've made that love and you've made that energy and you come off stage and you're
08:05 all buzzing, you just connect on normal shit and celebrate life.
08:10 It was a really beautiful tour.
08:12 They're just incredible human beings.
08:14 And we learned a lot as a business and we learned a lot as humans how to tour and to
08:20 sustain a sense of family in a very kind of volatile environment.
08:30 But, like, they're just fucking magic and honest and earnest.
08:33 And, like, you know, they helped us out loads for no reason other than to help us out.
08:39 Yeah.
08:40 So it's cool.
08:41 I read that James Murphy takes a barista-style coffee machine with him everywhere he goes.
08:46 No.
08:47 It's better than that.
08:48 He used to, but now they pay a local barista and they come in for each town that they play
08:58 and they come in and pay him to set up and make coffee all day.
09:02 It's fucking insane.
09:04 I mean, that single really kind of laid the table for the record, as did the ones that
09:11 followed up, especially like "Grace".
09:12 I mean, a line, "No God, no king, love is the thing" that kind of comes back and it's
09:17 a mantra that repeats on Monolith.
09:19 I mean, that's the DNA of this record, isn't it?
09:21 That mantra.
09:22 "Love is the thing" is definitely the mantra of the album, yeah.
09:27 What I'm interested in with poetry and lyrics and stuff is that I kind of, I am succinct
09:34 in what I'm trying to say to myself and kind of articulate what I'm feeling.
09:40 And that often comes out, I don't know why, as mantras and repeated phrases that kind
09:46 of get me through.
09:48 It does also kind of come about because I write all the songs at the booth.
09:52 So there's going to be some sort of thematic repetition.
09:56 I think being a father and being at a time in complete and utter lunacy, think tanks
10:03 running the country, lies everywhere as reality.
10:08 Everyone's just apathetic because they're so fucking dead from being lied to that we're
10:18 just under this mental circus.
10:21 So for me, it's about ground zero as a human being and a father.
10:25 I go, "How can I sustain a sense of purpose in such fucking psychotic mess?"
10:34 Yeah.
10:35 For me, that's going to the basics and fighting for what I truly think is important.
10:39 If you act with love, if you act with empathy, if you act with compassion, then hopefully
10:45 you will see that there is no love in voting for the right.
10:51 It's a loveless act.
10:53 Yeah.
10:54 But we'll see.
10:55 I mean, and this is what I'm coming to terms with, my music will not make a difference
11:01 in that way other than me.
11:02 And I'm comfortable with that.
11:04 As long as I fucking sleep at night, knowing I'm doing the right thing.
11:07 For me, I'm cool with that.
11:10 I'm always going to be a cheerleader outwardly, because I'm fucking lucky.
11:15 I've been gifted a life that I'm very, very grateful for.
11:20 So I'm going to celebrate that.
11:23 And that's how it comes out, in tank.
11:25 Well, that's it.
11:25 It comes through a doing, not necessarily a show about it.
11:29 You don't need to stand on a soapbox to be good.
11:31 I mean, it's in the age of social media, everyone needs everyone to have an opinion and to be
11:35 state the morally obvious sometimes.
11:37 But you should just live it, you know?
11:38 Well, I mean, it's social media, it's algorithms.
11:42 What you see is what they allow you to see.
11:44 You need to remember that.
11:45 Yeah.
11:45 Bollocks.
11:46 Social media is literally a network set up by people that want you to see certain things
11:55 and not see others.
11:56 My reality is the one that I've indoctrinated by what I look at and what I don't look at.
12:04 And now, whatever I want, I get.
12:10 But what I need, I'll never have.
12:13 Yeah.
12:14 In terms of information, unless I really seek it out.
12:17 But social media ain't the one.
12:19 Well, that's the thing.
12:20 I mean, idols have never been a band with a manifesto.
12:24 It's not politics with a capital P.
12:26 It's human.
12:27 It's about being human.
12:27 I mean, I would say the manifesto is like, all is love.
12:31 Love is the thing.
12:32 I've been saying it from the start.
12:33 It's about human connection.
12:35 That is, if you know, it's the fable of the sun and the wind.
12:40 You can fucking blow as hard as you can and just keep screaming down the fucking,
12:45 the barrel of the gun and ain't going to change shit.
12:49 But if you shine and you show people compassion and you listen and you have an open heart,
12:55 then maybe that connection will be made.
12:57 Yeah.
12:57 But that's just art and music.
13:00 It's like whatever you want it to fucking be.
13:02 I also like people shouting at me and telling me I'm a prick sometimes.
13:06 You know, it's all important.
13:08 I grew up on hip hop.
13:09 I did not live that life.
13:10 But it's important to me and I fucking love it.
13:13 So just, you know, my calling is what I'm doing and I'm loving it very much so.
13:21 And I'm grateful to be here.
13:23 And that's what's beautiful about this record, as we said, there is a mantra, there's an ethos,
13:26 but you're not, it's not a sledgehammer at home.
13:28 It's very subtle.
13:29 It's delicate.
13:29 It's beautiful.
13:31 There's a purity to it.
13:32 I mean.
13:32 Yeah.
13:34 Delicate's the word.
13:38 Since being a father, I've addressed that in my art, you know, because I was a very
13:44 impatient man, even after sobriety, you know, like learning, because I was a fucking nasty
13:50 bastard back in the day when I wanted to be.
13:54 And I hurt a lot of people and I wanted to stop.
13:59 And that takes time and forgiveness.
14:04 And patience is fucking, I found it, but in the most beautiful way.
14:12 I'm like covered in someone else's feces and they're showering me with their hand on their
14:20 head, running late for some fucking thing.
14:23 And I'm like, and it makes me laugh and it makes me realise just how fucking silly it
14:29 is.
14:30 Yeah, it's sucks you as well, right?
14:31 And it shows you the empathy.
14:33 If you just put yourself in that little person's shoes, you can do that with anyone.
14:37 And I'm starting to do that.
14:39 You know, I was very fucking disheartened by post Brexit Britain, you know, but then
14:47 you realise, well, everyone's been fucking lied to, been massively lied to.
14:52 So like, even that, if they knew that they were lies, there's reasons for it.
14:58 There's people there with lies and stories and like, you just got to be more patient,
15:03 I think.
15:03 Well, I had to be to kind of understand it.
15:06 And like, but now I'm like, I'm worried, you know, I'm worried, but I'm also like, I don't
15:16 carry that sense of resentment towards decisions that are detrimental to free trade.
15:26 Let's put it that way.
15:27 No, but yeah, I like, I've learned from being a dad that to go with things with grace and
15:37 be delicate and to celebrate the small, beautiful things that you can overlook so easily if
15:48 you're impatient with the world.
15:50 Yeah.
15:51 You miss out on a lot of like, tiny details that will make your day.
15:58 And I think it's got to come out of my art because that's how I am.
16:04 And I'm enjoying that too.
16:06 And how would you say that kind of impacted on chemistry with the rest of the band?
16:11 Because obviously they've got to be coming from a similar place to make a record as beautiful
16:15 as this with all those flourishes.
16:17 Yeah, Bowen and I wrote most of them, like 99% of the musical, whatever.
16:22 Shout out to the rest of the band.
16:23 But like, Bowen's very dynamic.
16:27 He's a lot smarter than I am.
16:28 He's got a lot more of a logician's brain.
16:30 He can fucking, you know, pick up things and learn how to use it pretty quickly.
16:36 And so whenever I pick the theme and I tell him the title of the album and I tell him
16:40 what the artwork is and then we discuss beyond that, it's about our discussion, like how
16:46 it's going to sound, how it's going to feel, the landscape of the album.
16:49 And he's fucking great at that.
16:52 You know, he's not like, you know, he's a lot more emotionally mature than me, which
16:57 means his bass level is pretty steady.
16:58 Yeah.
16:59 So if I'm like, "Right, we're doing this."
17:00 He's like, "Right."
17:01 And we build it together and we work together on that level.
17:05 And the boys are very patient and dynamic and do as we ask.
17:10 Yeah.
17:11 Well, you told us once before that "Crawler" was about kind of killing off a caricature
17:15 of what people might have thought idols were and redistributing...
17:18 Ultra mono was.
17:18 Ultra mono was, sorry.
17:19 And then "Crawler" was about kind of recapturing the essence of it.
17:22 Yeah.
17:22 How would you describe that essence and how you kind of pulled the strings of that on
17:27 this record?
17:28 I think it's the same.
17:30 It's like, the best way to describe it is we've always been the band we are now.
17:36 Yeah.
17:36 But you can't...
17:37 The idols we are now, it's like looking at a piece of paper and you picture a building.
17:46 And then you draw it and the building you've drawn isn't what you've got in your head.
17:51 To get to a point where you can draw on paper what you have in your head, your mind's picture,
17:58 takes a lot of practice.
18:01 And the first three albums were us practicing and also executing things brilliantly.
18:10 Like "Mother" is a very synced song that I wanted to write.
18:13 And that is the building on paper and in my mind's picture.
18:17 And other songs, many songs.
18:20 But a lot of it was learning and mistakes.
18:22 And that's on record and that's beautiful.
18:25 But then we got to a point where we were like, "Okay, there's a lot of conversation about
18:32 who we are and that's not up to anyone else.
18:34 No fucking person could tell you who you are.
18:36 That's insane.
18:38 It's a toxic relationship, right?"
18:39 Yeah.
18:40 So we killed that.
18:43 And now we're just exploring again.
18:46 But the sound of it, I think, is us almost like we got rid of that toxic boyfriend who
18:54 was telling us what to wear.
18:56 And now we're wearing whatever the fuck we want.
18:59 Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
19:01 But that's the sound of the last two albums and will be the sound of the rest.
19:05 Hopefully one day we'll have a very succinct entire album that's just fucking...
19:11 But then we'd have to all drink the Kool-Aid and jump off a cliff or something.
19:16 Yeah.
19:17 In matching tracksuits.
19:18 Yeah, or Mel hair.
19:19 Mel fucking tracksuit.
19:22 You are a stylist now.
19:23 Next video.
19:23 Shit.
19:24 But yeah, so we'll never get there.
19:29 To the point is, hopefully, Idols' albums is the sound of us never getting there.
19:35 Yeah.
19:36 Because making it is making it.
19:39 But that's when you quit, when you're like, "Oh, shit, we've made a perfect album."
19:43 Well, if you were in...
19:44 If one, if you think you've made the perfect album, then you should quit.
19:47 Not because you've made the perfect album, though.
19:50 Yeah.
19:51 But start something else.
19:54 Challenge yourself.
19:55 Feel uncomfortable.
19:55 I think you owe it to your audience to feel uncomfortable and to be insular and fucking
20:02 work at everything you want to work through.
20:07 If you're comfortable, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a bit boring.
20:10 Unless you're doing it to just sell records, and I'm sure that'd be pretty uncomfortable
20:16 for a different reason.
20:17 But in terms of the...
20:18 To go back to the building analogy, what would you say that Nigel Godrich and Kenny
20:24 Beats add to that building?
20:25 Paddling pool, conservatory.
20:26 What do they embellish in you that you wanted?
20:29 Well, I mean, that's a good question.
20:32 I guess a good producer.
20:34 I mean, I could go into the analogy deeper if you want.
20:37 One of them's a quantities surveyor, and the other one's an incredible builder.
20:41 And together, they take it in turns to be like, "You can't afford that," or, "You're
20:49 using the wrong material there."
20:51 That's going to fall down.
20:52 That's going to fall down, or, "That's shit.
20:56 There's no integrity there.
20:58 This will collapse."
20:59 What I'm saying is, or ditch the analogy.
21:07 I quite like that game.
21:08 What's Dev in that analogy?
21:11 And what is he?
21:12 Plumber.
21:13 He's the guy outside, doing the fast food van.
21:19 Dev is, yeah.
21:21 Like any good producer is someone that enables the person behind the art to flourish.
21:26 Nigel's job, in his eyes, and rightfully so, he did a great job, was to make me and
21:35 Bo feel uncomfortable, and not just sit on what we already know, because that's boring.
21:40 And kind of push us out of our comfort zone and forward.
21:44 And Kenny Beats is one of supreme empowerment, incredible craft.
21:53 Just like the two of them are very different, but both excellent human beings, and incredible
22:03 at their trade.
22:04 They are super dynamic people that work in their field with any angle, in a dynamic way,
22:13 to make sure the person behind the art shines brilliantly.
22:19 To shine brilliantly, you can't just do the comfortable thing you always do.
22:24 That's a dull light.
22:25 To shine brilliantly, you really need to go through it.
22:29 To have a grander perspective, you need to be able to see the dark before you can see
22:34 the light.
22:35 And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because neither do I.
22:37 Now, I mean, there's an amazing line in Jungle where you just say,
22:41 Jungle where you say, "I'm found, I'm found, I'm found."
22:45 At the end of this record, it's about to come out, how do you feel?
22:49 Hot.
22:51 Sorry, that's a prick answer, isn't it?
22:54 How do I feel?
22:56 Powerful.
22:59 Like, I've got a lot of challenges this year that are very, very privileged.
23:05 I've got to try and sustain a sense of health, mental health,
23:10 because I'm touring the world with my best mates.
23:13 My brothers, actually, my best mates won't be on tour.
23:17 I get to spend quality time with my child and live a very beautiful life.
23:26 But to do that properly, and like any good art, you need to make sure,
23:31 to show gratitude, you need to work for that.
23:36 And for me, that's a sense of graft.
23:38 So I'm just going to keep working hard and I've got two years of it.
23:43 I'm solid, I'm working and I'm not going to stop.
23:48 And you've got to sensibly put things in boxes.
23:50 Like, I'm a father, I'm a performer, I'm an artist, I'm not a spokesman,
23:54 I'm in this lane, I'm thriving.
23:56 Yeah, it's a difficult one.
23:59 My advice would be don't separate.
24:01 If you separate, you have this thing where there's not a sense of accountability
24:06 or causality for your actions.
24:08 I.e., I'm a dad tomorrow, I'm a singer today.
24:11 It's like, how does that act?
24:14 You know, you just have to maintain it.
24:17 This is coming from an addict's point of view.
24:20 Have a sense of stability throughout and see when I'm on stage,
24:25 I am the father I want to be.
24:27 And when I'm at home, I'm the artist I want to be.
24:30 And that way, the dichotomy is just about circumstance
24:35 rather than the person.
24:37 Splitting yourself up.
24:38 It's good to wear masks and to be performative
24:40 and to perform well in each arena.
24:43 But underneath that should be you, solid.
24:47 And with the same beliefs and the same behaviour and the same actions.
24:50 So as not to be a hypocrite.
24:53 I'm imagining that the new songs are going to add a whole new energy to the live shows.
24:56 I mean, I saw you at Village Underground and that was amazing.
24:58 I know you're not fond of arenas,
25:01 but surely next year you guys got a headline read in, right?
25:04 It's got to happen.
25:04 Fuck, that came out of nowhere.
25:07 Uh, no.
25:09 I don't know.
25:11 Do you want it?
25:11 Do I want it?
25:13 Is it on your list?
25:13 I got, that was the first and only festival
25:16 I went to for like six years.
25:17 Headline and read it and be sick.
25:19 Yeah.
25:19 Things like that, you build them up in your head, it goes wrong.
25:22 Every show is important.
25:25 But yes, that has a history with me.
25:27 It would be sick.
25:28 It would be sick.
25:29 But you know, it's that thing and it's like,
25:31 I just, I don't like all that like,
25:34 museum of musical rock history where you're like,
25:38 this is where Kurt Cobain sneezed.
25:41 And you're like, fuck, who cares?
25:43 He didn't care.
25:44 Why would I care?
25:46 And like, anything like that, you know?
25:50 And like all the great people that I've met who were incredible.
25:54 Kenny Beats, Nigel Godrich, Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins,
26:01 fucking lots of people that I looked up to.
26:06 Julian Casablancas.
26:08 When you meet them, they are, they're like, what's the word?
26:15 It's not humble, like they know, they're like, namaste.
26:18 It's none of that shit.
26:19 They just like, you know, they work hard.
26:21 Take it as it comes.
26:22 Yeah, they understand why they are where they are.
26:25 They're not like, I don't know.
26:26 It's just, oh my God.
26:28 But they're also like, yeah, fucking, I have purpose.
26:30 I am working.
26:31 So it's cool.
26:35 Like, I like that thing where you see people that have just worked hard
26:40 and stuck to their game and they've got purpose
26:42 and they wake up still every day with a sense of purpose.
26:45 And that, it's a beautiful thing to see.
26:49 So I want to sustain that myself, which is like, yeah,
26:52 I'm here because of what I've been doing and I've worked hard for this.
26:57 So I'm not going to apologize, but it's weird, isn't it?
27:01 Like, don't get me wrong, headline in Reading, headline in Glastonbury, be sick.
27:05 But I think I need to get there.
27:08 I don't know if next year's the one.
27:10 If they really, like, you know, it depends on how this album goes.
27:13 If it's like, yeah, no, we can do it.
27:16 Because our show, as you were touching on earlier,
27:19 like the idea of it's going to add a different,
27:21 it will create ebbs and flows in our show that will make it more of a journey,
27:26 hopefully more epic, more of a show rather than whatever else we were doing before,
27:32 which is a fucking beautiful mess.
27:37 We have an arc, but an arc, like a narrative arc, but not like this could be.
27:41 But you do those, you make those decisions at the right time.
27:47 You choose when to headline the Pyramid Stage.
27:50 You choose when to do it.
27:51 And you got to be savvy to that.
27:54 You don't get there.
27:55 People have got there.
27:57 And I've seen it.
27:57 It's a mess where they've just been elevated to top of the game.
28:02 And they're not top of their fucking game.
28:03 They don't know how to wipe their ass on stage yet.
28:06 Do you know what I mean?
28:07 So it's not nice to see.
28:09 And it's like, you know, it's a waste of a headline slot.
28:12 Because there's something about playing for two hours in front of a huge audience where
28:16 you capture it, you capture that energy,
28:21 because you understand how to unthink and to ignite that combustible thing
28:28 that is not you, it's not your fucking ego, it's them.
28:31 And it's you together.
28:34 And that's why I like Blur at Glastonbury.
28:37 It's the best show I've ever seen.
28:39 Because they knew how magic it was.
28:43 And it wasn't just because of tender.
28:45 Do you know what I mean?
28:46 It's because of everything they built and how to fucking
28:50 capture that magic that is live music.
28:55 It takes a long time.
28:56 So I don't think headlining at Reading is either in or out yet.
29:02 I mean, I don't think they're going to ask us, no.
29:04 But if they did, I'd be like, I'd be nervous to say yes right now.
29:09 Because you've got to be savvy to the context of where you're playing.
29:12 I mean, fuck the King.
29:14 - Fuck the King.
29:15 - Just stick that on the end.
29:16 - Good note to end on.
29:17 Joe, fuck the King.
29:18 - Fuck yeah.
29:18 Fuck the King.
29:19 - Cheers.
29:24 Thank you.
29:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]