Interpol Have No Regrets About Capitol Records Stint

It's been a season of changes for Interpol. In recent months, the gloomy New York City post-punk group has withstood the departure of its best-known member, nattily dressed bassist Carlos Dengler, and the postponement of planned tour with U2. What's more, the band announced it would release its self-titled fourth album on Matador, the label it left in 2006, when it landed a deal with Capitol Records.

"We originally signed with them out of a sense of adventure," drummer Sam Fogarino tells Spinner, explaining the brief major-label stint. "We've always had a kind of this old-school punk attitude: If you want to give us money, go right ahead. You're going to get what you get."

What Capitol got was 'Our Love to Admire,' an album that, despite reaching No. 4 on the Billboard charts, failed to establish Interpol as the next U2 -- or even the next Killers. Some fans complained the record was slick and orchestrated, criticisms Fogarino says should be hurled at the band, not Capitol.

"We made the record autonomously," he says. "Capitol had nothing to do with it. We've always made our records independently of Capitol and Matador. After [2002's full-length debut 'Turn on the Bright Lights'] and banking up some money after touring a year and a half, we didn't have to depend on an advance to go into the studio. We'd go in [by ourselves], and it was no different with Capitol."

Fogarino said the decision to leave the label had to do with feeling unloved. Early on, Capitol's ranks were flush with Interpol supporters, but before long, many of these people had been fired and the group found itself lacking backers.

"The exciting thing was they had a really good staff, a very creative staff and that appealed to us," Fogarino says. "They did all of the Radiohead records and some of the more obscure stuff on Capitol, like Sparkelhorse. Cocky Interpol -- maybe not cocky, but lucky Interpol -- found itself in that extremely stereotypical situation: band signs with major label, major label staff changes and nobody cares."

"In that world, signing is a possession," he adds. "When you possess a band, you root for it. It's your project. And with all those people gone, nobody cared. Nobody wanted to sloppy seconds, so to speak. It didn't make sense anymore."

Luckily, Interpol and Capitol were able to work out an amicable split and the group left with the masters for its fourth full-length, due out Sept. 7. While Fogarino is glad to once again be working with Matador, he defends the work he and his bandmates did during its major-label stint.

"All teenagers venture off and go their own path," he says. "But for the record, 'Our Love to Admire' would have been on Matador if we didn't move. It would have been the same record. A lot of the speculation of what people didn't like about 'Our Love to Admire' was [that it was] Capitol's fault. It wasn't. We'll take responsibility. We made that record. That record could have come out on an even smaller label."