People know this man by a few names – Kele Okereke, KELE, or simply as the lead singer of the Bloc Party – but we’re going to go with KELE.
KELE is heading back to Australia for a seven-date Aussie & NZ tour, which he’ll be kicking off next week in Brisbane with local producer cln on main support. The tour comes shortly after a full-length solo album he dropped just before Christmas called Trick, an album that totally deserves your attention if you haven’t given it already.
We were asked recently if we’d like to have a chat with KELE, to which I said “Hell yeah we do!”
–
The first CD i ever bought with my own money was ‘Dog Man Star’ by a British band called Suede. I went to the the Our Price in the Ilford Exchange and bought it after school. I didn’t really know anything about the band but I remember seeing a video to a song called ‘Stay Together’ and really liking it. I was kinda disappointed when I got it home and realised that ‘Stay Together’ wasn’t on the record. I didn’t really know much about indie music at this point so when I put the CD on and the first underwater reverberations strains of ‘Introducing The Band’ I thought there was something wrong with the CD.
The first few times I listened to it I didn’t really enjoy it, the sounds were too alien for me, too brittle, but for some reason I persevered and would often come back to listen to the record in its entirety. over the course of the following year its sounds started to permeate me. To me its a very urban record, romantic yet cold and distant, everything feels doomed. I definitely think its had a impression on how I see music. To me music always has to convey a sense of passion.
–
AUS & NZ Tour Dates:
Friday, March 13 – The TBC club, Brisbane
Saturday, March 14 – The Factory, Sunshine Coast
Wednesday, March 18 – The Corner, Melbourne
Thursday, March 19 – Karova, Ballarat
Friday, March 20 – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Saturday, March 21 – The Kings Arms, Auckland
Sunday, March 22 – Sets On The Beach, Perth
You can check out all of the tour details right through here.
Trick is available now through iTunes, and and below are two of its tracks, ‘Doubt and ‘Closer’
–
Facebook.com/kele | Soundcloud.com/keleokereke | Twitter.com/keleokereke