Five albums in, Idles still sound like they’re about to blow the walls off. But according to Joe Talbot, none of it is an accident. “Every record we know what we’re doing,” he insists. “One of the most important parts of the process is the initiation. I come up with a title and a theme, and then me and Bowen sit back and build a landscape on which that theme can dance. If we didn’t come at it with intent, we’d fail as a band.”
That intent seeps into everything, even the typeface on Tangk. “The way it looks, the lyrics, the artwork—I come at it with full intent every time.” Which is maybe why Idles keep feeling like an event while other bands at album five are sleepwalking.
For Tangk, the theme is love, though Talbot doesn’t mean it in the Valentine’s card sense. “Love is not an abstract noun. It’s a very powerful verb. Hard work, dedication, honesty, grace, empathy, patience, fortitude. That’s what my mother taught me. That’s what I relearned through surviving different things. It was uncomplicated for me to talk about because love is the most potent thing in my life.”
Parenthood only sharpened that. “I discipline my child with patience, with kindness, with love. And then you realize maybe you can apply that grace with your peers. Then even with your opposition. They’re scared too, they’re tired too. Freedom of speech is the act of listening. I wanted to write songs that let me explore the softer side, so I wouldn’t be such a piece of work.”
If that sounds dangerously close to optimism, Talbot knows it. “Gratitude comes when you let love in,” he says. “And I did.” He credits producers Nigel Godrich and Kenny Beats with giving his lyrics room to soften and stretch, instead of defaulting to brute force. “The tone of the songs became softer, but that’s power too.”
Still, don’t mistake softness for silence. Talbot’s politics are blunt: “I’m going to scream Viva Palestina forever. But if I want people to read the right articles, they’re more likely to if I come at them softly than if I just scream fascist in their face.” That, he argues, is how you reach across a clenched fist. “You can grab it and pull at it, or you can just ask me nicely to open it up.”
The live show, of course, is its own beast. Talbot calls it “unthinking.” “I’m not performing a character. If I’m sad, you see sad Joe. If I’m happy, you get happy Joe. The songs take over. There’s transparency because it’s combustion in the air—you can’t recreate it, you just have to be there.” It’s also why he’s never played “June,” the song about his daughter’s death: “That was mine. That moment alone. No one else gets it.”
Idles’ shows have become legendary for that mix of demolition and communion. “We manifest together with the people in the room. It’s a beautiful energy. That’s why we’re successful live—we’ve learned to unthink.”
So where does a band go after turning love into a dance record about gratitude? Talbot laughs. “Crawler was chapter one of the new book. Tangk is another chapter. But the direction is many directions. There’ll be more ballads, Nordic techno folk, whatever we fancy. What’s important is that we keep challenging ourselves. That means moving forward. That means chaos.”
And if empathy, gratitude, and gospel-tinged punk anthems are chaos, then Idles have never sounded more dangerous.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
