Paul Banks names his top five New York City rock bands
“It’s like all those guidance counsellor meetings where they’re like ‘What do you wanna do?’ and I said ‘I wanna be a rockstar’, and they said, ‘Don’t be a jackass.’” Paul Banks proved them all wrong. In the seemingly golden atmosphere of the turn of the millennium in New York City, Banks and his band Interpol were amongst the scene of bands, all sharing the same city, as they reinvigorated indie.
In her landmark book Meet Me In The Bathroom and the subsequent documentary, Lizzy Goodman remembers that distinct time and place. Interpol were swiftly gaining attention, as were The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem and a whole gaggle more. She attempts to pin down what made the moment so special; maybe it was the final hurrah before the internet changed the game forever, maybe it was the last moment where music could earn bands real money, or maybe it was the final era before social media and marketing smothered the DIY ethos rock had always begun with.
But really, it feels like the reason comes back to New York City and its seemingly limitless inspiration. The city had been the home to great music for decades before Banks and his band landed there. However, as the 2000s crowd walked the same streets, he had to acknowledge that the ghosts he found there definitely proved inspiring.
Sharing his love for New York bands, past and present, some of them are obvious. He has to single out his peers as he said, “I’m gonna throw the Strokes in there”. Perhaps the city’s ultimate success story of the time, the band soundtracked the moment. The Strokes’ energetic indie became anthems for an era as their track, ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’, was chosen to define it.
Stepping one decade back in time, Banks is a big fan of the 1990s New York scene, likely being the sounds that first inspired him to move from his New Jersey home into the city. “Sonic Youth is a New York Band, right?” he questioned. They very much were as Thurston Moore and the band formed in and gigged around New York. They were, however, largely ignored by the local music press for a good while, instead fostering more love abroad until the city got into the noise rock wave.
“Flux Information Sciences,” he picked next, “They were from the late ‘90s New York scene.” As another noise rock outfit, it seems like this subsect to grunge majorly inspired Banks, who chose the group as one of his top five New York bands of all time, amongst the lofty competition.
Bridging the gap between outright indie and noise rock comes his next pick, Blonde Redhead. They were another band that came up in the 1990s, straying into dream pop or more wistful territory. If you merged The Strokes and Sonic Youth, the result would be pretty close to Interpol’s own sound.
For his fifth and final pick, Banks has to acknowledge deeper history. “I don’t want to be a poser as if I’ve really studied the Ramones but I feel like I’ve studied bands that were massively influenced by the Ramones,” he said. At least he’s upfront and honest about his musical blindspots while he grants the Ramones their deeply influential status. There is no doubt that the band is one of, if not the most, influential rock bands in the city, as they led the pack at the CBGB scene and pioneered so many landmark acts.
Some of Banks’ omissions are glaring and curious. It’s a wonder that he didn’t pick out The Velvet Underground or even Television, who feel like a close relationship to his own music. But really, through his picks, it’s easy to see the recipe of how these influences led to Interpol.
