Hiatus Saved Bloc Party From Permanent Split

Bloc Party bassist Gordon Moakes has outlined how the band's three-year hiatus has contributed to a creative revival on their latest record Fours.

In a recent interview, Moakes notes that previous incarnations of Bloc Party “had just become kind of disparate in terms of the way the records were written and sort of produced and things, like we didn't all always have to be there for instance. That's still Bloc Party but I think this record is a bit more back to basics really, and not distilled through the apparatus of technology and things – it was just the band really.”

This same sense of spontaneity has translated into frontman Kele Okereke's lyrics as well, says Moakes.

“I think he wrote most of the lyrics on the record in New York over a period of living there, and that kind of disparate chaos and noise and things...  with this record we just got to a point where there were no pressures really, it was just expressing how we were feeling at that point and I think the lyrics reflect that idea of writing what came to mind and not trying to hang it on a concept or anything.”

Moakes believes that if Bloc Party had not taken a break, they probably would have ended the band permanently.

“Y'know, I'm sometimes asked what would the record have been like if [we] hadn't taken a break, and I think the honest answer is that there couldn't have been a record at that point. And I think if we begrudgingly forced ourselves to try and make a record then it could have just split the band up,”

Read the full interview here.