Earlier this year fans of Interpol and more importantly bassist Carlos D, one of the band’s prominent members in terms of song composition, were saddened to hear of his departure. Despite the loss, the band have continued on and are currently touring in support of their forthcoming self-titled album due out September 7.

Before last night’s show at the Kool Haus in Toronto, AUX Weekly sat down with lead singer Paul Banks who spoke about how things have been going since losing Carlos and working with his replacement Dave Pajo.

“I think it remains to be seen what we’re going into,” Banks said. “Carlos wrote the record with us and I think it’s the tour and promotion side he wanted out of. It was a bit of a practical question. Once the record was ready and he left it was sort of ‘what are you going to do?’ You’re not going to bury the record or act like you didn’t just write a record together. We really just had to solve the practical question of how do we go perform these songs without Carlos. Dave Pajo came up and was the only person ever considered actually and (we) could not possibly get someone better to work with.”

“It’s a shame,” he added. “We all miss Carlos and he’s a genius….in his absence I think we’re doing really really well considering.”

Along with Pajo, the band has also recruited Secret Machines member Brandon Curtis, who Banks says is a huge addition to the band not just as a keyboardist.

“We may well be tighter than we’ve ever been. I just love having someone with the vocal chops of Brandon singing the harmonies with me…I get goosebumps sometimes. It’s one thing having a keyboard player sort of throwing in some backing vocals, but it’s another thing when you have the lead singer of a great band contributing to the vocals on stage.”

Interpol will head down south for a string of dates and will then be touring overseas when the album comes out and for the rest of the year.

Photo by John Papamarko, AUX TV