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Carlos D Gave a Long Answer About Why He Left Interpol

Carlos D and Blasco of Interpol during KROQ Weenie Roast Y Fiesta 2007 - Show at Verizon Amphitheater in Irvine, California, United States. (Photo by M. Tran/FilmMagic)

Bassist Carlos Dengler has kept a low profile after leaving Interpol in 2010 to pursue an acting career. He hasn’t really given a detailed answer as to why he left one of New York’s most famous bands—until now. Dengler is the guest for the 100th episode of Talk Music Talk, a podcast hosted by singer and author boice-Terrel Allen. When the question comes up, Dengler offers a concrete and pretty understandable explanation: He was tired of being a rock star.

“I was experiencing so much pain being in the band, being in the music industry,” he says in the lengthy interview. “I have to admit that I couldn’t help but to feel that the band was constraining a creative impulse. It wasn’t for lack of actually trying to make it work; it was still three tortuous years of trying to… I got sober and I said, ‘Okay, enough of this fucking rock star shit. Who am I really?'”

Dengler got sober around the time of Interpol’s third album, 2007’s Our Love to Admire. The post-punk revivalists’ fourth record, their 2010 self-titled LP, is the most recent one to feature Dengler’s work.

The bassist’s fatigue has been alluded to in the past. Interpol’s drummer, Sam Fogarino, said in 2010 that he “really, really didn’t like the bass. It’s not his instrument of choice, and it definitely wasn’t his first instrument.” Dengler told BedfordandBowery.com last year that Coldplay influenced him to quit:

I think the moment for me, and it’s funny to think that this is the occasion for it, but when Coldplay—our old manager was Coldplay’s manager—played Saturday Night Live, he offered us tickets. And when I felt so much titillation and excitement over all the skits—Jon Hamm was the host—and looking at how they were being performed. And then when Coldplay came on, I felt bored, quite frankly. I knew then that there was something going on with me, some kind of identity shift, really. It really troubled me.

Last year, Dengler graduated from New York University‘s graduate acting program. He hasn’t completely left music behind, though; he guested as the 8G Band’s bassist on an April episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers, which made guest Tracy Morgan happy.

For an in-depth explanation regarding Carlos D’s departure from Interpol, listen to the Talk Music Talk podcast below—Dengler comes on around the 8:00 mark.