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"FacebookPinterest\n\nFacebookPinterestFacebookPinterest\n\nSometimes the key to a band's longevity is the freedom to fly apart at any moment. Back in 2001, when TV on the Radio was still just two people, and not yet the Prince-meets-Radiohead art-rock experiment of the decade, frontman Tunde Adebimpe was working as a computer animator in Brooklyn. Guitarist/keyboardist Dave Sitek was selling paintings on the street in SoHo. They started jamming together because it was a faster way to make something. Two guys became three, then five, and then almost by accident, TV on the Radio (still the best description of their sound: music so sonically vivid you can practically see it) started making thrilling records every couple of years. In between, the guys would scatter for six months or so. During one break, Sitek produced an album for Scarlett Johansson. Adebimpe starred in a Jonathan Demme movie. It was always assumed they'd get back together, and so far, they always have. Some important things have changed, though. There are families now. And in April, bassist Gerard Smith died of lung cancer. As the band begins its second decade, Adebimpe, 36, talks to GQ about how unlikely it is that they ever made it through their first.\n\nGQ: Guys seem to join bands for two reasons: because they have big goals, or because they don't want to have goals. Which describes the guys in TV on the Radio?\n\n Tunde Adebimpe: I think it was: no one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand. When we started, I was living in a loft with Dave Sitek\u2014this loft full of people just working on their stuff. Some were painting, some were writing. Any plans you had were kind of like a plan for the next two months.\n\n\n\nYour browser does not support iframes.\n\n |||\n\nGQ: You were doing animation, right?\n\n Tunde Adebimpe: Yeah, I was making films and animations. Dave was painting. And painting and animation can be kind of long work. Music was more immediate and more fun. We'd make a bunch of crazy, crazy stuff\u2014like, you know, forever. Leading up to September 11th, I had just quit an animation job, and Dave was selling paintings on the street in SoHo. And after September 11th, there was a collective unspoken decision to not go outside very much anymore and stay inside and work on things that really meant something then. I think that was, oddly, a really, really focusing time as far as music went. The Young Liars EP came out of that\u2014out of that time of not really being very certain about what was happening around you, and of wanting to fabricate a platform to stand on.\n\nFacebookPinterestundefined\n\nGQ: So in other words, no 9/11, no TV on the Radio?\n\n Tunde Adebimpe: Maybe so. Maybe we would have become a party band or something.\n\nGQ: Was there a moment when the band became less accidental and more conscious, like, this is what you're really doing now? \n\n Tunde Adebimpe: Oh yeah, sure. The first couple of shows\u2014like with any new band\u2014were really terrible, but people were really kind of... You know when you see someone trying, you appreciate it? I think that happened for a very long time before we got sick of being the dudes who are just trying. You try long enough, and eventually you learn how to do the thing you're trying to do. The mystery and the excitement of it were increasing as we did more. We weren't getting bored. I think the only rule that we've ever had is to not get bored.\n\nGQ: It seems as if doing stuff apart has been a real key to keeping the band together for ten years. \n\n Tunde Adebimpe: I think it's necessary. When I met Dave, you couldn't meet anyone who was more tired of bands or of being in a band. He once told me he spent his teenage years being in bands and just was over it\u2014completely tired of it. I don't think for anyone in the band it was like, \"I found it! I found the one thing that I'm going to do for the rest of my life!\" Taking time apart to do other things informs what we do when we get back together. It also keeps it special. It doesn't turn into this thing that you have to do.\n\nGQ: Every band that's been together for any significant length of time has been through a period when they've sucked. How do you take caution against sucking? \n\n Tunde Adebimpe: Oh, we're a pretty vicious board of directors in the band. Everyone is pretty good at self-policing by now. Sometimes I'll sing a line and there'll just be a look from everyone, and you'll know it immediately, like, \"I know, I know. I'm taking it out now.\"\n\nI think most people who you think suck don't know they suck. Probably not. I think you start to suck when you're not paying attention, if you're phoning something in. Like, I would much rather make something that sounded like a complete, complete, complete mess, because then at least it's disturbing. If it was a genuine mess and coming from a genuine place, that's fine, I could live by it.\n\nGQ: Do you feel good at this now? Or maybe you always have? \n\n Tunde Adebimpe: I feel competent. I wish there was another word for clusterfuck to describe, like, how awful some shows have been. The feeling of being halfway through a show and just realizing that there's nothing you can do to save it\u2014it's a horrible feeling. But it's also a really subjective thing. I've had terrible, terrible, terrible shows where I just thought, \"That was off-key\" or I forgot lines or I thought I looked like an idiot, and then you're leaving and talking to people, and they're like, \"I had the best time of my life! That was amazing!\" You just never know. You can only feel how you feel in the moment, and the show ends up being like a gift for whoever responded to it. That keeps it exciting.\n\nGQ: You guys had planned to take a longer-than-usual break before making Nine Types of Light, right? Got a little sick of each other on the road?\n\n Tunde Adebimpe: We were going to take a year off, then we ended up taking about six and a half months off, which is kind of what we always do. But the tour before this one, at the end of it, it was just not a pleasant place to be, and so we all decided we'd much rather be friends than be in a band for a while.\n\nGQ: So this side project has now been together for a decade. How long do you think you'll keep doing this?\n\n Tunde Adebimpe: Oh man. I have no idea.\n\nGQ: Do you think bands are supposed to end? \n\n Tunde Adebimpe: I was thinking about it a little while ago, and most of the bands that I really hold in my heart\u2014you don't think about them as bands; they're just the soundtrack of your life. I know a lot of people have reunion things, but I think bands are supposed to break up. Most of the bands that I really like no longer exist. That might just be because I'm in my thirties or whatever. But I also think it's the rare band that doesn't, like, turn into something else. I don't see how you couldn't change in a really huge way, especially the longer that you did it. It's almost like, to keep it interesting, you have to negate everything you did earlier. This band, it's really awesome that we can do this. We want to. We like to. But we don't really have to. If there's no reason to do it, that's also absolutely fine. Ten years is a pretty good run for anything.\n\nGQ: OK, but just so we're clear: there will be another TV on the Radio record, right?\n\n Tunde Adebimpe: Just so we're clear: probably. [laughs] I'll give you the strongest \"maybe\" I can give you.\n\nFacebookPinterestFacebookPinterest"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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