Bloc Party without Kele? There is no Bloc Party without Kele!

Bloc party frontman Kele Okereke fears that the band has been recording new material behind his back – or worse, that he has been fired.

Kele Okereke spotted guitarist Russell Lissack in a chance encounter as he dined for lunch in New York. “I saw somebody walk past and I recognised the haircut,” said Okereke to NME.com during an interview about the incident, “It was Russell. I was like, ‘Hey!’ but he didn’t see me and I followed him around the corner and then I saw Matt, Gordon and Russell all standing outside this rehearsal space. They all went inside.”

The band has been on a hiatus since August 2009, after the release of their single “One More Chance”. Since then, Okereke has been on a solo career endeavour. The singer released his debut solo album, The Boxer, last year with a follow up EP, The Hunter, set to release October 31st. “It’s not really a secret because Kele’s been pretty busy doing solo stuff and it looks like he’s going to be doing that a bit longer,” said Lissack, in the same interview with NME, “The other three of us wanted to meet up and make music. We were talking about just doing an instrumental thing, but now we might get a singer as well.” Lissack claims to have “no bad vibes” with Okereke, but added that he hadn’t spoken to him in “a couple of months.”

Responding to the news on his official blog, Kele said: “Hmm, I don’t know what to make of this. A big part of me is laughing HARD at all of this but another part of me is all like WTF? I’m quite curious as to what a Bloc Party audition would be like? I wonder if they would let me sit on the panel so I could be a judge Tyra Banks style?”

Would anyone be interested in seeing the band without Okereke? It seems unlikely. Whatever happens, we hope the band settle their differences and make more of the music that we all know and love.

By Ella Delancey
Twitter.com/ellaaadxb