Coldplay's Live Show Is Apparently So Boring It Made Carlos D Quit Interpol

Despite the surface amicability draped across the 2010 departure of long-time Interpol bassist Carlos Dengler (aka Carlos D) from the band, the diplomatic "pursuing other goals" line that was offered at the time holds less and less water as time goes on.

However, it turns out that it wasn't infighting and divergent interests that forced Dengler out of the New York post-punk heroes — or, at least, it wasn't only that; apparently, good old Coldplay had a fair share to do with it.

As The Guardian reports, Dengler has been keeping a comprehensively low profile in the intervening years since his exit from Interpol, only just conducting his first post-music-life interview with NYU/New York mag collaborative project Bedford & Bowery. These days, the interview reveals, he spends his time pursuing his new love, acting — which, as it happens, might also have had something to do with Coldplay, although a little less directly.

"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 — when they played Saturday Night Live, he offered us tickets," Dengler told B&B. "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.

"At this point in time, I’m in a band whose manager is Coldplay’s manager, I reckon that we’re pretty serious. We’re flying around all over the place, we’re internationally known. I think I should have this figured out already, you know. Or at least, it would behoove me to have this figured out. And I didn’t. I did not have it figured out. I was looking more at what the cast of Saturday Night Live was doing for inspiration."

Whatever shift took place that night, it stuck - Dengler has just wrapped a performance in the satirical play Sherlock Holmes & The Case Of The Jersey Lily, which featured at the Dorset Theatre Festival, in Vermont, and is currently writing his own one man show, Homo Sapiens Interruptus. He hasn't spoken to former bandmates Sam Forgarino and Paul Banks "since I actually left our group counselling session together", though he saw fellow player Daniel Kessler "a couple times after that". In every way, Dengler has embraced his post-music life wholeheartedly.

"I was not really mentally all that well while I was in Interpol," he told Bedford & Bowery. "I had many substance and process addictions that I was coping with. And I was, you know, the classic VH1 Behind The Music story of upward rise and downward fall. The only difference was that— because I didn’t have such a good relationship with my bandmates— I wasn’t willing to be in the band with them while I experienced my crash."

"I think no good would have happened, for anyone, any party involved," he continued. "I think as lamentable as some people feel my departure from the band is, it is the best case scenario because I think everyone involved has been better off as a result of my departure."