Former Bloc Party drummer Matt Tong explains why he left the band: “Kele was an insurmountable obstacle”

nme.com:

Bloc Party drummer Matt Tong has opened up about leaving the band, calling Kele Okereke “an insurmountable obstacle”.Tong recently appeared on the 22 Grand Pod and addressed his 2013 exit from the band when he “quit mid-tour”. “It’s come to my attention very recently that, you know, a lot of people actually have inferred that maybe I had a drug problem.

Which I didn’t, at all,” he clarified.It comes in light of a 2015 NME interview, in which frontman Okereke referred to “deep-seated issues” that led to Tong and bass player Gordon Moakes leaving the band.“I can tell you it was about someone doing cocaine and someone not being into it.

That’s all I’m gonna say,” he said at the time. When read the quote whilst on the podcast, Tong said it was “frustrating”, and added that “it had nothing to do with me and Gordon.”Tong alluded to being ready to exit the band before the album cycle ended: “I’m good, this is it,” he recalled thinking. “I’m fine.

I don’t think there’s anything else I can gain, really, from being in this band. I certainly felt in terms of being a musician, I wasn’t really able to offer much else.”While touching on creative differences within the band, he also added that “Kele wasn’t really creating a very happy – he [wasn’t] cultivating a happy working environment.”While saying he wasn’t going to go into too much detail for the sake of the privacy of someone not in the band, he referenced a birthday celebration on the bus that he had “absolutely nothing” to do with.“Were drugs involved?” he said. “Apparently.