Interview: Kasabian
KASABIAN'S main men, guitarist Serge Pizzorno and frontman Tom Meighan, are both ill.
It has fallen on bassist Chris Edwards to fulfil interview duty, a rare occurrence that feels like the journalistic equivalent of watching Liverpool without Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres: competent, but lacking in star quality.
Conversation, therefore, is free of the gibberish hyperbole Meighan often spouts, and happily understated.
“I’ve got the best of both worlds, I never get stopped in the street like them,” Edwards jokes.
“But sometimes its nice to get some recognition.”
Recognition is the last thing Kasabian need to worry about.
Already on the back of two successful albums, this year’s chart-topping West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum has been named Q magazines album of the year, spent 24 weeks in the top 20, spawned a top three hit and continued Kasabian’s pretty mental ascent to mega-stardom.
Yet, though phenomenally popular, Kasabian are perhaps the most divisive, misinterpreted band of their generation: adopted by the Burberry wearing, lager swilling geezers who pine for
The Stone Roses reunion, they are derided by their critics for encompassing the epitome of macho, gratuitously hedonistic lad-rock.
The truth is more ambiguous. There is no denying the laddish element of their fanbase, no doubt a result of aligning themselves too closely to Oasis (if Oasis ask you to support them, you’re not going to say no), but there is complexity to Kasabian’s music that is often overlooked, or conveniently ignored.
'Truthful'
Take the new album: from the madcap title to the Napoleon get-up on the cover, it is a progressive, mainstream-challenging record that channels obscure reference points through an infectiously belligerent rock attitude.
“It does get annoying when people say you sound like Baggy Madchester,” he admits. “We don’t sound anything like Happy Mondays.
“People listen with prejudice, they’ve made their minds up before even hearing us.
“We like loads of different music. That’s why we got Dan The Automator to do our record, we love his hip-hop background.
“We mix influences like Can and Neu! and make them, well, not more accessible, but so people can understand them.
“Joe Bloggs in the street won’t listen to a 15-minute an track, but he’ll love the sound if its got a rock element.”
Is part of your reputation not self-inflicted, with your cliched rock attitude boasts of excess?
“That’s just how we are, we’re four lads in a rock band on tour,” he says. “There have been times when we haven’t been to bed for days, it’s just truthful.
“It has calmed down a bit though. We’re too busy, so we pick our moments. We’ve got to be more professional. It’s more like a job now.
Is this because you’ve got higher sights? To take Oasis’s mantle? “It is achievable. You’ve still got mega bands like U2, and we can get there. Were still selling more albums, playing to more people. We’re not the biggest band, but we could be.
Those Oasis fans need somewhere to go. Why not come to us?
Published: Fri, 20 November, 2009
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