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Kaiser Chiefs Interview
Indie | Tuesday 28th August 2012 | Osh
Leeds' golden boys are back, and keyboardist Peanut talks to The Guestlist Network about their new album, staying fresh and how it feels to have an album shortlisted in NME’s best albums of the last 15 years...
Guestlist Network: Hows it going - did you arrive in London today?
Peanut: No, I have a flat in London so I’ve been down here. Got the tube down like the commuters...
GN: Ah just like us normal folk!
Peanut: Haha, yeah. But then you walk out of Brixton and you realise everyone’s going to the gig so you keep your head down...
GN: I saw that you released the new single "Little Shocks" through your website and the free download website RCRD LBL, and I loved seeing an established band use that outlet. Why did you decide to do that?
Peanut: We put out "Little Shocks" on our website, and then we partnered with RCRD LBL. Nowadays, all the labels are becoming so joined up together and someone ends up owning the whole lot really so we have these other ventures. It’s cool when you’re a band whose sold a lot of records to give back. That side of the industry and that side of the artform is important. Vinyl might not sell much anymore but you should still do it for fans who want to buy it. We’re doing a special edition vinyl of all the songs made for The Future Is Medieval which you can only get at our gigs. I enjoy things like that than just having a CD on the shelf. If you can do fun little projects like that, help support smaller things...why not?
GN:Talking about Little Shocks, you can hear that it has that classic Kaiser Chief sound, yet at the same time it feels a little different. Were you trying to go in a different direction with the single?
Peanut: Definitely, yeah. I think whenever we play music it will always sound like us, especially with Nick and Ricky’s vocals, the guitar, me on the keys. When we started out in 2003-2004 it wasn’t a sound that wasn’t recognisable - no one really sounded like us. Even now, you can hear people copying little bits. But when it’s just five of us in a room making that sound, its not unique but the combination is. We chose "Little Shocks" as the first single, as that whole intro is just bonkers little sounds. The guitar sounds really cool and direct and I’m mimicking it on the keys as well, and there’s the bell noises, reverse guitars and things like that. It all came together in Nick’s studio and we used that first version as the main version because quite often you capture those interesting things and you try and recreate it, and its gone. So I think its definitely a good indicator for the album and how we’ve progressed since the last three.
GN:I read that you guys are worried about the guitar genre and that you need to adapt to survive. How do you think you’re adapting?
Peanut: I think in one way you do have to stick to your guns and do what you want to do. That’s the most important bit; you have to believe in yourself. When we had no record deal in 2004 and we were supporting Franz Ferdinand, Ordinary Boys and little gigs like that, we were making our sound. It was connecting with people and you have to stick to that. At the same time, you have to be aware of the industry around you and what the tastes are - whether its American rock at the moment, or English dub step - whatever it is, you still have to be aware of that. It probably does come into your music, often subconciously from the radio or MTV. Guitars will always be the cool instrument to play, it will always be rock ‘n’ roll, so it won’t go anywhere.
GN: Your first album Employment has been shortlisted for NME’s best albums of the last 15 years. How did that make you feel?
Peanut: That’s great, yeah. There’s been quite a few polls recently where we’ve had best festival anthem with "Ruby" and "I predict a riot" and little things like that, or best live act, which is important to us - that’s raw element, there’s no studio trickery, it’s just us. When you get nominated for the best album of the last 15 years, that’s quite a long time, and just to be considered means that you’ve had an effect on a broad range of people, and not just a specific genre, and reached a lot of people.
GN: What would be in your best albums of the last 15 years?
Peanut: That takes up to ‘96? You couldn’t have Definitely Maybe, which is a shame. To be honest, I’d have Chemical Brothers’ Dig Your Own Hole as it was, and still is, one of their best albums. It's dirty and sounds like a band jamming with electronic music rather than programming it. Fifteen years is a long time... I quite like Bloc Party’s first album Silent Alarm, but I’d want to have something like Pink Floyd in there, and Led Zeppelin. You can’t have Nirvana either.
GN: You come up with these crazily chanty choruses and you can hear people doing it everywhere on nights out like Ruby and I Predict A Riot. Do you go into the studio wanting to make that kind of song or do they evolve into that?
Peanut: Songs kind of come out in rehearsals really. That initial self production role where you record what you’ve done, listen to it back and say "well it’s good up until there, when there’s four bars of nonsense", so you cut that bit out and you go straight to the chorus - and all of a sudden, there it is, the rise to the chorus. But a few people, like you, have had nice compliments, saying that you guys really know how to hit a chorus, and that’s Nick with his songwriting. Nick knows where to go and how to match a good step in the chords with a good step in the melody. He finds a really nice point. With songs like "I predict a Riot", "Every day I love you less and less" and "Oh my God", we were touring at the same time so you can see the reaction from the crowd which was useful in the writing process. After the first record, no band really gets that chance again, as usually it's all done. We knew that they were all big hits, and the record company and our manager knew they were going to be hits. We never circled "Modern Way" as one of the big hits, but it's this really big anthemic song when live and has a life of its own. With "Ruby", we knew in rehearsals but we thought "is this a bit too much, too gimmicky?" That’s why we haven’t really had a song like that since, as it would definitely pigeonhole us ,so when you get to "Off with their heads" and "The Future is Medieval" you can hear music that is a bit looser, which means you don’t have a song like "Ruby", but we still have "Ruby" - we still play it live. If you had a set of ten "Ruby"s, the record company and the manger would be happy, but we probably wouldn’t.
GN: Have you got some new material to play tonight? Because you’ve just announced you're releasing a new album in the states which won’t be released here!
Peanut: Well, The Future is Medieval didn’t come out in the US, so we’ve switched some things around and added some stuff here and there for that release. After playing some live, we had a few more ideas and we have a new song called "On the Run".
GN: That’s the one about twitter and things?
Peanut: Well I think the meaning of the song has got a little distorted. Nick was saying those kind of things, but then Ricky wrote the verse lyrics and said it was nothing about that, so it's somewhere between the two. So thats’s coming out in January, and that’ll be on the US release.
GN: Are you planning on coming out with a new album in the UK soon?
Peanut: We’re still focusing on The Future Is Medieval, we’ve got the rest of the world to go to with that. We’re going to America, Australia and then a summer of festivals next year and South America too. So that’s the immediate focus at the moment!
GN: You’ve had a few years off - did you go to any of the festivals just as punters?
Peanut: (Laughs) couldn’t really be bothered! We finished at Reading & Leeds in 2009, and in 2010 obviously we could have gone, but I just went on holiday instead. You get the chance anyway when you’re in festivals; you get to experience them anyway.
GN: As you've said, you’re starting your world tour soon - where’s your favourite place to go?
Peanut: Australia is always good to us, we’re going back there to do some festivals in March. Even from the first time we went, they really got it. When they’re into it, they really like it and enjoy it.
GN:What’s been your biggest ‘wow’ moment so far? One of those moments when you can’t believe you’re getting to do this or that you’re there?
Peanut: I don’t know, there’s always a few. When we did Glastonbury for the first time, we were playing at half three in the afternoon on the main stage, as we were booked before Employment came out. After, Michael Eavis came up to us and said "that’s the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at that time". Then, a week later, we were in Philadelphia playing to a million and a half people for Live Aid - things like that make you realise that you’ve really done stuff. Then you get to meet people like Brian May and Paul McCartney when you have all their records. Or go on tour with Dave Grohl and be mates with him when you’re a massive Nirvana fan. Things like that make you humble and remember where you came from and the records you listen to. I think if I met Brian Wilson I’d die. We look up to him - production-wise, the stuff on Pet Sounds is incredible. To do that in the 60s was more an artform - you had one chance, one take. When you get to be in the environment to meet people like that, that’s special.
GN: Any exclusives for The Guestlist Network?
Peanut: Exclusives, no don’t have any (laughs)! Well this is the last gig before Christmas, the final push. It’s been pretty non-stop but there’s big things coming up!
