kasabian web

Small news before i leave, Make sure to check the gallery for photos from Yesterday Glastonbury preformance of the band, and some awesome magazine scans courtesy of my good friend Bei from the Korean Fan Forum.

Next week i will be seeing Kasabian in the Eden Sessions and the week after in Wembley, i look forward to that very much.

Take care
Mici
xxxx

Hello dear readers,

The site will be on hiatus until the end of July as i will be on holiday and won’t have a way to update the site.
Hope you all have a wonderful summer and all the best.

Mici
xxxx

Serge Kasabian’s Track-By-Track Guide To ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’

The album isn’t about the place [High Royds psychiatric hospital, also referenced in Kaiser Chiefs' song 'Highroyds'], which apparently was one of the first loony bins for the poor. I just first heard about it on a TV documentary, and the words just struck me. I love the way it looked and the feeling it evokes.

The album cover comes from thinking about the words. It’s us getting dressed up for a party at the asylum, looking in the mirror at the costumes.
Amon Duul II’s ‘Made In Germany’ is one of my favourite albums. I love the sleeve of that record, and I wanted to do something in that tradition. I just thought, bands don’t do covers like that any more. Some people might think we look silly, but I think it works.

Underdog
This originally was going to be near the end of the album, but Tom [Meighan, vocalist] said to me we should open with it. In a way we’ve always been the underdog as a band, people tend to underestimate us which is good as it gives you a bit of a freedom. It’s like a boxer in a fight sizing it all up. Musically I think it has that rock’n'roll spirit, like a Stones song, but it’s a really 21st century sounding tune. It’s one of the reasons we got Dan The Automator in to produce it. It has a hip-hop feel to the production, yet it’s a rock’n'roll song.

Where Did All The Love Go?
Dare I say it, this is almost a disco tune. It’s a real stomper and it’s got a big, Marc Bolan-esque chorus and the strings at the end are massive. Lyrically it was inspired by what we were reading in the papers around the time, violence and stabbings. But it’s not preaching, it’s asking the question, Where did all the love go? Because we think it’s missing, but we’re not telling anyone what to do. We’re in the middle of it like everyone else.

Swarfiga
Swarfiga is an industrial cleaner you use after working with machinery, so anyone whose familiar with it knows: this is what you need after a hard day’s graft. I placed this instrumental here as I wanted the album to be more than just a collection of songs, it takes you on a real, mad journey, and this mad little tune really makes you think, ‘Where is this album going?’.

Fast Fuse
We did release this is a very limited edition single before, so I guess some people have heard it and some haven’t. To me it was always destined to be on the album. It’s a proper British rock n roll song to me, it’s dirty garage rock. The lyrics are a real vicious spit, really angry. I think Tom’s vocals on this are amazing, it’s times like this I’m glad we have a frontman. “All you fuckers can’t touch me…” I couldn’t sing that, but he just delivers the line perfectly.

Take Aim
I kind of think of this song as almost like a little film in its own right as it moves through a few different moods. Its starts off as this dirty Mexican-sounding thing, and then it just gets bigger and bigger.

Thick As Thieves
Another one that was on the Fast Fuse EP. It’s a good little relationship song this, two mates. You can imagine them as boys going through it all, then confronting everything else again when their adults. It’s nice to be able to sing one with Tom, but it’s funny we don’t ever think about who sings what, it’s just what will work best for the song.

West Ryder Silver Bullet
Rosario Dawson had come to one of our gigs, liked us and kept in touch. So when I was thinking about who we could get to duet I just thought it sounded a great idea, getting one of the most exciting actresses around today on our album. Linking up a British rock band with a Hollywood actress – hopefully it will take people by surprise.

I’d like to get her to do it live with us at some point. Maybe if we film us doing the album live for a DVD next year? She played the track for Quentin Tarantino and I know he really liked it, perhaps we should ask him to direct it. That would be amazing.

The bit at the beginning is sampled from a film called ‘Sans Soleil’, it’s a little film a mate of mind lent me.

Vlad The Impaler
It’s been great seeing how people have been reacting to it. Initially when we’ve played it for people they’ve been a bit like, ‘What?’ but by the second time they’ve got it. I knew the moment I first wrote the opening riff it was going to be massive. It’s so much fun to play live and doing the video with Noel Fielding was outrageous too, just having him running around a country house impaling people. Brilliant.

Ladies And Gentlemen (Roll The Dice)
This is one of those ‘everything got very messy last night, but I wanted it to’ sort of songs. It’s sung with real experience. I love Tom’s vocals on this, he’s really pushed himself for the sake of the song. You can hear all those experiences in his voice. I think the album needed a moment like this. It’s a trip and this is a little step back to take stock, before setting it up for the climax.

Secret Alphabets
I think this has a real opium chasers feel. It’s about this mad expedition to Cairo in the 19th century, lots of mystical weird stuff fizzing around. At the end we sampled Helmut Zacharias’ ‘Sakura Sakura’. It’s on one of my favourite album. I tried to sample it once before but in a different song. It didn’t work, but this time it just added something special to the end.

Fire
I really love the schizophrenic heart of this song. The verses are almost like a psychedelic Elvis, before it explodes into the chorus which is absolutely massive. It doesn’t change tempo ever, it’s just the change in emphasis that creates the different power. We’ve been playing it live quite a bit and it seems to be the one that everyone is going mental for at the moment, which is really satisfying.

Happiness
This is the real kick back moment, like that ‘Perfect Day’, sink-into-the-floor moment in ‘Trainspotting’. I went to Los Angeles to record the vocals with these amazing soul singers. It was such a great experience for me, working with musicians from an entirely different tradition from what I’m used to.

I think the fact we don’t follow rules really helped us with this album. We don’t do things because of convention, we will experiment until we find what we’re looking for. This song, and I guess this album, is a real example of that. There were no rules, we just wanted to create the best record we could.

Source // NME

It’s not every day you ring up a Paris hotel and ask for Thomas De Quincy. While the 19th century author of Confessions Of An English Opium Eater is long gone, one Serge Pizzorno from Kasabian who thought up the pseudonym is very much alive.

“I went on Amazon the other day and ordered it literally two days ago, so I’ve not read it yet,” he says of the book.
“It’s going to be my tour reading book. I find it tough to sleep in the bunk so I always take a book with me. I’ve got The Rum Diary (by Hunter S. Thompson) with me at the moment so I’m cracking on with that.”

Serge, 28, is an incredibly affable man whose voice sounds a little like a Leicester David Beckham. On stage his slender tall frame, coiffed barnet and red Rickenbacker 481 beam out a snarling rock ‘n’ roll cool. An image that sits oddly with the idea of him cramped in a bus bunk hunched over a book.
He’s just alighted from the Eurostar and arrived at his hotel. And while I’m imagining them hurrying on the train with a mob of baying fans hanging on their legs, he again dispels the rock ‘n’ roll image in my brain.
“With the demise of bands being on the telly no one really recognises us,” he says, “but we get the odd look from people on the train thinking ‘what are these guys doing in this carriage?’

You’ll be pleased to hear they travelled first class but spent the whole trip in the bar – yes, we’re back with my need for rock ‘n’ roll excess.
What is immediately apparent from Serge is that there is a lot of love in the band. He is the main songwriter yet not the frontman, and anyone even vaguely aware of band egos will know that limelight envy, as I shall call it, has been the cause of many a band rift.
“I’m not a frontman,” Serge says simply. “Tom’s the greatest frontman I’ve ever seen and I’m so lucky to be in a band with him. It’s not for me the frontman vibe, it’s a different breed altogether.”
“We’ve been together since we were 16 and we’ve pretty much rolled like that ever since, Tom is the greatest, that’s the way it is.”
Serge has known Tom since they were 12 and even back then he had an inkling of the greatness of his pal.
“We sat near each other at football,” Serge remembers.
“He was like a maverick and a really interesting character at school, everyone knew him, there was something really amazing about him.
“One night we were on a street corner and he sang some mad song and I was like ‘wow!’, and then when we got this band together he was the natural choice.”

Now you won’t get that sort of quote from the Gallagher brothers, or the likes of Simon and Garfunkel in the 60s. And speaking of the 60s, it’s not just the mohair coats Serge likes to wear, for it’s a veritable summer of love vibe with this band.

Despite a new album to promote and a stadium tours with Oasis, Serge effuses: “I’m doing a job where I’m making music with my best friends in the whole world, so I’m not doing it for money or success or ego, it doesn’t interest me.

“I’m continuing this journey so I can have a laugh with my pals and on the way be as free with my music as I can be, I don’t worry about sales or number ones. I want to blow people’s minds with my music.”

And for the benefit of those in a band, Serge dishes out some top advice:“My experience is having a really good demo, three songs that you think are your best tunes.
“We used to rehearse four nights a week and we were never late and in there for two hours, keeping to a strict regime of rehearsing and making sure that when you do play live, you know what you’re doing. It’s old-fashioned hard work really.”

Kasabian’s third studio album, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, is out now and you can see the band in London in July.

Tom Meighan models a limited edition navy polka dot scarf, part of Liam Gallagher’s new clothing range Pretty Green.

The scarf is available until September and can be purchased here.

Source //West Ryder/ Silver Bullet

kasabian has success written all over them with a variety of tracks that have you rocking from start to finish on their new album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. .

This is a group that understands the value of variety and experimentation without leaping too far off the ledge we like to call reality. This is tangible, solid rocking – working in tandem with elegiac lyrics to create a luscious sound. The passion and versatility is evident with each and every tune, wowing crowds one chord at a time ranking them up there with other industrial poets of this generation.

Out of Leicester, Tom Meighan, Sergio Pizzorno, Chris Edwards and Ian Matthews are behind a sound that must be listened to in its entirety ushering listeners back to the a place when a good album was judged based on the ability to listen to the entire CD, the whole way through. This is a nice change in today’s industry where music lovers are being beaten with heavy sticks we like to call “single downloads.” Granted being able to pick and choose is a luxury but what happened to the bigger picture?

To understand the true meaning of a band, it is essential to listen to every last drop because experiencing the whole, will help you to appreciate the separates. Their genius can be found in all tracks but ‘Fire’, ‘Shoot the Runner’ and ‘Underdog’ are highly recommended. A collection of their songs and videos are available on their website. Kasabian will most certainly have you rocking till the break of dawn.

Source//Internet DJ

Fantastic news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Recent NME coverstars Kasabian are celebrating their second Number One album tonight as ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’ slides straight in at the peak.

It knocks Paolo Nutini off the summit, where he had sat for a week, and follows the Leicester outfit’s second album ‘Empire’, which also went to the top in 2006.

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