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Kasabian are on the list of 101 hot list in music for Q magazine new issue, and they appear on the cover with an interview and few beautiful photoshoots inside the mag.
Q magazine also posted a making of the photoshoot video, and you can check it in HERE
The magazine is on news stands now.

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.

Hundreds of lucky Kasabian fans who managed to get tickets for the band’s sold-out home-town shows descended on De Montfort Hall last night for the first night of a “three-day party” in Leicester.
The local heroes are playing three gigs in the city to kick off their 20-date UK headline tour.

For loyal fans, it is a welcome return for the band – Tom Meighan, Serge Pizzorno, Chris Edwards and Ian Matthews – whose last Leicester gig was a secret show at Athena almost two years ago.
Around 6,000 people will get to see Kasabian at the gigs, which are promoting their upcoming third album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

Fans last night said they were one of the best acts about.
Claire Gray, 22, from Hinckley, who went to the gig with Arron Smith, 33, said: “It is so good because it is their homecoming gig. I have seen them lots of times before, in Amsterdam and at the V-Festival. Their music is top notch.”
Arron added: They’re one of my favourite bands. Their music is so cool, it’s just my type of music. They’re a top band.”

Giovanni Corbo, 28, from Knighton, and friend James Gray, 28, from Whitwick, said: “I have followed them from when the first album came out.
“We’ve been to lots of festivals but never managed to catch them, so it is great to come and see them play at home.”
Support act and close friend of Kasabian Jersey Budd said prior to going on stage: “It is an honour and a privilege to be asked to play with the guys at De Montfort Hall”.
Singer Tom told the Mercury: “To start off the tour in Leicester is amazing.”
Kasabian are also due to play at De Montfort Hall tonight and tomorrow.

Source//This is Leicestershire

Kasabian are having the time of their lives, launching their UK tour tonight, about to release their new album, and being courted by the likes of Oasis and Bruce Springsteen. They share the love with Andy Welch.
Kasabian have had an epiphany. Despite having sold nearly two million records and been invited to tour with good friends Oasis, the band have only just realised they’re huge.
“It’s weird, man,” begins frontman Tom Meighan, with puppy-dog enthusiasm.
“We were doing Jools Holland the other week and we were the biggest band on it. Before, we’ve been on with big names — Smokey Robinson, Jarvis Cocker and people.
“We were looking at the list for this one, and those names weren’t there — we were the biggest band. It’s funny …” he says, chuckling, pleased with himself. “About time.”

Kasabian’s star will shine even brighter come June 8, the day they release their cryptically titled third album, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
“It was a real hospital in Wakefield,” explains Tom. “Serge (Pizzorno, guitarist and songwriter) saw it on a documentary and thought it was a cool name and that was about it.”
While that might seem a simple enough explanation, the reason the album is so titled actually has deeper roots.

This third effort from the Leicester quartet is a homage to the psychedelic albums of the 1960s, albums with ludicrous titles and equally preposterous contents.
“That’s it, brother,” asserts 28-year-old Tom. “All those mad records, like The Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request, or Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake by The Small Faces … None of the titles really make sense, and that’s what we wanted, in a way, but to make it modern and for the 21st-century.”
West Ryder’s sleeve continues that tip of the hat too, with the Kasabian boys getting out the dressing-up box. Tom looks particularly dapper in a Nelson-esque military costume.
“It’s like an English heritage psychedelia front cover, but it’s pretty evil-looking too. That’s what we wanted, that was our concept,” he says, pausing. “That, and to make it really, really good.”

A swaggering frontman from the simian school of Liam Gallagher and Ian Brown, Tom’s never been short of confidence. Now, however, with their best, most ambitious album in front of them, he’s positively brimming with emotion.
Thankfully, that cocksure streak doesn’t manifest itself as arrogance — he’s too likeable for that. Instead, it’s his boundless enthusiasm that comes to the fore.
“I’m so excited at the moment,” he says. “As well as confused, on edge, you know, all these emotions are coming up before the album comes out. I’m not sleeping properly, neither is Serge.
“I don’t know if other bands get that pattern, but I just can’t switch off, it’s bizarre. I go to bed for about two hours, but I can’t sleep. I’m just waiting for things to happen. It’s what we’re like when we’re on tour as well,” he says.

The band have been away from the public eye for around a year, although nine months of that was spent recording what would become West Ryder.

After getting to a point with the album, “about 70% done”, Kasabian decamped to San Francisco to seek out the services of renowned producer Dan ‘The Automator’ Nakamura, highly acclaimed for his work with Beck, Gorillaz, DJ Shadow and various hip-hop artists including Busta Rhymes and Kool Keith.
“He’s not a natural choice, I guess,” admits Tom, “but Serge has wanted to work with him for a while. “It was amazing to get him, and to have another pair of ears on the album, to guide us through. He’s brought out the big beats and the album sounds amazing.”

Being out on America’s West Coast clearly suited Tom. Having only been there while touring before, he says it was good to be in one place for a length of time, and feels the city energised his singing.
“You don’t get more psychedelic than Haight-Ashbury,” he says, referring to the district of San Francisco synonymous with 1967’s so called Summer of Love and fledgling hippy scene.
“I think being there improved my singing 100%, gave me more of an edge. Dan’s studio is underneath his house, which was lovely. I escaped for four weeks or so.”

Back in Britain, there’s going to be no escaping Kasabian over the coming months. With a tour kicking off in their home town tonight, a support slot with Oasis on their summer mega-shows and more festival appearances in between, it’s a gruelling few months for the band. Factor in their reputation for hard-living while on the road, and the prospect would make all but the hardiest of folk wince. Tom however, can’t wait.
“I climb the walls when I’m off,” he says. “I’ve started painting – I’ve had a portrait of Brian Jones on the go for ages but I haven’t finished it – and I catch up with friends when we’re not busy, but I miss touring. Having time to yourself is great, don’t get me wrong, but there comes to a point when I have to get back on the road and start playing rock shows again.”

Source//Belfast Telegraph

Check those interviews out, you know..

View also Underdog & Thick as Thieves live accoustic videos

With their new album out next month, local heroes Kasabian could soon be bigger than their pals, Oasis. ‘We’re like nothing else out there,’ guitarist Serge Pizzorno tells.
It was written in a little room in Leicester, and it’s going to echo round the world. It’s Leicestershire band Kasabian’s eagerly-awaited third album, the luxuriously titled West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and it’s due out in less than three weeks.

The album kicks off a frantic period of activity for the county’s finest, including a tour that begins with three concerts at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, starting on Friday, May 29.
Talking about the band’s music, creative hub and guitarist Serge Pizzorno says: “I believe it’s really quite special, and for other people to dig that… it blows my mind.”
There’s been a lull on the Kasabian front since the 2006 release of their second album, Empire.
But now the band – Serge, singer Tom Meighan, bassist Chris Edwards and drummer Ian Matthews – have started gathering momentum again, with weekly announcements of festivals, tour dates, secret gigs and more.

It’s created a crescendo of pride and excitement in the county’s music scene, the likes of which hasn’t been witnessed before.
This is the band who met at Leysland High School, in Countesthorpe, and have gone on to shift hundreds of thousands of records. They’ve become best mates with Oasis, headlined the Royal Albert Hall and impressed Bruce Springsteen so much he has requested they perform as his special guests on the main stage at Glastonbury this year.
Their new album “took nine months to make and was finished in December last year,” says softly-spoken Serge, who makes time to speak to the Mercury in the middle of a whirlwind week of filming and gigs.
“We’ve been sat with this record for ages so it’s nice to start playing it. When it’s finally out, and people come to see us after they’ve been heard it a few times, that’s going to be awesome – when people can really sing the songs.”

You get the feeling this is the big one for Kasabian: the one they are hoping to be judged by. “It’s kind of unique,” says Serge. “We made time to bring out an album like this, 12 songs as a body of work rather than a collection of singles. We’re really proud of it.”
Tracks including first single Fire, due for release a week before the album, and Vlad The Impaler, a download single featuring The Mighty Boosh star Noel Fielding in the video.
These tracks, plus Underdog and Where Did All The Love Go? have been well received by fans, for whom it’s been a long wait for new material.
“Maybe so,” says a confident Serge. “But I think people are excited that we’re trying to do things differently. We’re not your average band. We’re like nothing else out there and we’ve continued down that road.
“We’ve not stopped. We’ve pushed ourselves and tried to change things. It’s been really good.”

His favourite song from the album, he says is the glam-rock affair Where Did All The Love Go? “I think it’s pretty incredible,” he says. “But I just like the whole album, the whole sound of it all. I think it’s a modern day, 21st Century rock ‘n’ roll record, and I don’t think there’s been one like it in the past decade.
“It’s a different sound, and Fire has been doing really well, better than expected because it’s not your average pop song and the reaction to Vlad as well was way above what we expected.”
Reviews of the album, created with the help of Gorillaz producer Dan the Automator, have been mixed so far.
Giving it a cautious three out of five, The Guardian says a mixture of influences has led to the band “trying too hard to be all things to all men”.
It goes on: “Adventurous? Definitely. Massive? Perhaps.”

But it’s still early days, and it’s the fans who matter to the band, not the critics.
After playing for years at local venues, first as Saracuse and then as Kasabian, it’s taken lots of hard work to get the band where they are today.
Following the success of their self-titled debut album, which spawned anthemic hits LSF and Club Foot in 2004, and second album Empire, the group once described as the biggest band in Leicestershire are now well and truly on their way to becoming one of the biggest bands in Britain.
Life has changed rather dramatically for the Kasabian boys over the past few years, and you get the feeling this may just be the tip of the iceberg. If you believe some of the critics, they could soon be bigger than their Oasis pals. But they’re not about to get complacent.
Performing in front of thousands of fans is something that keeps them on their toes, reckons Serge.
“I created this stuff in a bedroom in Leicester and now it’s all over the world, and it keeps going,” he says. “I wrote the new album in my house, in a little room. We’ve got a studio (in Leicestershire) as well where we did some of the recordings. We finished it all in San Francisco and that was the perfect way to finish it really.
“People everywhere know the old tunes and are starting to know these. What really excites me is that it’s not your average music. I believe it’s really quite special, and for other people to dig that… it blows my mind.”
It’s front man Tom, who is best known for his strong views on rival bands – but Serge is also unafraid of voicing his opinions.
“We don’t sound like Snow Patrol or Coldplay,” he says. “The music we make is far more interesting.”

Although he doesn’t go into details about his friendship with the Gallagher brothers, he does promise the stadium shows planned with Oasis will be the “gigs of the summer, something to really look forward to if you’ve got a ticket.” And Bruce Springsteen? “Apparently so,” he says, rather incredulously, when asked if the Boss really did request them specially to play at Glastonbury.
“What an honour to go on and perform before him. It’s pretty wild. I only really know his famous songs but I’d like to speak to him. Silvio from the Sopranos (Springsteen’s guitarist Steve Van Zandt, who plays Silvio Dante in the show) is playing and I’d like to meet him, too.”
Despite the fame, the adulation, the record sales and the celebrity pals, Kasabian are still the friends who grew up in Leicestershire, dyed-in-the-wool Leicester City fans who still enjoy a pint down their local pub.
That’s partly why they have such a loyal local following. There is a real sense of local-boys-done good about them – and that extends to their support of Leicester City FC.
“It’s an incredible season we’ve had, to go straight back up, says Serge, who seems to like nothing more than talking about his beloved City.
“Now we’re champions, I can’t believe I missed so many games. Tom went to a few. But the great thing is now we’ve always got the dream of going up to the Premiership and there’s nothing better than that for a fan.”
And that’s a key to Kasbian. Though they’re heard around the world, they’ve never forgotten their roots.
“Me and Tom both still live in Leicester” says Serge. “We only live about a mile away from each other.”

Source//This Is Leicestershire