Show & Tell - Kasabian, a chat with Sergio Pizzorno

KASABIAN
COMING SOON TO A TOWN NEAR EVERYWHERE
SERGIO PIZZORNO, 01.11.05

We arrive a few minutes late, the first song has already started. The crowd is thick, shoulder to shoulder, but fortunately the stairwell has deposited us scant feet from the right corner of the stage. Somehow we manage to grab a piece of that corner and secure a meager scrap of viewing space. There’s little or no room to move and Kris will photograph the first three songs from the same vantage point.

The crowd is attentive; singing back words, calling out song titles, hootin’ AND hollerin’...

It’s a great turnout at the Bowery Ballroom (though many here are clearly industry folk) and Kasabian is playing with the cool and confidence of a band who has been in front of this crowd a hundred times before.

And then I remember.

This is the first time Kasabian has every played in the US.

Ever.
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Tonight I heard Kasbian tune “Club Foot” in a Pontiac commercial. The same song appears halfway through the trailer for the upcoming Joss Whedon flick Serenity. Last night “Processed Beats” could be heard on the season finale of CSI and “Reason Is Treason” has popped up on both The O.C. and Desperate Housewives.

It’s like an invasion. And yes, they are British.

If you believe the hype, and there’s plenty of that, Kasabian are superhero rock stars sent here to save the world from musical banality.

Saviors? Not likely.

The right band at the right time with the right sound? Possibly.

We’ll find out shortly. They’re coming soon to a town near everywhere.
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The following interview takes place with lead guitarist and songwriter Sergio Pizzorno sometime between the Bowery Ballroom show and tonight.

S&T: Hello?

Sergio: Hello, mate.

S&T: Okay, I thought I lost you before we even started.

Sergio: Yeh, it’s really quiet. Can you hear me?

S&T: Now I can. Can you hear me okay?

Sergio: Yeah, mate. Good, good. Sorry, man, just been brought a lovely Fish ‘n Chip dinner. I’m just gonna eat if that’s okay.

S&T: Yeah, that’s fine.

Sergio: Awesome, mate.

S&T: Fish ‘n Chips, very English.

Sergio: You know what I mean. I couldn’t have been more English, could I really?

S&T: Not a chance, no. That wasn’t planned, was it?

Sergio: I’ve actually got a cup of tea as well.

S&T: (laughs) That’s great. So you’re back in the studio?

Sergio: Yeah, mate, just doin’ B-sides. Sounding fucking great as well.

S&T: When you guys are doing stuff that’s not part of an actual album is it more like fun time? You can kinda just go in there and…

Sergio: Definitely, but we definitely got better as a band as far as the ideas and just, I don’t know, we just got a bit older I suppose.

S&T: Do you approach it different, you think, when you’re doing B-sides? Is there pressure to have some kind of cohesion for a whole album and then maybe with B-sides it's a little bit looser?

Sergio: Yeah, I mean it depends really. We’re funny cats really because we just kinda get on with it. We never really think about anything too detailed, we just kinda do what we enjoy. So its all really nice that we don’t have the concepts or ideas, we just kinda... this is the music we’re making today and we kind of believe in it, you know what I mean?

S&T: Right. You’re listed as primary songwriter for the band, is that accurate?

Sergio: Yeah, I write the lyrics, yeah and me and Chris Karloff (guitar, keyboard) do the music together.

S&T: You’ve all been playing together for a long time.

Sergio: Friends from school. We were never musicians, we were just friends.

S&T: You grew up together.

Sergio: Yeah, that’s the crazy thing. It’s quite nice being in a band with your friend rather than just someone who’s good on guitar, you know what I mean?

S&T: Right. So friends first and then you decided to be musicians?

Sergio: Well, none of us wanted to get proper jobs and we all wanted to live like the Rolling Stones so we thought it’d be the best idea (laughter).

S&T: So how did you pick instruments? You draw straws, flip coins?

Sergio: Yeah, pretty much and it's like, “You look like a bass player so you can play bass,” you know. It was pretty much like that.

S&T: That’s great. I had read somebody call it open ended recording; that you guys maybe swap out instruments when you’re in the studio?

Sergio: Yeah, we always do. Kinda whoever’s nearest, whoever’s got an idea and we just kinda record like that.

S&T: And are you still in the farmhouse [ed.’s note: The band had been living together in a remote farmhouse while recording their recent self-titled release]?

Sergio: No, mate, we’ve since moved. In respect to the farmer, it was all getting a bit, like, crazy over there. It’s a working farm so we decided to leave.

S&T: It was pretty off the beaten path though, right? I mean people really would have to travel to get there.

Sergio:: That’s the great thing you see. Only dedicated friends would come and see you ‘cause if we got a house in Leicester, everyone would just come there and get fucking off their faces and we wouldn’t get any work done. So we decided to go right in the middle of nowhere and our good friends would travel to see us. And also it’s just a place where we could really get on with what we wanted to do, make the record we wanted to make, no distractions and no people like looking over our shoulders on what we were doing.

S&T: Right. Are you guys not living together now?

Sergio: No.

S&T: Because that was going to be my next question; you grow up together, you decide to start a band together and then you live together, you tour together… you gotta be sick of each other.

Sergio: It's funny because we look after each other in a way that… It’s a really healthy, it's quite healthy otherwise because we always care for each other, we look after each other. There are a lot of people, there’s a lot of bastards out there, a lot of weird people. So it's nice that we’ve actually found people we get on with, you can trust and be that close to. (At least) up until now. I’m sure one day we’ll all kill each other but for now it’s really nice.

S&T: Right. We saw you couple weeks back when you played in New York City at the Bowery Ballroom.

Sergio: Oh did you come to the gig?

S&T: Yeah. I couldn't believe the crowd... I mean it was packed like shoulder-to-shoulder packed. To be honest with you I was surprised, I didn’t know you had that kind of pull on this side of the water.

Sergio: Honestly, we thought there’d probably be about 50 people at that event. So it was amazing to see that many people.

S&T: Oh so you’re surprised as well?

Sergio: Massively surprised.

S&T: That’s great! What that’s feel like, to come here like, “We’ll see, here comes a gig and there’s going to be 30 people,” and you walk out and it’s just a wall of bodies.

Sergio: That’s the thing, man, it was fucking... it made us want to go back (laughter)!

S&T: I’ve heard bands talk about pressure overseas, like to be validated they need to be over here; they need to be successful over here in order to be “successful.” Is there, do you feel any of that?

Sergio: You know what, mate, it's massive, it's so big over here, man. You definitely push towards going there. For us you know we kind of looked a lot like 60s period psychedelic, y’know, Stones, Beatles, The Who. That’s kind of what the bands were into and they all went to America and they all looked cool getting off the fucking Pan Am jet so we kinda want to do the same thing.

S&T: You got to play with The Who. What was that like?

Sergio: It was fucking great, man. It was just, ‘cause we fucking really dig The Who and for them to ask us to play was like the biggest honor. We went down and played and had a really good gig with them. Roger Daltrey especially was a really nice guy.

S&T: How about Pete (Townshend)?

Sergio: Quiet.

S&T: (laughs) Quiet or aloof or distant or…?

Sergio: Kind of all of those things. I suppose he’s seen it all before and he’s, getting old now so he’s probably a bit grumpy, I don’t know (laughter).

S&T: See, don’t hold back on me. I know you guys are the say-it-like-you-see it types.

Sergio: Definitely, but the difference is I’ve got fucking respect for that man. The pricks that we slag off are usually wankers. They deserve a good fucking chewing, y’know.

S&T: (laughs) For me (The Who) never really get as much credit as I think they deserve in terms of their influence on modern music.

Sergio: Some of the best tunes ever written.

S&T: And I think they’re the original punk band.

Sergio: Yeh. And also they’re the first band to use synths in a really good way as well. Some of the sound that we tried to recreate on our album is from Who’s Next.

S&T: I think the thing about (your new) album that I enjoy, is there’s a sensibility from that generation of music in there.

Sergio: Definitely, mate. It kind of pisses us off, man, ‘cause a lot of people put us in this Manchester, Stone Roses and Happy Mondays… In all honesty we don’t, we never listen to their records. We respect them, they’re good bands but we listen to fucking Tangerine Dream or Hendrix. We’re maybe influenced by what they were as well.

S&T: Music for me has always been about a vibe. I don’t pay much attention to the lyrics, I don’t typically know the song names… It’s the vibe that gets me. This for me has a very late 60’s, chill, smoke some dope kind of vibe.

Sergio: Exactly, you known what it is. That’s a very good point you just made there about you don’t care about names, you just, it’s from the heart, man. And that’s kind of where we come from; we just listen to ourselves and what we like and no one else can tell us any different.

S&T: Tell me about being nominated for three Brit awards? Is that validating? Is that important? Do you care?

Sergio: What is important about it is… I’ve watched those awards, mate, and it’s the awards that your mum and dad watch. It’s like everyone watches them, like the Oscars or whatever. And it just means that there’s kids that are gonna want to pick up a guitar because they’re gonna see us, man, and we’re just normal kids from a fucking little town in England. It shows that if you make good music in the end it gets through. That’s what’s important because people are gonna wanna be in bands again and it shows that if you work hard you do get there. It sounds fucking quite wank in a way but it’s the truth, mate, it just means that our music gets to a whole lot more people and those people could be inspired to do their own thing and that’s fucking wow, what music is all about.

S&T: It seems to be important to you that the kids don’t perceive you as something other than just like them, just playing music, just regular guys but then there is a dichotomy because you also the rock star element to it. Certainly your front man (singer Tom Meighan), strutting out there, I mean he’s got “rock star” written all over him.

Sergio: It’s just because that’s who he is, and the whole point is he’s not gone down a fucking thrift store and bought a leather jacket. He’s just born with that fucking madness in him and that quality in him so he’s just himself, man, and kids know he’s not feeding them shit, that he’s doing what comes natural to him. In the same hand, we’re in a band. We’re gonna have to fucking make people excited, we’re gonna give them some sex.

S&T: Anything else you wanna talk about? Wanna talk about turning Kate Moss down? (ed.’s note: the first two pieces that came up during research started with accounts of Sergio turning the advances of Kate Moss).

Sergio: Yeh, well you know, man… (laughter) In all fairness, its done me no harm. ‘Cause I’m now the flower they wanna pluck (laughter).

S&T: How was dinner?

Sergio: Yeah, it was good, mate. Thanks for letting me do that, you’re a fucking star.

S&T: No problem. It was good I could still pretty much hear you through all the chewing (laughter). Thanks for your time, I really appreciate it and good luck. When you guys come Stateside again I’ll definitely come catch up.

Sergio: Definitely, take it easy, mate.

interview by scott sisti