Sergio Pizzorno, Chris Edwards, and Ben Kealey met at their Leicestershire school in the early 90s, bonding over a shared love of music. Whilst at Countesthorpe Community College, the trio formed a band with Pizzorno’s best friend at the time on vocals. Eventually, the band moved on from the original singer and recruited Tom Meighan, an old acquaintance of Pizzorno and Edwards.
As legend has it, Serge heard Tom singing in a local park and recruited Meighan as the band’s vocalist, performing their earliest gigs in 1997 with a lineup of Tom Meighan on vocals, Serge Pizzorno on Guitar, Chris ‘Dib’ Edwards on bass and Ben Kealey on drums. The band’s first show was performed at a leaving party for Dibs’ mother, who was moving to London, at Blaby Football Club.
Eventually, the four-piece became a five, once the band recruited another acquaintance in the form of Blaby lad, Chris Pratt – Who, once a part of the band, declared that from now on, he would be called Chris Karloff.
This newly formed quintet was known as Saracuse. The earliest recorded show performed under this name was on 19 September 1997, at The Shed in Leicester, with Tom and Serge performing mostly acoustic covers of Oasis songs. The band went on to regularly play shows as a five-piece around the midlands.
Chris Edwards had been working as an engineer alongside Scott Gilbert at Bedrock Studios, assisting with engineering for children’s Ladybird audiobooks. Eventually, Gilbert invited Dibs and his bandmates to the studio to record their debut demo EP. This EP included four tracks – ‘What’s Going On’, ‘Interlude’, ‘Life of Luxury’ and ‘Shine On’, though unfortunately none of these tracks have ever surfaced.
The band re-entered Bedrock Studios in 1999 to record more tracks, this time leaving with tracks ‘Angels’ (also known as ‘Charlie’), ‘Highest Number’, ‘Ten Past Three’, ‘In And Out Satellite’, ‘Dirty Dishes’ and an acoustic track called ‘Waiting For You Now’. Following this studio session, the band returned for a third time to record the tracks ‘The Federation’, ‘The Warrior’, ‘ Keep It Safe’, and ‘Just Relax’, all of which have again never surfaced. However, two tracks from these sessions have surfaced – ‘Come Back Down’ and acoustic track ‘Sniffing Glue’.
Further to this, Saracuse recorded ‘Pump It Up’, ‘Get Around’, ‘Stupid, Nothing Matters’, ‘You Won’t Forget Me’ and ‘Waiting For Me Now’, all of which are unsurfaced, though this session included ‘Excuse To Get Wasted (A Recreational Terrorist)’, which has since found it’s way online.
Following on from a wave of successful studio sessions, Saracuse continued to play shows throughout the midlands, with an infamous gig at The Charlotte in Leicester – Following which, the band was banned from the venue, due to a fight between a member of the audience and the band that Saracuse were opening for.
After being banned from their city’s main live music venue for up-and-coming artists, Saracuse were all but exiled from the Leicester music scene. Saracuse decided to persevere, and in lieu of playing live shows, the band headed back to Bedrock Studios on 21 September 2000 to record more demos, including two re-vamped versions of ‘Come Back Down’, one of which is known online as the ‘Bedrock Mix’. This session also produced the track, ‘Some Fingz In My Jeans’, later re-named ‘Something In My Genes’ as well as unsurfaced tracks ‘Somewhere Nowhere’, ‘Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine’ ‘Same Old Story’, and ‘Wait For You Now’. Most interestingly, as a part of this session, were two tracks ‘Rain On My Soul’, which eventually went on to become Serge-led track ‘Test Transmission’ on Kasabian’s self-titled debut album, and ‘Lost Soul’ (Not to be confused with Kasabian track L.S.F.), which was sung by Serge, but eventually went on to become Kasabian Classic, ‘I.D.’
By late 2000, Saracuse had managed to have their ban at The Charlotte lifted and played a show performing these songs that they had been crafting over the last year. It is reported that at this show at The Charlotte, the band invited friend and DJ, Dan Ralph Martin on stage to perform with the band. Soon after this show, Ben Kealey departed the band.
Following Kealey’s departure, the band began to experiment more with synthesisers, drum machines, and other manners of music technology. Eventually, the band ventured to Bink Bonk Studios in Bristol, where Saracuse met a well-known local session drummer, Ian Matthews, who was also part of a trip-hop act called Ilya. Matthews played drums for the drummer-less quartet for a session of three tracks; a re-vamped ‘Rain On My Soul’, ‘Beneficial Herbs’, and probably the most important track the band has ever recorded – ‘Processed Beats’.
This demo CD eventually found its way into the hands of A&R representatives at Sony BMG, who invited Saracuse to a studio in Putney to perform an audition set, alongside a host of other artists that the label was considering signing. According to Serge, the band turned up to the session with “A minidisk for a drummer.” However, legend has it that BMG put an offer on the table on the spot, which was followed up with an offer from another major record label. However, despite the counter-offer being worth more money, the band decided to stick with BMG, on the basis that they felt as though BMG was a better fit for them. Following their signing to BMG, Saracuse gained a new manager, Graeme Lowe, who was also the manager of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Graeme Lowe eventually convinced Saracuse to take up a ‘base’ somewhere isolated, after hearing of The Cooper Temple Clause’s success of retreating to a farm, where they could rehearse into the early hours of the morning, and develop as a band. Saracuse eventually took over a farm at Rutland Water, which eventually became the legendary base where the band recorded their debut album as Kasabian – Featured on the Field of Dreams DVD included in the deluxe version of the self-titled album.
Upon moving into the farm, it quickly became apparent that this was no place for a band named Saracuse. Upon reading a book about Charles Manson and his ‘Family’, who infamously were responsible for a string of horrific crimes, including the murder of actress Sharon Tate, Karloff took a shine to a name from one of the members of the ‘Family’ – Linda Kasabian.