ALCHEMIST:

JK: You’re listening to X-Posure on Radio X. I’m John Kennedy and that is Kasabian with ALCHEMIST. It is the opening song on the new album The Alchemist’s Euphoria and I’m very pleased to say that Serge from Kasabian is sat with me in the studio. Hello Serge, how are you?
Serge Pizzorno: Yeah, very good thank you.
JK: It’s great to have you here. Very excited about the new record, the seventh Kasabian album and you start us gently with ALCHEMIST, and in a way I thought that might be a good starting place to explain the concept, if there is a concept to this album.
SP: Yeah, yeah, no, it’s a good place to start. We start with the waves. Forgive me if I ramble, you know I’m going to– forgive me, listeners, and I’m going to ramble through this because it’s the way my brain works so just bear with me… So we start with the waves, and we start with the alchemist and his journey. The album is his journey through, like, a fork in a road. We all go through– There’s moments in our lives where, you know, there’s a big decision to make, you know? So it sort of deals with that theme and then along the way other themes that, you know, that are very universal. The Alchemist, the character in this movie, he is like a… I see him as like a, or whatever you see him as. You’re like… The mask on the front cover is his sort of, I don’t know, like a… He uses that to create. So when in the studio or whatever, he’s got this mask that he’s picked up from different places. Bits, parts of synthesizers and all sorts of things. So I thought that was really nice. So you sort of see this figure, and then, you know, the album then starts with the alchemist with him sort of sitting on the side of a, like, the sea. Looking out to sea, because the sea and the space are very big elements to this album. So there you go. I mean that was a long-winded explanation.
JK: But that idea has been prevalent in your mind while you’ve been thinking about the album and making the album. This idea that the Alchemist was looking out to sea and in a way know that the ocean offered all this possibility, as space offers all this possibility. Something like that?
SP: Exactly, yeah. Yeah. The euphoria… The album feels euphoric. And I think, like, over the years, that’s kind of where… I just think of the band and that’s the feeling I get. You know, if you see us live, that’s definitely a huge element of what we do. So I wanted to use that. And I liked… You know, like, when you’re making anything, it’s a tune or whatever, you know, whatever, there is a minute where that initial idea… and you get this unbelievable feeling that keeps you going back and back and back, but making records or making anything, as anyone knows, that’s, like, the greedy bit. Like that happens maybe once a month. The rest of it is just hard, hard work trying to figure it out and trying to just plead with the song gods to give me something. You know, like, “I’ve got… I’ve had nothing. Help me, help me.” You know? So, like, that statement is about that feeling, and I think it’s sort of any sort of songwriter or filmmaker, whatever,  painter. They will kind of know what I’m talking about when I say that.
JK: Yeah, yeah. And so in a way, you are the alchemist, but so are many, many other people.
SP: Well, yeah, that’s the funny thing because I’ve been called out in a few interviews and they’re like, “It’s you, isn’t it?” And I’m like, “No, no, no. It’s all of us. It’s all of us.” Because I don’t… you know, it’s like, “Who cares about me?” It’s like, it’s just… But these subjects I’m talking about and what was going on, they see… It’s universal for everyone.
JK: Yeah
SP: And I wanted to start… It feels like, you know, like a lifted phone memo and, you know, like a sort of old beat up sort of record from the 40s where, you know, it’s all sort of EQ’d and it’s all out… So there’s something, sort of, like, really beautiful about this, how small it starts… And then it opens up, and then it goes into sort of… it’s like three songs in one. I mean, it’s a good… A lot of the tunes are three or four songs, but I wanted to make sure they didn’t go on for 12 minutes. I wanted to do… to have all those ideas to happen in three minutes because of attention spans. My own one is shot and everyone else’s is gone. So I thought it’d be great to make a record in a time where attention spans are shot to pieces to, you know, have three or four songs to happen in one song over three minutes. So it starts beautifully, quite folky, and then it enters into sort of like Chicago House to the end… Which again is that like euphoric moment… And in terms of the journey, it’s like, you know, he’s there with his head in his hands and he’s like, “What am I going to do?” And then slowly but surely you start to go, “Well, it looks rough out there, but I quite fancy the trip.”
JK: Yeah. So then he sets sail into the universe… And there’s even a little nod to Ennio Morricone, in a way, in Alchemist, I think. A couple of little bits of that.
SP: There always is. Yeah, there always is.
JK: It’s true. It’s true.
I mean, my son is called Ennio and my other son’s middle name is Leonie. So there’s a big connection there. And he’s called Lucio and there’s a famous director called Lucio Fulci. So that is, you know, cinema is a big part of what I do.

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