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For a band fond of recounting tales of derring-do and high jinks, there’s one story in particular that Kasabian seem enamoured with. Having been to appear at the oxymoronic Fashion Rocks event in Monaco at the fag-end of 2005 the band (singer Tom Meighan, guitarist and songwriter Serge Pizzorno, guitarist Christopher Karloff, bassist Chris Edwards and drummer Ian Matthews) attended a swanky, invite-only bash on the yacht of Topshop owner Philip Green the day the gig. It hardly goes without saying that what next was pure carnage.
“It was mind-bending,” recalls Meighan in dour, utilitarian, breeze-block hellhole that is backstage at the Manchester Evening News Arena in late December. “There was Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Jon Bon Jovi with his pearly white teeth like a doll, and Craig David and Jamie Cullum.”
“And the Prince of Monaco,” interjects an incredulous Edwards.
“We had a table by the bar,” continues Pizzorno, “and we just kept helping ourselves to all this champagne, but by the end of the evening all the stiffs were with us. We were like, ‘Look at that!’ and ‘Come on you lot!’ But why go on there and be dead straight?”
Despite an aversion to caviar (“I wasn’t eating that,” Tom explains straight-faced) and being somewhat taken aback by the sheer scale of opulence on display (“Even the toilets were or summat,” laughs Tom), all are agreed that in Kasabian it was a “proper night”.
How you interpret such adventures will likely go some way to explaining your appreciation, or lack thereof, of Kasabian: a thrilling gang of sonic seditionaries for whom fans can live vicariously, or a bunch of boorish lads indulging in predictably tireome rock’n’roll behaviour.
Naturally, Meighan, Pizzorno, Edwards and Matthews — the wonderfully named Karloff having left the under sornewhat of a cloud sometime during the writing of the group’s second album, the incendiary electro psychedelic Empire — couldn’t give a flying one.
“It was for all our mates back home,” Pizzorno says unapologetically. “If I had rung them up and said we didnt bother, they’d like, ‘You didnt what? Get the f**k on that boat and have it for me. I’m working my tits off back here.'”
By their own admission, Kasabian have always been rock’n’roll stars. Back when they were rehearsing in their native Leicester, “jumping off amps” and perfecting the art of the Pete Townshend windmill, they felt like stars.
“We used to take a strobe light in with us,” laughs Pizzorno, “pretend that we were on stage.”
These days, they get to do it for real.
Although they get dismissed as brash, gobby Northern (despite hailing from the East Midlands) oiks in some quarters, or are, at indulged >
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“OUR BAND WILL ALWAYS BE LOVED AND HATED, BUT THAT’S GREAT. IT MEANS THAT WE MEAN SOMETHING”
for such qualities, there’s more to the band than such unreconstructed braggadocio. They might be the bastard children of The Who (perhaps grandchildren might be more apt), the beautiful game’s lunatic fringe and Oasis, but they’re just as informed by a romantic British collectivism redolent of Blake or Shelley, the electronic excursions of Boards Of Canada and Kraftwerk, and the iconic imagery of late ’60s radicalism.
In the flesh they’re kind, considerate, intensely funny and far more articulate than they’re given credit for. Their mouths might run away with them at times (over the last couple of years, Meighan has memorably derided The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas as a “posh f**king skier”; Pete Doherty as “a f**king tramp”; and Justin Timberlake as a “midget with whiskers”] but this is mostly in jest. They might be a gang but they’re certainly not aloof.
“We’re good boys,” says Tom. “We’re a nice band. We’re a nice band.”
The kind you could take home to meet your mothers?
“Yeah,” he grins. “All our mothers are amazing.”
As the benign dictator of this motley crew, Pizzorno is more than happy to let Meighan take centre stage in this surreal rock’n’roll pantomime, indeed his appreciation of his childhood friend is touching [“When Tom walks into a room you just shit it,” he’ll divulge later. “And that’s what makes a star”]. Without doubt, they’re the perfect foil for each other: Meighan acts; Pizzomo interprets.
“It’s just like having a f**king laugh, it’s when you were at school and threw pens at each other ’cause it was boring otherwise. You can fit into the slot if you want, but it’s… it’s like that fire alarm button, ‘Don’t Press’, don’t press this big red button. I mean you’re gonna do it, aren’t you? He [points at Meighan] does it all the time. I love people that do that ’cause you’re going to see what happens. And nothing ever bad really happens does it, but you never learn. But kids are like that, it’s about having fun.”
Fun it might be, but jocularity never comes at the expense of the music. They’re not earnest navel gazers but the music’s importance is paramount. They concede that sales figures and all that are nice [at last count Empire was fast approaching the million sales mark; they’ve also been nominated in the best group and best live act categories at this year’s Brits], as is critical acclaim [“It’s nice for people to care about your music and write good things about your record, it’s brilliant, but I knew it was coming,” says Meighan]. But beyond that, everything else is an irrelevance.
“F**king ringtones and what have you,” sneers Pizzorno. “It’s a distraction. What we do is write music and play gigs like this.”
That’s why behind all the self-aggrandizing rhetoric of making a classic British album with Empire beats a tireless and much more admirable ambition.
“It’s always about the songs,” explains Pizzomo. “The reason we sell out arenas is because we’ve got good tunes. It’s not to do with the hair or the make-up, it’s to do with the songs.”
New single, Me Plus One, is a case in point. An evocative call to arms, its swirling orchestral synths, lysergic groove and melodic songsmithery combine to make it a fearless proposition. Far from being the prescribed baggy revivalists of yore (“I’m glad we’ve shut that tag up,” notes Meighan), Kasabian now reach deep and wide into the musical well of the last half century.
“We’re just trying to make modern music,” avows Meighan belligerently. “Me Plus One is very futuristic, but it’s got the songwriting there. We are a modernist band. Songs like Empire, that’s the most modernist song I’ve ever heard: rotating back basslines, mad tempos, it’s crazy and has a massive chorus.”
Whether Meighan is correct in his estimation that they’ve given birth to a new sound is debatable, but there’s no doubting that in attempting to write music “for our generation” they’re managing to fight the good fight – keep the band fresh, hungry and eager.
“There’s nothing better than having
something to fight against,” suggests Pizzorno. “If you go out there and relax and think that everyone loves you, you become shit.”
Meighan warms to the theme: “We’re not even at the top of the mountain. We’re only on our second record, d’yerknowwhatlmean? And already it’s pretty scary, what with the standard that we’re at. When we do get on top, I think it’ll be the scariest thing. The biggest f**king avalanche ever.”
“Our band will always be loved and hated,” Pizzorno says, “but that’s great. It means we mean something.”
If that means winding a few bands up, ruffling a few feathers, telling some home truths, so be it. When Kasabian first emerged kicking and screaming out of the musical backwaters of Leicester [Showaddywaddy? Engelbert Humperdinck? Gaye Bikers On Acid? Exactly] Pizzorno stated that it was his band’s mission to keep the trendies perplexed and the hooligans on their toes. It’s an esprit de corps that remains to this day.
“Completely, always,” he says.
“I think that’s an amazing quote that one,” says Meighan nodding to his brother in arms. “Did he really say that? That’s really good.”
“I think it’s a great way to be,” Pizzorno affirms. “When all’s said and done we’re just a good little rock’n’roll band with good music, and that’s the only way to be. I can’t believe I knew what ‘perplexed’ meant back then, though.”
If there’s such a thing as a higher Kasabian mindset – they might appear to be archetypal lads, but their history is littered with philosophical, even hippyish, leanings: they lived on a farm together, they believe in the collective – it’s this off-kilter, self-help idiom that encourages their fans to believe in their sometimes very ordinary lives.
“The thing is, we sing about mates, girlfriends, taking drugs and having a good time,” says Pizzomo. “‘Cause that’s what we are. We could easily sit here and spin you a load of yarns about how f**king great this is and how the third chorus is about when Gandhi met whoever, but that’s not the case.
“That’s not to say that people shouldn’t think like that. You see Thom Yorke, that’s who he is, if he came out going ‘Waaaaaaay’, I’d be like ’What the f**k?’ but he is who he is and that’s why they’re great. They’re not pretending. And that’s all we preach, who you are is who you are and don’t be frightened of that. Just embrace it.”
Me Plus One [Columbia Records] is out now.