Good Morning!
We hope you had a splendid weekend. In today’s edition we speak to Kasabian guitarist Serge Pizzorno about their new album and stepping up to be the band’s frontman following the sacking of singer Tom Meighan in 2020. Before that though, can we say a massive thank you to some of our London-based subscribers who came down to the screening of the excellent Who Killed The KLF? that we put together on Friday at The Social, along with a Q&A with the film’s director, Chris Atkins. If you were unable to join us, all is not lost as we did record the interview. Hopefully we’ll be able to host that recording alongside some of the other events we put on as podcasts on the newsletter homepage. Let’s see if we can work out how to do that. You’ll be the first to know.
Anyway, enough of my yakking. On to the interview. We’ll see you again on Wednesday.
Enjoy the edition,
Ted, Niall and Chris
Start The Week With… Serge Pizzorno
In August, Kasabian will release their seventh album The Alchemist’s Euphoria. It’s the band’s first record since sacking singer Tom Meighan after he was charged with assaulting his fiancé in 2020. Chris spoke to bandleader, and now frontman, Serge Pizzorno about the decision to step up to the mic and whether, given he already had a successful solo sideline as The S.L.P. under his belt, he ever considered calling time on the band that he formed as a teenager in Leicester…
Hello Serge, how are you?
I’m good, man. How have you been?
Not bad. I’m in my flat. I’ve barely moved since I last spoke to a couple of years ago for Q Magazine, only this time I’m speaking to you for The New Cue.
I’d heard you’d done that. I'm so glad you boys are sticking together and getting stuff done. It’s great.
How has it been getting the Kasabian machine back up and running again?
It's great. I’m just excited. We’ve made a really good album and the live shows we played last year were absolutely insane. So, on those levels, it feels really good. The world obviously stood still for a while, but it feels like a bit of normality is coming back into real life. I’m buzzing.
This is the seventh Kasabian record. Was there a point where you thought there wasn’t going to be another album, that that was it for this chapter and for the band?
Yeah. There was a period of time where I didn't have a clue about any anything anymore. I likened it to walking through a burned down house and just sifting through the ashes of old photos and trinkets. It was like, ‘We’re going to have to rebuild this house…’ but was that going to be possible? Did I even want to do it? It was heavy. But we sat down and we couldn’t let the story end like that. It didn’t feel right. No matter what happens with this record, we had to make it, we just had to. I’d already started writing songs for this album already and there's no better way of healing yourself as a songwriter than going into the studio and working. So that's what we did.
You’d already made and toured your first solo album as The S.L.P.. Did you ever think, ‘OK I’ll just carry on doing that and this album will be an S.L.P. album and I’ll be a solo artist?’
I don't think I ever got that far. Kasabian is my life's work. And also with Chris [Edwards, bassist] and Ian [Matthews, drummer], it’s their band, too. They didn't want the story to end either and that was a huge thing. What about their future and their life that they’ve put their heart and soul into? So, I didn't really get that far. It was more, ‘Do I even want to do music anymore?’
You’d gotten to that point?
Maybe I'm being dramatic there. Maybe I felt like that for a week. The way I deal with everything is to make songs. This is my life and I don’t know how to do anything else.
Did you consider getting another singer in?
Briefly. I toyed with the idea of what that would be like. But it always came back to the fact that no one could… these lyrics are ingrained in my veins. I've been pouring my heart into these records since day one. It’s going to be different of course, but I mean every word that I’m saying because I wrote them. I mean, I was very happy where I was. Being a frontman is a whole different game. I was like, ‘Jesus Christ this is huge to take on...’ But I also knew if I didn't, then that was it and that wouldn’t be fair.
You’ve obviously sang plenty of Kasabian songs on stage, plus fronted The S.L.P., but how did you prepare yourself for suddenly becoming the frontman of this massive, festival-headlining band?
There was a lot of research. I watched Kanye, Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, Jagger, Iggy, Keith Flint. I'd go through the list. There was a pin-sharp focus, I needed to learn this craft. You have an instinct for it, but it's a whole different thing. To me, as much as you can, you just let the music dictate where you go with it on stage. I love stand-up comedy and with a stand up they’re just centre stage with a mic and nothing else. I was hugely inspired by that. Certain stand-ups like Bill Hicks and Stewart Lee, they can flip an audience on its head. So for me if the music's telling me to mosh the shit out of it, then I'm gonna go full energy or if I'm feeling any emotion on stage, whatever it is, I'm going to try and use that. That was the kind of approach, just to go with that and try not to overthink it or which is difficult for someone like myself that has a tendency to get very obsessive and over think things.
You tend to have an idea or a theme before you start work on an album. What was your idea this time around?
I wanted it to be super intense, so when there's moments where it's intense and it's aggressive, I want that to be completely unapologetic, like it could just take your face off, but to have the leftfield move and the thing you’re not expecting to be super melodic. Like with [recent single] Scriptvre, you've got this contrast of this really heavy aggressive thing and it flows into this soulful, pure euphoria. And also, to condense that seven-minute, wig-out psychedelia into three-minute songs. My attention span is shot, and I'm sure everyone else's is shot too, so I just wanted to make a record that gets the job done. You’ve gone on this epic journey, but it's still three minutes long. It would make a good musical this album I think. It starts with this character looking out to sea weighing up this decision whether to go out to sea and explore or to stay at home on the shore. It travels along with this guy’s journey right to the end. It’s our most cohesive album.
Is that character you?
Well, it's kind of about the alchemist.
That’s you though, surely?
Yeah, on reflection. I didn’t try to do that. They’re universal subjects. You don’t need to know anything about me or where I am to connect to it. It’s a snapshot of my life now but a lot of people can connect to that, they have that moment in their life where shit gets turned upside down.
How was it playing the first show last year in Leicester without Tom? It must have been an emotional experience, and difficult for the three of you.
It was so many things. I feel like I became someone else after that tour. We were so focused on getting it right that you didn't really have time to go too deep into what was actually happening. It was obviously happening, but you can't grasp it at the time because it's like, I need to remember the lyrics for the fourth song, or I need to be this at this bit of the stage for this section. It wasn’t easy.
Did you feel his absence on stage?
There wasn't time to analyse it. The minute you step on that stage, you're in the ring. As a frontman, you’re in the ring. You haven’t got time to be worried about this or that, you’ve just got to knock this fucker out. This band needs to give the audience the most incredible night of their entire lives and that is all you focus on. The set is intense, full-throttle euphoria. Maybe after the tour you think, ‘Fucking hell, that was heavy...’ But in the mix, you’re in the ring. I keep coming back to that boxing analogy but that thirty seconds before you go on stage that’s what it’s like, it’s an intense experience.
Does this mean your solo thing with The S.L.P. has been put to bed?
It’s in the back pocket. That character can go and be whatever he wants to be. If I get the urge to make a 70s funk record or a techno record, then I can do that now. That can be that. If I feel like the urge to follow a mad journey then I can do that, but Kasabian is what it is and will do what it’s always done.
Long may it continue.
Thanks man. Take care.
CC