The New Cue #399 July 22: Kasabian's Serge Pizzorno
"I'm absolutely militant about screen time. My boys look at me like, 'Old man, go away!'"
Good morning,
Hope your weekend was mind-bendingly enjoyable. Don’t be sad that it’s over though, as we’re going to jump start your Monday with Kasabian’s musical director turned frontman, Serge Pizzorno. He tells us about the band’s new album Happenings, number one glory, The Lion King, vitamin injections in the bum and more.
It’s a free edition so get stuck in and, if you like, share it among your like-minded friends. We’ll see you on Friday for another Recommender edition. Until then…
Ted, Niall and Chris
Start The Week With… Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno
Picture: Neil Bedford
Released the morning after the British general election (remember that?) on July 7, Kasabian’s eighth album Happenings is their second since the departure of frontman Tom Meighan in 2020 and, impressively, their seventh LP in a row to go straight to number one.
Ten songs that run to a nifty total of just 28 minutes, it’s probably the band’s most straightforwardly pop record yet, stuffed to the gills with bangers like stadium-primed singalong Algorithms, thumping opening Darkest Lullaby and Coming Back To Me Good, which sounds surprisingly like a Balearic Hard-Fi. Have a listen, it won’t take you long:
After several failed attempts, Chris got hold of band leader Serge Pizzorno on Friday to talk about the record, 20 years of Kasabian and more...
Hello Serge.
Hello mate, how are you?
I’ve had Covid for two weeks, but other than that...
I’m the same mate. I got it last week and it’s not fucking off. It’s a fucking nightmare.
You’ve got a gig tonight, haven’t you?
I’m medicated up to the eyeballs, so hopefully.
What are you on? Can I have some?
Steroids and antibiotics, all sorts of shit.
A vitamin shot in your arse.
That’s the life of a frontman these days.
Hopefully you’ll feel better. Is the show at Pryzm in Kingston?
Yeah, it’s one of those gigs [relatively small shows for fans who bought Happenings on vinyl]. They’re crazy. It’s a real throwback to 2002 for us.
That must be one of the smallest rooms you’ve played to in a while?
Yeah, probably in about 22 years.
I grew up round that way and that used to be a cinema.
Really? It’s a nice joint.
All being well, you’ll be stepping out later tonight in a room where I once watched Independence Day and The Lion King.
Wow. I love that shit.
Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to us when you’re feeling shit. Congratulations on, is it your seventh number one album?
Yeah, the seventh on the spin.
That’s probably not top of your priorities list, but does that feel like a bit of a vindication?
Yeah. If you were to go back to the start, I don’t know if I’d even know what a career was. But then you go on a roll and it becomes this unbelievable achievement to have number ones in three different decades. It’s the first time I’ve ever really thought about it on this one, but you do think, ‘Holy shit!’. That’s a real dent, it’s a significant moment for the band. We’ve left a mark on the British music industry. Especially as a songwriter. I’ve been talking about the process on this album and the process is still exactly the same as when I wrote the first album. I’ve not really changed much in the way that I approach writing an album. It does feel like a special moment just to sort of go, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty wild...’. I feel like I’m just getting started.
Obviously, you’ve been playing with Chris [Edwards bassist] and Ian [Matthews, drummer] for years, but with the last two records since Tom left have you felt like a new band with something fresh to prove?
Definitely something fresh to prove. But in terms of the setup, absolutely nothing changed. Aesthetically, visually, artwork, recording, they all stayed the same. I’ve always done that from day one. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, what are we gonna do?’ We do what we’ve always done. It’s more about the live approach. How are we going to do that? That was the only thing.
I definitely think with this record I’ve looked at the setlist and thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we had a song that did that?’. That’s definitely helped create this record. I always look for little angles and little ways to inspire, to make something. It was like with [Happenings track] Call. It was just like, ‘Wouldn’t it be sick to open a set with that?’ And then it becomes, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if at some point in the set we went into a kind of weird French dance, sort of early N.E.R.D., Timberland song? Wouldn’t it be great if we had a heartbreaking 1970s medium wave radio, could be on a Tarantino film sort of song...’. So I was definitely was informed by playing live when I was making this record.
How are you settling into life as a frontman now?
It’s fucking intense. It wasn’t my call, but the train tracks got shifted and now I’m here. But I’m a problem solver in the sense that I needed to step up, whether I wanted to or not. This had to carry on. It was like, ‘Well, you gotta fucking work this out now’. So I just came at it. I want to learn from every show and learn off the greats and work out every gig to see how I can do better and give it everything I have.
For me, what I really think is amazing about the moment you step on stage is how quickly you have to read a situation and how quickly you have to read a crowd. You have to know exactly what they want. And every night is different. That fascinates me. I’m obsessed with working out the angle and the energy of a crowd and knowing exactly when and where to do what you need to do. I find that incredibly liberating and freeing. I’ve never jumped out of a plane, but I’d liken it to that. There’s the moment before you jump and then once you step on stage there’s no turning back. There’s no time to think anymore.
You’ve said that you always go into making a record with an idea of what it is going to be. What was your idea for this one?
I wanted to make a psycho pop record. I wanted to make things short and I wanted to make things really melodic. Let’s have ten really, really strong songs that use pop structures but are then injected with the weirdness that I do. That was the angle, really. I just wanted to make something really fucking joyful. I wanted you to fly through it and get to the end and go: ‘Wow, fuck, that was crazy. I want to do that again!’
It’s the shortest album you’ve ever made. The longest song on there is three minutes twenty seconds. Did you have to sit on your hands in the studio sometimes?
I was brutal. The scissors were brutal. But, you know, I love working to those concepts, I love working to rules in a way. I was loving getting rid of verses and choruses and middle eights. I don’t want to get above myself, but I did think, ‘Let’s try and make ten singles...’ I wanted it to capture your imagination and your attention instantly.
Coming Back To Me Good felt like it was made for a summer festivals/sporting event, did you get much TV montage action out of that one?
It got a ridiculous amount of montage action. And an unbelievable amount of radio play as well, which is quite amazing. Like, a proper crossover. It straddles the line, like, ‘Can they do that? Are they allowed to go down this road?’ I would never ask myself those questions. I don’t see it that way, because I’m a music fan. I just think anything you can, do it 100%. I just find that exciting. I think it opens the door now for the next record to go wherever we want.
You’ve said it was the easiest record you’ve ever made.
Yeah, it was so easy because the songs just flowed. I didn’t have any dark days where I was going ‘What am I gonna do? This is all shit...’. Labours of love can be torturous, but this was just like: bang, bang, bang.
Would it be fair to say that the last album The Alchemist’s Euphoria was the hardest?
No, because that was a refuge in a way. It was the reason for everything. It was where I felt safe from all the talking and all the noise and all the lies and all the bullshit. I’m just making the music. There was therapy in that in a way. Maybe [2014’s] 48:13 was. That was the one where I had all of those days of going, ‘What is going on?!?’ That one was the most mad.
Algorithims on the record talks about our relationship with technology. As a dad, what’s your policy on phones and screen times?
I’m absolutely militant. My boys look at me like, ‘Old man, go away!’. Kids know best, like we knew best when we were young. I think you have to trust the younger generation. I think it’s a mistake to ever be like, ‘I’m in charge, we know what we’re doing’. But I do! I despair at times. Everyone bangs on about it, but it is vital to have those moments of silence. It’s so important. You need a factory reset, too.
It will be 20 years since the debut album in September. Do you have anything planned to mark it?
We talked about it, but celebrating 20 years with getting a seventh number one with the new album felt like the best way to celebrate. We’ve never really been about nostalgia and the noughties and all that. We just carried on exploring and making shit and doing our thing. It might happen one day, but it didn’t feel right. It felt much better to say let’s celebrate 20 years by having a number one album. I feel that’s the best way Kasabian should celebrate.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us when you’re not well, Serge. Take it easy.
You too mate.
CC