Enter Shikari

12.01.2008 | Cam | 2 Comments

Is it dance-able music for rock fans or rock music for fans of dance? Enter Shikari's unique blend of trance and screamo has been making waves in the UK for the last few years and come January, we will bear witness to their storming live shows as part of the Big Day Out.

Bass player Chris caught up for a chat...

By Cameron Chambers

Hey Chris, how are you today? 

I'm good thanks Cameron, how are you? 
 

Doing well mate. Where are you guys at the moment? 

At the moment I'm in Anaheim, in Los Angeles, in Orange County... I think, ha ha. 

Enter Shikari are obviously doing very well in Europe, how have the US audiences been responding to you? 

It's been pretty good actually. It's a step back down again with us doing club shows again, so there's anything from 20 to 300 people coming out each night. 

The people who are there are digging it though and they've been great shows for us! 

How did you feel about having to win a crowd over again? I'm sure it's been a while since you've had to do that. 

Yeah, yeah. We were actually quite excited about it! We've been really looking forward to it because we did it for so long in the UK.  

We'd travel to venues where no one had heard of us and do our best to make an impression... and the first impression counts. We just set about doing that so we remembered techniques on how we used to that do that.  

It was all about getting in their faces and we enjoyed the challenge! 

Who are some bands you’ve enjoyed playing with while in the US? 

Well, we didn't take any supports on this tour so it's just been a lot of local bands from around the areas we were in. We played with a band last night called Dear Life who were great... they're from California.  

2007 has obviously been a great year for you guys, did you ever think you'd be at the point where your record was getting released all over the world? 

To be honest, no... no we didn't. It was definitely a shock. We always wanted to do well but we never expected that we'd be able to tour the wold on the back of our first album. 

We thought we'd maybe hit Europe but we've ended up in the States, Japan and now we're heading to Australia with the Big Day Out, so we're just chuffed about it.  

Enter Shikari's success is testament to the fact that a band doesn't need a manager or an agent and loads of cash to make a go of things. Is sticking to the independent or DIY route something that you guys pride yourselves on? 

Yeah... I guess the early days in particular. In the last year or so we have had to start working with an agent and once we got into the industry we've had to pick up a couple of those things. 

We spent the first 2 years touring in a van though and all our shows were booked by us. We made our own merch and we had a CD copier in our house that would let us put in one CD and burn five at a time... so we'd spend hours burning our songs in a basement, ha ha. We'd print all our artwork which was bought from merch money and the occasional fifty quid that we'd make from shows. 

It was a tough few years but we thoroughly enjoyed it! 

The band's mixture of electro and modern hardcore has attracted as many nay sayers as it has fans. Were you guys always looking to incorporate the dance element into your music or did you simply stumble across your sound during the band's developmental stages? 

We didn't start off with the idea. We actually started off as more of an alternative rock band and we began edging towards hardcore and punk... after that we started getting into heavier hardcore and punk stuff and then we started going out to clubs when we were 16 and 17 and saw DJ's as well as live bands. 

I remember one night where we saw The Dillinger Escape Plan and then we went to Fabric (which is a club in the UK) to catch some DJ's. It was two completely different ends of the spectrum but we noticed that we got a lot of the same feelings from both styles of music... they both made us feel very passionately. 

There was always the passion in hardcore but we found the same feeling in trance... it was able to lift your soul out of your body, and we wanted our music to portray both those feelings.  

What have been some of the highlights for the year? 

I guess the festival stretch we did was a lot of fun. We went into summer being festival virgins but we went off and by the end of it we'd done around thirty or forty festivals around the world! We did the Reading and Leeds weekend but I'd say my favourite was Download in Donnington.  

We also did Summersonic in Japan... we've actually been there twice and the first time there was 300 people and the second time round there was around 12,000 people. It was such a jump, we were just like, “what's going on here”?! 

Asides from that I'd say our own show at the Brixton Academy was the most fun for me. It was our last tour and everything was building towards that being our biggest headline show so far and it was just a hell of a lot of fun! 

“Take To The Skies” came out in March of this year, but it's effectively a compilation of all your previously recorded material When can we expect a new Enter Shikari record? 

It's going to be... basically once we get back from Australia in February we'll write a new album, so we'll be aiming to release it mid next year.  

Have you guys started writing for your next release and if so, how are the new songs turning out? 

We've got a lot of ideas but nothing's recorded or down yet... mainly because we've had such a hectic touring schedule. Now we're itching to get back into the studio! 

With our first album we didn't have much time coz we didn't have any money to spend on it because we expected it to be a low key release... so we didn't have much time in the studio to experiment with ideas and sounds. We just had to get it down and get it mixed! 

Hopefully next time we can experiment a bit more! 

You guys are lucky enough to be hitting Australia as part of the Big Day Out in January. Who are some of the bands on the lineup that you're excited to see? 

I haven't checked the line up too much... Rage obviously but I'll need to properly plan it.  

It's going to be one of those festivals where I'm not going to be in a bus at all so I'll just walking around and watching bands and hopefully surfing mid week if I get the chance.  

Do you think Enter Shikari's live shows are going to translate well in the arena or festival environment? 

Yeah... well, with the festivals we've done in the past we always thought it would be a challenge for us because we'd done more intimate shows and we'd been billed as an intimate bands. There's more... what's the word I'm looking for? There's more emotion in smaller shows! 

But once we'd played the festivals we found a whole other side to ourselves. The side which does perform got used to the bigger shows. We are able to change our show slightly to fit our environment but the bigger shows are just as much fun, if not more so.  

Do you think the fans who get to see you in a more intimate setting will get the complete Enter Shikari experience? 

I'd hope so! There's two shows in Melbourne I think... and underage and an over 18's show, which is cool for us coz back in England and Europe a lot of the older fans feel a bit deserted at times coz the younger kids are so quick to buy their tickets. 

They're not quite the walk up shows we used to play.  

It's great that we're able to do that! It's a slightly smaller venue but still bigger than what we expected down there... it's something like a 900 capacity place? But with a place that size we'll make it feel intimate and bangin! 

It's been a great year for music. What have been your top 5 records of 2007? 

Umm... god, that's a tough one! 

Biffy Clyro's album Puzzle. I just started listening to the new Radiohead which is fast growing on me. Brand New's “The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me”... 

You know that Brand New are playing the Big Day Out? 

Well, there you go... there's one band I'll be watching! We played with them at Reading and Leeds and they're just a great band! 

Pendulum and one more... Piesto's “Elements Of Life”. He's a really great DJ.  

Who are some bands – local or otherwise – that you think kids should be checking out? 

Yeah... well, there's a band from around our area called Gallows who are doing very well. 

Yeah, I saw them last month, they were great. 

They've got a really raw punk rock show! They're a great band and they're from around our area... literally a ten minute walk from my house.  

Who else, who else? 

There's a band we toured with a while back... a Scottish band called Flood Of Red. They put on a great live show and they've haven't really got the credit they deserve. They've just been touring the UK and really working hard on getting their record released.  

Keep an eye out for them in the next year or two. 

That's about all we have time for mate, is there anything else you'd like to add? 

Umm... I guess just tell people that we're a live band! A lot of people listen to the album and may not get it or enjoy it but then they see us live and it all clicks and falls into place. Just encourage people to come and see! 

Cheers Chris.  
 
 

For more on Enter Shikari check out http://www.entershikari.com or http://www.myspace.com/entershikari