Kaiser Chiefs Interview

With the release of a new album and frontman, Ricky Wilson, on The Voice UK, the Kaiser Chiefs are officially back, with a bigger sound and a more united team than ever. Bringing us up to date of the last few years, we had a chat with bass player, Simon Rix, to talk all about ‘Education, Education, Education & War’.

Hi Simon, how are you?
I’m good.

Where in the world are you right now?
Just in London. It’s nighttime and I’ve just been working all day.

‘Education, Education, Education & War’ will hit the shelves in Australia on 28th March; can you describe the album in three words?
Confident… New… And classic.

What was the motivation behind it?
The motivation was getting the band back, which sounds slightly weird… In hindsight, we feel like we lost our way a little bit about what we were in the beginning and where we got to. Nick (Hodgson) was our drummer and it was the five of us that started the band and we’ve always been in it. He decided that he didn’t want to do it anymore a couple of years ago and we decided that we wanted to carry on, because we all loved it still and we maybe didn’t realise that. I think it was a wake-up call and shook us up a little bit. This is what we wanted to do and we’d maybe been taking it for granted or had not been doing the best we could possibly do, so we feel like we got our band back. We got our band back on track to where we want to be and that was our main motivation.

With Nick gone, are there some added nerves with this release or is that irrelevant now?
I think there are some nerves because it’s an important album for us. We knew, whether Nick left or not, that this record was a bit – not make or break, because we’ve done well and had some big songs – but we were in danger of becoming a band of a certain era because only our bona fide fans were mad interested. I also don’t think anyone was hotly anticipating a Kaiser Chiefs record coming out. We’ve made a good record and everyone that’s heard it really likes it and Ricky’s been on The Voice in England and there seems to be a bit of buzz about the whole thing again, which is great. We wanna be involved; we wanna be on the radio – I love being on the radio – and playing at festivals. That’s what we like, that’s our favourite thing, so we’ve had to try and step up.

What’s your personally favourite track off the album?
People always say “I like them all”, which I do. If I had to pick one… I like ‘Meanwhile, Up In Heaven’ – I think it’s something different for us and a bit Pink Floyd-y, which I like, and it’s got a big chorus, which I love.

With regards to the title, why did you choose the poignant Tony Blair speech back from 2005?
We always thought that having a name for the album, before you finish it, really helps with focusing the lyrics and working out what it’s about. It seemed that a lot of the songs we were writing about, because of the personal experience we were having, were about learning and education and also fighting like bows and arrows and cannons and military reference – ‘Misery Company’ – so me and Ricky started calling the album ‘Education & War’, and then Ricky had written a poem that had ‘Education, Education & War’ in it and we knew about the Tony Blair speech and we just thought, there’s a bit of politics in the album and how politicians show you one thing and they mean another thing, and the title came from that really. He was saying his policies were all about education, but actually, as a lot of politicians, war is lurking beneath. In the last few albums, we shied away from making big, bold statements, and this time, we felt like we wanted to and get asked difficult questions. Bill Nighy actually read that poem and said “Education, Education, Education & War” and he really liked it and said it in such a cool way, that we loved it as well.

So, tell us about the process leading up to the finished product. Did you head straight off into writing all together? Did you travel? Did you have to figure out how to work together without Nick, and with new drummer, Vijay Mistry?
It was a very, very exciting, but hard, but rewarding year, last year. We actually went away – I think it was November 2012 – we did a bit of songwriting, because Nick was so important, to make sure we could do it without him. We came out with lots of ideas. Straight away we were confident that we could do it, it was just what we were gonna do and how we were gonna do it. So we started again in January 2013 and spent 10 months writing and recording. We travelled around; we went to Nashville, L.A., Berlin – sometimes it’s good to get away and just be a band, I think that’s when we get creative – and Leeds and London because that’s where we live! As always, every song came from a different place but we all started a song and we all finished songs together. I think with this album, we realised everyone has got to be involved for it to be a Kaiser Chiefs album, especially after the fourth album: Nick hired a studio in London and he would be demoing like crazy and we would go in to finish it, but we weren’t hugely involved – it was more Nick. This album, I’ve come to realise: no matter who starts with an idea, it’s not until we’ve all stuck our oar in and we’ve played it through that it sounds like Kaiser Chiefs.

Is this more of a “Kaiser Chiefs” album, than any of the others then?
It’s much more of a band effort. Everyone’s pretty happy with it and it’s hard for five people to be absolutely happy with every single note and chord. Within finding that we had to be a band, the difficult thing is that everyone’s gotta do what they’re best at. When we were mixing, if Ricky had a comment on the singing and Peanut had a comment on the singing, I would listen to Ricky more because he understands the singing and known what he was trying to put across. If it was keyboards, I’d listen to Peanut more than Ricky. It’s about everybody doing their bit and what people are good at, let them do it.

You’re a quintessential British band with a very recognisable sound; so working in Atlanta and away from home, how did you keep that Britishness?
From early on, we decided we wanted to do stuff we’ve never done before and one of the things we’ve never done before is record an album outside of the UK. We really wanted an American involved because Americans are really good at showing off. British people are not. Hip Hop guys are really good at boasting, so we wanted that confidence, you know, like with the three words, it’s that confidence that we as a British Indie band, so something really bold and great, and then make it less good because we’re shy and don’t want to push ourselves. Americans are great at pushing to the limit. We wanted an American guy involved and we chose Ben Allen because he’s done a lot of great stuff and he was in Atlanta. The interesting thing was that we got a bit of that boldness and confidence from him, but a lot of bands who go to L.A., come back sounding very American, but for us, we were the Brits and it became a badge of honour. We were noticeable by our difference and I think we became more British! We were dressing more British because it’s how you stand out. It made us aware of what was different about us because our reference points are totally different, and it pushed those things more.

As well as sounding British, you all capture a British sense of style, but we can’t help but notice that Ricky looks a little different since we last saw him. Did he get a bit of a nudge from the guys at the BBC?
Not at all. It seems like too good a coincidence, doesn’t it? But he started running in 2010 and he lost a bit of weight. It was part of this thing where, with Nick leaving, he was thinking about the band and how it could be taken away from you, and we felt like we’d got a bit lazy and complacent and maybe thought that about how he looked. He stopped eating bread and not drinking so much beer and he lost quite a lot of weight. He only got asked to do The Voice five or six weeks before they started filming, so it would have been impossible for him to lose that much weight in that time! He was already trying to look good and then the fact he got on tele was an extra boost.

We’ve been catching up on The Voice UK. When the BBC approached Ricky for the judging role, what were your initial reactions?
I think everyone, including Ricky, was thinking it was a bad idea. Being in a British Indie band, you shy away from stuff that’s successful. You think it’s bad and then suddenly we thought, “this is the best possible thing that could happen for the album.” This was the perfect opportunity for everyone to take notice. He’s a great frontman and we knew he’d be ace – that’s probably why we didn’t want him to do it!

You’re known as Curly Wand because of your wild hair, could anyone ever convince you to cut it off?
I did have my hair cut. In 2010, the last album, I had short hair. Bu then when we started the rebirth of the band, I thought, “Why do I wanna look like I work in an office?” So currently I’ve got quite long hair and a massive beard. I think that if you’re gonna be in a band, you should look like you’re in band, and not like you’re an accountant.

Do any of the other guys have nicknames in the band or is that just personal to you?
Everyone is known by the name that isn’t their name, apart from Vijay – it sounds like a nickname, but it is his name. Andrew is called Whitey, Nick Baines is called Peanut, and Ricky and I are known by our second names. Ricky’s name is Charles and my name is James. No one in the band is called their actual real name. It just happened; it’s not about being in the band.