At this years Leeds Festival I was given the opportunity to chat with perhaps some of the most influential faces in music of the current decade, Enter Shikari. Their music owns arguably one of the best mash up’s of sounds, becoming one of the UK’s first bands to experiment with their music to such an extreme. As we revert back to album releases ‘Take To The Skies’ and ‘Common Dreads’ you cannot help but feel the progression from the band over the last few years in this years new album release ‘A Flash Flood Of Colour‘. With that in mind we were keen to chat with lead vocalist Rou Reynolds and guitarist Chris Batten just before their set at this years Reading and Leeds Festivals.
Hi guys, how are you doing?
Both: Meh, just meh..
Your new album ‘A Flash Flood Of Colour’ perhaps is a bit random in the flowing respective of it. Do not get me wrong, I love it but we were just wondering if you wrote a lot of tracks and then picked the best ones?
Rou: This was the first album that we did not really concentrate on how it would flow as one thing. We just treated each song as its own specific entity. This was different for us as the first two albums we did the opposite.
Chris: I think as well as with this album we had so many different ideas floating around that it was important to us to get a spectrum of different ideas into the album. We wanted to really show people how we were thinking outside the box.
Definitely outside the box, but I mean you are never inside the box are you really?
Chris: (Laughs) Well even further outside the box!
So do you think you prefer playing festivals like Reading and Leeds as they are a little bit indie orientated rather than playing somewhere like Download or..?
Rou: We don’t really care really, wherever has a stage. We have done folk festivals!
Chris: The last couple of years we seemed to have been placed sort of on the indie day. We actually quite like being on that because it means me stand out you know? On the main stage people are like swaying around and then we come on with a real big impact! It’s fun for us.
Cool! So are you big Flintstone’s fans? In your song ‘Ghandi Mate, Gandi’ you obviously sing ‘yabba dabba do one son’? We were curious..?
Chris: (Laughs) Who is not a Fred Flintstone fan!
(Laughs) So was that influenced by Flintstones or was it like oh we will just whack it in there anyway..?
Rou: (Laughs) Yeah I cannot really say it was an influence.. It’s just something we say..
Chris: It’s just a cool way to say ‘do one son’ (laughs).
Do you ever think you will release ‘Meltdown’ as a single? Or have you got any more single ideas?
Rou: We are doing ‘Pack Of Thieves’ next, then I think that is the last one from this album.
I seem to always pick a song as my favourite that never gets released. Any particular reason why you are not releasing it? Do you not like that song?
Rou: Oh no!
Chris: It is always a hard stage like trying to pick the songs off the album to be released as so many people have got their own ideas of what songs will do better. At the end of the day we always go with the genuine consensus of what we all feel is the strongest tracks on the album.
Well I think ‘Meltdown’…
Chris: Thank you, I’ve always liked ‘Meltdown’.
Rou: Well it might not be too late.
Chris: I think at first we thought it was a bit wrong to be released as single I dunno..
So you have just announced a tour with Cancer Bats which is really exciting. Was it your idea to tour with them or..?
Chris: It was me all me.
(Everyone laughs)
Chris: It was me I called them up and I asked them. No, I mean genuinely with stuff like that we all have a few ideas kicking around and then we will get our agent to go to work, they did and they were up for it. So it is a great bill, we have Engine-Earz Experiment as well, which are one of the best live drum and bass bands around.
It is such a random line up and its great. I think a lot of bands these days like to bring the American vibe to the UK. I mean American tours are always have really random line up. Like you will have a pop band, a metal band, a rock band etc.. Is that something you wanted to do?
Chris: I think that we have always had a, whats the word..?
Rou: Diverse.
Chris: Diverse line up, yeah. I mean our sound has always had so many different aspects to it and we kinda want to reflect that in the line up. We like all types of music, we love rock music, we love dance music so it is for our pleasure as much as it is everyone else’s.
So it is your ten year anniversary next year. Have you got anything massive planned?
Rou: Well we, we might if we can get some studios we might write a song specifically for that because we never thought we would be able to do this for ten years of our lives. So you know, we are very thankful for it. We might do a tour, somewhere.
Chris: We are thinking of perhaps going back to the roots and do some smaller venues or something but nothing is organised yet. Just ideas really.
Anything you wanna add or anything you want to say?
Rou: Ermmm..
Meh?
Rou: (laughs)
Chris: Don’t be fooled by peanuts, they are not actually nuts. I think they are actually in the bean family.
Are you joking?
Chris: No I am serious they are not actually a nut.
Mind blowing. Thanks for chatting with us guys.
