Enter Shikari

12 January 2008 | 10:43 am | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

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...

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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...

Interview w/ Chris (Bass/Vocals)

of Enter Shikari


By Cameron Chambers


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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.  


 


 



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