Why Kasabian Never Predicted Reaching Album #5

As soon as Eez-Eh – the lead single from Kasabian’s latest 48:13 set – dropped, it immediately suggested the band had diverted down a glowstick-littered alley. This makes more sense if you’re familiar with guitarist/songwriter Serge Pizzorno’s Loose Tapestries work – the project he took up with that master of surrealist comedy, Noel Fielding. That’s correct; Pizzorno collaborated with his shaggy-haired lookalike mate on the music for Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy sketch television series. Eez-Eh calls to mind House Of Fun by Madness with complementary pogo stick. “Okay, nice. I don’t know the song, though,“ Pizzorno confesses. He promises to give the track a whirl and then explains, “I s’pose, like, there’s 12 notes in a scale so… we’re all using what’s there in front of us, you know.”

Pizzorno’s enthusiasm when discussing music, his own or otherwise, cannot be curtailed – like an excited kid who can’t spit his words out fast enough to keep pace with his thoughts. And when inspiration strikes, Pizzorno is never far away from the recording studio. “That’s the great thing about a studio at home – I mean, sometimes I don’t like having a studio at home, because, you know, it’s always there. But I like it always there and I like how inspiration hits at strange times,” he enthuses, “and I like the opportunity to just go, ‘Right, I’ve got it! I’ll be back in a minute.’ And I sort of get the idea down and I loove that.” Pizzorno describes his home studio as “a museum”.

“I mean, it’s hilarious. Like, it’s certainly not a converted barn. It’s a glorified bedroom, you know? And it’s full of vintage synths and it’s just got old stooff in there, like, it would make a better museum than a studio, and I’ve got a big old desk in there. And I hate studios, I hate clinical kinda places. I hate places of work, you know. It’s just, um, yeah! It’s just a room full of very old stooff. It’s amazin’.”

And if inspiration strikes when Pizzorno is off-site? Sor’ed: “I’ve go’ a dictaphone that I carry everywhere with me so, you know, I’m in supermarkets singing into it – honestly, any time I hear something, ah, it’s recorded; whether that’s an insect or, you know wha’ I mean? Or a tube station, like, the sound coomin’ from the toonnel – bang! I’m recordin’ it. Or a lyric or a melody, so, you know, I’m constantly collectin’ things. Constantly have my ears and eyes open for inspiration.

“I see myself – well, I am a producer as much as a songwriter, like, I’m not really a traditional songwriter in the sense that all the songs are on acoustic. A lot of the times I almost – similar to paintings where they can take six months – I’ll have a sort of beat going or, like, a loop goin’ or a bass line goin’ and over time I build on that and, you know, make a song out of it. So I’d say that that’s kinda where I start: I’ve got sampler first before guitar.

"I hate studios, I hate clinical kinda places. I hate places of work."

“I sort of started with the rave scene in the Midlands: started with a sampler, then the explosion of Britpop introduced me to guitar music,” he shares. “Through guitar music you get into more experimental stuff and then I heard Endtroducing [by DJ Shadow, which he pronounces ‘Introducing’] and that was it. I was like, ‘Right. Bang!’” Although softly spoken, Pizzorno often punctuates our conversation with a “Bang!” More on Endtroducing: “It was combining the two: great production, great sound but then this hip hop flavour and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s huge!’ And that made me rethink what rock music could be.” Digesting DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing then led Pizzorno on to discover “other incredible music”.

“It’s impor’ant because it was a gateway,” he acknowledges of the album. “Through that you go: Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, you know wha’ I mean? And then into sort of more hip hop, like, Blackalicious.” He was also a voracious crate digger: “Me and my friend, we’d spend hours just diggin’… You had to take time and there wasn’t loads, like, if you were looking for a break, you’d probably find two if you’re lucky, you know wha’ I mean? Whereas now, you can just go and find someone’s compilated all the breaks you’d ever need, you know – it’s crazy!”    

Pizzorno marvels at “the access and the library on YouTube”, but then he concludes: “But, you know what? It can almost desensitise you a bit, because when you have all this access it’s almost – your brain can’t handle it. It’s, like, ‘I’ll have that-that-that.’ Whereas growing up it was in a record store… Record stores are definitely havin’ a second coming, though. Like, I mean, in England especially, there’s definitely a want for vinyl and there’s definitely a scene, you know; there are people that still buzz off that.”

He’s a father to two young sons, Ennio and Lucio (aged four and one respectively), and this has made Pizzorno acutely aware of how much we, as a society, have come to rely on portable devices. “I walked through a train carriage, like, nine or ten carriages, and I’d say 90% of the people were on their phone playin’ a game, or lookin’ at a film – in front of a screen, though. And it worried me. I was like, ‘Where’s everyone’s imagination?’ Like, where’s that: ‘I’m bored, I’m gonna look out the window and think or imagine or create an idea from nothing?’ Everyone’s catching up on watchin’ 24 or somethin’. It’s like, I get it and I understand it, but it just is like, ‘WOW!’ We’re in danger of forgetting to imagine on our own, you know? And I suppose what’s great about our record is you can let your mind race, like, you can be in the moment, but you can be in your own moment and it can mean whatever you want it to mean to you, you know? That’s what I love that about records.”

"They’re photographs of a time – the legacy you leave behind, you know…"

After agreeing wholeheartedly that each artist album should have a completely different identity, Pizzorno considers, “Each record should be a different moment, a different inspiration.” “They’re photographs of a time – the legacy you leave behind, you know… We even get, ‘Oh, it’s not like the last,’ it’s like, ‘Yeah, but, so listen to the last one,’ you know wha’ I mean?’” He goes so far as to say that “the best bands”, “the ones that are amazin’”, “the ones that last forever” constantly change up their sound. “Because in ten, 20 years, you look back and you listen to each record and you go, ‘Wow, this is where they were at then.’ It’s not like, ‘Oh, this could be any one of the ones they released,’ you know.” 

Discussing their new album 48:13 has made Pizzorno reflect on Kasabian’s longevity. “Looking back, I had no idea we’d ever make it past one record, you know? Let alone, this’ll be the fifth.” Not that Pizzorno has forgotten how much the band targeted success. “I mean, we lived it, we lived it so hard,” he stresses. “Like, no stone was left unturned, do you know wha’ I mean? We, oh man, yeah! We had the best time, we had the best time ever, you know?” We go on to discuss how the general populace usually imagine a band as an overnight success when they have a hit single just because that’s the first they’ve heard of the group. “Mmm, that’s true,” he allows. “Whole sections are missed out, because you’re a nobody and then, bang! All of a sudden – it can happen that fast. So they don’t see the climb it took to get there, you know?”