Leicester bangs

Kasabian would like it to be publicly known that they do not now, never have, and never will sound remotely like the Happy Mondays. Or the Stone Roses. Any resemblances are purely coincidental, and the press-gang who’ve largely dissed them as a stadium-rock version of tribute-band The Madchester Experience can fuck right off.
The criticism has clearly stung, though. Even New Order’s Peter Hook (a renowned gentleman) joined in the kicking last year, observing, “Kasabian are so fucking Stone Roses it’s fucking obscene. For someone to be that Stone Roses, you think ‘Oh, come on, fucking pack it in’. The Clone Roses don’t sound so much like the Stone Roses as Kasabian do.”
For their part, frontman Tom Meighan and multi-instrumentalist whiz Serge Pizzorno are bewildered that people have even drawn the connection. As Meighan protests: “We’ve never sounded anything like the Stone Roses, or the Happy Mondays. OK, I accept it’s got a few beats but it’s fuckin’ keyboard music – ‘I.D.’ or ‘Club Foot’ sound nothing like any of those people. I just don’t get it. We’re not that kind of band; we like to mix it up. We try to vary it. You’ve got a tune like ‘British Legion’ on the same album as ‘Stuntman’, there’s a huge mix.”
It transpires that Meighan and Pizzorno have recently been bitten by, of all things, the Delta blues bug.
“We listen to quite a lot of blues, all sorts of different stuff,” Meighan testifies. “I’ve just stuck some Muddy Waters on the iPod. All that shack blues is amazing, just three or four chords and he seems to make it up on the spot. That stuff makes you feel fucking great, gives you such an attitude and makes you feel good about yourself. Even the way you walk to the fuckin’ fridge is different when you’ve got blues playing. And we want Kasabian to have that effect on people.  There’s a billion influences going on, but you can always tell it’s Kasabian, we’ve a very distinctive sound. If people think we sound like the Stone Roses, fair enough, fuck them anyway. I’d just ask people to press ‘play’ and make their own minds up.”
Mind you, any Delta-blues influences are hard to discern from the band’s new opus Empire, a cocky, swaggering, ever-so-slightly-Colombian-marching-powdered work which refines, but remains broadly faithful to, the template established on the group’s eponymous debut. Plenty of critics despise it already, and last issue’s lukewarm review in HOTPRESS invoked the phrases “rock karaoke” and “Kula Shaker” by way of explanation. Still, as the review pointed out, there’s no arguing with Kasabian’s knack for a killer single: ‘Club Foot’ and ‘Reason Is Treason’ are almost equal in stature to any of Primal Scream’s or Oasis’ finest moments.
To these ears, Empire doesn’t sound strikingly different to its predecessor, but the band are adamant that it represents a quantum leap, as Meighan articulates:
“It’s definitely a change from the first record. We had to change, musically. We weren’t as stoned making this one. That helped. It’s a different direction, a different approach. Our first album was completely influenced by smoke. It’s more hazy, more psychedelic, even hallucinogenic, we were mashed the whole time. I’d say the new one’s more rounded and a bit more grown-up.”
Sergio Pizzorno concurs:
“‘Sunrise’ to me is like a ’69, ’70 dance tune, it fuckin’ races along. It’s psychedelic but you can get down to it, there’s a groove there and a bit of old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll bass line. Lyrically, the record’s much more human and heartfelt and personal. It’s about what we’ve been through the last couple of years, growing up on the road and wondering what it’s all about.”
While the UK and its nearest western neighbour have fallen for Kasabian in a fairly big way, America has so far proved largely resistant to their charms. A history lesson might explain why. Even at their biggest, the Roses and Mondays could have walked down any street Stateside without fear of being recognized, while techno and its various offshoots always elicited little more than puzzlement.
Tom and Serge have taken note of America’s indifference, though it doesn’t seem to have cost them too much sleep.
“I don’t know why,” Meighan admits. “Unless you’ve got a radio hit, you have to do it the old-fashioned way, put the hours in doing gigs. But we’re getting there man, we sold 200,000 records over there and that ain’t fuckin’ bad. We were in Mexico recently with 30,000 Spanish-speaking kids singing along, which was an unbelievable buzz. They don’t sing the words, they kind of hum the melodies. They were feisty, the way a crowd in Ireland or Scotland would be. It’s like this place (backstage, Marlay Park), there’s something really special in the atmosphere that I can’t quite define.”
Is Leicester, the band’s hometown, as dull as it sounds?
“Ah, Leicester’s alright. It’s not cosmopolitan, and it’s sort of stuck in the middle of nowhere, but we like it. Have you ever seen that show on Sky, Booze Britain?’
I have indeed. Apart from The Toughest Towns In Britain and A Life of Grime, it’s easily my favourite TV programme…
“Well, that’s what Leicester’s like. The levels of alcohol and coke use are through the fucking roof, man. When I was a kid, you hardly ever saw a bit of banger (cocaine) and if it ever came along it’d be hoovered up in no time. It was for rich cunts, wasn’t it? But now it’s fuckin’ all over the place. 15 and 16-year old kids are doing it for breakfast now, the way we used to smoke a bit of dope before school. And it makes it much easier to hold your drink, so they’re all going around flying on vodka and Red Bull and shagging in the streets.”
His legendary diplomacy increasing in delicacy by the minute, Meighan eyeballs your correspondent.
“I’d say you love your banger, don’tcha? Yer eyes are fuckin’ scary, man. You look like Ray Liotta.’ 
I don’t take any offence, my girlfriend having told me the previous day that I looked ‘only slightly’ like John Karr, the chief suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. An outgoing, cheerful cheeky-chappie type, Meighan has become noted for speaking his thoughts out loud. He’s previously described Strokes mainman Julian Casablancas as ‘a posh fucking skier’, Pete Doherty as ‘a fucking tramp’, and the late Test Icicles as ‘King’s Cross rent boys’. Quite recently, the band became embroiled in a minor row following Meighan’s off-the-cuff remarks on playing support to the Rolling Stones. He’d been (mistakenly) informed that the band needed to pay for their tickets to see the Stones, and fumed, “It’s incredible. We’re fucking supporting them, so... we’ve got to buy a ticket, which is about 200 quid!”
The band subsequently issued a retraction which read as though it had been written at gunpoint: “We are sorry for the comments made concerning Rolling Stones ticket prices. We now realise Kasabian as a support band do not have to pay to see the Rolling Stones perform. We are incredibly honoured and excited to be supporting the Stones on some of their European dates. It’s like a dream come true for all of us.”
Still, any suggestion that there’s no lingering bad blood from the episode is shot out of the water when Pizzorno remarks, in reference to Mick Jagger, “Years of being fucked up the arse by record company executives have probably made him a miser.”
Spectacular stuff, sir. A career in the diplomatic service awaits you.

Empire is out on Universal