Enter Shikari Interview

Enter Shikari have just got off their UK tour and now they are heading off on tour with their Idols, ‘The Prodigy’.
While on their UK tour I had the pleasure of catching up with the bands Rory & Chris before their Aberdeen show.

So where did the name ‘Enter Shikari’ come from?
Rory: Basically Rou and his uncle had a boat called Shikari. It was fishing boat and we always thought it was a cool word. Rou kinda wrote a little play with a character called Shikari.
Chris: At the time we were going through a very atmospheric stage and kinda thought of the mystery of the word summed it up nicely.
Rory: Rou had just bought the first piece of electrons for Enter Shikari which was a chaos pad. I remember it made like crazy wishy washy noises.

Can you hear any of the sounds on the first album ‘Take to the Skies?’
Rory: On the early demos yeah, there are loads of swooshing. [Rory makes swooshing sounds and Chris laughs]

What was it like working with John Mitchell?
Rory: It was wicked actually, they got a really good way of working, it’s very sort of militant. It’s literally, you go in and do the guitars in the way they always do them, and the drums in the way they always record them in one room. Its very bish, bash, bosh. They you come out with that very tight sounding record. It’s a pretty interesting process. The only problem for us is that we only had two weeks do to it, we didn’t really have any time to experiment. So we had to pretty much just record it and that was it.

So where do you all take your inspirations from when your writing music?
Rory & Chris: Everywhere really.
Chris: Everything, We all listen to different, I guess it always started off more with the hardcore punk side of it, then we started going out clubbing then we started to take that into it.
Rory: Rou listened to quite a bit of ‘Stravinsky’, while recording ‘Common Dreads’. Along with a lot of drum and bass, ‘Radiohead’ and ‘Rage Against The Machine’, to name drop a few.

Is there one main writer in the band?
Rory: I’d say Rou was the main writer in the band, definitely.

Would any of you guys like to take over from him?
Rory: Before the next album we are gonna have a big fight about it and whoever wins will get to write.

How is the tour going so far?
Rory: Yeah its really good, everyone seems to be really cool. It’s just one of those tours, everything is going great!. We are having a really time.

How does it feel to go from a small band to to where you are now with sold out tours?
Chris: Don’t know. It was weird for us, you don’t really notice it happening at the time. We were selling out 200/300 capacity gigs across the country then all of a sudden we were doing download and Astoria gigs. Then the press really jumped on board. I guess we are just use to it.

How do you feel the press have treated you guys? Has anyone slagged you off?
Rory: Yeah we’ve had a far bit of slagging off by the main stream media, like all the big newspapers. That’s what we expected really, there has been a few magazines that have been really good to us and have been really loyal. It’s been very mixed reactions. People either love us or hate us!

Do you have any sort of warming up or anything before you guys come on stage?
Chris: Generally just whack on some music and start moving, dancing around and have a couple of beers, Nothing too rock and roll.

What kind of music do you guys use to do this?
Rory: Anything from hardcore to dance music to drum and bass. Anything with energy to it.

Who’s your favourite band at the moment?.
Rory: Favourite band, erm, King Blues. Love their album, it’s so good.
Chris: We went to see them play the other day down in London at the Electric Ballroom. It’s funny because they came to our London show and came on stage with us. Cool times!

If you could go on tour with any band who would it be and why?
Chris: Probably ‘The Prodigy’, it’s actually funny, we are heading out on tour with them.
Rory: Yeah after this tour. Whenever anyone has asked us that question in the past its always been ‘ The Prodigy’. Sometimes we say ‘At The Drive-In’, but it’s normally ‘The Prodigy’. So we are away to do that. We are gonna hang up our jackets after that, just pack it all in.

What do you guys wanna do with the next album, what style of will it be, along the lines of ‘Common Dreads’ or will it be different?
Chris: I’m Sure it will progress. We won’t start writing it properly until next summer so we will see.

Do you guys have any sinful CDs at home. Ones you hide away? Like Steps or something?.
Rory: That’s pretty much Chris’s full collection.
Chris: The greatest collection of power ballads, version 2.

Do you guys miss your families when your on tour?
Chris: A lot of our family members come to the shows when we are in the UK. It’s nice when you come home too. Your mum takes care of you. She will make you food for a few days then get bored of us again.

Do your family find it strangle that your famous?
Rory: Not really. My mum likes showing off the neighbours.
Chris: Our families are very involved thought. Keith our tour manager is Rou’s dad and my dad is also one of our 3 managers/tour managers. So we see them all the time.

I know you guys have a DJ set after the gig, so what’s the plan after that? A stip club maybe?
Both: Fingers crossed!
Rory: What are the Aberdeen strip clubs like?
Never personally been to one!
Chris: Isn’t there one just on the corner of the street that we are DJing on?
Yes there is.
Rory: He’s been researching!

By Natalie Milne