English rock group Kasabian released their fourth studio album, Velociraptor, earlier this year. UTR caught up with Tom Meighan to discuss the album, how their approach to the music industry has changed over the past decade and why he'll only listen to his own music when he's high.
What are you up to at the moment?
We’re just rehearsing these songs and getting set to go for the arena tour. We’re doing TV shows and shit. Basically it’s like a holiday camp at the moment we’re all together and it’s ncie.
When you say you’re rehearsing, are you rehearsing new material?
Nah it’s for the Velicoraptor album.
And so that will take you through to the start of next year?
Oh definitely babes. We’re full at the minute. Can’t wait to come back to NZ and kidn of undiscovered and not know n yet properly. It’s deserves more recognition to be honest that’s what I think.
You guys have played Big Day Out a few times, right?
Yeah it was great I remember catching red snappers and stuff like that so it was awesome.
So tell me a little bit about writing and recording the new album.
Well basically we kind of took five six months out after touring - it just needed to happen. I was thinking we were going to do an album later than we thought really but then Serge turned around and was like 'we’ve got a load of songs together in a shorter space of time, let's do this' and before we knew it we were back in the studio. It all happened really fast.
Going into that process did you have any idea of what you wanted to achieve with the album?
I just think we went back. I mean what we did was we went to writing really big songs. We're known for being left of field and our music is quite left of field if you put us under the microscope that’s how we’ve always been as a band, but we wrote some really big massive pop songs, really great pop songs. Nothing really changed in the band we just went back to classic songwriting.
And does that reflect the place you guys are at professionally?
Yeah I mean we can’t keep doing songs like 'Empire' and 'Underdog' - it would have been weird for us to do songs like that now where we are. I don’t know what the word to use is but I think we were just thinking about what we’ve been doing in our lives and how far we’ve come. We’re all 30 years old and we all grew up together and we’ve known each other since we were teenagers - we started this band at 17. I think we’ve never reflected on the things that have affected us before as a collective of nice beautiful songs that paid homage to our band as people.
It must be surreal to reflect on how much time has passed and how far you've come as a band?
Yeah it is because no-one will ever know what it feels like apart from us and it’s quite an emotional thing. I mean I’m not being weird but it totally is emotional; we’ve done a lot of things and seen a lot of things together.
Is it hard keeping a band together for such a long time?
I donno, I suppose every now and then we punch each other and throw darts at eacother you know.
How has your approach to the industry changed?
Of course it’s changed, definitely. I mean we make albums for our fans and people to enjoy and we make them for the first place because we enjoy it and we enjoy making music. The record industry has changed so much. Many people these days just pick bits and bobs out of an album and it's kind of like not as appreciated as it used to be. I don’t know it’s just not valued as it was in the nineties or the eighties or whenever it bloody was. It’s just devalued because there’s so much fucking stuff all over the internet and across the world and it’s easy access and you get can this and get that. We were lucky because our band made it as a proper rock group and we got a proper load of fans before the internet had really taken over. Who knows what would have happened if it was after that. I do believe we wouldn't be where we’re at if we had started after the internet.
Do you think the internet has impacted the industry in a negative way?
Well of course because everything’s just diluted, people ain’t fucking bothered. Our album got leaked ten days before it came out so that just shows you how shitty it is – that’s our baby, that’s our work and it just fucking shows you there’s no morals or respect anymore.
You guys did something quite interesting with the track-by-track documentary?
I’ve not seen it.
You haven't watched your own doco, really?
I only watch my music when I’m really high with my friends and I play YouTube back to everyone who I’m staying with at the house because that's the only time I'm confident enough. I’m confident anyway but you’ve got more confidence when you’re high. You know where I’m coming from don’t you, come on Kiwi lady?
