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15.06.12 MusicWeek 15
bastard working for you, because I know I’d hate to come up against him.
What inspired the ‘build your own album’ experiment for The Future is Medieval [fans could chose 10 tracks for a menu of 20, and pick their own artwork] – and how do you think it went? Ricky: It was inspired by the frustrations of our third record, which we made quickly and released quickly, being leaked before it came out. I can’t even tell you how frustrating that is. You can’t find the person who did it and you know they’re just doing it as a vanity thing, and not taking into consideration the fact that when you make a record, it’s work. The other thing is, we did it the usual way three
times, and the record industry is stuck in a rut in terms of how you release a record. I love digital downloading, it’s one of my
favourite tools. The fact that you can be talking about Ugly Kid Joe and be listening to their single within 15 seconds of the conversation starting is brilliant. But it does take away something that is very important about buying music, which is feeling part of it, investing your soul into something, becoming part of a gang. You don’t actually feel ownership of it, I don’t think. So that lead to the idea of people being able to
chose their track listing, chose their artwork and even sell it.
Does it piss you off that younger consumers place little or no monetary value on your recorded product – whereas you would have saved your money and happily handed it over in order to build something called a ‘record collection’? Ricky: If I was on Grumpy Old Men, then I would say yeah, but I’m not on Grumpy Old Men, and you’ve got to realise that the world moves on and you can’t dig your heels in and expect everything to stay the same. Like I say, I do think they’re missing out on something, but you have to go with the flow. Simon:What does worry me is how it affects people starting a band now. I feel sorry for them. Getting to a level where you can quit your job and be in a band for a living is getting harder and harder.
Hence the proliferation of middle class or even privately educated artists in the charts… Ricky: You meet some of them and I can’t even understand what they’re saying they’re so posh. Simon: Makes us look more working class though, which is good. Ricky: I thought I was middle class, but when I meet some of these guys I think maybe I’m scum.
Ricky, is it true that you were asked to be a judge on The Voice and you turned it down? Ricky: Yeah, I was asked. And it kind of just went away. I’m not going to say that I said ‘No fucking way dude!’, because I did think about it; I’d have been stupid not to. I went to a couple of meetings.
What persuaded you not to do it? Ricky: Part of it was just thinking that there’d be a time when I’d have to tell the band… and it will be a disappointment to them.
Simon, would you, indeed, have been disappointed? Simon: I haven’t watched the programme, so I can’t say. But it’s not really my thing.
ABOVE Kaiser Chiefs: With Ricky, centre and Simon far left
So you’re happy with your decision? Ricky: Yeah, plus Danny’s a lot better looking and more articulate than me, so it’s worked out for the best for everyone.
Have you not looked at the spike in sales of The Script’s catalogue and thought ‘that’d be useful’? Ricky: Er… of course it’s crossed my mind, yes. Simon: I think it comes down to what we were talking about before: because people buy less records, bands have to do more things and more different things, things that you wouldn’t have done in the past, either to raise their profile or just for cash. We used to turn down offers, brilliant offers,
every day on the basis that we thought it would be selling out. Things have changed so much now. Ricky: Even in the last couple of years it’s changed in so much as now if I see an indie band with an ad deal, I don’t think ‘sell out’, I think ‘oh well done’. And that is a massive turnaround, because we
were so die hard about not using our music, to the point of turning down in excess of a million pounds just to use our song on an ad for six months – and advertising something we had absolutely no problem with! We just thought, nah, sell out.
Why now for a singles compilation? Ricky: I knew this question would come up, but I still don’t have a good answer, so I end up saying stupid things. I almost start saying things that I hate hearing other bands say: Yeah, this is the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one… We’re crap in interviews. Another band would
say something about being part of a great tradition of British singles bands, and how they’ve sound tracked the last 10 years of your life… and that’s what we should be saying, but instead I’ll probably just say there were 16 of them and that seemed like a good number. The truth is we do write really good singles and we are really well known for them. Simon: People think we’re a singles band because when we play live we play the greatest hits. We want people to have a good time, we want them to sing along. But I hope that they go home and listen to the other stuff on the albums and get into it. Ricky: There’s an element of clearing out the attic about it. In fact, whilst we were putting the album together, I was clearing out my attic and that, believe it or not, was when this particular analogy struck me. Except that at this time of year clearing
out the attic is hot work… and this singles collection is ice cool. Can you put: ‘Said Ricky in a comedy voice’?
Absolutely not, no. What struck you about the collection as you put it together? What did you learn about yourselves? Ricky: I didn’t realise how… dark we were. It’s weird because we have this reputation as a bright, happy, cheery band. But just go through the songs: I Predict A Riot, Every Day I Love You Less And Less, even Modern Way, which has quite dark undertones, Never Miss A Beat which is actually about what everyone thinks I Predict A Riot is about, Everything Is Average Nowadays, right up to
“We used to turn down offers, brilliant offers, every day,on the basis that it would be selling out. Things have changed so much now.” SIMON RIX
now, with On The Run and Listen To Your Head – ‘If you wanna stay alive you’ve gotta play dead. Honestly, we’re not singing about rainbows and unicorns. The tunes just hide it a little bit.
What advice would you give to bands starting out? Ricky (without a moment’s hesitation): Never be the most famous person at a party and never date your hairdresser. Simon: I went to see a band last week and I was reminded of a very simple piece of advice we were given in the earliest days, and that is: buy a guitar tuner. It costs very little, but it really is essential. Oh, also, I think an average band with a good drummer is a good band, but a good band with a crap drummer is a crap band. So get a good drummer.
Product-wise, what are your plans next? Simon:We don’t have any, really. Ricky’s off to do something else… Ricky: Yeah, I’m doing War of the Worlds over Christmas. I did the album, which is gonna be massive and will sound incredible. And when I was recording I was being friendly saying ‘Yeah, I’ll do a couple of gigs on the arena tour’ and suddenly it was all locked in and I’m doing 30 dates. Then again, it’s one song a night and I’ve got an understudy so it sounds like a piece of piss.
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