Almost twelve months from the release of their fourth UK Top 10 album, The Mindsweep, Rou Reynolds, Rory Clewlow, Chris Batten and Rob Rolfe AKA Enter Shikari have released a new single Redshift.
The release coincides with the band’s most ambitious UK tour which brings them to Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena on February 23. Support comes from The Wonder Years and the freshly-reformed original line-up of The King Blues.
Following the UK run, Enter Shikari head to mainland Europe for a tour that includes the band’s biggest German shows ever, and see them joined by The Qemists for the first half of the tour, and Modestep for the remainder. Andy Howells recently caught up with Rou Reynolds .
You released your fourth album almost a year ago - have you been happy with the response you've had?
Absolutely. To be honest i think it’s been the most positive reaction to any full length album we’ve ever had. It feels like people now expect us to push the direction and sound of our music. It no longer comes to a surprise to people when we do present a track or an album which has gone completely in a different direction; this gives us such a freedom to express ourselves in so many ways. We feel very confident in our writing and even more confident when it comes to pushing our boundaries musically.
What was your highlight during 2015?
Hard to say really. I think the live highlight of 2015 for us would have to be when we headlined the 2nd stage at download festival. It was amazing being able to take all our full production into a festival, something we’d jump at the chance to do again if we were offered.
In terms of musically obviously our 4th album The Mindsweep was released in January 2015. It’s always amazing to be able to release an album, let alone one which got such high praise from the people who listen to our music. Another amazingly special thing with this album for us, was that hospital records and their artists got involved with completely remixing the album and we released The Mindsweep Hospitalised. This was an amazing experience for us. We are all huge fans of hospital records and all their artists so it was a dream come true that they’d even consider doing it with us, let alone producing something that in our opinion is fantastic, and completely original.
 |
| Enter Shikari are back out on tour |
Absolutely! We are always trying to develop and move forward. We wouldn’t be happy with ourselves if we didn’t feel like we’d developed. I think we take this approach to every aspect of what we do. Not only in writing and recording music, but in our live show too.
This next tour we have been working endlessly to push our live show into places we’ve never been, and more importantly put on an experience for the audience that they have never experienced. For example this upcoming tour is going to be mixed in quadraphonic sound, which is effectively live surround sound. We’ve been working hard with our lighting designer to push the boundaries in the visual production along side the audio aspects.
Have you had time to relax at all, how do you all chill out when you're not working?
Yeh we have. This is definitely the longest amount of time off we’ve had. Rory had a baby in October 2015, so we’ve been home since then. The problem is though, we can’t sit still for long, we get restless. We’ve had to focus our attention on getting ready for the next tour and making it as huge and impressive as possible. Of course it’s been nice as we’ve been doing all the programming and creativity from home. :)
What music are you currently listening to yourselves?
All kinds of stuff. Personally I’ve been listening to a bit more local music. There’s a new band from St Albans called Franklin who I’ve been listening to a lot. I’ve also been listening to The King Blues and The Wonder Years. They are both hitting the road with us in February and they are both such great bands. Listening to each of them has been getting me really excited for the tour.
You're back out on tour - what can fans expect from the forthcoming shows?
Well they can expect a sweaty, passionate, full throttle show. Only bigger and better in every aspect. We have gone to town on production and we have been planning this for months. It’s going to be such a special tour.
Have you any projects or new recordings planned for 2016?
We just released a brand new single, Redshift, a couple of weeks ago, but we’re constantly writing and trying to be creative. So there’s always new music which is never too far away with us.
- For further details on the bands forthcoming Cardiff date visit Enter Shikari's official website
- Andy Howells is a freelance entertainment writer
No comments:
Post a Comment