Enter Shikari are a St Albans, Hertfordshire post-hardcore rock band with an experimental electronic twist. The band formed in 2003 as an evolution from an earlier band, Hybryd and are notable for combining elements of trance and post-hardcore in many of their rock songs.
The BBC have them ranked at No5 in their list of the Top 10 music artists to look out for in 2007.
British rockers "Enter Shikari" are due to release their debut album in March 2007 and are supporting Canadians "Alexisonfire" on tour.
Roughton "Rou" Reynolds - Vocals, electronic
Liam "Rory" Clewlow - Guitar
Chris Batten - Bass, Vocals
Rob Rolfe - Drums
Enter Shikari are standing on the edge of history. As record labels umm and ahh over what to do over YouTube, illegal downloads and set about suing MySpace for the amount of free advertising their bands are getting at the hands of songs being uploaded illegally, they’re missing the trick as St Albans’ (Hertfordshire) Enter Shikari take the lead in circumnavigating label culture altogether. Music Towers caught up with frontman Rou Reynolds in the latter stages of the UK tour to try to find out how they’re gonna kickstart a revolution.
“I think it was the right progression for us. The way we’ve done everything so far was so DIY, setting up stuff ourselves to keep the most control, make sure we take the path we want to take. We’ve been talking to a lot of labels recently – they’ve been offering us what seems like great deals but we’ve seen some of our favourite bands been dropped after a single or an album hasn’t sold millions, and we just thought it wasn’t worth it. With Vital Distribution, which who we’re probably going to go with, they’re just really keen to keep this whole DIY ethic going on with us in direct control of as much stuff as possible. It feels…healthy, I guess.”
While Enter Shikari’s mix of electronic, high-energy trance-esque synths and the raw-throat post-hardcore roar is enough to set them apart from the rest of their Brit-emo peers, it is this DIY approach that has got the eyes of the industry and the ears of the public focussed on them.
“Vital are saying that if this works it could be quite a milestone in the music industry. It’s looking that as time goes on, record labels are gonna be less and less important, and the bands’ are gonna have much more deciding power, that’s the way it should be.”
At the moment the band have put out their music under their own “label”, Ambush Reality.
“The decision to make a name went on for literally months. Then we just realised that everyone was just set in their ways, of having labels and that’s how it’s supposed to work in reality. But we were ‘hold on, if [not signing to a label] works it’ll be a whole new way of doing things’. It’s ambushing the reality of the industry”
Enter Shikari have the honour of being the second band ever to sell out the London Astoria – a rite of passage for any band on the way up the ladder – the first being the imploding rock-embarrassment that is The Darkness. But as far as going the same way as Justin Hawkins’ lot, or indeed down with the emo-ship when it finally sinks, Rou is confident Enter Shikari have got the legs to survive any fallout.
“[Emo] is definitely the in-thing at the moment – the MySpace generation and that sort of music is a big craze at the moment. We thought about that quite carefully when we were recording the album a couple of months ago – with us, having the whole dance and other pop elements, and more concentration on the melody – there’s so many directions we can go in, and have gone with for the album. It leaves us open to venture into other genres and get out of this clique of post-hardcore-whatever-you-wanna-call-it.
“Three years ago, when we got together we were originally a three-piece, and Rory [Liam “Rory” Clewlow] joined to take over on guitar, and I started building up a lot of electronic equipment. As much as we all love rock and hardcore and metal, we all also like dance and the genres within that, drum’n’bass, trance, house, techno. We enjoyed that so much we thought we should try to add an element of it into our sound. Once we started experimenting it sounded so right we just couldn’t see why no-one had done it before”
The opportunities presented by the internet – promoting, selling and distributing music over the internet without the need for a label and all the accompanying politics – is a much-touted but so far never-travelled predictive pathway for the future of the music industry, if the movers, shakers and opinion-makers are to be believed. But so far it’s just been a handful of limited-run singles. Without being disparaging, that’s hardly an enormous achievement without label backing. The real measure of their success will come with their debut album.
“It’ll be out in early March – the date we’re looking at is the 5th. If everything goes to plan, that’ll be the release date, with a single in February as well. No title yet – that’s been a debate over the last week. It’s produced by John Mitchell from Outhouse Studios in Reading. It’s just a small time, home-studio – they do a lot of bands that we’ve met on the touring circuit and the way they do things there seemed quite natural.
“With us we don’t have a particular way in which we always write a song – we don’t have certain stages, lyrics or music first. Each song is almost organic…with the lyrics I don’t like to write anything too obvious, it’s all quite ambiguous so people can take their own meaning from it.”
Despite having spent much of 2006 on the road, and in between shows developed a potentially revolutionary imprint for bands to circumnavigate traditional industry process, next year they won’t be taking it easy. In addition to their debut album, the St Alban’s posse are going to start 2007 supporting Billy Talent on their European tour
“That was a wicked piece of news – to get out of the UK after touring here for three years. It’ll be quite an experience, and to do it with Billy Talent and Alexisonfire will be amazing.”
Enter Shikari are playing Brixton Academy, London on 17 February in support of Billy Talent.
http://www.musictowers.com/Features/ViewArticle1934.aspx
THE BBC'S "SOUND OF 2007" TOP 10 ARE -
1. Mika
2. The Twang (above)
3. Klaxons
4. Sadie Ama
5. Enter Shikari
6. Air Traffic
7. Cold War Kids
8. Just Jack
9. Ghosts
10. The Rumble Strips
The BBC have them ranked at No5 in their list of the Top 10 music artists to look out for in 2007.
British rockers "Enter Shikari" are due to release their debut album in March 2007 and are supporting Canadians "Alexisonfire" on tour.
Roughton "Rou" Reynolds - Vocals, electronic
Liam "Rory" Clewlow - Guitar
Chris Batten - Bass, Vocals
Rob Rolfe - Drums
Enter Shikari are standing on the edge of history. As record labels umm and ahh over what to do over YouTube, illegal downloads and set about suing MySpace for the amount of free advertising their bands are getting at the hands of songs being uploaded illegally, they’re missing the trick as St Albans’ (Hertfordshire) Enter Shikari take the lead in circumnavigating label culture altogether. Music Towers caught up with frontman Rou Reynolds in the latter stages of the UK tour to try to find out how they’re gonna kickstart a revolution.
“I think it was the right progression for us. The way we’ve done everything so far was so DIY, setting up stuff ourselves to keep the most control, make sure we take the path we want to take. We’ve been talking to a lot of labels recently – they’ve been offering us what seems like great deals but we’ve seen some of our favourite bands been dropped after a single or an album hasn’t sold millions, and we just thought it wasn’t worth it. With Vital Distribution, which who we’re probably going to go with, they’re just really keen to keep this whole DIY ethic going on with us in direct control of as much stuff as possible. It feels…healthy, I guess.”
While Enter Shikari’s mix of electronic, high-energy trance-esque synths and the raw-throat post-hardcore roar is enough to set them apart from the rest of their Brit-emo peers, it is this DIY approach that has got the eyes of the industry and the ears of the public focussed on them.
“Vital are saying that if this works it could be quite a milestone in the music industry. It’s looking that as time goes on, record labels are gonna be less and less important, and the bands’ are gonna have much more deciding power, that’s the way it should be.”
At the moment the band have put out their music under their own “label”, Ambush Reality.
“The decision to make a name went on for literally months. Then we just realised that everyone was just set in their ways, of having labels and that’s how it’s supposed to work in reality. But we were ‘hold on, if [not signing to a label] works it’ll be a whole new way of doing things’. It’s ambushing the reality of the industry”
Enter Shikari have the honour of being the second band ever to sell out the London Astoria – a rite of passage for any band on the way up the ladder – the first being the imploding rock-embarrassment that is The Darkness. But as far as going the same way as Justin Hawkins’ lot, or indeed down with the emo-ship when it finally sinks, Rou is confident Enter Shikari have got the legs to survive any fallout.
“[Emo] is definitely the in-thing at the moment – the MySpace generation and that sort of music is a big craze at the moment. We thought about that quite carefully when we were recording the album a couple of months ago – with us, having the whole dance and other pop elements, and more concentration on the melody – there’s so many directions we can go in, and have gone with for the album. It leaves us open to venture into other genres and get out of this clique of post-hardcore-whatever-you-wanna-call-it.
“Three years ago, when we got together we were originally a three-piece, and Rory [Liam “Rory” Clewlow] joined to take over on guitar, and I started building up a lot of electronic equipment. As much as we all love rock and hardcore and metal, we all also like dance and the genres within that, drum’n’bass, trance, house, techno. We enjoyed that so much we thought we should try to add an element of it into our sound. Once we started experimenting it sounded so right we just couldn’t see why no-one had done it before”
The opportunities presented by the internet – promoting, selling and distributing music over the internet without the need for a label and all the accompanying politics – is a much-touted but so far never-travelled predictive pathway for the future of the music industry, if the movers, shakers and opinion-makers are to be believed. But so far it’s just been a handful of limited-run singles. Without being disparaging, that’s hardly an enormous achievement without label backing. The real measure of their success will come with their debut album.
“It’ll be out in early March – the date we’re looking at is the 5th. If everything goes to plan, that’ll be the release date, with a single in February as well. No title yet – that’s been a debate over the last week. It’s produced by John Mitchell from Outhouse Studios in Reading. It’s just a small time, home-studio – they do a lot of bands that we’ve met on the touring circuit and the way they do things there seemed quite natural.
“With us we don’t have a particular way in which we always write a song – we don’t have certain stages, lyrics or music first. Each song is almost organic…with the lyrics I don’t like to write anything too obvious, it’s all quite ambiguous so people can take their own meaning from it.”
Despite having spent much of 2006 on the road, and in between shows developed a potentially revolutionary imprint for bands to circumnavigate traditional industry process, next year they won’t be taking it easy. In addition to their debut album, the St Alban’s posse are going to start 2007 supporting Billy Talent on their European tour
“That was a wicked piece of news – to get out of the UK after touring here for three years. It’ll be quite an experience, and to do it with Billy Talent and Alexisonfire will be amazing.”
Enter Shikari are playing Brixton Academy, London on 17 February in support of Billy Talent.
http://www.musictowers.com/Features/ViewArticle1934.aspx
THE BBC'S "SOUND OF 2007" TOP 10 ARE -
1. Mika
2. The Twang (above)
3. Klaxons
4. Sadie Ama
5. Enter Shikari
6. Air Traffic
7. Cold War Kids
8. Just Jack
9. Ghosts
10. The Rumble Strips
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