On Daring To Dream Of Playing The Opera House & Being Photobombed By Prince Charles

They just flew into Sydney "yesterday morning about seven o'clock", but Kasabian songwriter/guitarist Serge Pizzorno laughs in the face of jet lag. "I'm pretty fookin' good mate, to be honest!" Pizzorno shares. "You know what? I'm very used to this feelin' of not 'avin' no sleep, so it's easy." So when was Kasabian's last gig? "Ah, last May, yeah, yeah," he enthuses. "We played a stadium in Leicester." On whether he gets performance withdrawals, Pizzorno reveals, "It's only when you go and see another show that you realise how much you miss it… You want that feelin' back, you know? The 30 seconds that it takes to walk from the dressing room to the stage is one of the most amazin' experiences you'll ever 'ave, especially if you're playin' big shows, you know? It's like time stands still. It's amazin'... Nothing really gets close to that feelin' and it's so weird; behind the stage, before you go on, you can feel the energy from the crowd and then you've got your own energy, but you can't see each other — there's this huge wall between, separating that moment, and it's an amazin', amazin' sort of feeling."

Kasabian's first new song in two years, Comeback Kid, leaked online five days ahead of its official release last September. This track features on the FIFA 17 soundtrack and we wonder whether the band will include it in their upcoming setlists? "Yeah, yeah," the guitarist confirms. "We'll be playin' a coupla new things." Is Pizzorno able to reveal any more song titles? "Ah, yeah, there's a song called You're In Love With A Psycho, which is one of my favourites." We read that Kasabian will release that as a single for Record Store Day and Pizzorno (kind of) confirms, "I think so, yeah." (Record Store Day is on 22 Apr so we don't have too long to wait.)

"The 30 seconds that it takes to walk from the dressing room to the stage is one of the most amazin' experiences you'll ever 'ave, especially if you're playin' big shows."

When asked whether he's ever been in love with a psycho, Pizzorno ponders, "I think we all have, 'aven't we? At one point," he laughs. "You've either been there or you are there or your best friend's there..." Or you yourself could be the psycho? "Or you," he laughs, "Yeah, exactly. It joins the dots on a lot of things." 

We're tipping the behind the scenes footage that recently appeared on Kasabian's Facebook page is from a shoot for the music video to accompany You're In Love With A Psycho given that Pizzorno confirms of the clip's premise, "It's sort of based loosely on Groucho Marx's Duck Soup and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It's a sort of homage to those two films… It's got a huge dance sequence as well," he enlightens, which makes us wonder whether there are any Gary Barlows (read: one member that can't dance) in his band. "Well, we all pay our taxes so we haven't got any Gary Barlows in our band," he offers cheekily.

If you follow Kasabian on Instagram you would have already seen the hilarious post of Prince Charles accidentally photobombing Pizzorno in Prince Of Wales pub in Stoke-sub-Hamdon, near Yeovil, Somerset. "It was so weird!" Pizzorno admits. "I was just out — d'you know, we went away and I was just in the middle of nowhere; I mean, literally in the middle of nowhere. We found this little pub and went for some scrambled eggs and then he walked in, you know, he just sorta walked in and poured himself a pint, which was odd, and then left. And it was like, 'Ehhh, yeah, what? Have these mushrooms kicked in already?'

"I was just flicking through my phone — my sister took that photo and it's like, 'Look who's behind you!' I was like, 'Wha'?' You know wha' I mean? It's mad."

On how his songwriting approach for Kasabian's upcoming album differed from its predecessor 48:13 (2014), Pizzorno tells, "As far as the process, I mean, I spent time — I just wrote everything on guitar and piano, and the last record was more of a sorta production experiment where it came from loops or, you know, strange odd bits of music so, yeah!... I know, it was mega, it was all done like that." Although he won't divulge the sixth album's release date ("Um, soon... I sorta like surprises"), Pizzorno reveals "there's a '70s feel to this album that I like, you know, 'cause it's really strong hooks and melodies."

Does Pizzorno still carry a dictaphone around so that he can get ideas down whenever inspiration strikes? "Always, yeah, always," he confirms. Then he should've sampled the Prince Of Wales pouring himself a pint! "I should've, shouldn't I?" he chuckles.  

When Kasabian first toured our shores ("we played the Big Day Out"), Pizzorno recalls clapping eyes on Sydney Opera House. "We sat on the harbour and looked over, and it was one of those moments, you know, when the weather's — everything's perfect, like, really. And we sat there and looked at that building and it was like, 'That has to happen one day'... It was just like, 'We need to play that!'" Turns out rock'n'roll dreams can come true. "I feel really so proud that it happened," he allows, "'cause, you know wha' I mean? It's, like, we are from this little town... it takes a day to get 'ere... And the band we are now compared to the band we were when we first got here... we're ready now with the show we have, the music we have.

"Australia's shown us so much love from the get-go, you know, the response to every record has been so big, like, it was nice to sort of make this statement, a worldwide statement, of 'We're playin' [in] one of the most iconic buildings in the world and startin' this journey in Australia'. I mean, yeah! It just shows you where we've got to, you know?"