ENTER SHIKARI – Speeding

Vi sitter nede på artiststranden Med Rob og Chris fra Enter Shikari, som akkurat kom med båt. Det er nydelig vær, og de to britene beundrer tydeligvis den Norske naturen. De spiller kvart på ett denne kvelden, og har ingen tegn til nervøsitet, jeg blir møtt av to brede smil.

Check.

So yeah, Rob and Chris from Enter Shikari. Let’s start with a standard question. How’s life on tour?

Right now? Pretty damn good!

Yeah, pretty nice here, right?

Yeah. Well, we’re not really on tour, but yeah.

(Kystvakten kjører i høy fart over vannet bak oss)

Speeding! Ouuuuh! Aight, aight. Eeeh, yeah. Back to the question, hahah. No, we’re really not on tour, over the summer we just got a lot of European festivals sort of, and like in the weekends we’ll go out, and weekdays we’ll be back at home. You know, it’s fantastic for us.

Yeah, go home and shower, things like that.

Yeah yeah, go and see friends and family, things like that, then we’ll like go out, have fun weekends, yeah, today was awesome. Got to… ride on a speedboat, and we’ve just been… hanging out backstage, it’s really… sort of gorgeous scenery around here, so… life is good.

Yeah, can’t complain right. This is your first time in Norway?

No. We’ve played a festival here before… I don’t know if it was this but, I’m not too sure.

Think it was.  

Yeah, we’ve also…

Think it was around six years ago.

…played a show in Oslo, about 2009.

Yeah. You… like it here?

Yeah, It’s really pretty, could be a bit warmer though.

Yeah, it was warmer, but it’s been raining and stuff, and it’s quite windy here, so, it’s alright. Ehm, you have released a Sssnakepit beer. What’s your like… expectations around it?

Nah, no… expectations really.

Just releasing it?

Yeah, why not? I mean, the idea is that we can see like, have it at our shows, and for us it was just a fun experience.

So it’s like, merchandise kind of?

Kind of, but not the same kind of thing. It’s more just something that was fun for us.

Yeah, and the guys who did it were really cool.

Yeah, lots of bands release wine have and stuff, here in Norway though. And you’re just… having beer at your shows.

Sorry? Hahah, you guys are a bit more cultural so.

Well, yeah hahah. You released a new video, not so long ago, for The Paddington Frisk, with a kind of Japanese game show theme, got any like… meaning behind it?

…Not really, hahah. We just kind of got just… purely on the visual aspects, like… ‘cause the song is just so short and hectic, a video to match it should be quite energetic, coming at you quite bizarre, ‘cause we’ve played in Japan quite a lot of times, and sitting at the hotel, flicking trough TV-channels there’s this constant magic going on, so we thought it would be a good… sort of setting for a music video.

It was that, and as well, the song is about… being hung. And the Paddington frisk means like, the dance, or the shake that people would do when they’re hung. And in a music video, you can’t really show people being hung, so the only way we really could get around it would to put it in like a game show theme in Japan.

Pretty cool, pretty cool. It’s a pretty late night show, do you like doing late night shows, or do you prefer like earlier?

We prefer earlier. Well, the thing …

The annoying thing, especially with this weekend, is that…

After we play this show tonight, we go back to the hotel, have about four hours in the hotel before we have to get up and fly to France. So we get four hours of sleep tonight, and also that means that we spend a lot of the day just hanging out, waiting, till the evening, we usually sort of have a few beers, through the day, and by the show, if it’s a late night show, we go on, you know, a little bit tipsy, not in the best condition to play a gig, so, no we usually prefer early ones.

So yeah, you like drinking before shows, or you have any like… rituals doing before concerts?

Not really, just relax, listen to some music.

I’ll do some sort of warm ups with my hands and stuff, nothing really, just being in the right frame of mind.

Mhm. You guys have been playing for quite some time, do you ever get like… nervous before shows?

Not so much anymore.

I usually think, like the only times when I get nervous would be like, if we’re playing a new song for the first time, ‘cause the others we’ve played like… is it like… a hundred times live before, and you just kind of do what you have been doing for the last ten years.

I sometimes get a bit nervous if it’s like a… a step up, if we’re doing something that we’ve never done before. If it’s a bigger gig with more people, I occasionally get a bit nervous.

Yeah, I can see that. You have any like… thoughts about the night, coming back?

I don’t think we really know what to expect?

No? You don’t know much about… the Norwegian fans?

Not really.

The last time that we played, if it was this festival, we were on quite early, I think it was around ten people lined up against the fence, and that was about it. And so… I don’t think we really got, a good gauge of how good the Norwegian audience could be.

Yeah. Maybe people wasn’t really ready for what you make, ‘cause it’s like… really different from the things that are produced here, like… Norwegian black metal and stuff, hahah. Uhmmm, what makes… a good concert to you guys?

What, like if we’re playing?

Well, there’s a factor of a few things that’s into it, the audience… if they’re really sort of vibing, lot of energy coming from them, and even if we like… feel we’ve had a really big show, they can often kind of carry it for us. And that will be the kind of thing that can… like save, a gig for us.Uh, playing well, then sort of… enjoying it, being able to let go and relax, and just sort of being yourself. ‘Cause sometimes, you can be in a certain mood, where you’re really not sort of feeling it, and then everything you do just sort of feels very, you can feel very self-conscious up on stage and sort of curl back in to a bit of a corner. But yes, it is a few things.

I think the surroundings as well. Either if you’re doing a festival, or if you’re inside a club venue, anything like that that makes it kind of stand out.

So it doesn’t matter if there’s a big crowd or a small crowd?

Hmmm, no.

As long as the energy is there. Sometimes it’s less energy in a bigger crowd.

You have any like… embarrassing moments on stage?

Falling of the back of the stage a couple of times, of my drum kit.

Played a couple of songs… It was this thing going on radio, I couldn’t really hear anything on stage, my guitar tech had my bass like… really out of tune, out to millions of people. It was only  a couple of songs but, it was like aaah.

Hahah, not the best setting, no. How long do you think you will continue making music?

No idea, we didn’t really know that we were still would be here ten years down the line, so…

As long as people will have us, we don’t have any other skills.

We’re looking to record a new album, like in the end of this year, so sort of… December, January time, so we certainly got… more in us for now.

Yeah? Expectations for the new album? 

I don’t think we’ve ever really looked that far ahead. We’ve always just made music that sounds exiting to us, and you know… First album did well, second album didn’t do as well, third album has done well, you never know, you just got to do what feels right.

Yeah. Well, I wish you good luck tonight, and enjoy your short stay in Norway!

Thank you!

Thank you very much. Cheers!