8 minute read
ENTER SHIKARI
Enter Shikari have managed the impossible. Big stages, chart positions and all the while never letting go of who they truly are.
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Of course, finding the path to this point was far from easy, but they've always remained strong, both musically and even the core four characters hasn't changed from vocalist Rou Reynolds, bassist and vocalist Chris Batten, guitarist Rory Clewlow and drummer Rob Rolfe. Getting their start on Myspace, those heady days were the precursor to this wild and wonderful social enterprise world we now find ourselves in. But now Enter Shikari are on album number six, 'Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible', and having been entrenched in the beginning of this world, staying true and not getting lost amongst the noise is what sets them apart. "For us, we've gone on a massive journey really in terms of outputting on music." Rou starts. "The first album was one of the first proper 360 deals with an indie licensing the music, and then with our second album, we went on a major and saw the complete other side of the industry. "And now, we've just started a new contract with SO records which is kind of a proper indie in the fact that they don't even have a board or anything," he says. "It's just a very in house, small thing, there's a lot of passion there. We've kind of seen everything, and we've seen the way people absorb music change quite dramatically as well." Given their penchant for going against the grain sonically and aesthetically, Enter Shikari's history isn't rife with communication issues with those supporting them, due in part to their self-preservation from the get-go. But even they weren't completely immune to the gentle touch of a major label. "When we were on Interscope for the second album... that was interesting. There were some points where the A&R guy got flown over from America to 'help us demo'," he laughs. "They weren't forceful but they were very much looking for more straightforward consistency, and more melody, you know all the things that you'd expect from people who are trying to sell as many records as possible.
"We sort of expected that but at the same time, we made sure the first thing for us was to never to get into a contract where you're contractually obliged to listen to them and to, therefore, edit the music. There was none of that so we kind of carried on. We took on any advice that we liked, and we ignored any that we didn't." Which is the central ethos of Enter Shikari, they're a band who do things their way, making sure that everything falls in line with their central vision of being a band who continue to love what they do. Finding their start in the DIY scene of their home region, it instilled early on that key Do It Yourself aspect. "For us, it wasn't just normality it was like, there is no other way of doing it, surely has to be the way?" Of course, as their career grew "the other way" made itself apparent in the form of
"As soon as you enter into the bigger world and if you're captured by the allure of a big advance, then yeah you're expected to produce music that then becomes just a whole different beast," Rou says. "You can't be niche, you can't be subtle, you can't be too experimental, and the joy of music for me is waking up having an idea and having the freedom to follow that idea wherever it leads. Not having to dilute things and to become a kind of production line, creating music that is created for completely different reasons and loses that passion." "By then, that was 2008? We were very much aware of the scary nature of being on majors. We've seen many of our peers and bands that we look up to be signed and then be dropped and everything just withered away so we were very cautious in everything that we entered in." Along with keeping aware of everything they were getting into, it's been a close-knit affair amongst their ranks which has helped keep the good ship Shikari right on track and gaining further steam. From their "manager having such experience in the field, he was our forcefield," to the rest of the team who have been there from day one. "Our press team is still the same that we use today, from Hertfordshire. Chris, our bassist, his dad is our finance manager so there's a real tight-knit team. There's a lot of trust there, and also a lot of passion because that's what it was about, you know, building a team around you that got it, that got the music, and were passionate to work
in the wider team that was producing it." Passion is the keyword that beats within the heart of Enter Shikari. Even back in the early days when they were in secondary school and would "have our school day, then we'd all go off and we used to clean another slightly posher school, that was our after school job, and then we'd all go back to Rob, our drummers, to practice." "We'd do that four times a week," Rou recalls chuckling. "There has to be the dedication, if you're forcing yourself to achieve that dedication, then I think you have to question whether it's for you. The passion has to be explosive." Which is what sets Enter Shikari apart from the saturated crowd: The passion and drive simply haven't waned over the last decade. But as the years have gone by, the masses have erupted, swallowing the established acts with a surrounding bubbling influx of new creativity. "It's so easy that you do often have to wade through a lot of shit to get to find bands that you might enjoy," He mentions of the new tide of sounds. "But as annoying as that can be for a listener finding new music that is of a decent standard, I think the technological advancement is incredible for the creativity for young budding artists. "It is so easy now to make music of pretty good production quality, and so easy to get it out into the world, which I think is an overall benefit regardless if it saturates the online music scenes. I think even the health benefits of having a creative outlet, and being able to gift your art to the wider world, there's something beautiful in that." Of course, not all music finds its way into the world through the mind of the bedroom Soundcloud uploads and the DIY scene dreamers. In the course of his own career, Rou has even stepped inside the factory for writing camps, "where you're thrown into a room with three or four people you don't know, and you're expected to write a song for an artist who's often not even in the room.
"You're given very much a brief, you know, a couple of references, 'We want a melody that sounds like this or a beat that sounds like this. Go!' And in five hours you're expected to produce a song, and obviously that's a completely different experience for me." Rou is more used to the process being "an emotional release." The impetus of it being "an exploration into the self. Creation is everything, it is the way I communicate with the outer world whereas that was very much just factory production lines. Very, very rushed. The production of an asset really of a product rather than a piece of music a piece of the soul. Hopefully, I'm not being too cliché!" It's this understanding that's given Enter Shikari a die-hard fanbase, on that's helped their ascension from four lads packed into a van driving all over our fair country in search of any gig. On a more personal level, for Rou, he "wouldn't have anywhere near the amount of satisfaction if I was in a band that was forced to write certain styles of music or watered down the output in some way. "To me then it would lose its freedom and therefore its purpose to some degree. The reason that I'm so, so lucky to do what I do is the freedom and the creative leash that I've been given. Our band especially, I don't think there's a lot of bands out there that have an audience that is so kind, in terms of the free rein that we're given." And as the stages get bigger, along with the crowds, the chart positions get higher, but the grateful Rou and co will always acknowledge where they come from. "We're very lucky to have an audience that does seem to follow us wherever we go and we don't ever want to neglect that," He concludes. "We do feel very lucky, and we're very grateful for it. It's something that we want to use to just to make better music and to open ourselves up to the world in every way that we can."
