Souls Northern
With a recent homecoming gig at Elland Road, a date at Wembley and a seventh album out soon, indie rockers Kaiser Chiefs are showing no signs of slowing down. Profile by Duncan Seaman
Kaiser Chiefs may be almost the last band standing from an era when British indie guitar groups ruled the airwaves, but as they approach the release of their seventh album, they do so in rude health. 16
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Signed to Polydor, one of the UK’s biggest labels, the Leeds quintet – singer Ricky Wilson, bassist Simon Rix, guitarist Andrew White, keyboard player Nick Baines and drummer Vijay Mistry – have just performed a home city gig at their beloved Elland Road, and are scheduled to play Wembley Stadium in July as guests of The Who.
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It’s small wonder, then, that Rix and White sound so upbeat. “We’re very pleased,” says Rix. “I think it’s testament to the band writing good songs. In 2004, being in a regional band was the right thing to do, so I think we were in the right place at the right time – but then so were a lot of bands. But we’ve kept going for seven albums, being on a major, doing lots of festivals. The last tour was mostly sold out, which was really good considering we didn’t have a record or any new music to go along with it. I think people know Kaiser Chiefs are going to provide a good night out.” White agrees. “Every day we can’t quite believe we got a chance to make music for a living and that people still come to see our shows and buy our records. To be on a major label – someone up there that knows something about music must believe in you.”
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Both admit to finding today’s musical landscape “bewildering at times”, but, says Rix, “I think it’s always important to not be stuck in the mud and insist on only releasing albums on heavyweight vinyl or whatever. You just go with what’s happening at the time and trust other people and the labels. Sometimes it goes right and sometimes it goes wrong.” In Kaiser Chiefs’ first record contract “there was one sentence about digital music,” Rix recalls. “And I remember the lawyer or somebody saying to us, ‘Don’t worry about that’. Obviously it proved to be quite important in the end.” When they started, CDs were king. “We were very lucky to be in that last hurrah of people buying lots of music, and Employment sold a massive amount of records.” Rix says he’s intrigued to see how their new album will fare in an era of Spotify and Apple Music. “I always say as long as there’s good songs, whatever the way of selling them is, they’ll be fine.” Team effort The band’s new album, codenamed #KC7 but now officially titled Duck, is their third since the departure of principal songwriter Nick Hodgson in 2012. He was replaced on drums by Vijay Mistry. “The way we write is kind of the same,” says White. “Even though we’ve got different members, we like to write in a room together.”
