ENTER SHIKARI // 64-65 LA SALAMI // 66-67 TESSUTI

ENTER: SHIKARI FESTIVAL SEASONS

JAI Firstly, congratulations on winning Best Live Artist at the Heavy Music Awards. Feel good?

ROU Hey, thank you! Throughout our career, I changed my mind on which awards I would like to win. For the first half of our lifespan it was always the live performance awards that I wanted to win because live music is where you prove yourself. Over the last few albums, I've become more comfortable and enthused by the studio, having moved into the production role. Now that I understand the studio environment from that side, I feel more impassioned. After the last few years of receiving zero validation and human connection, to be able to win an award for live music feels amazing, it reinforces that we are actually good at this.

JAI Earlier this year, you guys spent some time on the Revive Live Tour, a National Lottery funded tour for artists to return to the small venues that helped build the foundations to their career. How did you find it?

ROU It is awesome to be able to do them, it is so nostalgic. It is something that is now almost like another world, the small music venues are struggling, nationwide and worldwide. It makes me feel a renewed gratitude for my upbringing and my local scene, we were just totally spoiled. There is nothing like that right now. It is super difficult for new artists coming up now. It makes us question what we can do and how we can help. As well as the lottery funding events such as this, the Music

Fearless live performances coupled with a unique socio-political awareness, Enter Shikari have always been themselves. Speaking to singer and producer, Rou, you get the impression that things have only just started for the St Albans boys.

Venue Trust is doing awesome things every day.

JAI You have often spoken about the declining popularity of local music venues. Festivals often provide a strong platform for smaller bands, but what more can they do?

ROU Good question. It is a sign of the financial times. People would rather save and pay to watch loads of bands over a weekend rather than being a local at a venue. Bands and artists could always do warm-up shows at smaller venues prior to festival season, which always helps reinvigorate a community around the venue. I think that is what has been lost, the community of live music. Half of the reason we love live music is the connections we make with other people.

JAI For Enter Shikari, how have your festival experiences evolved over time?

ROU I don’t think our experience has changed a great deal really. For us, the festival circuit is the best thing about being in a band. Festivals really are the only place left where we can come together indiscriminately and celebrate art and life. I feel such a great deal of gratitude and power, the fact we are able to wield these tools of unity, it is so reifying when you look out at a mass of people knowing that they have come from all different walks of life, and they’re being brought together by music.

JAI How do you think the digitised way of consuming music has impacted the sub-genres Enter Shikari belong to?

ROU I think technology has a long history of affecting art. My favourite composer is Stravinsky, specifically his Serenade in A. In order to fit everything on the recording, each piece had to be three minutes long, which had never been done before, classical music was quite lengthy (laughs).

I think that TikTok is just the most recent version of technology changing art. People think more visually now. One of the things that TikTok does, interestingly, is that people think how music can be used, how it can aid in creative video making. People are having to think a little more collaboratively. I know I will be influenced, I try to consciously direct myself, but for us, we just focus on the sound that we enjoy and go with that.

JAI Do you think the fast-paced consumption that these media outlets encourage is damaging to music?

ROU As a person who grew up on albums and as a person who is in a band who creates albums, it is frustrating. There is only so much breadth you can include in a few minutes. I have always loved the idea of a whole album as you can access and experiment with so many different sounds. We pride ourselves on musical agility, that is what excites us.

Everything appears fragmentary. It feels unhealthy. I imagine there will be a backlash at some point as you can only get shorter for a certain amount of time. Psychologically as well as politically, these platforms won’t build a world of depth, it can only really be surface level. I feel like we need slow, measured conversation, not just soundbytes. It is interesting the way in which culture chooses its direction.

JAI Political criticism is consistent across certain social platforms, but what do you see for the future of politically engaged music?

ROU I suppose it is going to be harder not to say anything, and that is exemplified by non-political artists not being afraid to address certain issues. You can only write so many love songs before you seem a bit ridiculous.

Equally, there is a lot of poor, surface level political commentary. It is like things are not real, as if someone is taking political music to commercialise it, to take advantage of young people who are just getting politicised. I usually say the cliche, only write what you know, so I never think artists should be expected to address political issues, but I do think that, when climate change really begins to seriously affect migration, and there are water scarcity issues - twenty years from now things will be so different. Things move fast and I imagine that music will begin to address this more and more.

Enter Shikari are on tour in the UK, Europe, Australia and North America in 2022. All dates and tickets available at entershikari.com