Enter Shikari kicked off their Australian tour last night. Tonight they play Sydney before spending the weekend in Melbourne. Just prior to their flight over, Deborah Konopnicki caught up with Rou from the band to see what we can expect on this tour and beyond from the band. Expand this post to check it out along with the show details.
Hey Rou! How are you doing?
Hi! Not too bad thanks, how are you?
I’m pretty great thanks. It’s always a pleasure chatting with you blokes, so thanks!
No worries, thanks for having me!
You guys must really love Australia because you’re on the verge of your second tour here this year! How are you guys looking forward to coming back down here so soon?
Yes! Really looking forward to it! Soundwave was an incredible experience for us. The crowds were just mental. We just asked our management to get us back down here as soon as possible!
Soundwave was indeed awesome, and you guys played an amazing sidewave as well with letlive. down here in Melbourne. It had so much intensity! Did you have any favorite moments from being here in February?
It’s all a blur! I had really bad insomnia. The flight over just killed me! I can remember all of the shows being amazing – there wasn’t any exception. It was awesome. Hopefully it’ll be a similar experience without the insomnia this time!
It was your second time doing the Soundwave Festival as well. Was there any noticeable difference between the two that you’ve played so far?
I can’t even remember! I’m sure there were! Obviously it was amazing touring with our boys in letlive and Your Demise.
I guess that you could call the tour coming up the official headlining tour for ‘A Flash Flood Of Colour’ with the chance to play more shows for your fans this time around – even though you got to play a massive chunk of songs in February. It’s been about eight months since the release of the album that has such a huge and intense message. How are you guys feeing about the record?
It still feels quite fresh for us actually. I think just after playing those first two albums for so long that happens. We’re only about half way through this current tour cycle, so it’s still fresh. This summer has been great! After having played Warped Tour the previous two summers, it really took it out on us. You were playing every day in the middle of the sun, and this year it was just the festivals packed into the weekends at home, so we got to spend a fair bit of time at home which was nice and refreshing. We’re still raring to go and love playing the tracks.
I loved getting a chance to see some of the tracks like “Gandhi Mate, Gandhi” because as I excepted it totally blew me away live. You’re basically telling people that they’re doing a shitty job of looking after the planet, so how have you found people reacting to some of the tracks and to that song in particular?
Yeah, incredibly! To be honest this album is the biggest in terms of the live scenario and people have latched onto the music and are shouting back the lyrics louder than ever, It’s amazing! “Gandhi Mate, Gandhi” really seems to be a favorite as well live.
There were some other tracks as well that took me by surprise. “Stalemate” for example; I liked it on the CD but seeing it live gave it a totally different quality and it became something so much bigger. Were there tracks that you guys thought translated so much better live, or just came off different to what you were expecting?
Yeah, definitely! “Stalemate” obviously has a new dimension when you play it live. It really just becomes a bigger more epic sound. I didn’t think that one would be too much different but then first time we played it, the stage was just pumping and the crowd was really intense as well. It was awesome. Playing wise, they just grow into something nice and fun! As I said, they still feel nice and fresh.
I think my favorite from February was the “System”/”Meltdown” combo at the start of the set. That was just fucking insane. I saw recently your acoustic session for NME and even that translated well! It was very different to the CD but it sounded great. Did you enjoy getting to change those tracks up a little bit?
Yeah! I guess that was the one that we took apart the most and it got this new sort of vibe. It was really enjoyable to do that.
It was probably my favorite of the acoustic set. You also busted out a pretty rad cover of “Call Me Maybe”! Is that a song that you’re particularly fond of? What made you chose that song to cover?
Well, we were kind of forced to basically do some sort of cover and it had to be a popular track at the moment. Us being the people that we are don’t really have an ear for the charts what so ever. We didn’t know what we were going to pick! Our drum tech had been playing that song over and over all tour, so we thought that we might as well give that one a go. It was pretty fun! It was kind of hard to hold back the laughter.
Yeah, it looked like you guys enjoyed doing that one. Have you busted that out at any shows? Or are you going to keep it as an NME exclusive?
Yeah, I think it’s just going to be a one off! (laughs)
You’ve got some pretty exciting stuff coming up for the rest of the year. I see that you’re playing some shows over in he Ukraine, which seems like an exotic place for a band to travel! How are you guys looking forward to going over there and playing?
Looking forward to it! We’ve done Russia quite a few times and the crowds over there are really great! The first time that we went there we didn’t have a clue what to expect. We’d heard a load of scary stories from a few bands that we had heard that had gone there but it was great! Everyone was really nice and really welcoming. The audience was really great and the vibe at the shows was awesome, so yeah – looking forward to going back!
You’ve got the awesomely named ‘A Flash Flood of Christmas’ tour booked in for December. Are you guys going to be incorporating any Christmas Carols or Christmassy themes into that set?
(laughs) Yeah, I’m sure we’ll do something! A few years ago we did a version of “Carol Of The Bells” which was really quite fun. It’s that kind of ‘mystical-type’ track, so I’m sure we’ll do something.
Do you have a personal favorite Christmas Carol that you might like to try?
I’ve always been fond of “Hark The Herald Angels Sing”. I don’t know whether we can do it, but I’m sure we can give it a go!
It’d be interesting hearing your take on a traditional song like that! Going a bit off topic for the moment, but there was something I meant to ask you last time we had a chat but we ran out of time. You guys a quite a fan of the Zeitgeist movies which is awesome, because I love them as wel. It feels like you have very parallel ideas with particularly the second and third installment of those movies in the sense of an alternative to modern day capitalism, which is a somewhat central theme of “A Flash Flood Of Colour”. Would you say that you gathered a lot of inspiration from those films?
Oh definitely. The Zeitgeist movement is definitely one of our biggest inspirations. It’s something that we love to point people in the direction of if the lyrics interest them. We’re finding more and more these days that people aren’t just coming up to us and saying that they just enjoy the music. The amount of people that are saying they like the lyrics and the content and what we stand for is up there now with the people that are enjoying the music. It’s great! We like to point them in this direction because it does tend to take everything into account. A lot of what we’re trying to do – and especially with “A Flash Flood Of Colour” is to get people to take a step back and start analyzing the way we do everything in this world. You have to get some perspective and the Zeitgeist movement does that really well. The promotion of the scientific method for the benefit of all of the world’s people rather that how it works at the moment is something that we’re really trying to push.
Just quickly before we run out of time, is there anything else that you’ve been watching or reading recently that can point people in a similar direction if they’re interested?
Oh god; there’s just so much! The Zeitgeistmovement.com is definitely the best place to start with all of that. There’s so much information out there. Whether it’s text based or films or lectures; there’s heaps of stuff on there. I do an ethical clothing company that does a lot of blogs and we’re about to move into videos as well – we’ve started doing podcasts. If anyone is interested that’s Stepuphq.com
— TOURING NOW —
ENTER SHIKARI
With Guests IN HEARTS WAKE
SEPTEMBER
21st – UNSW Roundhouse, Sydney [Lic/AA]
22nd – Billboard The Venue, Melbourne [18+] SOLD OUT
23rd – Billboard The Venue, Melbourne [U18]
—> For more information, visit [Here].
