Interview with Enter Shikari

Interview with Rob Rolfe, Liam "Rory" Clewlow and Chris Batten from Enter Shikari . 04/10/07 . Prime Club . Cologne . Interviewer: Pascal

I did this interview on Apirl 10th at the Prime Club in Cologne. The show was sold out and 400 kids really got crazy during the show. The interview was relaxed and really interesting. The guys from Enter Shikari were very cool and it was also cool to do the interview with all of them.

Enter Shikari . Return To Energiser

Punk76: Hey guys, how are you? Nice to meet you.
Enter Shikari: Nice to meet you.

Punk76: So it’s cool to do the interview with all of you guys. Can you introduce yourself?
Enter Shikari: Yeah sure. My name is Rob and I’m the drummer, Rory the guitarist, Chris, I play bass, Rou the singer as you can hear.

Punk76: So your first headlining show besides gigs with Billy Talent. How do you feel?
Rob: Great and excited. We haven’t played the venue. It is very small and we hope to get some stagedivers up there.

Punk76: Yeah I think so. That’s routine here in the PrimeClub. So you supported Billy Talent, wich is a really succesfull band and wich also fills the big 10000 people halls. Do you think the smaller clubs are more personal or wich one do you prefer?
Rob: Man I think they are different. Both got their ups and downs. In the smaller clubs like here you can see bodys flying everywhere. It’s smooth, close and intense. Everyone gets crazy and in these big halls you got these massive stages very you can run up and down and where I can stand up and hold the drums up and 7000 people in front of you. You feel like a great dictator. It’s powerful.

Punk76: So maybe now away from the stages to your band. You have a remarkable history. Can you tell it in some words?
Rory: Rou and Chris started a band and later me and Rob joined it when we were I think seventeen and we became Enter Shikari in 2003…(laughs)

Punk76: Maybe we can also begin with your name. Enter Shikari. I read some much on the internet about it but I think you are the best people to explain that.
Rory: Originally Shikari was a character and it should fill our stageshows. It should be like a play. And that’s where the Enter part came from and Shikari means Hunter, translated from Indian. We thought that fits to the style of our music. It’s cool when everyone asks about Shikari when people want to know what’s this all about “Enter Shikari translates from Indian as “Enter the Hunter”. ‘The Hunter' is a character in a play Rou wrote before the band even existed, a character that gets used as a metaphor for positive aggression. In life you have to experience the lows to appreciate the highs, right? Shikari is that strength inside all of us, that hauls us out of those lows. Shikari is the hope that gives us the energy to continue and hunt for the panacea to our problems.” (I found this on their website for a better understanding).

Punk76: Cool, yeah since 2003 you organised all your shows for yourself without booking agents, management and this stuff. How did you do it? How did you grow so big?
Chris: We used to send demos, wich we recorded in my garage to different venues and we started to build up a tiny fanbase and MySpace was also a big help, we stated to build that up and with the time we where getting more and more fans and actually we were getting offers by different promoters and played thousands of shows and tried to get attention by for example big crowd interaction. And then comes the time when we wanted to book a tour, it was not necessarry to write an email because we got some many offers. And so we could just pick the dated we needed.

Punk76: And you did all of this without a record deal. That impressing.
Chris: Yeah.

Punk76: Great and you were the second band in history who sold out the Astoria in London without a record deal. Without these many people who are working behind the band. Must be amazing.
Rob: Yes of course but we got a lot of work. All the people who are standing behind you and building you up, mentally. It was just cool. All the people who were with us all the time came and supported us. It was nice to know that a record label wasn’t essential. It’s just what we have been doing. So a good thing.

Punk76: But now you have a deal and also have your first full length album out wich is called “Take To The Skies”. I have to admit that it is one of the most powerfull records I heard since months. I would descipe it like an “up and down-show”. How would you descripe it? Musically and lyrically?
Chris: It is really like a bit of a journey. A rollercoaster of emotions. Some parts are shiny and some are dull.It’s very aggressive and we showed different thoughst of us and our families. Some times the songs falls into an acoustic part and at the end it is again very strongly.

Punk76: Wich songs would you call shiny and wich one would you call dull?
Enter Shikari: Shiny would be Mothership or Jonny Sniper. The dull one: For example Today Won’t Go Down In History. I think they are not dull, more dark and I think there are a lot of more dark parts on the album. Yeah Today Won’t Go Down In History is really dark and deep. Generally the album brings you up and brings you right down again in the end. It takes you with it.

Punk76: On your MySpace profile stands: Enter Shikari plays Trance and Hardcore. When did the idea came to unite the genres?
Rob: Pretty gradually. We started as a normal Hardcore-Rock Band but we wanted more and started integrating this electronics and played them on our live shows and saw the reaction in the peoples faces and I thought that was what we were looking for.

Punk76: And is their a deeper meaning of uniting this different music styles?
Rob: Just a sign of not beeing close minded and not beeing so ignorant.

Punk76: Great. For sure you found your very own style what influenced you creating music like you do?
Rory: Many DJ’s, Drum ‘n’ Bass stuff, of course a lot Rock-Bands, Jazz and Reggae and I think we take a lot influences when we go out to see a live band or to a night club and see a live DJ playing. Just beeing out in the scene is the biggest influence. “Scooter” for example.

Punk76: I think five month ago I saw your video wich you did for “Sorry You’re Not A Winner”. Where did you shot this? I mean it’s an empty room with you, your instruments and maybe 20 kids getting totally crazy.
Chris: Yeah we did it in my house when my parents went away. It was cool When they came back they saw these holes in the walls.

Punk76: Guys, I thank you very much for the time and for the cool Interview.
Enter Shikari: Pascal it was nice to meet you.

Punk76: By the way. Any record planes for the future?
Rob: Yeah there will be a next album maybe this summer…

Punk76: Cool, see you at Rock Am Ring.

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