A Conversation with Enter Shikari

This is the original transcript of the interview, only minor editing has been applied for readability. This has been the basis for articles but has never been published in the original form.

Wortraub: I saw you perform yesterday, as support of Billy Talent, and you guys are pretty active on stage …
Rob: That is the only exercise we get, so we try to get a good work-out.

Wortraub: You are quite young still, right?
Chris: Yeah, we are like 20 and 21. We have been going for three, no wait four years. We have been touring a lot in the UK, but this is our first time in Germany.
Rory: Chris and Roughton have been writing songs together since they were like nine or ten.
Rob: It has just started off, that is for sure.
Rory: We have been touring the UK for about 600 shows in the last years.

Wortraub: You started this when you were still in school, right? How?
Chris: When we found Rob, the first time we met him was in school, fairly young. He was getting in fights with older kids, hitting them in the playground. We met in the head teacher’s office, they told us: „You guys need to find something else to do“. So when we started the music, we were hoping that he would hit the drums as hard as he was hitting those kids.
Rob: Yeah, but this happened when I was really young. It is not like I am a streetfighting guy or anything like that.
Rory: Streetfighter Hardcore. There was this one time a kid kicked your bass drum and you came out behind the drums.
Rob: I was the new kid, so that is why I got into fights.

Wortraub: You are all from the same area then? Where from?
Rob: St Albans, that is a small city. Hertfordshire, just north of London. It used to be the capital of the Roman Empire in England.

Wortraub: How did you guys get your sound together? How did it all start from there?
Rou: I was into the electronics and was searching for something a bit more to dance with. We experimented.
Chris: We experimented a lot with playing live. We just tried it out on stage, the electronics and you could just see the people’s reactions. They came up after the show and said: „Wow, that bit was crazy.“
Rob: Mainly we started the electronics because we could. We’ve been going up and down the country playing shows with 10 or 15 people. It is easy enough to experiment if there is no important crowd. You can do what you want. That is where we went out for experience, we tested things out and experimented.
Chris: We just had nothing to lose. I mean, one time, we even sang a break-down about spaghetti. You remember that? There were like two people there.
Rob: Spaghetti … dadada …
Rory: At the first few shows, Rou would record the keyboard parts and then burn it on CD. We would bring the player on stage and play it from there. That is how we got started.

Wortraub: The basics in your music are post-hardcore, emo, screamo, whatever you want to call it. But where does the electronics influence come from?
Rob: Prodigy is big, Faithless, but also trance and stuff.
Chris: Everything really, we even listened to that cheesy 90s stuff.
Rory: Even Scatman and stuff. We just love, the whole spectrum.
Chris: Whatever is convenient. We take inspiration from whatever we like. One time we went to see Dillinger Escape Plan in London and came back and wrote „Return to Energiser“. The heaviness we liked.

Wortraub: „Shikari“ means „hunter“ in Indian, right? But another „Shikari“ is a female, alien comic hero in the Legion of Superheroes, an aggressive, lone star hero, very rebellish … does this fit as well?
Rob: Really? We did not know that.
Chris: That is perfect. It is a she? Really? We know the „hunter“ meaning, the other one is new. We should look that up.
Rob: No, why we took it is because of Rou’s granddad, who was a pilot in one of the World Wars and the plane that he flew was named „Shikari“. That is really where we took the idea from.
Chris: But we also wanted to make „Shikari“ into this kind of character as well, for a play. Rou is a playwright and had this script. Shikari was the main character. He was male, the hunter of women.
Rou: He was a hunter of meat, but that is a metaphor for women. He was a normal hunter but it became a metaphor.

Wortraub: In the Indian term, they used „shikari“ as a military unit, a group of hunters that were free to move and had not as much restrictions as the other units.
Rory: You researched that? That is not how it usually works with journalists.
Rob: The usually ask us and we make something up to tell them.

Wortraub: So, it is a stage call for the hunt again? What is there to hunt?
Rou: It is not really hunting for food, it is more. Again, a metaphor for going out and getting what you want for yourself. Perseverance is the key.

Wortraub: We talked about the style mix of your music before. Why do blend these things, what is the reason or feeling behind it?
Rory: A lot of people of our generation grew up with the rave culture, the early 90s trance music and stuff.
Rob: And then a lot of people started hating it, because it was getting lame and became a thing of the past. But we figured it is not something to take a piss on, but rather bring it back. It is not as shitty as you think. It still has a value, there is a reason why it got so big in the 90s. A lot of people won’t listen to trance anymore, but we think it still has the same relevance. The energy, the excitement; it is kind of nice.
Chris: In the UK you can still go to a club and have this massive electronic tune and it drops and you are in the middle of the dance floor and it is the most euphoric and uplifting experience. Then you go to a hardcore show and it is so passionate and raw. We wanted to mix those two feelings. We wanted all of the emotions in our music. Uplift and aggression.
Rou: Aggressive but being happy about it.
Chris: Aggressive but still positive, like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Rou: Aggression can be fun and hunting can be fun.

Wortraub: What is the critique on dance that you usually get?
Rory: People usually stay within their scene.
Rob: It is a kind of simpleminded idea.
Chris: A lot of people have the feeling that dance isn’t real music, because it is not played with guitars. It is not a real instrument. That is what is mostly brought up.
Rory: But really, in England a lot of the concerts happen at the same places anyway. That is because it is not a split anymore between dance and rock, but rather dance and rock are the underground and pop music is the rest. And I think a lot of people of our generation come around to listening to both music styles, gathering in the underground scene.

Wortraub: Is it the crossover of the new millennium then?
Rory: We don’t really like the crossover of rap and metal. Some of it is ok, but the Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park style I don’t like.
Rob: Run DMC and Aerosmith is cool though.
Chris: Yeah, that is wicked man.

Wortraub: Your success has so far been only generated through word of mouth and the internet … how come such a way of promotion is still working?
Chris: We have done everything in the UK by playing literally all over. We have played shows, going back to places like Cornwall for one gig. Driving six or seven hours and then back again. And we did this as often as we could. Once we were doing that, people started to notice us, we made an impression. We got our mailing list together, they could keep in touch over myspace. It was a combination of the myspace-site and working really hard, playing lots of shows. There are bands that just use myspace and think that they can famous. But really we needed to play loads of shows and got better by doing so. That is the main reason why we are where we are.
Rou: That is the best way to do it. Discovering a band by seeing them play live is personally more engaging. It is not shoved into your face by a label or the media but you have discovered on your own. It connects you to it.
Wortraub: You feel like you have discovered it, not some A+R manager, not some programmer. It is yours.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. That is the way a lot of fans feel about us, most have gotten to know us by coming and seeing us live. It is all word of mouth, because the media dodged us quite a lot until we were playing festivals and sold out the Astoria.

Wortraub: Second band to sell out the Astoria without a label contract … are you hyped? Are you afraid of that? Is this all happening too fast?
Chris: We never said we wanted that. It is not our choice. But getting a chance to play with Billy Talent and playing to a couple of thousand people every night is just the most unbelievable chance your going to get. And it would be stupid to say no and not try to appeal to these people. At the same time, we like to build things gradually and we will be back playing smaller venues and build it up there. But hype is not something we really notice. I mean we notice a high intensity when we play and there is lot of vibe, we do a lot of press lately. But we never really see it. We miss out on it and don’t know if it is really happening.
Rob: It is not like we are the ones building up the hype around us. We are doing exactly what we did before; we keep on doing what we do. The media coverage is building that hype around us. We are not trying to push anything. We are what we are and now people are catching on to us.

Wortraub: Are you afraid to be called the flavour of the week by the NME and then forgotten?
Chris: We did not think the NME would cover us whatsoever. It seems to be so many bands around London that play a couple of shows, the industry is all over them and they are the next big thing. But that was never us at all.
Rory: If the media dropped us tomorrow we would only be in the place where we were six months ago.

Wortraub: Your lyrics jump between two extremes … one is metaphorical, mythical sometimes very enigmatic … you talk of spirits, the labyrinth or about mothership in the sky … where is that inspiration from? Why choose this kind of images?
Rou: I just wanted as much as possible big stupid imagery. Metaphors everywhere to throw people off and to get them wondering what it means. I want them to work it out for themselves. I don’t want to sing about a girl on a dance floor and how I want to fuck her. I can’t have anything too obvious. I am experimenting.

Wortraub: But you do have a song that says that more or less?
Rou: No, actually that is more in your face. He is too obsessive, trying to rape her actually. A psycho who takes his love a bit too far.

Wortraub: Some of the lyrics convey the idea that there is a war to fight what … against the system, against the opposition, against your self sometimes?
Rou: The Intro „Standing here … on statues“ comes back twice on the album. That is just the whole unity thing, being strong and together, fighting for living and stuff. The big thing is just being against human nature. „Tony Sniper“ is like a really green song. „Plan B“ is against raw aggression, it is just for a more positive attitude. It starts with people just going in and fighting each other and goes to full scale wars. Every body is so quick to jump into it. You should be able to sit down and use other human skills. Communicating and stuff. But everybody seems to think that is so hard these days.

Wortraub: It is about breaking out of a shell, right? Leaving false grins, a protective situation or fake ideals behind … right?
Rou: That is about people being fake and not being themselves, putting on a character. And it happens so much. You think: „What are you doing? That is not you. Be yourself.“

Wortraub: Well, thanks a lot for the interview and good luck with the rest of the Billy Talent tour.