Speaker 1hello and welcome back to the james kennedy podcast and guess what this episode marks one year to the day since i started doing this damn thing man what a year it's been jesus christ you know as i said in the very first episode my presumption was that i would do three of these things and then just like forget to do a fourth and that would be the end of it but man here we are like a one year later still trucking and jesus christ i had no idea that it would go the way that it's gone we have had some incredible guests on this thing since it started and i want to give a massive thank you to everybody that's given their time so generously to come and speak with me on the show and it's a real treasure trove of insight and information and food for thought developing on this thing now so if you're new to the podcast please have a nose to the previous episodes because we've covered a ton of stuff on this thing now from you know the war in ukraine to nutrition to climate change the music industry israel and palestine spotify mental health relationships protest and activism dude there's a fucking whole shitload of stuff on this thing so go and have a look through and if you you are new to the podcast please do subscribe and give us a follow so you don't miss any more of these awesome episodes because there is a ton more shit coming up and i don't want you to miss any of it and while we're on the subject of following things my band james kennedy and the underdogs have started announcing some shows baby it's been a long winter man including being censored and shadow banned and having my video taken down of youtube you know having an album called make anger great again that comes out a month before donald trump is running for re-election it's probably not a smart move you and my my my album was essentially crushed by the algorithms uh twitter actually just mailed me like half an hour ago confirming that they did actually shadow about me the motherfuckers um youtube told me that you know the video for the power was shocking even though you know there's nothing shocking about it at all so it's it's been a tough road for me man to get that album out so i'm you know we've had a lot of hurdles with the band as well personal problems of things which have given us a few false starts so i'm looking very much forward now to getting out there in the making some noise and i hope to see you all there so if you're not on any of the pages go and check out james kennedy uk on facebook twitter and instagram uh james kennedy stuff on youtube to catch up on the tunage and hopefully we'll get to see you all really really soon now speaking of awesome guests we have got a good one for you guys today and i'm so thankful to today's guests for squeezing us in because they are super crazy busy right now now i can't imagine i need to explain to anyone listening to this who went to shikaria i mean you know i don't know i don't know unless you've been living on mars for the past 10 years then you know exactly who i'm talking about i'm joined today by the singer rao reynolds and there's a ton of stuff i want to ask him and get into including something that many enter shikari fans have made me aware of online in no uncertain terms the fact that our logo my band's logo and their logo is essentially exactly the same so i'm gonna gingerly approach that issue with rao and i hope he doesn't set a bomb off under my ass so let's get down to it we are honored to be joined today by the one and only rao reynolds singer and songwriter and the fucking incredible sonic juggernaut that is the mighty enter shikari author producer creative visionary and wearer of many an enviable hairstyle rao thanks so much for stopping in brother how you
Speaker 2doing i'm good thank you very much for a lovely introduction
Speaker 1i'm glad to hear it man because i know how crazy busy you always are so uh what's happening right
Speaker 2now what's going on oh yeah all sorts um i mean our album is basically kind of a month away now so it's uh yeah everything's going well so i'm glad to hear it man because i know how crazy busy just amping up loads of press loads of uh doing the final video shoots for the the next two singles nice trying to get the next leg of um shows the set list all sorted and stuff so lots of programming yeah firefighting is what is what i've come to call it you're just you know you get one thing off your to-do list done and six more things coming
Speaker 1yeah i can't imagine man that all sounds awesome though dude and i imagine that you're probably quite well adapted to that workload in it quite relentlessly for over 20 years now and the vibe i get is that you're all a very hands-on band and as far as what you've spent in much of your career as an independent band is that right or or am i have i got the wrong
Speaker 2end of the stick no yeah totally yeah i mean well before we even released uh anything like properly um there was of course the sort of four years of uh touring up and down the uk and recording and releasing our own eps and things um but then yeah take to the sky was released on ps play it again sam um who at the time were just full of people who got it you know and they were like a great independent label i think like now we're on uh so records who are pretty much the only truly independent record you know they're not a subsidiary of a larger major label right which is yeah it's it's hard to do in like you know the current sort of climate um but they're smashing it and they're awesome but yeah in between those two labels we've we've done all sorts and uh yeah tried all sorts of deals but it's been a an interesting run well i
Speaker 1imagine it must be a very specific type of label that would be able to handle a band like you guys because you're all so talented in many different creative fields and you know very much involved in your own destiny and in the driving seat of your own careers i can imagine that that could be intimidating or frustrating for some labels so it's great that you've managed to find a home um where you guys are able to to still maintain that level of creativity and i think that's a really good thing and i think that's a really good control i mean as far down the road as you are now with things are you still very much completely involved in all aspects of things or you were able to kick back a little bit more now
Speaker 2yeah absolutely everything and i think like everyone is to a degree like you know often i find it funny when you see like fans saying like perhaps like sticking up for their favorite artist who's done something like that's a bit shit or you know it started doing say for instance like paid meet and greets right like charging their fans to meet them and and then people their fans will go oh but it's not their decision you know it's all their management or their label it's like coax them into this yeah well that's not you know you don't have to do anything you don't want to do you know like i i think there's um there can be kind of willful ignorance in that respect from the artist's position um but at the end of the day yeah but yeah for us it's it's very much um i don't know you could call us control freaks or i would just say it's kind of naturally what you want for your art you know you're you're you're you're you want to know everything about it you want to know how it's being released you want to yeah yeah you know be involved in everything um and certainly in terms of the creative kind of area of of the band like we've never let that go whatsoever so even on that brief stint when we were on interscape like it was funny because we got on really well with the people there like and i think they did like get what we were trying to do and stuff but there was you know there's some like funny situations where the a and r representative was in the studio with us and stuff oh what if the chorus like did this or what if we got to the chorus quicker or you know right right
Speaker 1right right fuck off pal
Speaker 2yeah we were like sorry you you do know who you're speaking to yeah yeah jesus
Speaker 1christ you're the gall of some people man i'm sure he meant well you know what i mean um yeah i'm always fascinated by people's relationships with their label because you hear so many bad fucking stories from bands you know about you being shafted by their labels and stuff so yeah i'm super interested to know how you guys are getting on with the new guys and yeah tell us more about
Speaker 2them yeah so it's so records yeah as i say kind of the only real independent left um yeah kind of self self-funded um they they have like a sister um label um which does primarily classical music like film soundtracks and things like that which is awesome and then they have yeah the rock label which does us placebo uh just released the new hundred reasons album which is oh man i'm just overjoyed that they're back there oh yeah i've always been one of my favorite bands um yeah a brilliant label like you get the sort of the attention and the passion that you want i think you know as an artist you want your team to truly understand your message and what you're trying to achieve right and be like you you don't want to have to enthuse them they should be enthused by the music if you know if they you want people who are yeah who are who are who are going to bring that energy um and yeah that's what we've got from them we've only released one album uh with them well all about to be two albums with them uh with our new one um but yeah it's been been going great so far uh that's
Speaker 1wicked man i'm glad to hear that dude because the terrain has changed so much now hasn't it for artists there's so many more avenues available for releasing your music and you guys have been successful and have experience in several different models now be it independent um or with a label or a combination of the two but what is the overall most important thing that you need regardless of the model as a band now at this stage for releasing your
Speaker 2music um speed perhaps for us right um to give it sort of a broad term like the real struggles we've had is when we've got an idea and you know if okay so put it into like a solid example i always remember the video shoot we did for our track that was released after our first album it was like a bridging single destabilized and um we have this idea and we're able to just get it done and we you know i i co-directed that with a friend and it was just a few of us in this location that we got and there's something about the the energy when an idea is being conceived that is just like really pure really electric and you get something done and you can get it out there quick um but the times when we've been in deals that aren't aren't so perhaps like flexible. or they aren't they aren't able to give you the attention that you you want to get things out quickly um that's been the worst you know when you have to go through layers of bureaucracy to like either like uh release the the funding for like a video or you know you want to release a a single that isn't part of an album campaign and it's just like yeah yeah there's always so many although sometimes in some deals there's just so many levels you have to like go through to like get to finally release some some art you know um so it's it's just it can be incredibly frustrating so like i think concentrating on the on the accelerated process um is something that's been key to us because it's then that the art feels a bit more pure it doesn't feel stale to us and we can still like go and perform it and be like super excited by it when it hasn't been sitting in the cupboard for six months just yeah
Speaker 1yeah a lot of people say that yeah it's like the bigger the label the bigger the bullshit almost you know you because you are not their only horse in the race you know you gotta wait for ages i've had that conversation several times so i guess there's like a sweet spot you know which which it sounds as if you guys are in now where you can have the level of efficiency that you want so it's still fresh and exciting by the time it hits the stage you know
Speaker 2absolutely yeah no i feel very very grateful for the position we're in at the moment it does it does feel yeah kind of gratifying and satisfying um nice i think there's a weird sense of so i don't know whether it's moore's law or what or kind of the just the general rat race and the hedonistic treadmill whatever you want to call it where an artist when you get to a certain level you just you're never satisfied you always want more you know you get to right the level we've been at for a while every band that we sort of look sideways and we see like our peers they're all like striving to get bigger and like striving to make sure every tour they do is an arena tour and it's just exhausting and i don't think it's it's that satisfying either so like i don't have some massive ambition to to be like a huge you know like arena worldwide band like that's not really what we're about so because that isn't in our ambition we don't need a major label we don't need that extra like serious oomph now where you can hold the uh radio uh those who pick radio playlists you can hold them by the throat of the wall and go you will support this band yes we we don't yeah we don't kind of require that so yeah i think we're in a really good position and we're comfortable with the kind of uh what's sort of available to us if you like in terms of growth and sustainability yeah and i
Speaker 1think you guys have got the most important thing which is you've got an awesome loyal passionate hardcore audience that fucking love the band and followed you guys for a long time that is something that no label can give you and it's not something that any label can take away from you as well like you guys have built that you know what i mean and i'd be interested to know because you know not only is the band fucking kick-ass and you've been you guys have been working hard consistently and putting out good stuff now for so long but i mean there's lots of bands who are good and work hard you know but they don't have that level of enter shikari shit happening for them you know so why do you think that is what do you attribute that to
Speaker 2oh it's a tough one man because it's like i don't know any different you know what i mean so i don't have a great deal
Speaker 1to compare it to yeah
Speaker 2of course i often thought it was something to do with our uh the sort of breadth if you like of like the diversity in terms of our music yeah um we've always tried to make music that's we're not tried we just we always have made music that's like very it has a great deal of variety because that's what i was brought up with so it's like very natural for me to make that kind of music and so what happens when the music is varied is there's always a degree of surpassing or dodging people's expectations right yeah and so it's there's there's an element of not so much shock it's not like what we're trying to do is shock people that that's that doesn't massively interest me um but it's it's i think even our worst songs are interesting and like every like album we release i i'm pretty sure it's interesting um and so i think that what that does is it sustains a a sort of core element of a fan base you know if you bring out the same album again and again you can have massive success but there is an element of loyalty that you gain from having music that takes effort to understand right it's not just you know tom york used to describe it as fridge buzz you know this this guy if you're making music that's just completely bland and banal yeah you you may get a very enthusiastic following but like it they haven't put much into it into the sort of equation if you like to understand the music yeah and so when you've got that i think it gives you a greater deal of appreciation for your audience and then vice versa as well it's just it's just a a greater connection i suppose if you've had to like think about what you're listening to you're you're connected to it in a deeper way than if it's just like this background middle of the road radio fodder yeah and you know i'm sure there's a load of other things as as well but um i suppose consistency and like honesty i think that's really important to us like authenticity like we've i think we've never really tried to to be anything that we're not we've never tried to sort of yeah as i said before like take over the world or you know the amount of bands that i've seen and that's been the headline that's been the one liner that they'll they'll kind of tout on all the magazine covers that they'll get and they'll sort of come and go and yeah yeah yeah i think people understand with us that they're getting something that's um that's real and uh yeah the passion and the dynamism is real i completely
Speaker 1agree with that yeah i was going to say that as well as all of those things i think it's the um the topics as well i mean you guys have always spoken about things that are real whether it's personal social political environmental you know whatever you're talking about i think it's the um the topics as ever and i think that gives it that extra layer of depth and connectivity then that people resonate with isn't it rather than like you say the example of the um the two and a half minute earworm that's an absolute banger for fucking three weeks and then you know that's it it's over you're sick of it but you guys have got so many different layers of depth that that are real and mean something to people and i think the words have a big part to play in that
Speaker 2as well yeah yeah i think yeah it's the same sort of thing if people are thinking about the the themes and the topics within a song they're they're going to feel great greatly connected to it um and yeah more so if it was just something that was just a repeated line or you know the same old topics and lyrics that we've heard again and again yeah and that's you know that's that's just it's kind of just what we were brought up to think was normal you know i was i was first of all brought up with with motown and northern soul and that kind of that the lyrics were often quite thoughtful and melancholy and kind of beautiful but in a in a kind of aching way and then obviously it got extremely much more sort of politicized as the the kind of movement went on yeah and then you know i've as a teenager i discovered um our local hardcore punk scene and when you're running around like a headless chicken on the stage shouting your head off like it for me it it was the complete norm to for the music and the lyrics to that to the obviously it would be about something that that singer believed in. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's, it's strange for me. And I've, I've had some interesting experiences, especially over the last sort of five years. And I tried a bit of like pop songwriting and stuff. And I'm really glad I did it. And I felt like I grew quite a lot as a, as a songwriter, but like, it's a totally different thing. You know, it's very mechanical, very, there's no sort of sense of soul or meaning to it. It's, you are creating a commodity.
Speaker 1Factory music. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. And that's just, that's completely unnatural for me to do. Like music for me is an incredibly emotional, you know, cathartic kind of release. And it's a way of organizing my thoughts about myself and about the world. And so, yeah, it's, it's just been something that's quite normal for us.
Speaker 1Yeah. I'm exactly the same, man. I mean, when I grew up, it was always those artists that had something to say that I was, I just seemed to be more drawn to. They were more interesting, you know, like Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, Frank Zappa, you know, the machines, the clash, whoever it was. I just, you know, there's loads of cool bands that I love, but the ones that, that's, that's that fucking intrigue about them. We always had something to say. There was at that little edge, you know what I mean? And I think that counts for a lot. I was going to, I wanted to, I wanted to ask what role do you feel that art does play in advancing progress and change? Do you feel it? Has a role to play? And if so, how important do you think it is?
Speaker 2Yeah, I've kind of gone back and forth on this, like over the years, I think what it, what I can say with certainty, not just from my own experience as an artist, but my own experience as a, as an, an audience member, as a supporter of music and other bands and artists, is that it's fuel for the fire. You know, it's like if people are feeling disconnected or lonely or, or full of rage, you know, whatever it is, whatever crisis of the, of the current, many crises that we have that's affecting them. The, the music can be a way of, of changing, channeling that a way of thinking positively you know it can make you feel very activated um as as an activist um and i mean that either literally as an activist or as like in in more of a sort of broad term it makes you feel like doing something even if that isn't like actual activism per se it means like you might change something about your own life yeah or think about something in a different way and and that's that's what music yeah certifiably does it say it's a fuel it motivates you it galvanizes people um it's really the only thing that brings us all together indiscriminately left that we have you know um i think sport does that to a certain extent but it's not really indiscriminate because we have teams quite divisive as well it's yeah it's very it's it's competitive um whereas music on the most part is a way of thinking about something in a different way and i think that's what music does it's a way of thinking about something in a different way and i think that's what music most on the most part isn't that and that's you know even like the modern day festival it's just it's kind of the only thing we have left that just brings us together to celebrate our kind of you know when you look at it in a deep way it's like our shared vulnerability we're all impacted by this music that we're about to hear it's going to hit us in an emotional sense it's going to remind us that we're all the same we all work in the same way and that's something that's becoming increasingly more important to remind us of that in you know in a world that's just becoming more and more divisive and tribalistic oh yeah so yeah i it might not be something you know i i i hesitate to make to make sort of very grand statements about it music being this power that can change the world and all this but it can be a galvanizing motivating force for sure
Speaker 1100 man yeah i'm brilliantly put as well i mean as you said we need that now more than ever i mean jesus christ as we look at the state of the country and in fact the world does not seem to be going on a good very good direction right now to put it politely i mean you're someone that's traveled the world you're clearly tuned in and enlightened on these issues and you've got an interesting perspective on it all because of what you do what do you think are our main pressing issues facing us not just as a nation but as a global
Speaker 2community right now oh i mean it's it's thoroughly depressing and disorientating like the the list of crises just grow and grow by the day i think the the main thing that um sort of frustrates me is that people often don't look at the links it's the you know especially like in in the media it's the the most immediate um shocking thing that's that's plastered everywhere and there isn't sort of room or space or time to actually look at the the core reasons that you know whichever crisis it is why it's happening yeah and that's something that's just i don't know it's just heartbreaking because like i mean one of the things we've spoken about since since day one is system change and it's amazing now like seeing the the kind of youthful energy and and fortitude and and galvanization that's coming through for for actual system change like something you know this was something that 15 years ago no one was addressing no one was was speaking about and and what's happened in those 15 years is we've we've gone so so. far in terms of reaching the boundaries of our planet really um that we we cannot now um expect to fix problems with just like you know like band-aids like oh we'll just change this law we'll just do yeah this little fix and this little thing and that's just we're so far gone um that that we need system change
Speaker 1yeah 100 i think your analysis is bang on i do a lot of political episodes on the podcast and that is always what it comes down to it's like you know yes we can campaign for this cause or this issue and there and there are gains to be made in those areas and they're all necessary in driving us in the right direction but as you say without the broader systemic change we are not going to make any progress certainly on issues like climate change which is priority number one for everybody on this planet right oh mate yeah the problem is is that the people in charge who are like behind the wheel of this fucking high-speed burning train that's heading towards the edge of a cliff they don't they have a vested interest in the system staying exactly as it is and function essentially as far as i'm concerned as a kind of collective sociopathic organism that doesn't seem to care at all that they're heading us towards am
Speaker 2again yeah well i think the the thing the thing is the system has a sort of inbuilt protective nature because it promotes and rewards narcissists sociopaths psychopaths because really if you look at it that's what it demands um it demands us from day one to compete against each other for our own our own stability and then our own profit um so a system that just you know at its very core is setting us all against each other like market-based economics at its very core it sets us all against each other and what is a kind of logical rational way to survive that is by becoming a self-interested non-sophistic like brute yeah really um so it's almost like a defense mechanism that the the system has within it um that it's always going to promote the people who will most protect this system because it's it's it's kind of birthed them um and it's it's kind of given them power it's given them wealth um and now they're obviously going to want to protect what they've built up um so it's this incredible kind of almost like a catch-22 just infuriating situation where they're going to be able to protect themselves and they're going to change isn't going to come from the top and i know that's a bit of a cliche but like systems protect themselves um and so it has to we have to like build start building something new even before like tearing this down you know we have to we have to concentrate on the um the ways that we can start new kind of communities or organized communities differently you know start local and all this kind of thing i think that aspect is pivotal um and then just like creating awareness of the deeper thinking you know thinking about systems theory thinking about oh what is the what is the the core kind of problem um i think that's the only way really like kind of just education um and making people aware of of just how bad things are but just how kind of massively we need change and on such a deep deep level which in a way it should be kind of exciting we're leaving we're living at a time where we're living at a time where we're living at an incredible time where we need to change this kind of yeah this this juggernaut of a system this behemoth that's like we've had for for centuries and obviously capitalism has gone through very you know kind of morphed and it's changed um from feudalism onwards but like it's now it now we're living at an era where we need such dramatic change it's it's actually um it should hopefully it should it should feel quite thrilling of put aside the fact that you know you know if we don't achieve anything in the next hundred years the the prospect of the annihilation of human civilization is very much on the card yeah you know there's a lot we talked a lot about this on the uh the last album nothing is true and everything is possible um and i got to speak with toby ord who is an incredible philosopher at um oxford university and he puts the chances um at one in six um that we might you know have a have a complete um catastrophic uh civilizational collapse so it's it's um it's yeah not not great chances but um you know the odds still are in our favor and we've got the um the kind of the the the ability we've got the the the science the technology we've got it all we just need to um pare down on what is is so uh so bad for us amen man and
Speaker 1brilliantly put as well man i mean yeah i think you hit on a key word there which is that of community because as you said the system is kind of self it's a self-perpetuating system and the mindset shift that we've all had to uh have imposed upon us as a result of having to survive in that system is that we've also kind of become part of that transactional capitalistic mindset whether we realize it or not it's invaded so many of us and we've all had to uh have imposed upon us as a result of having to survive in that system so many parts of our mind and as a result our psyche that i don't you know i think it's just a survival thing in order to survive within that system you have to kind of become it as well you know i think we've we've all been tainted by this what i would call the thatcherite reaganistic um mindset shift the cultural shift in society you know that of the individual whereas that's not always the way that it was and i think the antidote to that and that the counter-attack to that is community is in actually coming together as a community and helping each other and helping and working together on our shared solutions and of course you know harking back to what you said earlier you know music is a great catalyst for that and a great galvanizer of of people and communities but man we have got one hell of a fight ahead of us man because the enemies are clearly winning right now and they've done a very good job of fragmenting us and dividing us and removing us of our collective
Speaker 2power yeah yeah i always find it fascinating i can't have any i can't have any any kind of audience of um any artist really even not just speaking about music specifically um that an audience is sort of a microcosm of what society could be or should be you know it's this is very very supportive you know we you talk about like fandoms they're like incredibly supportive um families really i mean we we call our fan base like the shikari family because it it's amazing they're like kind of they step in where society has failed you know where the various ways that um a state has helped its citizens and where they've been torn down and taken away like uh sometimes like these communities step in to kind of fill those gaps and it's amazing how you see these you know people offering each other such support and and that's the beautiful thing about uh community and about compassion is it is incredibly contagious once you you you kind of relive it again and you experience it again you you want to you know we we literally say this on stage often like you want to take this feeling that we've got inside the venue tonight and you want to bring it out into the world because it's like wow this is what's been missing from my life this sense of inclusion this sense of togetherness it's just something that's um being complete completely sort of stripped free in terms of our society as a whole 100 man
Speaker 1beautifully put i mean yeah live music in particular really is that communion um that reconnects us to our primal selves and our primal um you know sense of community and all of the things that are kind of being deprived of us elsewhere in our lives and in society kind of we reconnect with that at a live concert you know and that's why i think it's just such a beautiful and powerful thing you know what a band like you guys give to the world and give to your fans because you know you bring that joy and that reconnection and to our to our primal selves and our sense of community you know you were delivering that to people night after night you know awesome
Speaker 2yeah no i mean i think it's just it's it's the same with any um yeah any artist to agree it's just it's something that um where you you again you you share that sense of uh a sense of a story that sense of togetherness that sense of um feeling one and feeling connected to to other people it's yeah it's it's beautiful and and severely lacking in our society 100
Speaker 1man and speaking of that society how do you feel when you look at the state of the country that we both live in at the moment and what if anything do you think um we can do to dig ourselves out of this i
Speaker 2don't know it's it's almost like i feel a sense of um exhaustion about even just talking about about this stuff it's like it's so hard to you know i have no sort of pithy um uplifting uh answer to that question it's just uh it's relentless yeah man yeah um yeah for me it's i mean the first things first just getting rid of the stories has to be the number one 100 thing on on everybody's plates um you know essentially it's a government a government of criminals it's it's just it's gone so far now and so long and i think for the first time it's actually you know in a long time it actually looks hopeful you know when you look at the polls and things but then of course you see starmer and you see someone who isn't exactly offering something that's massively different so you know on one portion of this podcast i'm talking about system change and then i'm now i'm talking about pierce one step in the right direction it's not really all it is is a relief for those who have been beaten down so much by the conservative party yeah so i think there's a there is um a sort of an ethical duty to get the conservative party out just for that reason um but i don't think anything in a in a real uh big way will change um i think that as i say that's going to come from from other places but yeah it's it's uh it's you know it's just this fascinating infuriating uh criminal fucking circus at the moment and it's uh yeah it's utterly utterly exhausting i think you know for me for instance like i i don't have a great deal to say at the moment because i just haven't been uh following it i'm very lucky that i have this sort of bubble that i live in with with the with the band and there's so much to concentrate at the moment with the album that i'm just like i'm not following it and i think sometimes that's important to say because oh yeah we all need to give ourselves a rest from it um every now and then oh dude i'm
Speaker 1so glad to hear you say that man because i feel exactly the same and i we we do all feel a pressure to kind of you know be as clued up as we can and to keep the fight going and to um not let these fuckers slip anything by us you know but it is fucking exhausting man and it's really bad for as well so i think you saying that as someone that obviously is in the spotlight and is expected to have answers for everything at the time i think will make a lot of people feel better about their own situation because yeah man jesus christ it is it's fucking exhausting
Speaker 2like yeah oh absolutely yeah because it's it's a um it's a really like debilitating you know you don't want to be so plugged into it and so constantly enraged that you start to end up basically becoming a nihilist which is really is the worst the kind of worst of the worst because you're completely inactive you're you you kind of just step back from it all and of course people think that that's kind of um you're you're then just not an actor uh you're you're you're kind of relinquishing um any sort of ability or responsibility and it's kind of a freeing thing for you personally but but of course it's it's all it really is doing is just letting the powerful continue yeah and so for me yeah every sort of few years i seem to take these i'm about probably six months into it and and as i say i've had a lot of music creation all these things that i'm very lucky to be able to have you know in that i do have this bubble to go into this just kind of dream world to escape at all um but if you don't give yourself those those kind of months off if you like and those those moments of escape whether it's being in amongst nature reminding yourself of human connection and concentrating on the small communities that we have and that we can cherish if you don't do that we'll just become completely inactive and essentially essentially that's what they they being the most powerful people in society the guardians of the status quo if you like that's what they want they want us to be completely inactive exhausted useless they want us to feel powerless that's something that we talked about a lot on this this new album um the more you're convinced that you're powerless the less you will use what any power you have the more you will shrink and shrink and so that's that's exactly what what how they want us they want us um knackered and and thinking of ourselves as small and up against this mighty thing and you know every now and then it's very easy to to fall into that so yeah i think having a break is an incredibly um important thing but i also understand that for instance if this was to get if that little clip was supposed to uh edited and and and presented by itself i also understand that people would then say oh but you're just lucky that you have somewhere to go and you can get out of the uh you know the way of the the intensity of it all yes i'm i'm very aware that i'm you know i'm incredibly lucky to have to have this band um but that's always going to be the
Speaker 1clip i was going to use as well shit
Speaker 2there's always a way to criticize anything but um i i think it's a relevant criticism you know i you know i'm i'm a very lucky person but hopefully i'll come back um kind of feeling much much more rejuvenated and much much more powerful um when you know we start touring again and we can start being in the communities that we play in and we can start um talking to people and and seeing what we we can do no i totally
Speaker 1agree with that man i got a lot of activist friends who are very very active all of the time and they go through so many episodes of like just crushing depression and debilitation and apathy and nihilism and all the things that you've quite correctly mentioned and it's a really detrimental effect on their personal lives and their relationships and their health and everything because they're just deep into this stuff all day every day and they're fighting an uphill battle every day and there's no off switch to it you know this is their cause and it's what they're consumed by and i just see the the detrimental effect it has on them as a friend you know and i keep saying to them like like guys you've got to take some time off you're a human being there's nothing wrong with doing that take some time off and then when you come back you're going to be fitter stronger you know have more clarity you're going to be more resilient you're going to feel better you're going to have a lot more fight in you and you're going to be able to achieve a lot more if you just take some fucking time i know it's difficult to do because i've been in that hole myself but i really think it is an essential part of effective activism
Speaker 2absolutely yeah and i it's almost like a a sort of cliche now but like even a smile is a sure you're going against the will to be like beaten down at the moment and fatigued and kind of just destroyed in terms of your your hope you know it's which is if you don't have hope you can't act so it's like anything that builds uh sort of resilience and community and hope is like yeah it's just the most important thing love it and are you hopeful right now um i think i think you have to be in order to be alive you know it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just If you're not hopeful at all, then you are an island. or you are a fatalist or you are evil you know i mean there's there's a glimmer of hope uh in all of us even the most kind of bedraggled and uh yeah sort of frustrated but um yeah no i'm um i think as soon as we get out on the road as well and we start speaking to people i become my hope sort of inflates if you like you know we we did a um a book uh release sort of um signing and talk thing for our biography that was released last year and um i remember the amount of sort of real like incentivized motivated energy that that night gave me you know like one minute i was meeting an nhs doctor the next minute i was meeting this um uh geoengineering um student um and then the next minute it was uh someone who was like surprisingly high up um in terms of like climate change uh solutions in in government and now all these people it's just like what oh yeah music can bring like some you know people from all kind of backgrounds together and it's yeah and when you see them infused by uh music whether it's ours or other people's you know like uh it then infuses the the artists to make more and and it's just this lovely sort of cyclical uh sort of structuring of hope you know it just gets passed back and forth and it builds and it grows so it's yeah it's something that i'm really looking forward to with the the the album um that we're about to release because i just know once we start hearing from people once we start playing it and getting in rooms in front of people it's just gonna be something
Speaker 1that just blossoms i bet you can't wait man well look let's steer out of the bleak waters of politics and let's get back to the music one thing i want to ask you about as an independent artist is work-life balance because for me having to do everything myself you know working 24 hours a day having to juggle 15 different roles at any one point um you kind of alluded to it earlier you know that your your job essentially at the moment is firefighting yeah one fire out the six more turn up behind you so someone has been doing this pretty consistently now man how do you maintain your work-life
Speaker 2balance oh it's it's incredibly hard um you know i think you know anyone at kind of any level that isn't being on a major label and having a massive team sort of has to become yeah like this multi-tool wielding no sleeping sort of robot where you do do so much yourself i mean i'm lucky that you know i've at least you know i have i speak to a lot of solo artists um who you know literally have to do everything themselves but like i've got a band at least and we all do have our strengths and we all have our strengths and we all have our strengths and we all do chip in a lot but yeah it's it's relentless at the moment you know we're doing everything from like programming the lighting show for our next tour um and then we're planning the production for festival season and at the same time we're doing i'm directing the videos on this on this kind of album campaign we've done two uh we've got two more uh singles coming out with videos yeah it's just sort of non-stop there's the artwork yeah you just have to be brutal you have to be like really stubborn and just like make sure you make time for it um but it just means something has to suffer you know and you get to choose whether that's your own mental and physical health or whether that's something in uh in terms of your work yeah um and it's obviously a hard choice to have to make that choice but you know yeah you know that's not to sort of denigrate the the amazing teams that we that we have around us but yeah there's a lot of um that that essence of diy uh hasn't hasn't left us
Speaker 1uh at all what i'm hearing here is you basically you don't have a work-life balance you're just working your ass off all the time right i
Speaker 2suppose you know most people are you know it's that we're now entering the the era of capitalism where any hobby has to be like capitalized on you know everything has to be a side hustle like there is there's just no spare time you're either studying or you're working or you're doing something else you're either studying or you're working or you're acting or you know you're hustling in some way it's just yeah oh it's just it's all a bit gross isn't it really but um yeah that's where that's where we're at at the moment i think that's a clip i'm
Speaker 1gonna use it's all a bit gross isn't it but that's just where we're at that's the clip right well you've just mentioned all of the things you do and i want to get on to what's happening with a band because i don't want to keep it too much longer because i know you you know if if you could do anything right now you could probably do with some fucking time off and working on the band which whether you'll do that or not i don't know but before before i get into the what's happening with you guys i gotta ask you something because i released an album in the lockdown called make anger great again which was like a political punk rock record it was a new project because my band had broken up so i was kind of you know going a solo route with a new band so i needed like a new logo new branding all that sort of stuff and i came up with this idea that i thought look cool as fuck on paper it was like i took the of the hierarchy triangle and i inverted it so that it was like the many at the top and the fewest at the bottom and i framed it within the circle you know representing equality and the circle of life and all that sort of stuff and i thought man that looks fucking kick-ass so i just raced ahead and put it on my cd and my merch and my fucking artwork and all that sort of stuff put it out there feeling very proud of myself and then um you know album comes out and i start getting uh you know a barrage of tweets from pissed off ender shikari fans pointing out in no uncertain terms that um hey you do know that that's ender shikari's logo right wow
Speaker 2i'm
Speaker 1not sure that we can even
Speaker 2claim you know that it's that we came up with that you know as you say it's just like it's kind of symbology isn't it really and we're just using symbology to to kind of say except what sounds like exactly the same thing which is kind of beautiful um yeah no i love it
Speaker 1was that the thinking
Speaker 2behind the logo uh yeah you described it exactly yeah right um yeah and i think it was like our third album that we first used it i mean it was it was firstly just the inverted triangle and the circle was in a kind of addition um as the as time went on but um yeah because it was it was essentially a bit of our lighting production at first we had them these kind of led bars that made the triangle for uh flash for the color um and yeah yeah no it's we kind of stuck with it ever since because it's it's just like a kind of it's not often you get somebody that is sort of concise simple yeah you know it really it says a lot and it's it's like easy to understand so like yeah we we've stuck with it ever since so what do
Speaker 1i do do i have to fucking bin my merch or am i okay for a bit you're not
Speaker 2gonna sue my ass no i mean i've definitely seen other artists as well use you know an upside down triangle um
Speaker 1names escape me i've
Speaker 2seen a the same thought process and the same um kind of artistic license really don't we so yeah no no go
Speaker 1for it for you
Speaker 2solidarity oh thanks
Speaker 1man and next time i get an ass kicking off your fans i'll say look rouse it it's okay all right yeah yeah right we're moving swiftly on we got to end up by telling everybody what is coming up in camp shikari because you guys have got tons of cool shit coming up so so tell everybody what's
Speaker 2coming up absolutely yeah um well a kiss for the whole world is our new album um it's out on april the 21st which i finally memorized it was an album that was written after a very prolonged period of of like not being able to write at all so i was one of those people that over the kind of lockdown period just couldn't write um most people it seemed were incredibly productive um but yeah that was kind of a pretty grim time it was grim time for all of us obviously um but then after we started playing shows again i felt like i was refueled and re-energized and felt that sense of purpose and human connection again um and that's what this album is it's an extremely like excited i think relieved album you know you can sense this sense of relief oh my god we can create again we can put this output like a stretch out into the world and you know that's why it's called the kiss for the whole world which is also feels like what the whole world needs right now really oh yes um but yeah there's some there's on the record that we're just starting to play live and it's just so nice being able to do that straight away you know write a song release it play it live like instead of waiting a year and a half which is what we had to do on the last album um yeah seeing them in their in their full form and seeing that that cyclical energy in the live sense has been amazing um but yeah no we're just we're touring all over the shop this year and next i imagine um we're doing we're headlining slam dunk festival in may yeah and just going to be all over the shop really
Speaker 1can't can't wait doing the thing i was going to plug the live shows but they're mostly sold out already so
Speaker 2slam dunk's the only one that in the uk only um that isn't sold out yet but i've heard it's um it's well on its way so um yeah well we'll hopefully announce some some other stuff as the year goes on
Speaker 1awesome awesome awesome stuff i know everyone is going to be super excited as is demonstrated by the fact that the tour is essentially sold out already i know the album is going to be an absolute banger and it's going to do just as well if not better as everything else you guys have done so row i'm gonna let you go off and get some rest or uh you know jump onto the other six fires you've now got to put out there to be talking to my ass and um best wishes my friend with everything coming up thanks so much for taking the time out to speak with us today i really appreciate it's been a fascinating chat and um yeah best wishes with everything coming up and i hope to um see you again soon man all good
Speaker 2yeah thank you so much for having me it's an absolute pleasure speaking to you anytime at
Speaker 1all my man thanks again for everything you do and everything you give and hopefully we'll see you out there in the trenches really soon thank you best wishes mate take care take care ciao see you bye ralph reynolds ladies and gentlemen put it together for him what a cool dude what a generous dude what an intelligent switched on and fucking annoyingly talented dude as well as a super nice guy you can hear the brand new single the absolute fucking banger bloodshot which is out now from the forthcoming new album and i would urge all of you to immediately go and follow the amazing enter shikari on facebook instagram tiktok twitter and everything you can find at enter shikari at enter shikari.com those guys put up tons of awesome content from their amazing amazing live shows i would definitely recommend following them it's super super cool stuff if you want to show ralph some love as well check out his socials at ralph reynolds on twitter instagram and tiktok and basically just check out everything that enter shikari have ever done i mean i don't know who i'm talking to at this point because like everybody knows who went to shikari i'm doing my best to you know to do the podcasting of plugging the guest but in all honesty who doesn't know who enter shikari are for christ's sake you you don't need me to tell you how fucking awesome they are and why you should go and follow them you're already following them anyway but you know i gotta do my thing and again it's no surprise to me that ralph is so articulate and so informed and so well balanced in his views because he's demonstrated that year after year after year through his song lyrics and his interviews and his general demeanor and his writings as well but i thought he had some really interesting and useful and insightful points to be made earlier about activism and politics and the power of art and the music business and all sorts of stuff it was a really really interesting chat from a really really cool dude and i know i know that he's really maxed out at the moment with with promo and and you know putting out fires as you mentioned so again you know i really uh grateful and thankful for him for coming on and giving us his time hopefully we'll get him on at some point and i'll see you in the next one bye bye in the future and when that happens you're gonna know all about it because you're gonna have subscribed aren't you you're gonna have hit the subscribe button you're gonna hit the follow you're gonna hit ratings you're gonna leave me a comment even if it's a bad one i don't care you're gonna give me something that's gonna help me stick it to the algorithm and start nudging this thing out there so get clicking because we have got some awesome awesome guests coming up continuing next week we're not dropping the ball here baby so thanks for listening thanks for all the support and i shall see you next week take care of yourselves take care of each other and don't forget what ralph said when it's all getting too much there's no shame in just unplugging and recharging and reconnecting with what makes us all human in the first place so that we can get back in the trenches and start kicking some tory ass with renewed vigor love you loads guys take care of yourselves and i'll see you next week bye
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