Kaiser Chiefs Prepare New Album and Tour

Four years have passed since the Kaiser Chiefs released an album, but on March 6, the group is releasing Start the Revolution Without Me and starting a U.S. tour the same day. In talking about the follow-up to 2008’s Off With Their Heads with Rolling Stone, frontman Ricky Wilson mentioned that, during the four years, the band only took a five-month break; the rest of the time, they were writing and recording. He said: "You take a little step back, and now we’re going back to America and we’re flying first class and we’re playing on ‘Letterman’ and we’re doing all these amazing things. We’re playing Coachella and doing our biggest U.S. tour. It’s actually really exciting."

He followed up with: "You kind of get used to being in a band, and you don’t look forward to things as much as you really should. […] No one wants to hear people in bands talking about how rubbish their life is when there are a million kids in a million garages across the country who are queueing up to take their place."

The Kaiser Chiefs are playing Coachella this summer, along with Noel Gallagher and Radiohead on the same day, but Wilson is most curious about David Guetta. He explained: "People f---ing love that guy. I’m in a band with guys with guitars and drums, but I totally understand why David Guetta is one of the most popular people on the earth right now. It’s because it’s fun and people like it."

The group has since signed with label Cooperative, who, when asked by the Kaiser Chiefs, got involved with their upcoming album. Wilson said: "We said to them, 'You’ve got this batch of songs, you make your album.’ They made their album." And how does he feel about it? "When we recorded the 25 we knew we had to be happy with anyone’s choice of 10. That was why they all had to be up to a certain standard. There was no filler. And I know some people who don’t like our band might disagree with that, but personally I do feel we’ve made the strongest body of work we’ve ever done."