Kaiser Chiefs are rested and ready to “Start the Revolution.”
When the Leeds-based band returned to the studio after an 18-month break, they were ready to give fans a whole new musical taste of the band.
“We threw the whole rulebook out the window,” said Nick “Peanut” Baines. “In the last three, four of five years, the way people take and consume and digest music has changed a lot.”
| Onstage |
| Kaiser Chiefs |
| When: 8 p.m. Friday |
| Where: 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW |
| Info: Sold out at presstime, but tickets might be available through resellers; 9:30.com; 800-955-5566 |
Not that Kaiser Chiefs is ready to abandon the album in favor of the downloaded track. But they were ready to give fans some options, allowing them to mix and match tracks to assemble their own Kaiser Chiefs “Start the Revolution” albums.
Such innovation is nothing new for the indie rockers, though. Consider that last year the band released their fourth studio album “The Future is Medieval” via their own digital platform. Fans were allowed to mix and match tracks for that album, too, plus choose the album artwork they wanted courtesy of band member and artist Ricky Wilson.
“It felt like something we needed to do,” said Baines. “If no one else was going to do it, we needed to do it.”
It also drove the group to a more intense and focused writing and production schedule, he said.
“Each song has to be brilliant, it has got to be [if fans will be allowed to] pick any combination,” he said. “There aren’t any B sides or bonus tracks. This changed how we recorded songs although we still recorded them quickly.”
While “Start the Revolution” follows suit in format, it is a bit of a surprise musically. Expect a darker tone than listeners heard on such radio favorites as “I Can Do It Without You”.
The just-released album, which has five never-before-released tracks, was produced by Tony Visconti (David Bowie, Iggy Pop, T. Rex), Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Ray LaMontagne, Emmylou Harris) and Owen Morris (Oasis and The Verve) and the band mates.
“We felt like we wanted something different,” he said. “This [album] really came from the early genesis of an idea. We had a lot of freedom musically.
“From the early day, we have always put on big shows plying our trade and trying to [constantly] get a new focus. We would watch [other bands] and try to steal their plans. In the early days of touring, someone said ‘You guys really know how to hit a chord. It’s the same thing when we are writing. We won’t go out there with drab songs and drab chords. We are always doing our best.”
