Kaiser Chiefs are being tipped from the very top to "do a Franz" this year, but the Leeds five-piece are determined to keep their feet on the ground. Ricky Wilson tells Brian Boyd how it all started - with the curious incident of the dog in the night time
WE want to be the next classic British band. There has been one every decade for the last 40 years. In the Sixties it was The Beatles; in the Seventies it was Roxy Music; in the Eighties it was Madness and in the Nineties it was Blur."
From anyone else such Big Game talk would sound just plain stupid. But from Ricky Wilson - who specialises in self-deprecation and a cheeky, dry North of England humour - it all makes sense. Wilson is mainman of Kaiser Chiefs, a Britpop revivalist band who also do a handy sideline in artrock. They are the "latest, greatest" big noise on the music scene.
With a robust début album about to be racked up in the shops and having just completed the now rather stellar Brats tour - alongside The Killers, Bloc Party and Futureheads - Kaiser Chiefs are being tipped from the very top to "do a Franz" this year. Unlike their immediate contemporaries, their sound owes less to Wire and Gang of Four and more to Blur and The Kinks, with lashings of Two-Tone.
On first listen, it seems funny that the band hark back so unironically to a musical era - Britpop - that hasn't been gone long enough for it be nostalgically revisited. But everything with Kaiser Chiefs seems a bit different, from the way they dress (sort of neo-Frank and Walters), to the fact that up until a few weeks ago nobody outside of about eight people had heard of them. And even how they got their curious name.
"We knew something odd was going on when the whole name thing happened," says Wilson. "There's five of us in the band and we couldn't agree on any name at all, so our manager just suggested 'Kaiser Chiefs'. We only used it because none of us had a vicious objection to it. And we sort of liked the fact that it's two words that both mean leader.
"We're all from Leeds and we're all mad supporters of Leeds United and about a week after we first started to use the name we found out that Lucas Radebe from the team started off playing football in South Africa with a local team called Kaiser Chiefs. How mad is that?" About as mad as supporting the densest team in the history of football, you'll find.
Completely overlooked by the useless A&R hordes, the band only got their deal because early on they supported The Ordinary Boys in Leeds and the latter told their record company (B-unique) they had to sign them. Then Alex Kapranos entered the fray and offered them the support slot on Franz Ferdinand's British tour.
Their first single, Oh My God, was recorded in a bedroom and only issued on limited release, but made it to No 66 in the singles charts. The next one, I Predict a Riot, got them into the top 20, a rest-of-the-world-deal with a major, and an invitation to play for the prestigious US radio rock station KROQ.
"We wrote Riot about that classic Friday/Saturday night situation when the pubs have just closed and the fear you feel walking home with these lager-fuelled fights breaking out around you," Wilson says. I believe the correct term here is "about to kick off", young man. "We didn't want to sing about working on a railroad or going to the high school prom. We wanted to write about what it felt like in Leeds city centre on a Saturday night.
"Remember, just one or two years ago it was all about The White Stripes and The Strokes. There was this lazy press obsession with American music. Don't get me wrong, I loved them when I first heard them but then it got to the stage where I was asked to buy into any band from Detroit who claimed they knew Jack White."
Just as Blur were a deliberate and studied reaction against the then pre-eminent sound of Nirvana (in that Blur went from being a baggy Madchester-sounding band to barrow-boy cockneys in the space of a few months), so, it would appear that Kaiser Chiefs are a reaction to long-haired, rich Americans in leather jackets.
"I don't think it's as dramatic as that, but certainly in terms of our relative regional isolation in Leeds, it might seem that way," Wilson says. "I grew up with all the great 'B' bands - The Beatles, Beach Boys - and the great 'A' band - Abba. It was all the music I heard on the car radio on long journeys. Then, as a teenager, the whole Britpop sound erupted and I loved it, loved everything about it.
"It really was a great time - going to the indie disco wearing your tracksuit top. And it wasn't just the obvious bands I loved; I was really into Cast and Shed Seven too."
Remember a little-known band from the time called Montrose Avenue? "I certainly do, they were great. I was even a huge fan of Menswear." Menswear were a sort of assembled Britpop band, big in Camden Town for about two weeks, had more magazine front covers than hit singles, were washed out by the tide. "I thought they were distilled Britpop, or concentrate Britpop. We were really excited a few weeks ago when we found out that one of them had come to one of our gigs, but it turned out he got thrown out for taking the piss out of a bouncer. Apparently one them now models stuff in magazines, stuff like Fred Perry. Amazing."
When it came to talking to the record company about choosing a producer for their album, there was a non-negotiable: it just had to be Britpop studio god Stephen Street, who has worked to much acclaim with The Smiths, Blur, Catatonia and Suede. There was another "hero meet" situation lying in wait for the band when they went into the studio - Blur's Graham Coxon agreed to be on their album.
"We have this song called Saturday Night on the album," Wilson says. "And we wanted to start it with an engine noise. So we were talking to Stephen Street about this and he just says, very casually, 'Oh, Graham's got a bike, we'll get Graham down,' and we were all jumping up and down going yeah, let's get Graham down! And he came down and revved up his motorbike, a Honda Hornet, for the song. He revved in time with the track too!
"When I first met him, he said to me 'I like your shoes,' and apparently that was the first thing he said to Damon Albarn too. What an amazing thing to say to somebody when you first meet them." Really? The first thing Graham Coxon ever said to this reporter was: "Just don't be a smart arse about the new album, right".
Working with Stephen Street (who, musically, is best known for co-writing the sublime Everyday Is Like Sunday) also had its moments.
"It was one of the first days in the studio and he was down on his knees miking up the drum kit and we were all just looking at each other going." He makes an awed sound of disbelief. "And later I had to give him the lyrics sheets and he said they were the funniest lyrics he had ever heard - and this from a man who has worked with Morrissey!"
With so much happening so quickly, Wilson is well aware of the cruelly fickle nature of hype. "You know that thing about playing to three men and a dog? Well, when we first started we played to two people, one of whom fell asleep. And then this dog wandered in. So we've done the two-men-one-of-whom-has-fallen-asleep-and-the-dog situation. And the other thing about us newer bands is we don't do the big celebratory thing, all the drugs and stuff.
"On the Brats tour I was walking around Cardiff one day with a member of Bloc Party and his phone rings. He picks it up and goes 'number five, OK, that's fine'. And I asked him who it was and he said it was the label telling him his album has just gone into the charts at No 5. Most people would have gone on a three-day bender if they heard that, but we ended up going up to Cardiff Castle and complaining about the cost of the souvenir badges they were selling. "£2.50 for a badge. That's ridiculous."
Employment by the Kaiser Chiefs is released on March 11th.
The band's sold-out Whelans show on April 3rd has now been moved to The Village
