Culture Clash: Enter Shikari

Rou Reynolds on his extra-curricular commitments...

Enter Shikari have never been ones to turn down a challenge.

So when the band felt like opening up, that's exactly what they did – producing some of their broadest, most accessible work in the process.

New album 'The Spark' will be released on September 22nd, and it's perhaps their most melodic effort yet, something that fuses their immediately recognisable sound with British pop greats like Blur.

Produced by David Kosten, sessions were intense, with Enter Shikari driving themselves harder and harder.

Along the way, though, frontman Rou Reynolds have a few escapes – as he reveals in Culture Clash…

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Book
I’m a bit strange with book choice, I either read pretty intense non fiction, popular science books or philosophical works but then also I love comedy fiction. I think one of the writers I return to most is P.G. Wodehouse and especially his seemingly endless series of Jeeves & Wooster stories. It does make me wince a bit when I talk about this though, as liking Wodehouse often puts you in questionable company, for example I recently found out he’s one of Boris Johnson’s favourite authors… the cretin, but I try to ignore that!

Anyway, I think my favourite would have to be Code Of The Woosters. After a while the stories are quite predictable in terms of their arc (young Wooster gets himself into a difficult position and his butler Jeeves always astutely saves the day) but the plots are clever, the characters are hilarious and there’s just something reassuringly homely (however unrealistic) about his writing.

I still read Wodehouse on tour occasionally, it’s just perfect escapism.

Film
I’m gonna go for the documentary route here, purely because no set of films have influenced me more than the Zeitgeist film series by Peter Joseph. The last of the series, Moving Forward is the must see in my opinion, although all are packed full of interesting perspectives on the broadest of questions.

I feel like watching these films opened my eyes up to so much and taught me to question everything, even the social structures and norms we’d normally just take for granted in our modern world. If you think our civilisation, our society is imperfect in anyway, and would love to build a better, fairer world, this is definitely one for you. And if you think things are perfect, well then, this even more so is for you!

Album
Well these are all tough categories of which I could have picked many, but this one especially so! I’ll go with Radiohead and 'Kid A'. I could have picked quite a few other of Radiohead’s albums too, they’ve consistently been one of my biggest influences over the years but 'Kid A' I think taught me a lot about music and artistry in general.

The sheer fearlessness of this record is astounding, to come out with an electronica album after the press and their fans thought they knew exactly what Radiohead were and what they represented was such a bold move. It feels like a real timeless record too, often with electronic music it can be very genre specific and very vogue.

This still feels fresh listening back today. The chord sequences, the melodies, the rhythms all absolutely captivated me at the time.

TV
I think for writing, genius dialogue and the amount of sheer belly laughs it’s given me, I’m going to go with The Thick Of It. Created by my total favourite, Armando Iannucci who also created Alan Partridge and Veep. Malcolm Tucker (played by Peter Capaldi) is probably my favourite character from any TV show ever; a controlling, fiery, foul mouthed, short tempered Scottish man whose role as the government's Director Of Communications sees him relentlessly stressed and pushed to the limit.

He delivers some of the best insults ever, including making his own neologisms like "Jesus Christ, see you… You're a fucking omnishambles, that's what you are.”

Another personal favourite would be "No, he's useless. He's absolutely useless. He's as useless as a marzipan dildo."

Gadget
I’m not really a gadgety person I don’t think. My most trusty and perhaps peculiar mechanical device would have to be my typewriter. I only got it a year or so ago after wanting one for ages. I love writing lyrics and poetry on it, or even letters to friends and fans.
I find it quite meditative to be honest; the sensations, the sounds, the clinks and clanks.

It’s nice to be focused on something that isn’t electronic i.e. that gets me away from staring at a screen every once in a while. It’s another form of escapism I guess!

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Catch Enter Shikari at the following shows:

November
16 Liverpool Arena
17 Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
18 Nottingham Motorpoint Arena
19 Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
21 Manchester Victoria Warehouse
22 Brighton Centre
24 Birmingham Barclaycard Arena
25 London Alexandra Palace

For tickets to the latest Enter Shikari shows click HERE.

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