Interview by Kris Peters
People tend to forget sometimes that musicians need us as a means of creativity just as much as we need them for a sonic escape.
This notion was put to the test with almost catastrophic consequences during the recent closure of the world when British outfit Enter Shikari - like so many others - found themselves shut off from their fans and live audiences and faced the repercussions of art without inspiration perhaps more so than many others.
The band members quickly found themselves feeling isolated, lost, and alone - from each other and their massive fanbase - and, unable to focus on what would normally be the simple task at hand of creating music, the band instead found themselves suddenly rudderless and without a way out of the darkness.
Prolific songwriter and frontman Rou Reynolds strangely found himself struggling to put pen to paper and as the days turned into months the very real possibility that Enter Shikari might not resurface from the other side began to seem more like a foregone conclusion.
Thankfully, as the world began to open up and opportunities came flooding back in the impending veil of darkness gradually lifted, culminating in the band electing to relocate to quieter surroundings to write, plan and record their new album.
That album became A Kiss For The Whole World which will be unleashed on April 21, with Reynolds spending some time with HEAVY to run us through the dark times leading to the light.
"It's quite surreal that you finish an album, have to wait a few months for the manufacturing and everything to get sorted and then it finally comes out," he enthused. "I'm absolutely buzzing. I didn't listen to the album for about two months and then last week we were in Japan and I was very sleep deprived and jet-lagged and took a late night walk across Tokyo - which is always magical anyway - but I started to listen through the album again and it just got me so pumped. Very excited."
"Basically, I stopped writing music over the pandemic time. I think retrospectively I realised that it happened for a few reasons, but one of the big reasons was that we weren't playing shows, and without that sense of human connection, without that sense of purpose, without feeling that energy it was like my brain shut off and just said if you can't share music with people what's the point in writing it? And that was quite a disorientating and strange time, really. When we started playing shows again I consequently felt like I could write music again and the sense of relief, the sense of gratitude, the sense of excitement was absolutely palpable. It kind of felt like a bit of a rebirth of the band, so the music on this album is all very high energy and really quite positive and hopefully empowering."
In the full interview, Rou runs through the new album more from a musical point of view, the bands ever evolving sound and the extra pressure that creates with each release, relocating for the album process and what effect it had on the album, surviving without being able to perform, how close he came to walking away from music, what gave him his passion and inspiration back, how A Kiss For The Whole World is the beginning of Enter Shikari's second act, what's next for the band and more.