SERGE PIZZORNO is a man who no longer has anything to prove.
He’s spent the past few years fighting to make sure Kasabian survived, reinvented themselves and came back even stronger.
9
9
And so, Act III — their ninth studio album — arrives with the confidence of a band who have already answered their doubters.
“I feel like this album draws from every era of Kasabian,” he tells me. “Soulmate has something of the first album, but I can hear West Ryder and Empire in there too, along with everything I’ve learned as a songwriter.
“It feels like a fine-tuned version of all those eras, which is why I called it Act III. After the mad six years we’ve had, it feels like all the stories and subplots have led to this record.”
Those six years followed the departure of original frontman Tom Meighan, and a period when the band’s future was far from certain. But Act III is the sound of a completely assured Kasabian.
READ MORE MUSIC NEWS
GIVING IT AWAY
Oasis’ Noel drops biggest hint he will reunite with Liam for new gigs
tough call
00s indie icons cancel gig days before they’re due onstage with cryptic message
The confidence is everywhere — in the songs, in the band and in a live show more thrilling than ever.
Last week, they made history by becoming the first-ever Thursday headliners at Leeds Festival.
Still buzzing from the night, Pizzorno tells me: “Leeds was seriously off the scale.
“The vibes were there from the second we went on. What a way to round off what’s truly been our greatest summer yet.”
Most read in Showbiz
PICK OUT
Emotional Stacey Solomon reveals she’s SOLD £1.3m ‘dream home’ Pickle Cottage
NUDE AWAKENING
Moment ‘totally naked’ Amanda Holden gets stuck straddling chest of drawers
WAR ON MAUR
Maura Higgins Dancing With The Stars row as co-stars say she’s ‘set up to win’
PEREZ’S BATTLE
Perez Hilton has ‘lost memory & thinks it’s 2016’ after self-harm livestream
9
9
When we speak, Pizzorno is tired but buoyant following their latest shows and having only recently returned from Japan, where Kasabian played Summer Sonic in Tokyo and Osaka.
“The gigs just keep getting bigger over there,” he says proudly.
“The fans understood the band from the start and really respect the art — all the mad moves and intricate details.
“They just get it. The crowds are wild and it feels like things have blown up for us in Japan again, which is amazing.”
It was an extra-special trip for the frontman, who took sons Ennio, 16, and Lucio, 13, with him.
He says: “They came back with a load of inspiration. We’ve been to Japan so many times, but it was beautiful seeing it again through them for the first time.
“You can see their minds opening up and the world becoming smaller. Suddenly, Leicester feels like a very small place.”
Back home for a few days, wearing an outlandish Martine Rose shirt plastered with dogs’ faces, there’s little danger of Pizzorno being an embarrassing dad when it comes to style.
9
9
His eldest son is now raiding his wardrobe.
“I picked my son up from the park and thought, ‘I’m sure I wore that at Glastonbury’.
“They nick my clothes and wear them. It’s brilliant.”
Family life aside, it’s been a huge summer for Kasabian on the live front.
“The shows keep moving forward and getting better,” Pizzorno says. “We keep having more ideas and I’m excited about where it can go next.
“Finsbury Park was probably one of the best shows, if not the best show, we’ve ever done.
“The atmosphere was like a South American football crowd — Boca Juniors or River Plate — mixed with an early rave and pure rock ’n’ roll.
“We all came off in this bubble, just going, ‘What just happened?’ It was magnificent. Life-changing, really. That’s exactly why we do it.
9
9
“We want people to walk away from our shows with a memory ingrained in their minds for the rest of their lives.
“I think about that one person in the crowd you can reach — that’s the job now.
“I’ve called being a frontman a kind of martial art because every crowd has a different energy.
“My style as a frontman is a kind of hybrid — the late ’60s icons like Iggy Pop and Jim Morrison, mixed with Tyler, The Creator and Travis Scott.”
“I know what music can do and how great it can make you feel.
“I remember the shows that changed my life — Rage Against The Machine at Rock am Ring; DJ Shadow at Brixton Academy; Kendrick Lamar at Birmingham NEC, which was like a religious experience; and David Byrne, who I saw recently and was unbelievable.
“That hour-and-a-half of our live show is everything, so we’ll do whatever we can to make it as good as it possibly can be.”
The energy of those huge shows inevitably fed into Act III.
Pizzorno says: “Coming off the back of all these big live shows, we knew we wanted to make a record you’d want to hear headlining festivals and playing those huge shows.”
The album was originally due to be released in July, before Pizzorno’s perfectionism demanded more tweaks.
He says: “I’m not going to deny there’s a slight madness to it, but that’s why I can do this in the first place, so you have to respect it. And the delay has helped.
“We’ve been able to put more songs out, play them live and let the record build.
“It almost feels like the universe wanted us to delay it — that’s what I tell myself.”
Impressively, Act III is Kasabian’s third album in four years, following 2022’s The Alchemist’s Euphoria and 2024’s Happenings.
“I’m just really inspired,” Pizzorno tells me. “I love being in the studio and making music.
“I don’t wake up thinking, ‘I’ve got to make an album’. I find inspiration easy to come by because there’s so much of it. The world is full of it.
“Over time, you realise you don’t measure things by metrics, streams or tickets, even though they can become hugely important.
“It comes back to making the tunes first, then getting excited about what you can do with them.
“I feel we could put every song from this album into the set. That was the plan — they had to be good enough to make the live show.”
The euphoric, psychedelic Hippie Sunshine was the song that kickstarted the album.
“I’m really proud of that song — it felt like a pinnacle moment for the record,” Pizzorno explains.
“It has that Kasabian DNA but the middle section completely surprises you and it’s amazing live.
“It’s connecting already, which doesn’t always happen with new songs. Vlad took ages — for the first five years, people thought the PA was broken. Now it’s huge.”
Other album standouts include Great Pretender and electronic anthem Nothing Better Than This, a song title that doubles as the band’s mantra right now.
“Great Pretender came in about ten minutes, sitting in the garden with an acoustic guitar,” says Pizzorno.
“Nothing Better Than This is classic Kasabian while Superpowers has this G-funk groove that takes me back to records I listened to as a kid.
“I’ve always loved superhero origin stories — plus it gave us an excuse to put Stephen [Graham] in a cape.”
Actor Stephen stars in a series of stripped-back promo films for Superpowers, performing the song’s lyrics as if they were an audition script.
Pizzorno says: “We’ve been friends for a long time. For the film, I wanted to use the lyrics almost like a script, as I love those old film audition tapes.
“There are amazing Godfather ones with De Niro just reading, no big production around him.
“I thought it was a beautiful way of making people look at the song differently.”
Film influences play a big part in Pizzorno’s songs, too.
“I’ve always been interested in film and cinema,” he says. “I was reading a book by [Oscar-winning screenwriter] William Goldman on Hollywood and why stories in those great ’70s films are so powerful.
“It got me thinking about storytelling and how we all live through stories we believe in.
“David Lynch was a big influence, too. I love putting films on and writing because an image can spark a line or an idea.
“Those little subconscious sparks are what turn into songs.”
The friendship within Kasabian — Pizzorno, bassist Chris Edwards, drummer Ian Matthews and guitarist Tim Carter — is also something Pizzorno is proud of.
He says: “We’re in such a good place as a band.
“We’re having so much fun, and I think that comes with appreciating how lucky we are to still be doing this after more than 20 years.
“The glue that binds us is humour. We just have a laugh.
“Rob Harvey [former frontman of The Music, who plays with Kasabian live] has been a revelation, too.
“We’ve never been tighter or closer. We are all in a good place.”
These days, Pizzorno also prioritises finding a good work-life balance.
He explains: “I’ve done the whole spectrum of madness — starting work in a French cafe at 5am or not going to bed for three days.
“But now I focus on four or five hours of solid work, then I finish.
“Weirdly, the thing you rebel against when you’re younger is what makes you more productive.”
Running has also become a big part of his life in the last few years, and this has boosted his mental wellbeing.
He says: “I’ve done a couple of marathons — I’ve run Florence and Copenhagen and, at 18 miles, you find out who you really are because you’re in agony and you still have to get to the end. I’ve not been as committed to the training as I would’ve liked — I didn’t respect them as much as I should — but the atmosphere is amazing.
“You hear people’s stories about why they’re running, sometimes for a family member, and it gets emotional.
“To be around that is f***ing good for you. It’s beautiful.
“I would like to do more and really commit. The party days were phenomenal, but I’m in a different phase now.
“But saying that, I still refuse to grow up. I mean, look at me — it’s 10am and I’ve got a dog shirt on!
“I’m at an age where I can’t go out and party then perform, and Kasabian’s shows mean more to me now than a big night out.
“I want people to leave our shows wanting to start a band or change the world.
“That’s what I did after I went to see Oasis at Earls Court in 1995 — they made you believe anything was possible.
“They created belief and dreamers. It made kids think they could do something with their lives and, for that, they deserve total respect.
“I really feel for kids today, with social media, because it’s designed to be addictive.
“Once you open that phone, real life can suddenly seem boring. But they need to be bored and to dream — those quiet moments are where your imagination kicks in.
“As a kid, when I sat waiting for a bus, bored — that’s when I did my dreaming and made my plans.
“That’s when I decided I wanted to be a rock ’n’ roll star and write songs.”
Having silenced the doubters, I ask how he feels when he sees negative comments about the post-Tom Kasabian and what he would say to the tiny group of critics who still say: “No Tom, No Kasabian”?
He says: “Those comments are just meaningless words that pass through like traffic. We are just focusing on now.
“There will always be critics on social media — that’s life — but the way we dealt with Tom going, out of respect for the time with him, was to move on.
“So, we didn’t say what we wanted and could have said. If people knew half of what went on, they’d understand.
“We concentrated on making great records, making a great live show, and ignoring what people say because, ultimately, I can’t do anything about that.”
“But I know what I can do — and that’s make some great tunes, and put on a great rock ’n’ roll show. We’ve let the music do the talking.”
And with the release of Act III, the band’s strongest album in years, looking forward is the only way for Pizzorno.
“There’s so much to be excited about,” he says. “The arena tour in December . . . there’s lots of exciting things going on and exciting times ahead.
RECOMMENDED STORIES
“I’ve had some time now to understand what the album is and by following my instincts and creating music that excites me, Act III is the start of even more awesome times.
“Everything is getting bigger for Kasabian — we are bigger all over the world. I’m feeling positive about what’s to come.”
9