Breaking boundaries since 2003, Enter Shikari’s 5th album The Spark has been hailed as their most emotionally disclosed and thematically consistent work to date. Ffion Riordan-Jones spoke with frontman Rou Reynolds ahead of their November arena tour:
What made you take this direction with The Spark?
The last few years have been hectic, for me personally and overall. I wanted the music to perhaps be more lucid and for the vocals to take a much bigger forefront. It’s only been the last few years that I’ve grown confident as a singer whereas before I always just saw myself as the punk kid that fell into being a frontman.
What have your influences been?
I definitely feel that David Bowie has been a huge influence on me especially vocally. Me and my mates found ourselves doing a thing we dubbed ‘Bowie-oke’ that started as just celebrating his life. I found that really formative for the album in terms of increasing my range, baritone and falsetto so that was really important. It helped for that quest of simplicity.
You’ve been open away from ES’s music in terms of anxiety, loss and insomnia; how did it feel channelling it into your material?
It was very difficult at first. The weirdest thing was coming out of a really intense period of insomnia and anxiety, then writing music and a lot of it was coming out really up-beat and positive. I didn’t really know what to do because I didn’t want to fake being positive when it wasn’t how I was feeling. With Live Outside, it’s one of the most upbeat tracks on the album, but the lyrics are very sombre, [it’s] mainly about mental health. It’s a very traditional British post-punk or alt-pop thing to do to have a fairly singable tune but then address subjects that more manufactured pop isn’t addressing. It was quite nice to try and fit into that lineage of bands as so many have influenced us going back to Joy Division and Depeche Mode.
How do you feel about the increased dialogue surrounding mental health in the industry?
For me, it’s a really interesting and convoluted subject as talking about your own experiences [can be] very close to narcissism. In pop, hip hop and a lot of mainstream genres there is a lot of bigging one’s self up, and I think over time a lot of people get sick of that. People want reality and they want things that they have experienced; mental health is one. We all have certain weaknesses and strengths so we have all experienced something that was a struggle. Speaking about it on Twitter, I have found it beneficial for myself. You know, when I would feel solitary, having loads of other people respond saying ‘I’ve been through this and that’ has really helped. It’s definitely a two-way thing.
Your previous work has always been unapologetic when tackling political issues, what in the current political climate has formed the album?
If we were discussing nationalism 10 years ago, we wouldn’t think of it as a dangerous idea and more dormant, whereas now it has exploded becoming powerful and destructive. There’s still a pervasive thing as a male of, “You’re not allowed to show your emotions. You have to man up”. Having that mindset and brining humans up in a certain way. That is why we have someone like Donald Trump. This is a man who went to military school and is fifty-per-cent pride and fifty-per-cent anger; that’s his emotional make-up. We are trying to do our bit to combat that.
You’re bringing Astroid Boys to an arena stage in their hometown, what made you pick them to bring on tour?
What we try and do is make eclectic bills and there is no one really doing what Astroid Boys are doing at the moment. I think their music is really interesting and their live shows are super intense. They were a complete no brainer, especially with Lower Than Atlantis who are the opposite end of the spectrum.
Enter Shikari are playing the Motorpoint Arena on Fri 17 Nov. Tickets: £27.50 Info: 029 2022 4488 / https://www.entershikari.com/events/2017-11-17-enter-shikari-motorpoint-arena