Kaiser Chiefs: “Boris Johnson took a weird dislike to our band and I don’t know why”

Which former prime minister wrote a bizarre article in 2006 where he branded the Kaiser Chiefs “the weeds from Leeds”?

“Boris Johnson.”

CORRECT.

“He took a weird dislike to our band and I don’t know why, because you’d think we’d be right up his street. [Laughs] I say that jokingly. He also said when he was a student, he didn’t predict riots, he started them, and called me an ‘epic softie’. That’s still my Twitter bio. I don’t know what an ‘epic softie’ is, but it’s probably something you’d call someone if you’d been to boarding school in the ‘80s and were trying to sound cool in the ’00s. If you were going to have a new pop star, Epic Softie is a perfectly acceptable name, so I don’t mind being called that.”

 When his successor Liz Truss gave her resignation speech in 2022, she was almost drowned out by activist Steve Bray playing the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘I Predict a Riot’…

“That was marvellous work because that song captured the way people were feeling.”

When Girls Aloud covered the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘I Predict a Riot’ live on their ‘Chemistry’ tour in 2006, what did they change the lyric “Borrow a pound for a condom” to?

“Borrow a pound for a phone call.”

WRONG. ‘Borrow a pound for the bus home.’

“I really liked them. In the mid-noughties, we were cool for 15 minutes and then we went mainstream – and I enjoyed that a lot more. It was nicer sofas in dressing rooms. When even NME were taking the piss out of us, we found new contemporaries like Girls Aloud – and went toe-to-toe with them in charts. They made me raise the bar to thinking: ‘Our next single has to beat Girls Aloud’, rather than ‘Our next single has to beat insert also-ran indie band here’.  They were really cool – and I still think they’re cool. I saw them before Christmas and performed one of their songs – badly! – at their fundraiser for Sarah Harding’s charity. And they didn’t take the piss out of me!”

You also played the late Sarah Harding’s boyfriend, named ‘Rock Star’, in the 2009 St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold movie…

“That was dodgy but weird!”

Additionally, you performed a mash-up of Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Never Miss a Beat’/Girls Aloud’s ‘Sound of the Underground’ on their 2008 ITV1 special The Girls Aloud Party…

“I don’t remember that! Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Brain Cells? Yes!”

Which four acts did you beat to receive the Best Dressed gong at the 2006 NME Awards?

“This question is null and void! The year before, The Killers’ Brandon Flowers won it and he had the trophy in his hand at the end of the night, but when I won in 2006, I never received the one-finger-salute statuette, so it’s a non-question!”

OK: Name the four acts you beat when you didn’t receive the Best Dressed Award…

“If I’d received it, I would be telling people whenever they looked at my award shelf: ‘You know who I beat for that…’, but I haven’t so I’ll guess Carl Barât, Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand, the singer of Neils Children [John Linger] and The Cribs’ Ryan Jarman?”

WRONG. But close! You triumphed over Brandon Flowers, Alex Kapranos, Liam Gallagher, and Pete Doherty.

“There was always drama at the NME Awards. The first time I went in 2005, some guy from another record label made hand-signals at me when we were performing onstage. I was so pissed off, I marched around trying to find him afterwards. A year later, Ryan Jarman jumped onto our table and split his side open and I had to sit in the ambulance with him – he was trying to get out! [Laughs] I’d been on tour with The Cribs enough times to know he’s indestructible though. They’re in my Top Five bands of all time because they’re both rock’n’roll in the music they make and their attitude towards it. Their legacy will last forever and we’ll be listening them longer than most other bands from that time.”

Speaking of beating Liam Gallagher to Best Dressed…

“I didn’t beat Liam Gallagher to Best Dressed because I DIDN’T GET THE AWARD!!!”

…Oasis had a few pops over the years (for example, Noel Gallagher once quipped: “I did drugs for 18 years and I never got that bad to say, ‘You know what? I think the Kaiser Chiefs are brilliant'”). Ever encounter them afterwards and have a laugh about it?

“I’ve met up with them, but we haven’t laughed about old pops they’ve had at me, because I’m not the kind of guy who would confront Liam Gallagher about the things he’s said about me in the past, because I’m sure he’s forgotten most of them and I don’t care. Would I like to be his friend? Definitely. Do I think I could be? Probably not. I think he’s very good at being at hilarious. I don’t think he’s ever tried to be hurtful towards me – and long may he reign in his hilarity.”

At a Kaiser Chiefs New York gig in 2008, what pseudonym did you use to introduce Mark Ronson onstage?

“Probably Ron Markson? No idea!”

WRONG. You introduced him as “Saul Rosenbaum, our New York lawyer” – and later crowdsurfed to the bar during ‘The Angry Mob’ to pour yourself a whisky.

“That must have been Mark’s idea, because that doesn’t flick any synapses in my head! I don’t do it anymore, but crowdsurfing to the bar was the oldest trick in the book. It makes people laugh even more if you can bring a whole tray of tequila back – which I did on many occasions!”

“Mark Ronson is fun to hang out with. When we were making our third album, ‘Off With Their Heads’, with him our guitarist Whitey used to refer to him as ‘The Sleeping Millionaire’, because he’d come in every day after being at a celebrity bash and find the cosiest place in the studio to fall asleep.”

“One time when I was in the pub with Mark, Amy Winehouse arrived. You could see the paparazzi bulbs flashing outside. She sat next to me being quiet. I didn’t realise until I got home that she was playing a game with herself to see how many sweets she could fill my pockets with while I wasn’t looking. I had a whole packet of Mentos in one pocket! Every pocket – including those in my obligatory waistcoats – were filled with Haribo. I loved her intensely and think she’s the greatest artist of our generation.”

In a jokey pre-encore video the Kaiser Chiefs played on tour in 2015, which rock icon calls you “Mr Fucking Celebrity TV Judge”, before admonishing you by saying: “If I was a fucking judge on that TV show and your band came up and played like that, you know what I would say? Your band played like shit. Get your act together – you’re systematically destroying your legend.”

“Dave Grohl.”

CORRECT.

“We toured with the Foo Fighters a lot, and I thought it would be good to have a pre-encore video where Dave storms into our dressing room and tells us to go out there and tear a new arsehole. But we then had to agree to wear the same clothes we were wearing at the time for the whole tour [Laughs]. Dave inexplicably likes the Kaiser Chiefs as well, so that was good.”

According to the liner notes of Kaiser Chiefs’ debut album ‘Employment’, who is the motorcycle that appears at the beginning of the track ‘Saturday Night’ owned and “played by”?

“It’s Graham Coxon’s motorcycle.”

CORRECT.

“He was annoyed because we credited the wrong motorcycle. We put it as something like a 750cc Manx TT Works Racer – and he sent us a message saying it was a Honda XX 14 or something. I don’t know about motorcycles! He came into the studio, and we got him to rev up his motorbike, because we love Blur and thought it would be good to get a member on the album – and we didn’t want them singing or playing guitar.”

Name any three celebrities the judges mistook you for when you appeared as Phoenix on the 2023 series of The Masked Singer.

“David Tennant, Stephen Mulhern, and Jason Statham.”

CORRECT.

“David Tennant was texting me a lot during that asking ‘Is it you?’ and I’d reply: ‘No, it’s obviously you David!’. The first time I met David Tennant was when we did an NME article together when he became Doctor Who, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

Which famously irascible Salford frontman once suggested that “the Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys should open a chain of chip shops in North Yorkshire”?

“Mark E Smith.”

CORRECT. The late Fall frontman said in 2006: “I think the Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys should open a chain of chip shops in North Yorkshire. I think the East Germans had it right actually. Every group used to have a permit. Until they came up with anything culturally relevant like a classical composition, I think they should bring them in here. I should start a musical Stasi. If you can’t play in fookin’ time, then fook off back to the factory.”

“I respect and admire Mark E Smith a lot, and I’d respect and admire him a lot less if he respected me! [Laughs] So well done Mark E, RIP. You know what though, nobody ever said that he should have opened a tent company called Marquee Smiths.”

Complete the following lyrics: “Ra-ra-Rasputin, England’s got a goal machine/He’s Harry Kane and he’s going to score…”?

“[Laughs] I don’t know! That was the World Cup song I did with Freddie Flintoff? Freddie Flintoff, me, and [ex] Franz Ferdinand guitarist Nick McCarthy were in a studio once and I don’t remember much of what we did – but the extension on my house does!”

WRONG. It’s indeed from your collaboration with former cricketer Freddie Flintoff, a rewrite of Boney M’s ‘Rasputin’ to coincide with the 2018 World Cup in Russia. The rest of the lyrics are: “Ra-ra-Rasputin/He’s captain of the England team/He’s off to Russia to lay down the law.|

“Oh, really? Sounds terrible!”

Any reaction from Harry Kane?

“I’ve met him. I don’t think he was grateful. I think he was too busy thinking about playing for England at the time, and I was thinking about the extension on my house!”

You appeared in the audience of the The Mrs. Merton Show as a teenager in 1995. What question did you ask Barbara Windsor?

“I asked her how young she’d go.”

CORRECT. A flirty question in response to the late EastEnders star commenting she liked younger men. Did you ever run into Caroline Aherne, who starred as the eponymous pensioner, Windsor, or Mrs. Merton co-creator Craig Cash after gaining fame with Kaiser Chiefs?

“No. I was at school, and got tickets to see it in Manchester because I thought Caroline Aherne was a genius and wanted to see her in action. I fucking loved it! She was inspirational, and so funny. I wish they’d allow comedians to spread their wings like that now, and not give them simple formats like quiz shows.”

Tell us about the Kaiser Chiefs’ forthcoming ‘Easy Eighth Album’. Was there a battleplan going into it?

“As the title suggests, it was to make it as easy as possible. We didn’t want to worry about what anybody else thought about it apart from us. We do social commentary well, and we also do party tunes well. We worked with Nile Rodgers for it, and I don’t think I’ll be able to appreciate for years to come how much that was an important moment, ‘cause you have to divorce yourself from it in the studio and not just keep asking Nile: ‘What sandwich would Bowie order?’”

The verdict: 6/10

“The ones I didn’t get were impossible, so I’m not bothered. I don’t see them as questions. They didn’t even make sense to me!”

Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Easy Eighth Album’ is released March 1. The band tour the UK from April.

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