INTERVIEW - Kaiser Chiefs by Nadia Jaynes

The Kaiser Chiefs formed in the summer of 2003 with little ambition other than playing the local Students Union and stage diving at a variety of small venues throughout the city. Fast forward eighteen months and The Kaisers have all but taken over the UK. After appearing at Live 8 and all the festivals this summer, (some blamed "I Predict a Riot" for the trouble at Leeds), two hit singles, and a sell out UK tour, the band are currently on tour with the Foo Fighters in an attempt to crack the US.

Many popular British bands have tried and failed to break the US charts over the last decade. But despite their lack of success, The Kaisers remain undeterred. Opening for the Foos is no mean feat, but the audiences seem to be loving the limeys' eccentrically British act. Keyboardist Peanut told me: "The audiences are taking to us really well. When we first came here, hardly anyone had heard of us, but that´s ok.

"It's just like back in the UK when we first started out on the NME tour and we started to build a fan base really quickly. It is really difficult to break the states, but recently there´s been a shift back to British music. The Beatles did it back then and some UK bands like Franz Ferdinand are starting to have success in the charts over here now. This tour is amazing. We get to see the Foo Fighters live every night as well as doing what we love."

It's little surprise that the band are taking things in their stride. The Kaisers have played hundreds of gigs over the last twelve months, with audiences ranging from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands when they played Live 8 in America. Peanut: "Live 8 was a strange one because whilst it was amazing to think we´d taken part in something like that it was very regimented. You know you had your time slot and it was three songs and then you´re off. The timing was very strict. Probably our best gig was Glastonbury, you know just because of the occasion of it all. I mean Glastonbury means so much to people in this country, so to play there was just amazing."

As well as their numerous festival appearances, the band have been staple candidates in most UK music awards. Despite being the favourites to win the prestigious Mercury Music Prize, the band lost out to Anthony and The Johnsons. However, The Kaisers were gracious in their defeat. Peanut: "It´s a bit like Anthony himself said, it´s like having a race between an orange and a bicycle or something, we´re all totally different bands playing totally different music. It´s not like being beaten in your field because we were all so different. I think the prize is actually for innovation and I think they desreved to win. Essentially there were twelve competitors and eleven of us had to lose. I know it's a cliche, but even to be nominated for that award meant a lot to us as a band."

The band also missed out recently at the Q awards. but Peanut explains whilst trophies are nice, they´re essentially all about the music. "Whilst it´s fantastic to be nominated for all of these awards especially the ones that are voted for by the public, that´s not why we do what we do. It is great to have somebody recognise what you´re doing (and The Mercury Music Prize is out on its own), but it´s more important to us to be enjoying what we´re doing. Also to know that other people are enjoying it. You know overhearing someone coming out of a gig talking about what a brilliant time they've had. That´s the best feeling you can ever get, it´s amazing."

The new single "Modern Way" is due to be released on the 7th of November and is the final track from debut album Employment and pomises to show a mellower side of the band. Peanut: "The new single isn´t as in your face as "I Predict a Riot" and "Every Day", it´s more laid back (if we ever can be laid back). This is us chilling out. Because it´s the last track we´re releasing from the album we´re just hoping it does as well as the other singles. You know that would be us really going out on a high". The band are extremely cagey about the details for the new video, suffice to say, it´s about chasing your dreams and features a tennis ball. They´re leaving the rest to our imagination.

Not wanting to rest on their laurels, (as if), The Kaisers are also releasing a DVD imaginatively titled "Enjoyment", which is a ninety minute film documenting the band. Peanut said: "Bill Nighy who did all of our videos came up with the idea of documenting us while we were on tour. We thought the film was a great idea because we wanted to do something different from what every other band was doing. Most bands release a video of their tour and it´s just one gig played from start to finish, and it actually gets quite boring. We´ve never been into convention, and whilst all the tracks from the album are on there, we wanted to intersperse it with real footage of how we really are. there´s even some DV footage in there from before the band was formed. As far as I know they've been very kind to us in the edit, but I haven't actually seen the final cut, so there may well be some bits in there that makes us all cringe.

The band have rarely had time to pause for breath this year and show no signs of slowing down. Peanut: "This year has been amazing and we are really pleased with how it´s gone. I mean eight year old kids to pensioners know all the words to our songs, but we want people to know that we´ve got a whole lot more to give. There´s a lot more that we wanna achieve."

The band were back playing the Manchester Apollo on Saturday 15th October and love playing to Manchester crowds. "We're really looking forward to the Apollo gig, we always get a good reaction up there. One of the best gigs we ever did was at a little tiny indie club in Chorlton. There was a crowd of about fourty people and it was all really dark and low key. It was when we´d just starting playing our own stuff, it was around the birth of The Kaiser Chiefs as you know them. It was just amazing, the crowd there loved us and we loved them. That was when we knew we had good songs."

The Kaiser Chiefs have won over Britain with their infectious orginal britpop/punk blend. Whether the US will be won over, or if it´s all lost in translation remains to be seen.