KASABIAN INTERVIEW IN FULL

TOP Brit band Kasabian have spoken exclusively to the News of the World about their love of Leicester City, football and touring with Oasis.

We have a full transcript of what was discussed with Tom Meighan and Chris Edwards at Marylebone's Sportsbar & Grill in London as a wide-ranging chat.

You're both big Leicester fans, how has football influenced all your music?

Tom: I don't really know actually how it has influenced our music. Maybe with the street credit we've got as a lot of rock 'n' roll has come from the East Midlands so there's a thing going on. Black Sabbath support Walsall and Led Zep are Wolverhampton Wanderers fans so maybe there's a Midlands thing going there. Yeah, got to be something like that.

Are there any particular songs with a football feel?

Tom: I think Club Foot was made for Sky Sports on purpose! Running Battle and Stuntman are kind of based on football hooligans and the culture and how Britain has changed, modern Britain.

Do you still go to games?

Tom: Yeah, I went on Saturday for the 0-0 against Derby County. It was great, we should have won. Robbie Savage was playing for Derby. I didn't bother booing him, I'm not bothered - it's ridiculous ain't it?

Do you go in the executive box or sit in the stands?

Tom: I sit in the stand.

Playing football venues, is that something you enjoy doing?

Chris: I don't know, The Walkers Stadium, they've just done it up. We wanted to play there a couple of years ago but structurally it wasn't ready for us to play there. We've had to wait. They're made as natural ampitheatres now and made for sound so it's great playing them. When we did Wembley and stuff with Oasis it was great. Whether we'll play Walkers Stadium in the future I don't know but I'd love to. Whether it's possible I don't know.

Would you rather be a rock star or a Premier League footballer?

Tom: I'd be a rock star. It's nowhere near it, the passion thing, in terms of the fans. It's on the same terms as what it does to people but I think a rock star all the way. Footballers are trained like machines now, it's not like how it used to be, they're complete athletes.

Chris: I'd be rock 'n' roll. We can do whatever we want. A footballer is great, you get paid well blah de blah, but you can't do what we can do. You can't stay up until six in the morning and then go and play a match. You can't go out all night and not sleep. We can do whatever we want as long as our performance is good.

Have you noticed a change in football since you started watching it?

Tom: Yeah of course, back at the end of the 80s, foreign players changed a lot of things like how the managers did their tactics. It's really changed from how it used to be but that's the way it is. The Premier League is quite sterile in my opinion. The Championship is where it's at. Seriously. I think that's where the real glory and goal is. It's the same top four all the time in the Premier League so it's just sterile all the time. The Championship is where real football is with real fans.

Do you like any other sports?

Tom: No, I don't follow rugby. I don't like rugby at all. We went to the darts if you call that a sport. If it is or not is another thing. I used to like uni-hock, frisbee, Crufts. Is that a sport? A sport for dogs probably.

Chris: Darts is not really a sport - drinking 12 pints whilst throwing darts. I like snooker. I've got a couple of mates - I know Ronnie O'Sullivan quite well and Mark Selby is from Leicester so we know him quite well.

Do you have any banter with the other bands? With Oasis?

Tom: We just call each other **** and ******* but that's as far as it goes really. We get on well with Oasis, well we used to when they were a group. Of course, we still get on now, definitely, we always have a bit of banter with them now.

What about their split?

Chris: Oasis came to its natural end. They missed three gigs at the end of their tour. They did a tour for a year-and-a-half and missed three gigs. They were going to have about two, three or four years off then anyway so the split came three gigs too early and that's it. They've done 16 years at the top and sold 40 million albums or something.

Tom: I texted Noel the other day but I haven't seen Liam for a bit. Noel lives near the Gunmakers' pub, somehwere around there but I think he's doing the family thing. We're busy being a band and he's doing his thing you know.

How do you keep in touch with the scores whilst on tour?

Tom: My old man calls me. I get a ring on the phone if we score as he's at the game. The phone rings and he'll go it's 1-0 and put the phone down. Even in Japan, I'll know Leicester have just kicked off and we're playing and it'll say the old man. He never calls me if we're losing.

What about the prospect of Edgar Davids joining the Foxes?

Tom: It'd be really big, it's amazing. We need so many players anyway if we're going to go up to the Premier League. We need experience to get there. I think The Championship is wide open. Newcastle lost again - everyone assumes they're going to win the league for some reason but it's not like that. That's not the case. It's well open. We're a point off being tihrd. I think, seriously, we can get promoted. We've got a good squad. Everyone is beating everyone. Forest are a point above us and could be second next week if they win. It's serious now.

Chris: We can definitely be in the top six, definitely got a good chance of being in the top six.

KASABIAN

Do you know any of the old Leicester players?

Chris: We know Steve Walsh, Muzzy Izzet and Gerry Taggart. They still go out a lot. We've had a few nights out with them.

Tom: I don't know Emile Heskey but we know Izzet, Taggart and Walshy. They're monsters. I've never met Emile as I was 17 years old when I watched him score his first goal for Leicester at Norwich, we won 1-0 and he was 16. But he's great.

Why is there a link between football and music?

Tom: It's culture. Pop culture. I just think they're like wrapping paper and sellotape. It sticks together. Pop culture changes so does football. To some people they're the most important things in the world and I think that's amazing.

Chris: With some sports, it doesn't matter where you kind of come from in England but, with football, it's very regional. You are that with a band, it's very like that as well. We're from Leicester and have a lot of Leicester fans supporting our band.

Tom: There is an East Midlands rock vibe but there's been nothing else out of Leicester. Engelbert Humpeldink? Showaddywaddy? Mark Morrison?

Are you proud to come from Leicester and do you still live there?

Chris: We're all still in Leicester, all of us. I think we'll always have a place in Leicester. That's what is good about where you're from, it keeps you grounded. You see all your mates and they take the p*ss out of you and don't treat you differently just because you're in a band.

Tom: We don't get overwhelming attention from fans and don't get hassled. You get 'Is that him, we like your band'. It's really nice actually. Unless you're in a pub on a Friday night and like an idiot to go to the city centre. You shoot yourself in the foot because that's what will happen if you do that. I tend to avoid everywhere in Leicester on a Friday night. I stay in the house, lock my door and sh*t myself!

When was your best gig?

Tom: The one in my bedroom when we were kids. It was the greatest gig ever, when it all worked, and that was my favourite. I think Glastonbury as well was a milestone gig. It was amazing and we kind of moved up a level.

What is like receiving such nice comments from Noel Gallagher?

Tom: Oasis asked for our support and we were like cool, of course we will. It was lovely. It's charming of them to say that and it's really nice they think that we're a good rock band. We're not bad.

Do you think your latest album has been received as well as it should have been?

Chris: Better. Every album has got better and better, even though the music industry is declining 20 per cent every year. We've sold more of this album than the last one in this point in time. It's still in the top 20 after 22 weeks and has been received more widely by everyone around the world. It went to number one in Australia, we'd never done that in another country, so it's been more widely accepted. It's phenomenal.

Tom: I think every record has had criticism, it's the way it is. If you put yourself on a pedestal and they're going to knock you. I don't tend to listen to it. We're one of the biggest bands in Britain now so we're not really bothered. We've got Q and NME behind us and when you've got Mojo loving you, you're doing pretty good as they are serious music magazines.

Chris: We're still carrying that stigma, people still say we sound like Happy Mondays. Empire sounds nothing like that. It's just kind of lazy journalism.

Tom: I find it bizarre, just weird. On the first record everyone thought it was processed beats because we looped one drum beat and that's all it was. A rotating bassline. I suppose Stone Roses and Happy Mondays had that sense of style but a dance genre, that's all it is. We're nothing like any of those bands.

Chris: When they released their first album we were about nine so we didn't know who they were at the time.

Tom: Like I said, our music has a beat and a vibe to it so we get compared to other bands. Oasis were our heroes. I was 10 years old when The Stone Roses came out and they've not really changed anything in our lives, know what I mean? Listening tyo them now and over the years as I've got older, they're amazing but I was into Michael Jackson when I was 10. Not The Stone Roses. People get this idea we were into The Stone Roses but we were only nine and 10 years old. And yes we did have tickets to see Michael Jackson at The 02. I was growing up with Oasis and, back then, I was too young to understand what any kind of music was but Stone Roses are a fantastic band. Amazing, a one-off band I'd say. They're great.

So when will the next album come out?

Tom: I have no idea. I really don't have any idea.

Chris: I'd probably say another year and a half. We've got touring plans until at least September next year so we're going to be doing that then have a couple of months off. I'd say it'll probably come out in the summer of 2011.

Kasabian bring their phenomenal year to a spectacular close with an 11-date UK Arena Tour in November - for full details visit www.kasabian.co.uk.

Kasabian's new single 'Underdog' is released on October 26, the third cut from the band's No1 Mercury Award-nominated album 'West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum'.

The interview took place at Marylebone's Sportsbar & Grill - the ideal place to watch all live sport in London.

• EXCLUSIVE KASABIAN INTERVIEW

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