Kaiser Chiefs' Ricky Wilson and Nick 'Peanut' Baines on 20 years of Employment

Yorkshire Evening Post

Ricky Wilson and Nick "Peanut" Baines looks back at being young musicians in Leeds, longing for the capital, and stardom ahead of their biggest Leeds gig ever at Temple Newsam in May 2025.

Transcript

00:00Hello, this is Peanuts and I'm Ricky and we are in the

00:0520 years of employment our debut record and literally

00:10Employment. Yeah. Yeah being employed in the music industry. Yeah before that we were in music industry for a long time, but not employed

00:17Yeah, mainly listening to music and drinking. Yeah, and then that album happened and it changed all our lives

00:24forever

00:25Where and we could never go back and at the time. Yeah, we were ambitious, but we

00:30What we achieved totally outstripped anything. Yeah. So now

00:35next year, we're gonna have a

00:37Temple news in the big sort of celebration of 20 years of the record

00:41Lots of our friends bands and the time, you know, there's a light we have scientists the cribs coral all coming to join us

00:48It's gonna be a big day. It's weird to think that you know at the time when we were going to gigs before

00:552004

00:572005 and we were like

00:59The biggest thing you could ever think was possible for a band to achieve was the TNC. Oh, yeah

01:04That was like that. Yeah, the thing that imagine headlining for the young people now, it's a Leeds Academy

01:11Okay, but that was the biggest thing you could ever change. Yeah now and then doing this 20 years later. It just seems

01:18At the time it was probably quite frustrating for us because it was but so far away from London

01:24The money and the pens were to the signing record deals it felt like oh, we've got to keep going out to London

01:30Yeah, and also the fact that Leeds music scene never really and still doesn't have like a sound

01:37No, both those things was kind of like, how do you get people to come to Lisa's thing?

01:42But then looking back on that both those things were great for us because a it made it made us we could get good without

01:50People saying it definitely feel yes or like it hit away didn't they? Yeah, I'm ready

01:53So you're ready also the people came to us almost it was like we had we got a couple of good demos going and then

01:59It's like actually they come to us now. Yeah, that's how it that's kind of how we sort of did kind of chiefs way

02:05Wasn't it?

02:05Yeah

02:05And also the fact that you know

02:07We're all going old bands and artists will go to the same pubs and clubs and bars

02:12we know everyone but no one was like copying each other or trying to like have a sound that was like

02:18I

02:20Want to say specific to the area but more like generic today

02:23So it's like it's really good that we all sounded different

02:25We're all doing different things and that I think helped you

02:27Become a better person because you'd see other things and you go. I like what they're doing

02:32and then you go

02:34Should we be doing now? We do what we do. Yes. It's what who we are and it was actually

02:39Between a previous band and this one with this one. We were like, what do we want to be influenced by it?

02:46Let's just be influenced by ourselves and what noise we can make and not think

02:49Well, if we sounded more like that, we might be looking with a chance

02:52Which is what a lot of bands fall into that we were always chasing bandwagons in the moment

02:56We stopped people started chasing us, which was me from one place. Can't you? Yeah

03:02Bringing is your upbringing?

03:03so a lot of the album is about leads about getting sort of the aspiration to get out of Leeds not because it's such a

03:09bad place but because

03:12It's london was where the record labels are stuff and things sort of start from there and so it's

03:18it's kind of important to keep that leads identity and sing about leads in the songs and

03:23Yeah influence our also

03:24It's really weird because if you go into any kind of writing thinking I want the whole world to like this

03:31And you try and be i'm going to use that word again

03:33If you try and be generic and go right the whole world will like this because i'm not saying anything specific

03:38As soon as you actually start being creative in a specific way that's very personal to you

03:43I think it becomes it weirdly more universal. Yeah, and even though you see

03:47Yeah, even if you're talking about specific things in your life people hook onto that better than if they do when they go

03:54Um, you know if you're just being wishy-washy about it, you know, I we would you know

03:59At one point we even mentioned

04:01Smeaton Smeaton

04:04How many south america knows who smeaton is no, he's a lighthouse designer from reeds and you know that and that's in I predict a

04:09Riot nowadays even now and you know looking back at the album. I just think

04:14You know, it was kind of madness because I probably wouldn't do that anymore

04:17Because it would I think this is a little bit too specific. But then I always go back to the plant and go

04:23That's what I should be doing and it wasn't weird, but it worked still lives here, don't they? Yeah apart from me. Yeah

04:31Rick links on the radio. Oh, yeah

04:35It's part like, you know, like ricky was saying about the singing about the things around us to be it's still in our identity

04:41So like yeah, the default is let me split leads here. She's got a speak sweeper there. Um

04:48So it's home, you know, so you can't

04:51You can make a new home if you go somewhere else or something

04:54That's fine

04:54But it's like I think when you look

04:56Back into that. So I was like naive days of like the early days of the band. That's how our naivety is hearing leads

05:02Yeah, it's hidden in the clubs and leaves and the cockpit or at the underground something or a hi-fi club

05:07um

05:08That's you only get one upbringing

05:09you only get you only get that one chance from like 16 to like early 20s where you discover music and

05:14People and friends and the cultures that you're into and not into so like it. Yeah, it's it's in our music

05:20It's not brains. I sometimes get waves and it's like a weird you probably know i'm talking about that

05:26i'm not gonna

05:27Say it well enough to explain to you guys, you know, when you're somewhere a wave of nostalgia that you can almost taste what it was

05:33Like like you feel that feeling and it's like whoa. Yeah, right and you go. Oh, this is what it was. It was crazy

05:40like the speed with which we went from

05:43Going about 10 miles an hour for 10 years to 100 miles an hour. Yeah, it's so quickly

05:47It was took it out of stride as well sort of did it and then like we had each other so it really helped

05:51Yeah, and the girls also moved and we just sold

05:54Um, we set our target our sights on the on the next target the next time it's like we started off 2005

06:00Playing at judge as well, you know, like a little bit there by summer. We're playing with

06:05U2 in the new camp and opening live in philadelphia and by winter we're supporting the foo fighters and lisa

06:12So like it's like and all that just seemed normal

06:15Ambitions always always outside. I think I say this in the song on stay together where I go

06:20It's like we know when you're walking through fog and you go like it's dead foggy over there

06:24And then you get there and it's foggy over there and I think we were just constantly like chasing the fog

06:28Yeah, it never felt like we were in it

06:30I guess it's kind of like it's down to us really is what we're gonna do for that day because it's gonna be

06:35It's gonna feel special. It's gonna feel slightly different to a normal gig, but the minute we walk on stage

06:39We're still gonna treat it like a like a normal gig. That's what we do. Um

06:43yeah, it's gonna be exciting for us because we we always write a set list that is like

06:48We want the best for the audience, that's what we're always the best

06:51so like we'll go well, we can't play that because it's a little bit of a

06:55Like I don't want to take them away. Yeah

06:58But playing the album full

07:00I think will be all for the audience and a little bit for us because we'll get to play things that we don't usually play

07:04Because we kind of think what if people haven't heard that record, but people come into this gig

07:08Hopefully we'll listen to that record

07:11There's a few there's a few million copies out there

07:14There are yeah

07:17Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a challenge it'll be like a challenge for us

07:19But also like there's definitely a reward of kind of like this is us doing employment in full with all the other hits as well

07:24And you're like great. Let's that that's that seems like a special enough thing for a special occasion

Category

Transcript

Recommended