{"id":4879,"date":"2012-01-29T15:03:59","date_gmt":"2012-01-29T04:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=4879"},"modified":"2012-01-29T15:06:28","modified_gmt":"2012-01-29T04:06:28","slug":"rob-rolfe-of-enter-shikari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2012\/01\/rob-rolfe-of-enter-shikari\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Rolfe of Enter Shikari"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>” The thing is when we\u2019ve got new material out we want to play nothing but the new material, but obviously a lot of our older fans are gonna want to hear the bigger old songs that they know and love as well, so it\u2019s always a difficult one, especially at a festival where you only get a relatively short set time, you have to be very choosy at the songs you put in the set”<\/p>\n

Enter Shikari have just released ‘A Flash Flood Of Colour’, their third album and first in three years, to celebrate they are about to bring their fusion of electro \/ hardcore \/ metal to Australian shores again as they head down for Soundwave in February to showcase the album.\u00a0 As well as the festival they will also be playing their own sidewaves giving their fans a chance to catch them in a smaller venue but with the same amount of intensity you can expect at Soundwave.\u00a0 Definitely not one to miss!<\/p>\n

We chatted to Enter Shikari drummer Rob Rolfe about the new album, touring and what you probably shouldn’t do on your first tour of Australia…<\/p>\n

The new album has just been released and has entered the UK charts at Number 1, how do you feel when you hear news like that?<\/strong>
\nOverwhelmed, when we first heard it was Number 1 in the mid weeks, we couldn\u2019t really believe it.\u00a0 People around us and our record label people are always going \u2018It\u2019s going to do really great, it\u2019s going to do really great\u2019 but we\u2019ve heard that so many times where it gets to the point where you go \u2018yeah, yeah\u2019 and don\u2019t really believe it.\u00a0 Then this time it actually happened and we\u2019re all sort of slapping ourselves trying to come back to reality and realise that we\u2019re actually number 32 or something, but no, it\u2019s still there and it\u2019s amazing, it\u2019s really humbling that our fans are backing us so much and it\u2019s doing so well and we felt so happy and pleased and over the moon about it to be honest.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the meaning behind the title \u2018A Flash Flood Of Colour\u2019?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s one of the lyrics from one of the songs called \u2018Warm Smiles Do Not Make You Welcome Here\u2019 off the new album and we wanted it to basically be a positive title, cause the last album \u2018Common Dreads\u2019 was a little darker and a lot of the themes on this album are very much positive in saying that we still have time to change things, we still have time to move forward and save ourselves and save our species and planet.\u00a0 Now\u2019s the time to start working.\u00a0 A Flash Flood Of Colour also we felt sort of rounded the album up nicely, it\u2019s a big flood of every kind of genre or think or sound you could think of and that\u2019s the best way we could visualise it really was a flash flood of colour.<\/p>\n

In the three years since the last album, what was it that inspired the songs for this album?<\/strong>
\nWell everything really, our creativity never really stops, whether we\u2019re on tour or at home, we\u2019re constantly working making new stuff, whether it\u2019s our own personal stuff or Roderick or our Enter Shikari stuff we\u2019re constantly getting inspired by the new music that we listen to, Rou obviously gets very inspired lyrically by things he sees going on in the world around you every day that it\u2019s crazy that not more bands talk about.\u00a0 So it\u2019s basically everything that we see and hear and around us that we take from.<\/p>\n

Tell us how you got involved with using Dan Weller as your producer on this new album.<\/strong>
\nWe were always a big fan on his band SikTh and he\u2019s quite a local guy, he just lives a couple of towns over from us and yeah, we just got in touch and we actually got him in to help us with the guitar sounds on \u2018Common Dreads.\u2019 We like the way he works, he\u2019s a really nice guy, obviously have massive respect for him from being in the band that he was in and just got in touch to do that and we found that we work really well together, we did a couple of singles ‘Quelle Surprise\u2019 and \u2018Destabilise\u2019 together before we actually did the full album and we just thought that he brings the best out in us.<\/p>\n

Now you\u2019re heading out here for Soundwave starting next month, can we expect to hear a heap of new material on this trip?<\/strong>
\nDefinitely, absolutely yeah yeah, the thing is when we\u2019ve got new material out we want to play nothing but the new material, but obviously a lot of our older fans are gonna want to hear the bigger old songs that they know and love as well, so it\u2019s always a difficult one, especially at a festival where you only get a relatively short set time, you have to be very choosy at the songs you put in the set.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re also playing some side shows on this trip in Melbourne and Sydney, how if at all do you treat your own shows differently to that of playing as part of a festival?<\/strong>
\nNot really, to be honest any show that we ever play, we put 110% into it.\u00a0 Other than the fact that the people at the festival could just be passing by, you know that there\u2019s a percentage of people at the festival that aren\u2019t fans, but at your own show everyone\u2019s bought a ticket to see you.\u00a0 Whereas other people, you try and catch them out, try and stop people walking past and to get them to be interested in you and the only way we do that is by doing exactly the same thing that we do at our own show which is be our normal wild selves.\u00a0 It gives us a good hour and twenty minutes to play with and those ones will have a bigger chunk of new material.<\/p>\n

Are there any bands on the bill you\u2019re hoping to check out?<\/strong>
\nYeah, the bill is actually awesome this year, I haven\u2019t seen it for a while, can you remind me who\u2019s on it? (I list some of the bands)<\/strong>\u00a0 Slipknot I\u2019ve seen a couple of times and they\u2019re always crazy on stage, and they\u2019re going to be wicked. \u00a0I know Dillinger Escape Plan are on it, they are a huge influence on us so that\u2019s going to be good.\u00a0 We\u2019ve actually got friends in \u2018LetLive\u2019, and \u2018Your Demise\u2019 who we\u2019ve toured with and we\u2019re actually doing our sideshows with so it\u2019s going to be a nice little reunion for us three bands.<\/p>\n

Playing here in Australia a few times over the bands career, do you have a fond memory of being or playing or being in Australia you can share with us?<\/strong>
\nYeah, absolutely, first time we came over for Big Day Out, we were absolutely shocked and flabbergasted at the reaction we got, it\u2019s literally the other side of the world. We\u2019d never been there before and there were people there with so much passion about our music and our lyrics and shouting the words back at us, it was really fantastic.\u00a0 Touring Australia is one of the funnest things, the funnest places in the world to do, it\u2019s so relaxed and so easy going and nice weather and you have a lot of days off especially for the festivals like Big Day Out and Soundwave, there are quite a few days off.\u00a0 You get to go out to the beach and relax and have BBQ\u2019s and just the people are always very easy going, very welcoming, very warm and I find really easy to get on with.\u00a0 There\u2019s one specific one the first time we were over in Australia, we went a little bit too hard at the beginning, party wise.\u00a0 I think it was the first night, the hotel had a roof top swimming pool and we\u2019d all had a couple too many to drink and we were all jumping off a little roof area down into the swimming pool which was like a ten foot gap that we had to clear to not break our legs on the floor, so that was quite ridiculous, it certainly paved the way for the rest of Australian touring.<\/p>\n

How long are you out on the road in support of this new album?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s probably going to be a couple of years until we can come home again for any substantial amount of time.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got, the Australian tour is actually the first sort of proper tour, we\u2019ve done a couple of little shows, like release shows this week, but our first proper tour will be Australia.\u00a0 Then in March we\u2019re going to be doing a big European and UK tour and then April, we\u2019re going to be doing a huge North American tour and then, yeah in the Summer there\u2019s going to be a lot of European festivals which are always a lot of fun and just normal touring, I can\u2019t see it ending for at least 18 months.<\/p>\n

Tell us a bit about your label Ambush Reality and how it all came to be<\/strong>…
\nWell basically we started up the label because we needed to release our music, but none of the proper record labels wanted anything to do with us, so to be able to release any kind of music we had to have a label and we had to make one.\u00a0 At the time we had a publishing deal which gave us the ability to be able to set up our own record label, and then it came to the point to releasing our first album \u2018Take To The Skies\u2019 when actually a lot of the music industry were jumping on board and taking us out for meals and at that point they were all \u2018Yeah we want to sign you, we want to sign you\u2026\u2019 It didn\u2019t really feel right to have done so much ourselves and then hand it over to a record label and give away so much of our music and our creation.\u00a0 We were mothering it like it was our baby or something and it felt really wrong to give it away to someone so we just released it ourselves and it worked out great.<\/p>\n

Are you hoping to have other artists represented on the label?<\/strong>
\nIt would be great to be able to help out other artists, but at the moment we don\u2019t have the time or the money to focus on anyone but ourselves.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll wrap it up there Rob, thanks for your time and I look forward to seeing you at Soundwave.<\/strong>
\nI hope you enjoy it.\u00a0 Thanks.<\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> St Albans, UK<\/p>\n

Band members:<\/strong> Roughton “Rou” Reynolds \u2014 lead vocals \/ programming \/ keyboards\/\u00a0 synthesizers \/ acoustic guitar, Liam “Rory” Clewlow \u2014 guitars \/\u00a0 backing vocals, Chris Batten \u2014 bass \/ backing vocals, Rob Rolfe \u2014 drums \/ percussion \/ backing vocals<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> www.entershikari.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest release:<\/strong> A Flash Flood Of Colour (Ambush Reality)<\/p>\n\n

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