Kaiser Chiefs: ‘I think our Elland Road gig will be an opportunity for everyone to show how brilliant Leeds is’

Things might not quite have gone the way Leeds United supporters had hoped with their push for promotion to the Premier League, but Kaiser Chiefs are determined to celebrate the club’s centenary in style.

On Saturday the band, who formed in the city 16 years ago, will take to the stage for their third concert at Elland Road and bass player Simon Rix, an avid Whites supporter, says there is lot to be optimistic about after Marcelo Bielsa’s first season in charge.

“I think everyone has to remember it’s been a brilliant season anyway,” he says. “We finished higher than we’ve finished in a long, long time, got lots of points, lots of wins, lots of good football. I think we also enjoyed international players like Pablo [Hernandez] and seeing a Leeds United youngster coming through – and there’s been lots of those, like [Kalvin] Phillips, who’s been around for a bit, and others like [Jamie] Shackleton who have come from nowhere and looks like he could be brilliant for Leeds in years to come, so I think everyone’s very positive.

“We always said this celebration it wasn’t just a promotion party, it’s all about 100 years of Leeds United. We’ve changed tactics slightly and we’re going to do a few Leeds United-y things on the day. There will be no trophy to show off unfortunately but we’re going to have a good time. Similar to when we played at Elland Road 11 years ago, I think it will be a big event for the city, for everyone to show how brilliant Leeds is, what a great atmosphere we can create on the day, so we’re hoping to do that again.”

Rix feels it’s a real honour to have been asked to perform at Elland Road for a third time. “When we did it the first time we thought it would be a one-off,” he says. “We were keen to play different places in Leeds – we did Millennium Square then Kirkstall Abbey later on. We had to find different venues because the Arena did not exist, so every time we play it was ‘Oh, where do you want to play this time?’ We always regarded Elland Road as the pinnacle – I think that’s because of the club and us all supporting Leeds but also I think we were the right age when the Happy Mondays did a gig there [in 1991] so that put into our minds that it was possible to play there despite the fact that nobody did. So we did it, we loved it but I don’t know that we every thought we’d do it again.

“When we got asked to do it when Josh [Warrington] was fighting we thought, ‘Great, as an experience to do it again in a different way’. But to be asked to do this concert and be part of the celebrations for the centenary I think it’s really great. I’m not a footballer, I’m never going to be able to play at that level, so to be able to sew my way into the Leeds United fabric in a different way is something very special to me.

“I think we have to think of June 8 as the start of the promotion season, rather than the end of the promotion season.”

On July 26 Kaiser Chiefs are due to release their seventh album, Duck. Rix explains naming the record was difficult. “On Employment and Yours Truly and Education & War, basically all our most successful records, the title has come really early and it’s been something that informs the rest of the record, but this one took us a year and Duck was the only one we were all agreed on.”

Singer Ricky Wilson has described the album as “undeniably Kaiser Chiefs”. Rix think it strikes a balance between familiar elements of the band’s sound and having something new to say about the world. “The last album [Stay Together] we tried to do something different. The fifth album, Education & War, we really went back to what we thought was real Kaiser Chiefs’ DNA, that was very successful, it was number one and we were really happy with it. The record after that, Stay Together, we just thought we’d try something totally different, we worked with a pop producer and did some different stuff. I think there’s some good songs, like Hole in My Soul that always goes down amazing live, but for whatever reason – I think the production maybe – people didn’t jump on board with it.

“This one we wanted to do something that got the Kaiser Chiefs’ DNA back, that people could understand. But we’ve been in this band for 16 years so we tried to push ourselves as hard as we could to do something different too.”

One new song that Rix is particularly looking forward to playing live is People Know How To Love One Another. “We’re really pleased with it and I think it will be coming out soon-ish,” he says. “We did a tour in January and February and played a few new songs on that and we were really pleased with the reaction to those. With People Know we went back to it and back to it, fine-tuning it until we got the best version we could possibly get. I really like Target Market too, then there’s Record Collection which shows our more electronic side but I still think it’s got the vibe of Kaiser Chiefs to pull it off. Target Market is a love song, I guess, but it’s more like a Modern Way from now.”

After 16 years together as Kaiser Chiefs – and three years before that as Parva – Rix feels the band still have the same sense of togetherness. “Mostly yes. It’s different from how it used to be because we’ve changed quite a lot,” he says.

“When we’re not on tour we don’t spend as much time together as we used to do, we’ve all got our own lives, do different things and people live in different places. But when we are on tour it’s weird because we’re spending 12 or 14 hours a day together, we could be in quite interesting or far-off places and we’ll be sat in a Portakabin together. We’re still friends, we’re still really enjoying the experience of being in Kaiser Chiefs and it’s good.”

Wilson recently said he felt that the band could go on making records forever. Rix reflects: “A few weeks ago, when we were finishing this album, I felt like that’s it, I won’t be able to do this again, it’s just too hard. Then a month later it’s fine. It’s nice to have a change. We did spend a lot of time in the studio this time but it’s nice to get out and play some gigs, and I’m looking forward to writing some more songs in a while.”

After Elland Road the Kaisers will play at Wembley Stadium on July 6, as guests of The Who. Rix jokes that “at least somebody from Leeds is playing at Wembley this year, and it’s us, so that’s good”.

“It wasn’t even that long ago that Wembley was on my bucket list to play. We’ve actually played at quite a lot of World Cup final venues – Soccer City in South Africa, the Maracana in Brazil, the Olympic Stadium in Berlin and various other ones. I think we’ve played in about eight, but never Wembley. I was like, ‘I’ve got to play Wembley, I don’t know how but we should’. I can tick that off the list now and move on to the next one in America.

“We all like The Who. When we were teenagers we used to go to Brighton Beach at The Cockpit in Leeds and it was all very Quadrophenia-inspired. For a lot of us that was our way into The Who via the film and soundtrack to Quadrophenia. Obviously we then discovered more and more about them, the different periods. We first played with them 10 years ago, at Glastonbury in 2009, we played the Pyramid stage together and hung around with them. Then they did Live at Leeds 2 not long after that and we’ve done Teenage Cancer Trust gigs for Roger Daltrey, then they invited us to play at this. Eddie Vedder is playing as well, which the teenage Simon Rix is very excited about.”

Kaiser Chiefs play at Elland Road on Saturday June 8. The single Record Collection is out now. Duck will be released on July 26. www.kaiserchiefs.com