Kasabian‘s Tom Meighan has claimed that newer and rising bands “aren’t good enough” to step up and take the festival headline slots that more established acts continue to claim.
This weekend saw the band headline Isle Of Wight Festival 2018, where the band spoke to Sky News about why it’s the same legacy acts returning to top the bill at most festivals.
“They ain’t good enough, I don’t think they’ve got many big songs, you know what I mean?” replied Meighan. “If you’re a big band you have big songs, it’s simple as that isn’t it, that’s how I look at rock and roll, it’s obvious isn’t it?”
Guitarist Serge Pizzorno added: “It’s the follow-up record, it’s amazing debuts and amazing starts but the second and third it starts to… it’s hard for everyone though, anyone that’s a songwriter, anyone that’s in a band, to maintain at a level.
“It’s not easy, but it’s there, if anyone wants it it’s there, you’ve just got to come and get it.”
However, Pizzorno did say that Slaves were “a phenomenal band,” having toured with them in the US.
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“If I was a betting man, they won’t be too far away [from headlining] in the next couple of years,” he said, “maybe this album, maybe album after, they’re an unbelievable, incredible band.”
Last year saw Kasabian claim that their latest album ‘For Crying Out Loud’ would ‘save guitar music from the abyss‘ – as well as discussing how only them, The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys had discussed the era of early ’00s UK indie.
Before they took to the stage at last summer’s Reading & Leeds, Pizzorno told us what it takes for a guitar band to survive in today’s climate.
“You have to discover your own way of getting there,” Pizzorno told NME. “How it works for us is that we do our own thing, but we’re all aiming for the crowd to be transported to somewhere they never thought possible.
“It’s a bit of a fucking shout, but you want people to come away and say ‘fuck, that’s literally changed my life’. You have to figure out how you’re going to do that. You can get them into a trance, or you can mosh them to hell, or you can go on there with a loop pedal – however you want to do it.”