Kasabian owe it all to me.

…or , rather ‘why I don’t work in A and R’

Back in the late 90’s I was working as one of the in house engineers at the Charlotte in Leicester.

I’d done Saracuse’s sound a couple of times before… Saracuse was Kasabian’s name before they got signed, fact fans.

Serge called me to ask if I could do their sound at a gig: they had an A and R man from Sony coming up to see them and the band had liked what I’d done with them before. Serge popped a CD round to my flat of some stuff for me to listen to…. wasn’t really my bag, but was well produced.

Andy at the Charlotte helped by slipping them into one his ‘Local Showcase Nights’ : I remember showing up for soundcheck, chatting to the band, and trying to work the stage times out so the Sony guy could see the band, whilst not pissing the other bands off.

Tom was super polite, Serge quiet and focussed, Chris didn’t say much and, Chris Karloff  … don’t remember much about chatting to him. There was a DJ scratching then, too: no drummer: it was minidisc providing the beats.

The band did their thing: I honestly don’t remember anything about the band the other times I did their sound, but as there was A and R, I thought I’d better record it…the band weren’t aware I was recording it at all (get in touch, boys,  if you want a copy)

Listening back, I remember bits about what I thought of the band when I saw them: When Serge sang, he was really weak compared to Tom: proper  strong vocals and really charming but it was super clear Serge was the driving force. The Minidisc was proper unusual for the time: DJ scratchy bollocks was a bit of a novelty, but the whole ‘sound’ was pretty original, though no way did I ever think they’d go onto what they’ve achieved : in fact I thought ‘shut Serge up, take his mic away’. Still think that now! So, what do I know, eh?

Will post a snippet of that night’s recording one day.