Kaiser George: vocals, guitar
Kaiser Matt: guitar
Kaiser Johnny: drums
Kaiser Matt: bass

KEITH: OKAY I GUESS WE'LL START FROM THE BEGINNING. THE KAISERS STARTED PLAYING TOGETHER IN EDINBURGH IN 1992...HOW DID YOU GO FROM PLAYING IN PUBS TO PUTTING OUT FOUR LPS?

JOHNNY: It just happened, strangely enough. You know, when we first started it wasn’t like we were gonna go out and conquer the world or anything or make records. It was just to have fun, actually. Then when we were down in London, we discovered Toe Rag Studios and went and recorded our first session. And that wasn’t meant for an LP it was just to go down and use the equipment. So we fired down thirty-two songs and the next thing we know, we got a phone call from Liam Watson, and said that a label was interested.

KEITH: SO LIAM RUNS IMPERIAL RECORDS?

JOHNNY: No. He does Toe Rag, but he has a friend that did Imperial, which is No Hit Records. And they said that they wanted to put this stuff out and it went from there.

KEITH: WHAT OTHER STUFF HAS IMPERIAL PUT OUT? I'VE NEVER SEEN THE NAME ANYWHERE ELSE.

JOHNNY: Well, it’s just us on the Imperial.
GEORGE: It’s just our label, it’s really No Hit Records.
MATT: Yeah, we get to make our own pretty label.

KEITH: LET'S TALK ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM...THERE'S A LOT MORE ORIGINALS THAN COVERS. IS THERE ANY REASON BEHIND THAT?

GEORGE: Umm partly because when Beat It Up came out, "Melody Maker" in Britain did a review of it in which they said that the record was a collection of dog-rot cover versions, and made no mention of the fact that there were, ah, nine originals on it. So we thought fuck them, you know. We have nothing against doing covers, but we thought fuck them, we’ll do either all originals or mostly originals. But, we couldn’t resist doing "Twist it Up", and a Chuck Berry tune [“I Want To Be Your Driver”]. So, it was partly that, and also to further point out that we’re not a revivalist group.

KEITH: THE PRODUCTION ON THE NEW ALBUM IS CRISPER, MORE HI-FI, AND I READ THAT IT TOOK YOU FIVE DAYS TO RECORD. DID YOU GO IN THINKING, "WE'RE GOING TO MAKE A CLEANER RECORD?"

GEORGE: Yes, it was a conscious decision to make a record that was much more crisp sounding where you could actually hear everything that’s going on. Partly because, the original material is better. And we wanted to give it the best chance to be heard by the most amount of people, and also because we feel that the whole "lo-fi" thing has gotten out of hand. It’s become an excuse for bands who aren’t particularly good to hide behind the lo-fi. So we thought, fuck it, we’ll lay ourselves bare and do a crisp, clean recording and then we can’t hide behind anything. It’s there. In a way, it’s rawer than anything else we’ve ever done.

KEITH: I SAW THE SHOW LAST NIGHT AND YOU DIDN'T PLAY ANYTHING OFF OF THE NEW RECORD.

GEORGE: We didn't have time to rehearse.

KEITH: HOW DID THIS TOUR COME TOGETHER, DID EDDIE ANGEL SET IT ALL UP?

JOHNNY: Yeah, Eddie and Melanie organized it again. He’s basically our driving force in America. He works to get us out here, and he’s really got a lot of faith in us.
GEORGE: His wife Melanie booked all the shows and she basically put the whole thing together.

KEITH: I HEARD THAT THE PEEL SESSIONS ARE GOING TO BE RELEASED ON LP?

JOHNNY: Yeah, the Peel sessions and the Mark Radcliff sessions. Get Hip is working on that at the moment.

KEITH: GET HIP JUST REISSUED "SQUAREHEAD STOMP," DID THEY REISSUE "IN STEP WITH THE KAISERS" TOO?

JOHNNY: No, they haven’t got that just the first LP. I think we’re going to go back to the BBC and do some more stuff. We’re doing another session. So that will also go on the new BBC album. There’s no date for that yet, we have to work it all out with the BBC and how they’re going to license it.

KEITH: THE BACK OF THE NEW ALBUM MENTIONED A "SHOW TIME REQUESTS" EP, DOES THAT EXIST?

GEORGE: Yeah that might happen (laughs). Well, it’s been recorded. We did four tracks, two originals, two covers. It all depends on what we decide to do. We might do that, or we might have to use a couple of tracks for B-sides or you know so that might happen. I know it says it on the LP, but you know the music business is all lies (laughs).

KEITH: WHEN YOU RECORD, DO YOU DO IT ALL LIVE TOGETHER?

GEORGE: No, not entirely. Usually do the backing track, all the instruments and then add the vocals, and sometimes we’ll overdub some backing vocals, but we usually try and do everything obviously, we add handclaps and stuff like that later.
JOHNNY: Now, the first album was almost all live.
GEORGE: The first album was just about all live. I think there was one track where we overdubbed some vocals.
MATT: Some of them are first takes.
GEORGE: Yeah, we didn’t have much time. But, the instrumental "The Mighty Atom", on the new record has loads of overdubs.

KEITH: YEAH I CAN TELL, THERE ARE A LOT OF WEIRD SOUNDS ON THAT SONG...WHAT DID YOU USE FOR THAT?

GEORGE: Yeah, there’s pots and pans
MATT: Cardboard boxes
GEORGE: Yeah, the sort of spacey noises are pots and pans being hit, and then the tape being sped up and slowed down as it’s being recorded. So that was fun.

KEITH: IS IT IMPORTANT THAT YOU GUYS USE VINTAGE EQUIPMENT OR IS IT WHATEVER YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON?

GEORGE: Well, on tour it’s kind of whatever we can get our hands on. We’re fortunate in that Eddie knows what kind of stuff we would use. But when recording, yes.

KEITH: WHAT DO YOU GUYS HAVE LARGE COLLECTIONS OF?

GEORGE: Well, Matt is the guitar collector.
MATT: I like guitars.
JOHNNY: We use old Selmers a Rogers kit Vox speakers [couldn’t make out everything]
MATT: The records that we like were made using that stuff and they were made in that way, and that’s the way that we want to do it. If you want a nice, horrible, cheap sounding guitar you play a nice, horrible, cheap sounding guitar. There’s no point in playing a fancy modern guitar.
GEORGE: Yeah and it’s not as if we go home and polish the things and sit and look at them. They’re tools. They’re just things to create certain sounds. It just so happens that they are the things that create that sound that we want.

KEITH: DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY GUITAR IDOLS?

GEORGE: Hmm let me think. Yeah, Brian Griffiths from the Big Three; a British band that did "Some Other Guy", "I’m With You", "By the Way."
MATT: "Idol" is quite a loaded word, though.
GEORGE: Yeah, we don’t really idolize anybody.

KEITH: WELL WHEN YOU'RE LIKE FIFTEEN AND YOU'RE LISTENING TO THE SAME RECORD OVER AND OVER TRYING TO LEARN TO PLAY GUITAR.

GEORGE: Well, if we were fifteen, then we would certainly idolize Brian Griffiths but since we’re somewhat older than that then we think he’s rather good (laughs).

KEITH: DO YOU KNOW BILLY CHILDISH?

GEORGE: We know who he is.

KEITH: HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED WITH THEE HEADCOATS?

JOHNNY: nope. (smiling)

KEITH: WHAT ARE YOU SMILING FOR?

JOHNNY: Well, we just get lumped in with him
GEORGE: We get asked that all the time, it’s funny we never think about Billy Childish, he never crosses our minds until we’re asked about him (laughs). In Britain, people ask us that as well. They say, "oh, you must love Thee Headcoats." And we say, why must we love Thee Headcoats? We like old records.

KEITH: HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE ENGLAND TO THE STATES...BETTER OR DIFFERENT?

MATT: It’s just different.
GEORGE: I must say, before we came, I was very excited about coming, but at the same time I thought, oh, you know, America I felt a little bit sort of like, it’s gonna be good but I bet it’s not going to be that good. I mean, we see American TV all the time and we kind of resent that, American TV shows ah, it’s gonna be crap, really. And we got here, and it was great.
JOHNNY: The people go fuckin mental.
GEORGE: They loved it, people just loved it. So, I just had to eat my words and say, no, America is great. Because when you get told that something’s great, so much, you start to say oh, I bet it’s not as good as that. But the truth is, it’s great. It’s the right place for us.

KEITH: NEW RECORDS?

JOHNNY: There’s some things that are going to be coming out soon.
GEORGE: Yeah, we’re recording a live album is it Bloomington? When we play Bloomington this time around we’re doing a live LP
JOHNNY: For Spinout Records. And I think there’s a few singles still kickin about at the moment; so there’s still quite a lot of stuff.
GEORGE: We’ve got some unreleased tracks that are going to be used. Whether they’re singles or EP’s or whatever.

MEGAN: HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE MOVIE, "BRAVEHEART?"

JOHNNY: Oh no! I've never seen it.

MEGAN: IS IT TRUE, WAS WILLIAM WALLACE A REAL PERSON?

JOHNNY: He’s a true guy, but I think they kind of Hollywoodized it a bit. I’ve not seen it obviously, but he’s a real guy.

MEGAN: HE DID THE WHOLE REVOLUTION THING?

GEORGE: Oh I don’t know really. I haven’t seen it, but I heard from people who did see it that it was pretty much fabricated there’s truth in it.

KEITH: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF OUR BEER? A LOT OF FOREIGNERS LIKE TO SAY THAT AMERICAN BEER TASTES LIKE PISS.

JOHNNY: Oh it's alright.
GEORGE: Oh I like that Blue Ribbon.

KEITH: PABST BLUE RIBBON? NOW THAT STUFF REALLY DOES TASTE LIKE PISS!

JOHNNY: Eh, it'll get you drunk!
GEORGE: Drink any old thing.

THE END