Kasabian Hope To Add North America To Their Empire

"You should turn your tape recorder off, you probably want to speak to Tom, yeah?" suggests a rather self-deprecating Ian Matthews, the second-to-newest addition to Leicester, England's Kasabian. Lead singer Tom Meighan has just "stepped out for a fag."

I assure Matthews that I wouldn't mind speaking to just him.

"Oh, brilliant," he beams.

Kasabian are on the cusp of something big, and you can read it all over the band members' faces. With the massive early success of sophomore effort Empire in the U.K., they now want to break North America properly.

The new album has the same swagger and pulse of their debut, but with a more four-piece rock 'n' roll palate than "new-rave." I ask Matthews about the bluesy influence on tracks like "Shoot The Runner" and "The Doberman."

"That's the first time I've heard it called bluesy, but you're right," he says. "It's pretty T-Rex, innit?"

Matthews assures me that there was no conscious effort to create something new.

"We just got excited in the studio and things just appeared musically. It all just fell out that way."

Of course, Empire retains the rally cries and call-to-arms of the first record. The title track alludes to heavy modern imperialist themes, but don't confuse that with a political message in any particular sense.

"Yeah, the song is pretty anti-establishment, like a middle finger up to rock n' roll 'cuz we're doin' it our way," says Matthews. "It's a comment on our world, really."

There have been a few other changes since the last time the band were in Toronto. Other than the edition of Matthews, Jay Mehler (formerly of Mad Action) has replaced guitarist Chris Karloff for live shows.

"Yeah, Chris was an important part of the band," says Matthews. "He had a real talent for atmospherics and weird electronics and shit, you know what I mean?

"But every member of the band's got their part to play, and brings something to the whole. So we really just evolved with the change."

While Sergio Pizzorno remains the band's principal songwriter, Matthews says the creative process is somewhat democratic.

"We all understand each other, and so we all get our word in."

Kasabian worked with producer Jim Abiss (Paul Oakenfold) on Empire, but Matthews says that he just "came in near the end to help with the mixing and clean up" and "tried to provide an outside perspective to what we'd already finished."

The band weren't concerned with any sort of sophomore jinx while working on Empire, Matthews insists.

"You have to treat every album like it's your first. The last one did really well, so this time we just got really excited about just expanding on our ideas, you know what I mean? It's not like we were sitting around going, 'Oh man, the last album did really good, we've got to make another 'Club Foot.' Fuck 'Club Foot.' We knew some people would still be hanging on to that, so we had to give 'em something new. This album's really transitional in that way."

Empire was recorded at the band's recording studio, which is also a working farm, and Matthews lived there for six weeks during the process without being asked to pitch in and milk some cows.

"We'd usually just head to the pub and get pissed and try and bike home," he says."I actually landed in a ditch once. Yeah, it wasn't good. But then we played video games until four in the morning."

While Matthews would like Empire to sell three million copies in North America, he's just happy to be doing what he's doing.

"I love the reception we get in the U.K. and in Toronto all the same, and that's enough for me."