St. Albans Rock/EDM crossover, Enter Shikari are the senseis of their game. Through experimenting with drum and bass, trance, dubstep, and electronica, this four piece have transcended over the last decade with demonstrating their work ethic, passion and longevity.
Formed in 1999 as a band called Hybryd, with Rou Reynolds on guitar and vocals, Chris Batten on bass guitar and Rob Rolfe on drums. They release and EP entitled “Commit No Nuisance”, and played gigs up and down the country, in 2003, they inducted Liam “Rory” Clewlow into the band and changed their name to Enter Shikari. The name, Shikari, is derived from a boat that belonged to frontman Rou’s uncle, and a fictitious character in a before founding and forming the rock outfit.
Enter Shikari are a band who stick to their guns, continuing to build their career with their balance of business knowledge and creativity, so much so that their first album, “Take to the Skies”, released on their own label, Ambush Reality on March 25th 2007, was certified Gold in the UK after selling over 100,000 copies. Made up of a mixture of brand new and older songs that they had written over the course of the four years prior to the album release, they kept their loyal following happy with re-recordings of songs such as “Jonny Sniper”, “Mothership” and “Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour” and of course “Sorry You’re Not a Winner”. Due to the huge number of sales, it debuted at number 4 in the UK Album Chart. They even made it to number 27 in the UK Singles Chart with “Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour”, which was released on March 7th 2007, prior to the release of the album.
Their critical acclaim has built up exceptionally over the years, seeing the band win numerous awards, in 2007 alone, they won the ‘NME: John Peel Award for Musical Innovation’, and the Kerrang! Awards for ‘Spirit of Independence’ and ‘Best Live Band’. Most recently, they picked up the AIM Award for ‘Best Live Band’ in 2013.
They have toured relentlessly over the course of their career, starting off in what was once a Royal Mail van, featured in the music video for 'Jonny Sniper', and have visited countries as far as New Zealand, to play at the Big Day Out festival, and Tokyo. They have continued to maintain chart success with their latter two albums after “Take to the Skies”, with “Common Dreads”, released on June 15th 2009 and “A Flash Flood of Colour” released on January 16th 2012, both of which making it to the UK Top 20.
Courtney Barnett
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