In the summer of 2020, a few weeks after firing their frontman Tom Meighan for assaulting his then-fiancee Vikki Ager, the two remaining founder members of Kasabian met up and asked themselves: “What now?” Radio stations had stopped playing their music. All the success of the past 17 years – during which the Leicester group became one of Britain’s biggest bands, with five No 1 albums, plus a debut that went three-times platinum – felt suddenly tainted. Winding things up seemed the next logical step, given they were now without their bolshie ringleader singer, whose ability to whip up a crowd had been crucial to their ascent. But Serge Pizzorno, Kasabian’s songwriter and leader, didn’t see it that way. “We can’t end the story like this,” he thought.
It’s a cold spring morning and, on a sleepy lane on the outskirts of Leicester, the gates to Pizzorno’s house creak open. He emerges from his front door, tall, wiry and smiling, much more gently mannered than the belligerent anthems he’s become famous for might suggest. Pizzorno, now 41, leads me down the side of his house, along the garden, past his kids’ climbing frames and through a gap in the hedge, where a jet-black two-storey building awaits. A Japanese-style lightbox sign sticking out from the side tells us where we are: The Sergery, Pizzorno’s home studio. “I love Japan so much,” he enthuses, pointing up at the sign. “There’s a mega bit in Tokyo called Omotesando. I wanted a sign that would look like it’s from a street there. Those little details are so important to me.”
