Blazing Their Own Trail

By Joe Kavanagh

There is little doubt that the music industry has undergone something tantamount to a revolution over the past couple of years. Under siege from the technology and culture that has sprung up as a result of the Internet, major labels are now allegedly even considering such drastic measures as taking legal action against MySpace, in an effort to claw back some control over the industry that they have dominated for the past half century. As more and more people come online, bands no longer need the apparatus that record companies could provide and the keys to overseas markets are available to anyone with a computer and the motivation to reach their desired audience. Now bands can - and do - sell albums, organize tours and even interact directly with fans, all from the comfort of their own living rooms, leaving record companies in a scramble to redefine their role before they go the way of the dinosaurs. In part, they have managed to remain in the game until this point by signing those acts that become stars on the Internet and hoping that they sell enough records to offset the rabid file-sharing now taking place. So the record labels have picked Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys and others much like one would pick the ripest apples in an orchard confident that they will be better than any of the others growing on that particular tree. Until now, the best up-and-coming acts have been happy to take the big payoff and proscribe to this new method of doing business. No new act of significant size has been willing to totally cut the chord with labels and rely totally on the Internet and their own wiles to guide their career. Until now. Wittingly or unwittingly, Enter Shikari has just become the test case that will undoubtedly resolve the issue of whether a band can truly thrive without the assistance of record labels.

Like musical pioneers, how they fare will unquestionably determine the career paths of many future bands that have aspirations beyond being local heroes or cult phenomena. Every single label in the UK and beyond will also watch it closely because should the band succeed, you could conceivably name Enter Shikari as the band that signaled the end of the major labels.

Formed in 2003, Enter Shikari was born when the three members of English band, Hybryd, decided to take on guitarist, Liam Clewlow, freeing up the band's singer/guitarist, Roughton Reynolds, to work on vocals and also to begin experimenting sonically by adding an electronic element to their trademark hardcore sound. As fans of such acts as Queens Of The Stone Age, Funeral For A Friend and Red Hot Chillil Peppers, the band had always exuded a hard rock edge but Clewlow's inclusion meant that they could now incorporate other tastes that were high on their list such as techno and trance music. They arrived at a sound that one critic notably described as like 'having the Prodigy pumped into one ear and Sepultura into the other at the same time.' Although still at school, the band took a diligent approach and spent hundreds of hours practicing and churning out demos in a makeshift studio that they had cobbled together in bassist Chris Batten's parent's garage.

By 2006, a combination of the band's dedication and that of their supporters had won the band a huge following in the UK and beyond, in addition to over 100,000 friends on MySpace. Despite the complete absence of agents, management and with only a smattering of press coverage, Enter Shikari was nominated as the Best British Newcomer at the highly influential Kerrang Magazine Awards and the band also appeared at the huge Download Festival, almost exclusively on the strength and devotion of their online following. In November they became only the second band in British history to sell out the London Astoria venue (the Darkness were first), despite the fact that they did not have a record deal and their home made video for the song, Sorry You're Not A Winner, was in regular rotation on MTV2.

Inevitably, such achievements brought the attention of record companies who began sniffing around but were shocked to learn that the outfit had no intention of availing of their services. Instead, the band set up their own label, the very deliberately named Ambush Reality Records, and - crucially - signed a distribution deal with UK company: Vital. So far the gambit seems to have paid off handsomely with the BBC, NME and many others already having named Enter Shikari as one of the bands most likely to break through into the mainstream in 2007 and the band also picked up this year's John Peel Award for musical innovation. Their album, Take To The Skies, peaked at #4 in the UK charts upon its release last month and it has also made waves across the continent, leading to the band's first European tour, which is currently ongoing and playing to packed houses. They have also been chosen to participate in every one of the major festivals in Ireland and the UK this summer.

Enter Shikari is derived from the Hindi phrase for enter 'the hunter' and is generally taken as being a metaphor for using positive aggression, which is hugely apt given the uncharted path that this band has consciously decided to take. The four-piece may never be known as the most original act to emerge from the UK (or even 2007) and they may not even end up as a footnote when talking of the world's greatest rock bands. However, to resist the temptations offered by record companies armed with checkbooks and prove that a band can have a genuinely successful global career would be truly historical.