ENTER SHIKARI

HUGE TOURING, ONE-OFF SONGS AND SOME UTTERLY MINDBLOWING FESTIVAL SETS MEANT ENTER SHIKARI STOOD HEAD AND SHOULDERS ABOVE THE REST OF THE UK THIS YEAR. HERE’S HOW IT PANNED OUT IN THEIR OWN WORDS…

- Jack Rogers

You’ve won the Best British Artist award! How does it feel to end such a busy year like that?

“Amazing, and thank you very much! We were over the moon when we found out to be honest. The thing is, in terms of the wider public we appear to have been very quiet - because we hadn’t actually released anything until ‘Stop The Clocks’. It’s really awesome to receive something like this when we have really just been quietly going about our business. Or you know, quietly blowing people away around the world!”

First off, what were your hopes and aspirations at the start of 2019? You had just kicked off the first leg of your huge, continent-spanning tour in the UK. Did you have any thoughts about what you wanted this year to represent?

“I think the first thing was that we were pleasantly surprised at how ‘The Spark’ had more longevity than previous albums. I don’t think it was particularly bigger or went down better than any other album, but because it connected with some people very deeply it made them cling to it and raise it up more than other ones we had done. We really wanted to keep that feeling and longevity and give the album the space that it deserved. The only other thing that was really going through my mind was writing. I felt so spurred on by the reaction to ‘The Spark’ and excited by that, so wanted to continue down that path.”

Considering it was released back in 2017, the reverberations of ‘The Spark’ can still be felt now. It doesn’t feel like an album that you have been pushing for two years. How does that feel for you? Was there a moment where you realised this record was different?