Enter Shikari

Enter Shikari is an English post-hardcore band, formed in 2003 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire. The band is named after a boat belonging to Roughton "Rou" Reynolds' uncle, and a character in a play which he wrote before forming the band, both of which are named Shikari. Shikari also means 'Hunter', in Marathi, Persian, Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, Punjabi and Bengali. Their debut album, “Take to the Skies“ was released on March 19, 2007 and reached #4 in the Official UK Album Chart. Their second album, titled “Common Dreads“, was released on June 15, 2009 and debuted on the UK Albums Chart at 16.The band formed as an evolution from an earlier band, Hybryd, and formed in St Albans, England in 2003. The band features Roughton "Rou" [/raʊ/] Reynolds on vocals and electronics, Liam Clewlow (known by his middle name 'Rory') on guitar, Chris Batten on bass guitar and Rob Rolfe on drums. All four members are from St Albans.During 2003 and 2004, the band released three demo EPs that were available from their gigs and their website. They had another demo EP planned for release in 2005, (although no such EP materialized only recordings surfaced online) for this the first versions of Return To Energiser and Labyrinth were recorded, early versions of Ok Time For Plan B and We Can Breathe In Space were also recorded around this time but it's unclear if these were destined for the EP. In August 2006 they released a video of , the (only 100 copies) single "Mothership" which became the single of the week on the iTunes store. Their first physical single featured re-recorded versions of "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which had previously been featured on one of the demo EPs. It was released on October 30, 2006. It was limited to 1000 copies of each format and sold out within the first week of release. In mid January 2007, Enter Shikari's first single, "Mothership", entered the UK singles chart for one week at number 151, on Downloads only (despite its physical formats not being eligible for charts [at the band's request]. This was followed a week later by "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which charted at number 182 on the singles chart (despite its physical formats being ineligible for charts [at the band's request]) and number 146 in the Download Chart. In addition "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B" featured on EA Sports video game title NHL 08 and also Madden 08. Enter Shikari secured a spot on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. They have also had interviews with popular music press such as "Kerrang!" and "Rock Sound". On November 4, 2006, they became only the second unsigned band to ever sell out London Astoria (the first being The Darkness).
They also made the NME's "New Noise 2007", a list of the bands it considers most likely to achieve success in the coming year (previous years lists have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and Bloc Party).
The next single released was "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour", on March 5, 2007. This was the band's second single to be released from their forthcoming debut album. It contained a re-recorded version of the song "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour". It reached 27 in the Official UK chart. The band's debut album, “Take to the Skies“, was released on March 19, 2007 and on March 25 it reached number 4 in the UK Official Album Charts. It contained re-recordings of many of the songs that had featured on the demo EPs and singles that were released prior to the release of the album.
During the month of March, 2007 it was announced they would be playing at, Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Give it a Name, Glastonbury Festival, Oxegen festival in Ireland and Rock am Ring in Germany. On March 30, 2007, Enter Shikari announced that their next single would be "Jonny Sniper" and would be released on June 18. The song's video was premiered on May 21. The single received bad reviews from the NME.
On June 6, 2007 they performed a live show on BBC Radio 1 for Zane Lowe at BBC Radio Theatre.
They played an eleven date headline tour in October/November 2007 including their biggest ever headline gig in the 4,921 capacity Carling Academy Brixton. The band released a compilation EP titled The Zone on November 12.
Enter Shikari have performed over 500 gigs as of 2007 and played on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. On May 14, 2007, Enter Shikari started their first North America tour. This followed into three more North American tours.
In January 2008, Enter Shikari performed in Australia and New Zealand for the first time as part of the Big Day Out Festival. The band also did a number of side-shows in Australia, including two sold out shows at the "Hi-Fi Bar" in Melbourne.
They played at Projekt Revolution in Milton Keynes on June 29, 2008, alongside Linkin Park, Jay-Z, N.E.R.D, The Bravery, InnerPartySystem and Pendulum.
“Take to the Skies“ has sold 250,000 copies worldwide, and was certified Gold in the UK.
On 13 May 2008, the band released the first in a series of videos called "Enter Shikari: In the 'Low". The videos, posted on the band's YouTube page, showcased the band as they recorded their new single, "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape", and demoed new material. One of the new songs set to feature on the album was 'Step Up', which was first performed at Milton Keynes Pitz on June 28, 2008, the warm up show to Projekt Revolution the following day.On 8 August 2008, it was announced that "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape" would be released as a single. It was said to be a drastic re-working of the song originally demoed by the band back in 2005, but was not be included on the band's second album.They completed a tour of the UK and Ireland which took place over the course of 6 weeks; from September 30 to November 4, 2008; and consisted of 28 shows. A DVD compilation of live footage filmed by band / crew along with some TV footage was to be released to coincide with the tour according to a Kerrang! interview with the band, but has not been released as of yet.It was confirmed by NME that Enter Shikari had finished working on their second album, “Common Dreads“, in March 2009 and announced that they would tour the UK and Europe during 2009. They also made available a free download of a new song, "Antwerpen" from their website. On 15 April 2009 "Juggernauts" was played on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track in the World" and was released as a single on June 1, 2009. The B-side of the single is "All Eyes On The Saint". The band also had help from musician Danny Sneddon who helped with the recording of "Juggernauts". On May 1 Kerrang featured their track-by-track of the album. Metal Hammer were the first to review the album online with a track-by-track. Since it was announced in an interview with Andy Copping on Scuzz on their "The Digital Darkside: Download Special" that there would be 2 secret bands playing at Download Festival 2009, it has been heavily speculated that Enter Shikari would play one of these slots. They were confirmed to be one of the secret bands on the 9th June 2009. Enter Shikari also featured at Reading and Leeds Festivals on the 29 and 30 August 2009, playing songs from “Common Dreads“, as well as acoustic variations of 'Juggernauts', 'No Sleep Tonight' and 'Adieu' from “Take To The Skies“.
“Common Dreads“ was released through Ambush Reality on the 15th June 2009 and debuted at #16 on the UK top 40 album chart. The second single that has been released from “Common Dreads“ was "No Sleep Tonight". The 7" vinyl, CD single and MP3 download was released on August 17, 2009. A slightly modified version of the song "Wall" was released as a radio single, and a video for the song "Zzzonked" made of clips of a live show which was played at Norwich UEA, was also released.
A 2-disc version of “Common Dreads“ was due to be released in January 2010. Frontman Rou Reynolds announced that “We’ve got a different artist for each single from Hospital Records to do drum ‘n’ bass remixes so we’ll be releasing that as a 12". Then we're doing the same thing with (dubstep label) True Tiger who've done a dubstep remix of each single.” however it was later said in a Radio 1 interview that in fact they were only having their main singles remixed.
The new single "Thumper" was released on January 19, 2010, on BBC Radio One, As well the new single "Tribalism", which was first played on Radio 1, February 16, 2010. These songs come off the new B-sides and remixes album "Tribalism", which was released on February 22, 2010.
Since March 2009, drummer Rob Rolfe has not been able to perform at United States shows due to a denial of a visa. Rob has chosen Fellsilent drummer, Christopher Mansbridge to fill in for these dates. Although, on July 9, 2010 Rob stated in a Twitter post that he had obtained a visa. On September 30, 2010 Rob passed through customs at an airport in Houston for Enter Shikari's North American tour in October/November, and confirmed this in a Twitter post stating simply "America, I'm back".
Throughout February–March 2010, Enter Shikari joined the Australian summer festival Soundwave along with other bands such as A Day to Remember and Architects, playing shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The band then continued to tour Japan with A Day to Remember and Escape the Fate and in April–May 2010, they served as a support act, along with August Burns Red and Silverstein on A Day to Remember's Toursick.
On June 14, 2010, Enter Shikari announced that they had returned to the studio to do a "one off new track" called "Destabilise" which will be released as a download on October 26, 2010, and a limited edition coloured 7" vinyl on November 29, 2010.
On June 25, 2010, Enter Shikari arrived in Carson, California for their first day on Vans Warped Tour 2010. They played around the country until July 18, 2010. It was the first time Enter Shikari had been on Warped Tour.
After finishing their part of Warped Tour, Enter Shikari played a few festivals such as headlining Redfest and supported The Prodigy at Milton Keynes Bowl followed by a very exclusive show at the 400 capacity venue "Underworld" situated in Camden which was filmed and recorded as a possible DVD release, though technical problems with the recording - caused by heat and moisture in the room - resulted in it being highly unlikely that a majority of the show will ever see the light of day.
In September 2010, Enter Shikari returned to Australian shores for a headlining national tour, playing sold out shows in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne and near-sellout shows in Perth and Brisbane. On October 2, 2010, the band went on their headlining "Destabilise" Tour in North America with Haste the Day, Sleeping With Sirens, MSWHITE, and Lights Go Blue.
On October 25, 2010, Enter Shikari released the music video for their new single "Destabilise", and the single itself on iTunes in the UK the next day. The single was released in the US and elsewhere on November 2, 2010.
The band then supported 30 Seconds to Mars on their Into The Wild Tour leg of UK arenas in November–December 2010. This was the band's last tour for 2010.
In 2011, the band will take a break from touring, to focus on recording the follow up to 2009's “Common Dreads“.
According to an interview by Rob Rolfe, the follow up to "Common Dreads" is projected to be released in late summer 2011, but no official release date has been set.

Band members:

• Roughton "Rou" Reynolds - lead vocals, electronics, keyboards, programming
• Liam "Rory" Clewlow - guitars, backing vocals
• Chris Batten - bass guitar, backing vocals
• Rob Rolfe - drums, backing vocals.

Official Website: http://www.entershikari.com/

MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/entershikari