1
Happy 34th birthday to Serge Pizzorno! Here’s 50 geeky Kasabian facts to celebrate, starting with the ethos behind Serge’s ’48:13′ stagewear: “I could go to Commes des Garcons and get all the best threads but fuck it, I want a plain white tee with a different word on it every night… Being onstage playing a huge tune, having ‘flannel’ written on your shirt, it’s ridiculous but kinda beautiful.”
2
The boys once played a 5-a-side football match with members of Oasis at 4am in Earls Court.
3
In a 2011 interview with Jools Holland, Serge compared the band to American actress Liza Minelli saying that they both “never stop working”.
4
Tom once dedicated a performance to “the leader of the Transformers, Optimus Prime” during a show in an industrial park after spotting cranes in the distance.
5
The band hasn’t always been called Kasabian. In fact, the original name chosen for the band was Saracuse.
6
In an interview with the Guardian in 2009, Tom revealed that he’d “love to be a hobbit” and that he would be a “really bad hobbit” who’d “kill Gandalf, wipe out all the hobbits, marry the princess and claim the throne”.
7
Serge scored a lobbed goal over former England Football Club goalkeeper David Seaman while participating in Soccer Aid 2012.
8
Serge’s son only relaxes when he hears a Kasabian song. Serge says: “It’s what calms him down. He’s three in August – he’ll be producing music by the age of five. But I have to censor some of the lyrics for him.”
9
Serge once attributed the band’s success to the “cornflakes they have in the morning”.
10
A giant cushion fight took place at a 2012 Kasabian show in Lyon’s Theatre Romain.
11
Tom once described One Direction as “five little dicks”.
12
Tom’s said the band’s new album sounds like The Prodigy. He says: “It’s like The Prodigy’s dirty remix thing. It’s cool and it’s got really heavy drums – it sounds electrocuted.”
13
Tom lost his cool when the band weren’t asked to headline Glastonbury 2013. He said Kasabian were “the ultimate, we’re the headline band” and called Glastonbury boss Michael Eavis a “bastard”.
14
In a 2012 interview with NME, Tom Meighan said that “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy” by David Bowie and Bing Crosby is his favourite Christmas song.
15
Tom is a massive Leicester City Football Club fan.
16
Kasabian’s ‘L.S.F.’ is used in FIFA 2004’s soundtrack.
17
Serge was Genoa FC’s guest of honour when they faced Sampdoria in April last year. He was also presented with the club’s No. 10 shirt.
18
Serge licked Jackie Mason’s face at the NME awards in 2012.
19
Kasabian were the first ever band to play at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
20
Tom is in the pilot of the TV series Walk Like A Panther.
21
Kasabian played their first ever Reading and Leeds festival set in 2003.
22
Tom and Serge did an awkward interview on Sky Sports 24 during which the interviewer spoke nothing but Italian.
23
Before the band got together, their music taste couldn’t have been any different. Tom mainly listened to drum’n’bass while Serge and Chris mainly listened to Britpop.
24
‘Velociraptor’ sold more than 90,400 copies in the first week.