Kaiser Chiefs worried about future of bands like the Kaiser Chiefs

Beer-advert soundtrackers Kaiser Chiefs are worried for the future. Oh, won't someone think of the Sleeperblokes?

Speaking at the BT Digital Music awards, Singer Ricky Wilson told BANG Showbiz: "Necessity is the mother of invention and there will always be music. Whether it will be a viable career for five guys with guitars I'm not sure at the moment but you know, they'll be there in a garage somewhere."

Bassist Simon Rix added: "What you need when you're a band, what it took for us was for a record company to give us a little money to get us on tour in a van, to get people to see us, to like our band, to get us on the radio and the telly.

"That's what record companies do, and how bands get somewhere, but now they don't do that because they never make it back."

Just think about that for a moment: in the world foreseen by the Kaiser Chiefs, a band like Kasabian would forever be trapped in a garage, never getting out to play to the public.

Actually, as post-apocalyptic scenarios go, that doesn't sound so very bad, does it?

Kaiser Chiefs: the past is a foreign country, but bits of it are like the Empire

Last week, Ricky Wilson was complaining about how music has moved on since Oasis' day, and it's time for Noel to stop pretending he's relevant and that music has moved on.

Yesterday, though, Simon Rix was praising Paul McCartney for still being relevant and how music still owes him a lot. Of course, they were supporting the man live at Anfield:

"I've said this before that I think Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are up there, if not the most influential people who are still alive.

"I don't know who is more influential than those two really, because I think that the influence of The Beatles, the impact that they had on everything at the time, not just music, you know your shoes and clothes and your hair and moustaches, everything, furniture - if The Beatles had never happened then we'd be living in a parallel universe."

Let's leave aside the obvious truth that, if you were in a parallel universe without the Beatles, the Beatles wouldn't have existed for you to know they were missing and that what Rix means is it would be like living in a parallel universe, or living in a different world, we're still trying to work out while middle-aged guys should step aside but pensioners should remain active.

Kaiser Chiefs launch attack on Pink

The Kaiser Chiefs want to have a pop at someone, which means they've been seeking a soft target. Unfortunately, they've chosen Pink.

In particular, Simon Rix has called Dear Mr President 'idiotic':

"She's just crap. Fact is, Pink stinks. Take a look at that song Dear Mr President - it's just terrible. The lyrics are idiotic.

"Pink is like a practical joke being played on the world. Can't say I love the girl."

Hmm. Idiotic? It might be simplistic, but at least it's about something, rather than the constant repetition of a girl's name over and over again, or rhyming "you'd be dead" with "shopping basket round your head"; the references to Bush's supposed-former alcoholism and drugs use were enough to get the song banned from some US radio stations and warnings to presenters not to discuss it in interviews, and to directly address some of the hypocrisy of the current White House occupants in a pop song is both useful and - in light of what happened to the Dixie Chicks - rather a brave move. Braver, certainly, than the Daily Mail-rewrites-Misshapes that was I Predict A Riot, anyway.