Kasabian star Serge Pizzorno has opened up about becoming the band’s new frontman after Tom Meighan was sacked from the group.
Meighan was kicked out of the rock group in 2020 after he was convicted of assaulting his fiancée Vikki Ager.
He left the band one day before appearing in court to plead guilty to assaulting Ager, his partner of four years.
Meighan was sentenced to community service in July 2020 after a court was told he hit Ager in the face, shoved her up against a hamster cage, pushed her over repeatedly, held her by the throat and threatened her with a wooden pallet during the assault on 9 April of that year.
Footage of the incident showed an inebriated Meighan striking Ager and dragging her by the ankles into the back garden of their home. The prosecutor said the attack was witnessed by a child, who called 999, sounding “panicked and afraid”. Meighan and Ager stayed together after the incident and are now married.
In a new interview with Clash magazine, Pizzorno has discussed going from chief songwriter to frontman.
“I needed to step up,” he said. “And then once I made that choice with the boys, then it was just a matter of me committing and trying to do it. I only know one way of going about things. I try to look at things differently and try to make choices that aren’t the most obvious.
“I knew that I wouldn’t just be playing guitar and sort of having a go and singing a few songs… If I was going to do it, then I was going to learn, and learn every day, and carry on learning for the rest of the time that I’m up there doing it… they’re my words, every single word means so much.”
He added: “I just thought, when I’m on stage, I’m just going to become the crowd, and get up there on that stage, and give it everything I’ve got…. It’s been a life-changing, crazy experience.”
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Earlier this year, Pizzorno talked about the “heartbreaking” decision to sack Meighan.
In 2021, Meighan wrote a lengthy blog post about the events surrounding his arrest for assaulting his now wife.
Kasabian’s latest album, The Alchemist’s Euphoria, is released on 12 August.
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