WITH the Kaiser Chiefs setting out on a UK tour which will take in Dorset, followed by an appearance at the county’s Camp Bestival later in the year, the band’s newest member Vijay Mistry tells Joanna Davis how he is settling in.

BEING the new boy is never easy.

For Vijay Mistry, joining an established band like The Kaiser Chiefs two years ago as the group’s drummer was a tall order.

But Vijay has transitioned from playing for local Leeds bands to being a member of a world famous band currently touring with the Foo Fighters in South America.

He is speaking to me from his hotel room in Brazil, where the Kaisers have been performing to some enthusiastic fans.

“It has been crazy,” Vijay tells me.

“The shows have been amazing. The audience size has been ridiculous – we’ve been playing to an audience of 70,000 people.

“The fans here are absolutely crazy. Every place we go people are camping outside the hotels.

“In Argentina there was a huge group of people outside going round to every single hotel we were in, they kept on trying to find out where we are.

“It’s been like this every day for three days.

“There’s just so much energy and enthusiasm every show.”

The Kaisers have even struck up an unlikely friendship with American rock band the Foo Fighters, whose lead singer Dave Grohl said he would never be a part of reality TV.

The new series of The Voice, featuring the Kaisers’ lead singer Ricky Wilson as a coach, has just begun on the BBC.

But Vijay said the two bands get on well and have enjoyed socialising.

“We’ve had dinner together and we think they’re just an amazing band – every gig they produce the same level.

“They’re a group of guys who are really into their music, a group of blokes who produce amazing music,” he said.

Ricky recently said he broke the news to Dave Grohl that he appears on a TV talent search contest and the former Nirvana drummer didn’t care because he said Ricky was ‘his friend’.

Vijay was speaking to me just before the Kaisers were due to do a final gig in Belo Horizonte, then fly back to the UK to begin their UK tour.

He said: “We are straight on to the UK tour after that – there’s no time to rest.

“After we finish the last show I’m sure I will collapse!

“I’m hoping when we take the tour to Liverpool I’ll be able to get my family there and spend a bit of time with them.

“I do miss my wife and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter when we are away.

“By the time she was one, she’d been to six gigs – I think she was the youngest person to have had her own dressing room at Brixton Academy!

“The way to describe her is just basically that she’s very loud and then she runs and she’s loud again and all of this repeats itself!”

The Kaisers, who had a number one hit with Ruby, will be playing at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) on Tuesday, February 10.

Come the summer they will be returning to the county to play at Camp Bestival – the band will be the Saturday night headliners.

Vijay said: “We’re looking forward to playing there, it sounds like a really good family festival.

“I’ll see if my family want to come and join in.”

A lot of thought went into the decision to join the Kaiser Chiefs, Vijay said. He was invited to be the new drummer after Nick Hodgson left in December, 2012.

Vijay said: “When I first got the phone call inviting me to join the band, I had a discussion with Nick, who was going to be leaving.

“I didn’t say yes straight away, I had to think about all the stuff that comes with it – the legacy, the fans, the albums.

“In all I thought about it for a week. After that I said ‘yes.’ “It was great but I could barely remember everything that was going on, I was in a scared daze. I didn’t want to let anyone down.”

It took a while to feel part of the Kaisers ‘family’, Vijay recalls.

“I started writing with the band and we released the Education, Education, Education & War album last year.

“It went to number one and I finally felt as though I was part of the family.

“I wasn’t performing someone else’s work. It was at that point that I finally felt like I was justified in being in the band.”

The Kaisers are releasing their new singing Falling Awake as a one-off to coincide with their tour.

“There’s a few production differences we’ve put in it to give it a slightly different sound.

“We’ve got a bit of synth going on with it, it’s a bit more of an electronic sound but there’s still the guitars in there, it’s still very much our sound,” he said.

I ask Vijay if, as Ricky Wilson has said, it is regarded as one of the band’s few songs about love.

“I don’t know really, I leave all that lyrical anguish stuff to Ricky!” he says.

The way to cope with such a hectic schedule is not to think too far ahead, Vijay tells me.

“Everything is so great, we are here there and everywhere. But if you look too far ahead you go crazy.

“It gets a bit scary if I start thinking about all the people I’m going to be playing to.

“We can only think about the next three or four days. It’s the best way to stay sane.”

  • The Kaiser Chiefs tour comes to Bournemouth on Tuesday, February 10. Contact the venue for tickets.

They will also perform at Camp Bestival on Saturday, August 1. See campbestival.net for more information.