Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson: There are people out there just waiting to be annoyed by our music

Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson has spoken out about the pressures of fame, saying that while he would not complain about his life it can sometimes be “impossible” to ignore the negative aspects.

In an interview with Sky News Sunrise following the release of the band’s seventh album, Duck, the singer said that while they have fans eager to hear new material there are also people who are just “waiting to be annoyed” by the record.

Wilson, also a former coach on TV music talent show The Voice, admitted he still gets nervous every time the band put out a new record, after “incubating this one for the best part of two years”.

Rather than getting easier as the years pass, he said it actually “gets much harder, because you’re aware of everything that can go wrong”.

“This sounds negative, but we’ve had our ups and downs, and I remember the ups and I remember the downs,” he said. “I don’t want to remember any more downs.

“Also, we have an audience who like us and want to hear something and they don’t want to be disappointed, but we’ve also got people who are waiting to be annoyed by it. So you kind of have to ignore everything and just do it for yourself.”

Wilson opened up about suffering from anxiety and giving up alcohol in a recent interview with The Guardian.

He told Sky News that while he does not want to become a “poster boy” he is pleased if his experiences can help others.

“I have a very easy existence, really,” he said. “I’ve got lots of people around me looking after me and everything’s pretty good.

“I don’t really discuss mental health issues but if it does help people to think that in some way it affects me then that’s a good thing, but I don’t really want to be the poster boy for it. Because I’m on live TV and I’ve left the house this morning, there’s people in far worse positions than me.

“And it’s only music. It’s just a laugh. It takes two years to make 45 minutes of noise; that sounds pathetic doesn’t it, in the grand scheme of things.”

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Asked whether fame comes at a personal cost, he said: “Yeah, but I’ve put myself in that position, it’s not something that happened by accident. I worked blooming hard at it.”

He also spoke about facing criticism and negative comments online.

“You can’t just read good things, you can’t just read bad things, you just have to take it all and then it kind of cancels each other out, and then move on,” he said. “But yeah, it can… this week I’ve been doing the rounds, going to TV shows, and I’ve met a few people off Love Island. I was just like, they have no idea [what’s to come].

“Maybe one of them might have been, kind of like, excited to meet me, but I was thinking, you are at the moment, like, 20 times more famous than I’ve ever been, out of nowhere. You know, try and enjoy it, because the opposite is unthinkable.”

• Kaiser Chiefs’ seventh album, Duck, is out now

(c) Sky News 2019: Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson: There are people out there just waiting to be annoyed by our music