Kasabian: Kasabian Talks About New Album 'Lunatic Asylum'

"West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum"with the quirky title, fans and critics alike have been trying to figure out what British rock band Kasabian's latest album is actually about. But frontman Tom Meighan says the title has no relation to anything, other than "it's the words that I actually like.""I like the idea of madness, and music kind of entwines. If you call an album that, it pretty much gives you the freedom to go wherever you want. That's what I was interested in," he said in an e-mail interview."West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum," the band's third album, topped the U.K. charts this June. Meighan says guitarist Sergio Pizzorno was inspired to make the album after watching a TV show about a mental asylum."One night, Serge watched a program on a mental asylum on TV, and he had this thing to make an album that's really out there and the journey. It's the kind of thing, (where) each song's different and has a change characteristic and that's how it happened," he said.With dark, electronica songs "Underdog," "Vlad the Impaler" and "Fire," the album is nothing like the rock music their fans are used to.Critics gave mixed reviews, but Kasabian is not affected by them."It's an album with 12 really good songs on it, that's all to me what it is. It just throws it into another world and it's completely different to the first two records, which is what we're about," Meighan said. Kasabian was formed in Leicester in 1999, with Meighan on vocals, Pizzorno on guitar and Chris Edwards on bass. Drummer Ian Matthews joined in 2004. Kasabian, who won the Best Live Act award at the 2007 NME Awards, impressed Korean fans when they performed at the Pentaport Rock Festival in 2007.Meighan says it was also an "amazing" experience for the band to perform here. "The energy there was, you know, monstrous," he added.Although there's no word on a Kasabian concert in Seoul anytime soon, Meighan said fans can always expect their shows to be magical. "You can literally be on fire," he said.Amid their success, Kasabian still manages to keep it real. The secret, Meighan says, is "you just gotta be yourself."