Kaiser Chiefs were too tired to "compute" Employment album success

30 July 2025, 17:20

Kaiser Chiefs press image — Kaiser Chiefs have looked back at their debut LP. Picture: Cal McIntyre

By Jenny Mensah

Ricky Wilson spoke to Radio X's Dan O'Connell about 20 years of the band's debut album and why they're happiest being "underdogs".

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Kaiser Chiefs have reflected on 20 years of their debut album and admitted they were too knackered to take in their early success.

The band brought On The Beach 2025 to close with a headline set, which saw them play the 2005 LP, Employment, in full as well as hits from across their career.

Asked about the record, which scored them a Top 5 hit on the UK Album Charts, and if they were able to enjoy it at the time, frontman Ricky Wilson told Dan O'Connell: "No, definitely not. No. It was weird. We knew it was going really well; you can't really compute it when you're so tired. And I think any new band who aren't feeling like on the verge of death with tiredness, you're not doing it properly!"

"But it was happening, and it was good, and we were enjoying it," added the I Predict A Riot singer. "But we never got the chance to step back and go, ‘This is this is fantastic, this is everything we've ever dreamed of!’ And it was everything we've ever dreamed of. But it was just a very odd time for us, very odd. I'd do it again exactly the same. I'd do everything again exactly the same.”

Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson speaks to Radio X's Dan O'Connell. Picture: Radio X

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Asked if he had any regrets, the Leeds rocker recalled how their Glastonbury set wasn't captured on TV, but remembered it being the "best day ever".

Despite that, the 47-year-old singer revealed that he feels more comfortable with things going wrong, because he's always seen the band as "underdogs".

"The thing is, bands that everything goes really well, then just to suddenly disappear," mused the Ruby singer. "But bands that go up and down have a need to fight back all the time. It's weird, because we're very happy being the underdogs. We like it. It's that we're most comfortable when things are going wrong, even like when we were the Glastonbury and it was, like, my favourite show ever. Best day. I loved it. The crowd turned up. There was like 100,000 people in the field. Amazing. And then they said it wasn't an iPlayer. And I was like, ‘Well, that's really rubbish.’ But I'm glad something terrible happened, because it wouldn't be the Kaiser Chiefs if it all went to plan.”