Rob caught up with Enter shikari before they took to the stage for their headline show in Birmingham to talk about their forthcoming third studio album 'A Flash Food Of Colour', thier March 2012 tour and much more.

You have announced that your new studio album will be called ‘A Flash Food Of Colour’ and that it will be released in January, what else can you tell us about the album?
Rory, guitar) We recorded it in Thailand, its about 40 minuted long, its our shortest album yet,its that short because nower days, people have long albums but they don't work so well because, people put it on itunes and skip tracks, people don't sit down too often and listen to whole albums, so we thought to keep it short and sweet all killer no filler as they say, Were really really happy with it, we want to play all the songs live as they should be amazing live.

What would you say your main influences are with the new album?
There's too many to call any of them main influences, everything that's influenced our old albums plus loads of new stuff, Flannel core, drum and bass, dub step stuff from the electronic side to metal, acoustic, Sigor Ross at some points, its all over the place its a mess of shit.

How have you found the whole writing and recording process compared to your previous albums?
Its been quite similar to the last one really, we never really struggle to much for ideas we have a back log of riffs and ideas, it went pretty smoothly, if we could we would record six albums a year, we would be happy to do that.

Zane Lowe recently played ‘Sssnakepit’ twice in a row as his hottest track in the world, praise like this doesn’t happen often and must feel amazing when it does.
Yeah, back in the day we never thought we would get played on radio one, we just sound to weird and different, but they've supported us really well, the singles gone b list now, we played a few times a day on radio one, amazing.

Over the years you have released a few stand alone singles, is this to keep your fans entertained whilst waiting for new albums or more because the songs don’t fully fit in with the direction of your albums?
Its partly to keep people interested to fill the void in between album releases and partly to keep us happy as we love recording, so we can play fresh material on the road.

You are currently on a mammoth tour across the UK, how have you been finding the tour so far? And how does it feel to be back on the road?
We haven't done our own headline tour in about 2 years, the tours been amazing so far, and touring with letlive and your demise, massive inspirations for us, its amazing, it feels like home getting such a strong buzz off the audience

You have also just announced a tour for March 2012, it must feel good to be in the stage where you can announce further tours before completing current tours?
Its pretty awesome, as its bigger venues than this one but a shorter tour too, it'll be a totally different vibe

You have invited Young Guns to support you on the shows in March, how did you come up with this decision.
There friends of ours, we kinda met on the road and they recorded with the same guy we did, Dan Weller, and they recorded out in Thailand as well, there just good mates a good band.

Right from the start you have been known as a band who likes to do everything yourself from releasing your music right down to promoting your tours, how different do you think things would be for you if you let a major record label take over this from the start?
Its an interesting question, I don't know, we kind of signed to a major label last year, with a distribution deal only, so it wasn't a standard deal, but even that, was hard and there were constant barriers coming up, the way they work is so inflexible, any ideas we had everything took so long it was horrible, If we had signed to a major label, who knows, I don't think we would be were we are now, not as popular, not have our core fan base, major labels aren't very good at keeping core fans in touch, there only interested in having number ones and getting out to as many people possible and convinced to buy something so they get that instant money.

You have played pretty much every major festival, supporting some huge bands in arenas and also played huge sold out headline shows, so what is your major goal as a band now?
We never set our selves any targets, we take it day to day, as long as we have enough money to live and not have to get another job, were happy to do this, one thing we love is travelling to new places, that's our goal is to go to as many interesting places as possible, its our goal next year, to visit places like South America, China, India, that and to stay afloat.

You have been sponsored by Jagermeister for many years now, how do you find Jagermeister help bands like yourselves in the music industry?
They help us get drunk, its a vital part of touring, but they help pay for some live videos, mainly though they help us get drunk.

Do you find yourself having Jagermeister parties from time to time whilst on the road?
Yeah this one time, we went on the Jager Sky bar, its this huge fucking crane at this festival, with these wires coming down, and this bar gets raised up, I went up there and I remember thinking I wasn't gonna have anything to drink, as I was having a day off drinking and when I was up there, I was so scared so I started necking Jagermeister to dull the fear.

What’s your take on the digital revelation killing off the music business?
Well its made it a lot easier for bands to get there material out there, but its a double edged sword, its taken a lot of the money away from the music industry as a whole, I think the industry will adapt as it is at the moment, its becoming a different thing, where people are making the money of things that cant be downloaded like t-shirts and playing live. The bands that perform live are the ones that survive. I think the major labels would be in better shape now if they had adapted sooner, I tihnk some of them are living in denial and trying to the force the old way of doing things back into the new world and it isn't working that's why their crumbling under the way their doing things.

Where do you hope to see Enter Shikari in a year’s time?
Probably sitting in Jeep doing an African safari.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a zebra or Giraffe which one would you be and why?
Be a giraffe.

Thanks for your time is there a message for your fans reading this?
Thank you for everyone who's coming out to our shows on this tour, keep supporting usand look out for our new album on January 9th.

Interview by Robert Lawrence