{"id":829193,"date":"2026-11-09T16:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T16:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/829193\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T16:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T16:08:11","slug":"rou-reynolds-tells-us-about-enter-shikaris-hiatus-and-thoughts-on-the-future-i-was-in-an-extremely-bad-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/829193\/","title":{"rendered":"Rou Reynolds tells us about Enter Shikari’s hiatus and thoughts on the future: “I was in an extremely bad place”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enter Shikari<\/a>\u2018s Rou Reynolds<\/a> has spoken to NME about the struggles that led to their decision to take a hiatus, and what the future holds beyond that.<\/p>\n

Last month saw the band announce to fans that they\u2019d be taking an indefinite hiatus<\/a>, with plans to \u201cfall dormant as a recording and performing entity\u201d at the end of 2027 after another stretch of touring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are lucky enough to have built an audience who understand that the less-trodden path is sometimes the more interesting journey,\u201d they shared. \u201cHowever, it gets to the point where the often difficult terrain of that path starts to frazzle and drain the humble traveller.\u201d<\/p>\n

They admitted that their \u201cpriorities and capacities had changed\u201d over the years, and they\u2019d had \u201cdifficult conversations about what the next few years should hold\u201d even before Reynolds shared his mental health<\/a> struggles in the wake of completing recent album \u2018Lose Your Self\u2019<\/a>. The frontman then spoke to NME about \u201cthe cocktail of emotions\u201d he was feeling after sharing the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels weird because we\u2019ve got over a year, anything that we were talking about becomes reality,\u201d he told us. \u201cAs far as we\u2019re concerned, we\u2019ve got touring to do, we\u2019re making plans. It\u2019s this weird contradiction of talking about a hiatus as well as making more and more plans. It\u2019s an odd position to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the fans\u2019 reaction, Reynolds said he found himself \u201calmost detaching from the announcement and not really reading many people\u2019s messages\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been some really emotional and heartfelt messages sent our way, which I\u2019m so grateful for, but it doesn\u2019t feel right that I should be reading them yet,\u201d he admitted.\u00a0\u201cPersonally, we\u2019re happy it\u2019s out in the public because we pride ourselves on our connection with our audience and our honesty. We never like hiding anything. Now we can just have conversations about it, reminisce and plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EnterEnter Shikari perform at Reading Festival 2025. CREDIT: Derek Bremner for NME<\/p>\n

As well as speaking to NME about the financial struggles and personal impact of touring<\/a>, the frontman also opened up about where his head was at and what might be on the horizon for the band. Check out the rest of our interview with Reynolds below, where he told us about winding down, the group\u2019s upcoming UK tour, and a few more surprises coming in 2027 before Enter Shikari take their well-earned break.<\/p>\n

NME: Hello, Rou. \u2018Lose Your Self\u2019 came out back in April to great acclaim, but there wasn\u2019t a lot of activity around it. What can you tell us about your headspace around that time and how you went from that record to making this decision for a hiatus?<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back at the very beginning of this year, we were mastering the album. I remember the absolute race up until Christmas to hit that deadline. These were all self-imposed deadlines, but we\u2019d made lots of plans for the year and really wanted to hit them.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the perfectionism took hold and I was just mistreating myself, working ridiculous hours. Our mastering engineer was in Nashville, our mixing engineer was in New Zealand, so the hours I was doing with them was insane. This is probably the last album I\u2019ll ever produce by myself. I get far too perfectionistic about the details; the balance in my life goes, my mental health goes. I can laugh about it now, but that was the start of something. It was honestly horrid, and meant that we didn\u2019t tour. I can\u2019t say I enjoyed any of the album release shows. For that era, I was in an extremely bad place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were already having conversations, and this put them up the priority list. We started to make some decisions. It\u2019s been a rollercoaster of a year for sure!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Shikari\u2019s 27-year history and survival is no mean feat, given that you\u2019re such a hard band to pigeonhole and the music industry wants things in neat little boxes. Would you say that weathering that over the course of nearly three decades has also led to this decision?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say. I\u2019m sure it had an influence. We\u2019ve toured with a lot of bands, and I can manufacture a sense of what it\u2019s like to be in your average band. We\u2019re certainly not that, for all sorts of reasons. Whether it\u2019s the extra stresses that the breadth of the music takes, the activism, the intense touring schedules that we\u2019ve put on ourselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re 20, you\u2019ve got the energy, and you can take it all on. We\u2019ve all got broader lives now, and perhaps don\u2019t have the ability to throw yourself at absolutely everything. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re sleep-deprived and on the other side of the world, because for most of the year you can get through it. That\u2019s not so much the case anymore, as I brutally found out at the start of this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure it had some kind of influence. It would be nice to play in a band that plays middle-of-the-road music with asinine lyrics, but fortunately that\u2019s never what we\u2019ve been drawn to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RouRou Reynolds of Enter Shikari at Reading 2025. Credit: Derek Bremner for NME<\/p>\n

How do you imagine the future beyond 2027?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re going to go away and put our heads in the sand. We\u2019ll still be connected. We might still be in the music industry in other ways, but there\u2019s a lot to he hopeful about. It\u2019s just whether we can grind things forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve spoken of how your upcoming UK and European tour could well be the last time many fans get to see you, and that your ambitious production plans will \u201cblow your dad off\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be the biggest show that we\u2019ve ever put together. It\u2019s quite flamboyant, and the production is us pushing ourselves. It\u2019s going to be a vast step that picks and chooses from every era of the band, as we often do. There should be a bit of something in there for everyone. We\u2019re just buzzing, really.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are some of our favourite venues too. Ally Pally, for instance \u2013 that place is just magical for me. It\u2019s so far from your standard arena covered in corporate feel. It\u2019s the people\u2019s palace in this beautiful, majestic, romantic building. We\u2019re absolutely buzzing to get back in some of these places.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And how are you going to handle next year\u2019s shows? It\u2019ll be 20 years of your debut album, \u2018Take To The Skies\u2019, and you\u2019ve also got to round off your career so far and say \u2018goodbye for now\u2019\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much we could do. It\u2019s just about prioritising. I\u2019m sure there will be some debate as we\u2019ve got three albums with anniversaries [15 years of \u2018A Flash Flood Of Colour\u2019 and 10 years of \u2018The Spark\u2019] and then we\u2019re going away, so picking the setlists will be absolutely horrendous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re coming to conclusions right now that we do want to make the most of it and go out on a high. We\u2019re just trying to figure out what we want to do, and hopefully not just celebrate the albums that are having their birthdays, but the band and everything we\u2019ve achieved as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could there also be more new material?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be another track before the end of the year, and then there\u2019s bits and pieces we\u2019re working on. It felt so weird when we made that announcement and then released a song a few weeks later<\/a>; it was a weird juxtaposition. We\u2019re still very much an active band, and we\u2019ll probably be more active than ever for at least 12 months. We\u2019ll really relish it as well because we know it\u2019s going to be put on pause. I would expect some new music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EnterEnter Shikari perform at Reading Festival 2025. CREDIT: Derek Bremner for NME<\/p>\n

And what about your own life away from Shikari? Will you be doing more acting after your role in The War Of The Worlds<\/a>?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure yet. I\u2019m excited about a lot of different possibilities. I\u2019d love to do some theatre again. I\u2019ve wanted to do a solo record forever. It\u2019s a bit of a running joke in the band, as I\u2019ve been saying I\u2019m about to do one for about 15 years. But then, of course, a tour or something comes up. Finally, I think I\u2019ll be able to do that, which will be very different. There\u2019s all sorts; I\u2019m just trying to decide what\u2019s going to take my focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the vibe of the solo stuff? Thick cable-knit jumpers by the fire in the woods?<\/p>\n

\u201cHa! Well, I wrote stuff 10-15 years ago that I\u2019ve had but is just clearly not Shikari, so I just kept it on the back burner. I haven\u2019t done anything with it or written anything for quite a while, so it won\u2019t be until late next year that I start working on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor now, I honestly don\u2019t know as there are many directions it could go in. Knowing me, it\u2019ll probably go in all of them. It\u2019ll still be all over the shop!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enter Shikari\u2019s 2026 UK tour kicks off in Nottingham on Friday (November 13). Check out full UK and European dates below and visit here for tickets<\/a> and more information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NOVEMBER
10 \u2013 Brussels, Forest National
11 \u2013 Tilburg, 013
13 \u2013 Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena
14 \u2013 Cardiff, Utilita Arena
15 \u2013 Hull, Connexin Live
18 \u2013 Glasgow, Hydro
19 \u2013 Manchester, Co-op Live
20 \u2013 London, Alexandra Palace
21 \u2013 London, Alexandra Palace<\/p>\n

For help and advice on mental health:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enter Shikari\u2018s Rou Reynolds has spoken to NME about the struggles that led to their decision to take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,252069,3584,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-829193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-letu2019s-talk-u2013-mental-health","tag-rock","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}