Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno swapped late-night drinking for early morning runs when he became the frontman of the band.
Following the departure of original bandleader Tom Meighan in 2020, Serge stepped up to lead vocal duties, and he soon realised that to be able to “perform at my best”, he had to curb his partying ways and get fit.
He told Runner’s World UK: “Hedonism was at the forefront of everything. If you’re not on stage, you’re in a pitch-black room nursing a horrendous hangover. We definitely committed to it and had a great time, but then there was a big change. When I became a frontman [in 2020], athleticism came back into my life. All of a sudden the train tracks switched and I was on a new path. I knew that there was absolutely no way I could live the life I’d been living and perform at my best.”
It was while sipping champagne that his friend persuaded him to do half of a marathon in Copenhagen.
He recounted: “It was champagne that got me doing my first marathon. We were in Copenhagen in 2023 to watch some friends do the marathon (on the Sunday). It was a beautiful sunny day on the Friday, so we had some bottles, and my mate Chris – who’s a running maniac – convinced me I could just run half of it, because our hotel was near the halfway point, then have a shower and go and see the finish. The longest I’d ever run was around 12 miles, but I did the whole marathon.”
The 44-year-old rocker admits he has an “obsessive personality so he has to be careful not to get too carried away with his running, else he’d have no time for the Club Foot band.
He admitted: “I do have to be careful of my obsessive personality, though. If I really committed to a proper marathon training block, Kasabian wouldn’t make another album. I’d be in Kenya doing altitude training.”
Running has, however, got his creative juices flowing.
He said: “I’m into running for so many reasons. There’s the competitive side of me who’s chasing PBs and can now talk about HRV and Garmins, and there’s also running to be completely free in your mind.
It’s a creative time. I’ll stop on the street and record voice notes because I’ll come up with melodies and lyrics, or I’ll have artwork ideas.”
The full interview with Serge Pizzorno can be read in the January issue of Runner’s World UK, on sale now and via https://www.runnersworld.com/uk.