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Kaiser Chiefs

English indie rock band

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ192308
Source-derived summary

The Kaiser Chiefs are an English indie rock band from Leeds who originally formed in 1996 as Runston Parva, before shortening their name to Parva in 2000, and releasing one studio album, 22, in 2003, before renaming and establishing themselves in their current name that same year. Since their formation, the band has consisted of lead vocalist Ricky Wilson, guitarist Andrew "Whitey" White, bassist Simon Rix, keyboardist Nick "Peanut" Baines and since 2013 drummer Vijay Mistry, who replaced founding drummer Nick Hodgson following his departure from the band in late 2012.

Primarily inspired by new wave and punk rock music of the late 1970s and 1980s, the band has released eight original studio albums: Employment (2005), Yours Truly, Angry Mob (2007), Off with Their Heads (2008), The Future Is Medieval (2011), Education, Education, Education & War (2014), Stay Together (2016), Duck (2019), and Kaiser Chiefs' Easy Eighth Album (2024), one EP: the Japan-only Lap of Honour (2005), one compilation album: Souvenir: The Singles 2004–2012 (2012) and numerous singles, including the number one hit song "Ruby" (2007).

Their album Employment enjoyed critical and commercial success with over three million copies sold. It has won the band three Brit Awards, including the award for Best British Group, a NME award for Best Album, and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize.

Their UK hit singles include 2004 and 2005 number 9 hit "I Predict a Riot", 2007 UK number 1 hit "Ruby", which has sold over 461,000 copies, from their platinum album Yours Truly, Angry Mob plus a further two Top 20 singles in 2007 with "The Angry Mob" and "Everything Is Average Nowadays". Their singles "Ruby" (2007), "I Predict a Riot" (2004), "Everyday I Love You Less and Less" (2005), "Never Miss a Beat" (2008) and "Oh My God" (2004) had sold a combined total of 1.1 million up to August 2012.

History

Runston Parva (1996–2000)

When they were around eleven years old, Nick Hodgson, Nick Baines and Simon Rix met in the same class at St. Mary's Catholic High School, Menston, West Yorkshire. After leaving school, Rix and Baines left for university in 1996 whereas Hodgson remained in the Leeds area, meeting both Andrew White and Ricky Wilson.

Editorial summary

“Kaiser Chiefs” enters the record as english indie rock band. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kaiser, Chiefs and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1996, 2000, 2003, 2013—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2000. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Kaiser, Chiefs and English.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Kaiser Chiefs” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Kaiser, Chiefs and English provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q192308. VIAF identifies the subject as 145759116. The Library of Congress control number is no2005042443. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 2000, 2003 and 2013.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow Kaiser Chiefs primary sources, Kaiser Chiefs archive and Kaiser research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Kaiser Chiefs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.