Ricky Wilson of Kaiser Chiefs: "People like to see you drink, so I get drunk" | The music

RNicky Wilson is a bit confused when we meet in central London. First, he hugs me before announcing that he has shingles. "It's not so contagious," he tries to badure me. "You must literally wear my clothes to catch it."

Wilson suspects that he has caught the virus because the group that he heads, the Kaiser Chiefs, are about to release their seventh album, Duck. He has already had it twice before: "Always during periods of mbadive stress".

It turns out that anxiety is something that Wilson has been trying to overcome for a long time. He tends to stand up in different ways – when he appeared for the first time as a guest judge in The Voice, it was in the form of vertigo so intense that he could not get up. "I told them," I do not worry, I'm a rock star! "They gave me tablets against seasickness."

Since then, the 41-year-old has tried other ways to fix it: anti-anxiety meds ("They left me no fear of consequences, so I stopped"); a brief period of therapy, before it becomes too complicated to organize it; and the live performance, which according to him sorts it. But at other times, he says, he's turned to alcohol and that's something he wants to address today. However, at the end of a hesitant and sometimes contradictory conversation, I am not entirely convinced that he is ready to do it.

I know Wilson since Kaiser Chiefs first became known in the early 2000s as an independent indie pop group alongside bands such as Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian. Born in Keighley, West Yorkshire, Wilson taught at Leeds College of Art before the group left. The Kaiser Chiefs' music was more colorful and less studied than some of their peers, and their combination of Britpop nostalgia, Yorkshire humor and catchy melodies – I Predict A Riot, Ruby – made them huge. Their first album, Employment, went six times to platinum in the UK.

We met for the last time in 2014, at Groucho Club Soho, just as Wilson was preparing to badume his new role as judge in The Voice. At the time, it seemed incredibly risky – to bring into play his hard-earned indie credibility for his instant televised fame. But the band had just lost its drummer and songwriter, Nick Hodgson, who had decided that he preferred to write for other pop artists, and their sales dwindled. The pace of Wilson's TV could have sounded the death knell of the group – it was rather a master stroke. Their next album Education, Education, Education and War went to No. 1. Half a decade later, they still sell arenas across the country.

"It was a terrifying time," says Wilson. "I was giving up all control over how people perceive you. Suddenly, you no longer have control over editing. I was just lucky not to be an absolute jerk because I did not know if I knew it or not. "

But celebrity had a cost. Reading his opinions on social media whenever he came out of his phone was not ideal for reducing his anxiety. Hodgson was no longer there to provide the hits. "I realized we were just bowling around the world laughing while he was putting a lot of weight on his shoulders," Wilson recalls. "That's probably why he came out."

He says that there is no bad blood between them, although they are no longer friends. Did he like to prove to Hodgson that the band could succeed without him? "I'm not this vindictive, "he smiles. In fact, Wilson loves to prove that everyone is wrong, even his mortgage advisor, Brian. "He's a very good friend of mine right now, but at first he told me to hope the band did not last more than five years. And so I proved him wrong … three times now!

Then come the critics of the group: "They have thrown us all and we will not leave," he says. "It annoys them that we're successful … and I think," Yeah, it could be a little annoying, but the reason we have it is because it's piss you off. As soon as you stop noticing, we will stop trying. "

For Duck, the band has put all his energy into songs that he says are more open and more personal than before. Single people who know how to love each other have been described in the group's advertising material as a hymn for Brexit Britain, although Wilson is wary of this position: "You should never tell anyone what must do, "he says. "In a country where 52% of people think one way and 48% of the other, it's a way to share your market share."

Elsewhere on the album, Golden Oldies addresses a topic that is not often addressed in the pop-male brooding. ("I can paint the old room on the back, blue and pink, on different sides," sings Wilson.) "It's more a question of doubting your own black flesh," says Wilson, who has not child. "Because you can be smoldering, but then you have to continue with that. And I have enough friends to make you happy and traumatized. "

He recently stated that there was more to life than releasing an album every two years and that he would rather "take a child out if I can" instead. "Well, at least if you expel a child, 20,000 people on Twitter do not call you shithead," he says.

I had badumed that one of the album's most personal songs was Wait, which makes explicit reference to Wilson's body insecurity. Even though he is wrapped in Kaiser's typical humor ("I have 99 problems and everyone with a flake"), he seems to be touching on something more serious with his speech about mirroring and jumping meals. But as he often does, Wilson understands it: "I found it hilarious that all I had to do to get on TV was to straighten my teeth and lose a stone," he says. "Suddenly, I'm in Heat magazine with a photo before and after saying I'm a heartbeat."

As Wilson had told him, he had a hard time finding a way to go on television until his dentist told him about a new brace that would make him eat well for £ 1,500. . "I heard and heard about it and my girlfriend at the time said to me:" Of course, you should be a pop star! "And here I thought we might need a new refrigerator, but it's a good investment.

Wilson is often fun, but it can be difficult to unlock the secrets to understand what he really feels. This is especially difficult when there is concern: one minute, he seems to struggle with his demons, a minute later he laughs.

"I can leave the house in the morning, I'm fine," he says. "I have money at the bank and a support system around me. I am therefore worried, but I do not suffer from it. "

He says that a doctor has already told him that anxiety was simply due to the fact that adults could not deal with the excitement. "The kids are excited. adults are worried. So now, when I'm anxious, I try to imagine that I'm just excited instead, and … it does not help much. He laughs, but it sounds like a strange advice from a professional – sometimes, I think, that anxiety exists because of a painful incident. "Uncertainty too," he says. "I'm worried when I do not know what's going to happen. So, throwing yourself into any abyss, whether it's separating yourself from someone or leaving a group, it's simply …

He moves away, looks uncomfortable and changes the subject. "My body language is bad, is not it?" He said, noticing that he had slumped in his seat, arms crossed. Would he have preferred us not to cover that? "No, that's fine," he says. "It's interesting, sometimes the only way to discover something is to do interviews … free therapy!"

We turn now to how he would drink to cope with the anxiety and how it might sometimes prevail when he was on the road. "Because it's always available and legal. Plus, people really like to see you – the guy who was on stage – afterwards. And they like to see you drink … so I'll get drunk. It becomes a strange hobby to stop thinking about anything. I'll be like, I'm away for three weeks, I'll get out of it by not really noticing it. And as long as I can do my job properly, everything will be fine.

He mentions the bizarre dynamic of the tour, where being a senior singer means that you are "at the top of a pyramid of people, and you can get away with a lot of things as long as it's not going to happen." 39, not infiltrate your work. "Yet at the same time, being at the top of the pyramid brings its own pressures:" I have a lot of people that I have to visit. "If I do not leave, no one will leave .

How was alcohol? "On a personal level, I think it was bad," he says. "Enough to want to stop. But in the scheme of the big music industry? I think I drank less than most people spilled. "

He says that he has never been dependent on alcohol. "I was more dependent on finding ways to do it than to do it. I liked the game of it. I liked the fact that it was something that I had planned. I was pretty sneaky and I became more devious. The pleasure was to hide it. "

Why was he hiding it? "Because I was ashamed," he says. And suddenly, it sounds so, so much so that I wonder if we should really talk about it, but he insists that he is happy to continue.

"It looks like I'm getting around the question, but I'm still a little embarrbaded," he says, biting his lip. "So it's not that I do not want to talk about it … it's more than I do not know How to talk about it."

He describes the abandonment of alcohol as a "new hobby", which gives him the impression of being casually flippant again. It must have been hard? "No," he says, "because I'm pretty self-sufficient, so if I'm going to do something, I'll do it right."

Wilson never asked for the help of a professional, but simply stopped talking by talking to other people in rehab. "When you are not drinking and you live in a world filled with drinks, you suddenly meet many more people who are in the same boat as you," he says. "You are attracted to people and it is interesting to know how many of them are there."

People he had not noticed before? "Yeah … there's less" misfortune to me "not to drink than you think, in fact, it's pretty good, it's like a little club.

The Kaiser Chiefs do not have more alcohol on their rider. Wilson says that he did not ask. Instead, it just happened one night. "I think it was for me," he says. Did they talk to him about it? He shakes his head. "We did not go as far as we came talking to each other!"

We both laugh at this, which punctures the tension in the room. "I think that's probably enough," he says. "Because I do not know. All is well. he is well."

And he is right, in many ways. Next year, he plans to marry his fiancée Grace Zito, a stylist whom he met in 2015 on the set of The Voice. They are currently worshiping a very instagrammable dog called Reebus. As for the group, it seems to sail at an impressive altitude, almost without anyone noticing. Wilson notes that they have played more than 20 festivals this summer, often occupying the slot just below the head of the poster. "It's the best machine to play," he says, although you know that someone who has ambition will get the price of the note earlier. "Seriously – you keep going, play your hits, entertain everyone … then you go home without paying for the fireworks."

He gives me another shy hug and seems relieved to be back in the world of nonsense.

Duck comes out on July 26 on Polydor.