Dreams of Brit-rock empire

Sergio Pizzorno’s cellphone won’t stop crackling, but the lead guitarist of Leicester, England’s Kasabian isn’t helping matters any.

“Yeah, man, I’m just walking around the streets of Chicago at the moment,” he says over a persistent thrum and pop. “I can’t stop moving, man. You know, it’s like, why stop?”

No reason, perhaps, not when you’re jostling for U.S. ear-share in the latest Brit-rock derby, and it’s a mad and competitive scramble, with the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party also angling to be heard.

Pizzorno, despite the short career of his band, already has a reputation in the British music press as a snarky quote meister, but has no choice zingers today for his contemporaries, only fulsome praise for his band mates.

“They are my mates, my brothers,” Pizzorno says of the other members of Kasabian -- guitarist and keyboardist Christopher Karloff, vocalist Tom Meighan and bassist Chris Edwards. “To be able to tour the world with your best mates, well, that’s good fun.”

Pizzorno isn’t aiming low. He wants his band to be as big as the Beatles, as Led Zeppelin. The jury’s still out on that one, but the group has put forth a notable first effort. Produced by the band, “Kasabian” is a meticulous bricolage of foursquare motorik beats and a pile-on of sounds: jangling tambourines, churning guitar riffs, fluttery flutes, vocals drowning in reverb and echo. The record is eminently danceable rock, by turns baleful and exuberant -- after all, the band is named after Charles Manson’s getaway car driver.

“Yeah, man, I love rock music that makes you want to get on the dance floor,” says Pizzorno, who co-wrote the album’s 13 tracks. “That’s what I love about hip-hop. You put that in your car and your body moves. But you hear it in the early Beatles and Stones too. Dance beats, man! So much indie rock is so dreary and boring.”

“Kasabian” was recorded in a farmhouse 30 miles from the band’s Leicester hometown -- a former textile mill town in rural Rutland -- that the band tricked out with recording equipment, a few Xboxes, DVDs and piles of classic rock CDs. Miles away from friends and record company executives, Kasabian spent countless hours piecing together the album’s carefully arranged tracks.

“That was like base camp for us,” Pizzorno says. “We didn’t want to get caught up in all the nonsense that goes with being signed to a label for the first time.... Too easy to get lost in that nonsense.”

Pizzorno was unfazed by the prospect of making a debut autonomously, without the requisite producer-as-gatekeeper. “We just knew it had to be amazing, so good that the label couldn’t deny it,” he says.

Kasabian’s carefully planned moment has been a long time in the making. Pizzorno, Edwards and Meighan have been friends since age 10, and started playing music together as teenagers. Reared in a rural community whose only significant musical export had been Engelbert Humperdinck, the members of Kasabian found succor in their Jimi Hendrix and Beatles records. “Hard-core house music was big when we were kids,” Pizzorno says, “but we were too young to attend the raves.”

Pizzorno reckons the “let’s start a band” moment might have been triggered by Oasis’ 1994 debut “Definitely Maybe,” the album that helped jump-start the 1990s Brit pop movement. “Man, we loved Oasis when we were kids,” Pizzorno says. “I just respect the sheer honesty of Liam and Noel. We wanted to be them.”

Kasabian will at least get the chance to spend some quality time with the Gallaghers, as Kasabian has been tapped as the opening act for Oasis’ upcoming fall tour. “It’s a real honor to play with them,” he says. “But I think the key to that tour is just to stay alive.”

Marc Weingarten can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.

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Kasabian

Where: Henry Fonda Theatre, 6126 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday

Price: $15

Info: (323) 464-0808

Also: Galaxy Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana

When: 8 p.m. June 11

Price: $13.50

Info: (714) 957-0600