Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno is “prepared to go mad” for the sake of music.

The guitarist and songwriter for the ‘Days are Forgotten’ group has already given up drugs to sharpen his focus and songwriting skill and insists he would be prepared to drive himself crazy in the search for the perfect songs.

He said: “I am prepared to go mad for the music. I’m obsessed with continuing to make great albums. It’s the one thing we’re into – music. It’s an obsession.

Serge describes their third album ‘West Pauper Ryder Lunatic Asylum’ as the most significant departure of their career so far, but wanted to add more of a pop edge to their latest effort, ‘Velociraptor!’

He added to The Independent newspaper: “The last record was a venture into madness, and it’s a wild record. It was to challenge people. This time I didn’t want to do that. So it’s more direct, all the tunes are melodic, big tunes. I had this idea when it was about six am and this jukebox was throwing out incredible songs from Elvis to Roy Orbison to DJ Shadow to the Chemical Brothers.

“I thought, ‘imagine if you could do a record that did the same, but it was the same band.”

‘Velociraptor!’ is released on September 16.