On Sunday, Kaiser Chiefs took to the stage at the Leeds Festival in their British hometown and bid goodbye to their fans for a while.After three albums over the last five years, the UK act is taking a break. "That's right. I'm looking at the iCalendar and there's nothing in September," drummer Nick Hodgson tells Spinner of their upcoming non-plans. "That's never happened before in our lives."

The group capped off support of 2008's 'Yours Truly, Angry Mob' with a memorable tour with Green Day stateside earlier this summer and their performance at a very rainy Leeds festival on Sunday night. And despite the fun treks like the one with Green Day brought -- including an audience with Brad Pitt in New Orleans -- they weren't originally part of the Kaiser Chiefs schedule.

"With Green Day, we had no plans to come to the states this summer, [or to support] U2 this summer in Europe," Hodgson says of why their never-ending workload truly became never-ending. "Everyone sort of said, 'Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that?' and we go 'Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,' and before you know it, the whole year is fully booked. That's been going on for five years."

Hodgson also explains that actually hitting the breaks wasn't a snap decision by any means. "I think we knew we were going to stop. I think it takes a year of advanced planning to stop," he says. "This time last year, we knew we were gonna stop in September '09. And it takes that long. We're still getting offers now for stuff and just having to say 'no.'"

While the global financial crisis has made some acts want to work as much as possible, Hodgson says he has no anxiety about the empty Kaiser Chiefs calendar. "Looking forward to it. Looking forward to getting up in the morning and just having a cup of coffee in the garden and watching the birds," he says.

The band has no firm return date, but could start working with each other at any time. "We'll see. Just gonna take it easy. No plans. It's not really time off from the band, it's just time off from things in your diary basically, so if we decided to go and rehearse in a week, then we'll probably go and rehearse. Not rehearse, but write," he says. "So we'll just take it easy, but there's nothing looming. No tours planned.

While Hodgson's immediate plans include garden tending and mowing his own lawn, something he calls "extremely settling," he also has some musical endeavors in store. "I've got a little studio as well, which I shall be improving," he says, admitting it could lead to a bit of a solo project. "I don't know really. I want to put out loads of stuff, loads of random stuff that only I will buy," he says. "I've got loads of stuff, but I don't know what it's gonna be."