Interview

ROYAL REPUBLIC (English Version - 2016) - Adam Grahn (Vocals - Guitars)

How do you feel about all of this, promotion, be in france ?

Adam :
Excited actually because we are extremely proud of this album and I can’t wait to spread the word and tell people and hopefully they will listen to us! Doing promotion right now is a lot of fun actually and that’s not very common, I enjoy this !

So it’s your third album, have you proceed like for the others for this album, I mean about production and all of it ?

Adam :
It’s been a hard and long road making this album. It was actually painful, there were a lot of sleepless time and crying, screaming and yelling and anxiety all over the place but we wanted to make sure that this album was the best we ever put out and that’s a cliché everyone said but we really really wanted to be sure of this. This is the essence of what is Royal Republic and what we have with WM is probably the RR album sounds the most like RR so far. I will probably say the same thing on the next album but let’s focus on this album now. But It was hard but that’s a good thing. And then when we went to Berlin to reordered it for like 3 months which was cool, Berlin is a nice city to stay and there’s a lot of stuff going on, a lot of weird and awesome people so it’s very inspiring, but after a while you know a studio is just a studio. First time you get in you’re like wooooow but after it’s just a studio where you make music. You just always have some up and down during recording and we just are like that because we all care about the album and the band. You know I think that the men who’s just stop caring is when everything it’s over.

Why have you called this album “Weekend-Man” ?

Adam :
All you usually do when you record an album, is you just go through a list of songs and you see if there’s a song who fit as an album title as well. We went through a couple of options, WM was the one that stud out and also we had this vision of a weird dude living in the wood, living inside of you like wherever he go it’s always the weekend and he tells you the things you have to do, not necessarily things you should do so that’s the WM and we were very keen on making this an entire entity like the music on the album we wanted to represent it on the cover that was a big deal for us this time. Because in the past it was like ok the album is done let’s just put something on the cover and it’s over. So we learn our lessons and this time we do it and I think all the cover just represent the album very well.

Who write and compose the songs ?

Adam :
We write together most of the time. We’re not the kind of group who spent time, take a beer and create magic, write songs that will live forever, I wish we were like this kind of bands because it sound fucking awesome ! Like Rolling stone, they just rent a house for a week and wrote all this super songs. Doesn’t works like that for us. We write separately or in pairs. We come up with an idea and we record it and then we send it out and if people said it’s great let’s keep it on work on it! Or worst case people don’t like it and you let it go and move on with your life, looks for the next baby riff ! (laugh)

What’s the main theme of the album ? Your inspirations ?

Adam :
Musically It’s all over the place, we listen to music, everything from death metal to pop stuff. So we’re not like stoking in a gender. But also we inspired ourselves, because we wanted to make sure that in this album there were the best of RR so, we listen back quite a lot to our previous album and tried to figure out what is the essence of RR. Like which song we are more comfortable with, which song feels the most like us. And we tried to take the best of everything and do it into something new without getting stock in a routine. I mean, yes it was all our inspiration, RR, the music we listen and life generally, I mean, having a beer with your friends on a Friday night, having a huge fight with your wife, your mom, that’s inspiration as well. You will not appreciate but that’s going on, like give it to me this is good stuff ! But one day or another it’s comes up and make a song or worst case a divorce !

First extract “When I see you dance with another”, why this song ? It’s like “boom we’re back”?

Adam :
That was pretty much it ! That was the point we wanted across, we are back and we are super confidant and we are in a good mood, and this was the perfect track to represent and show people what this new album is going to be all about, the essence of RR because it’s pretty much what it is. I remember that when this song was finished we were all like ok this is going to be the center of this piece ! Everything just follow from this song. So I guess that’s why that we release this song first. It’s the chore of the album in many ways. I don’t say it’s the most important song or the best song, I don’t have preference myself but it represents this album in a good way.

Then “Baby” this song and the video clip is totally crazy.. that’s something you are, like, to be a little bit crazy ?

Adam :
Well, yes it’s a little bit crazy, it just happened naturally, this is what comes out when you compose music, when you come up with an idea for music videos. And baby was one of those songs, I mean, we were at the studio for like 6 hours and nothing decent came out. So, we said, let’s drink a beer or two and then when we come back we don’t leave this place until we have at least one song even if it’s shitty or great doesn’t matter we have to do something. So when we came back 2 or 3 hours after we had Baby finished. It turn up very well and all the video idea was just like seems like a good idea, roller ok let’s do this, and when we got this roller, we said like hey let’s dance on this, we never do that but let’s learn it in three days ! So, we made it, and we are really happy about it.

And finally “Uh huh” which can be like a backstage clip ?

Adam :
It’s all about the energy. All we wanted to do is capture some of the vibes playing on our shows. Most of the time it’s all good times. People want to see what’s going on backstage, I’m the same way. I would like to go backstage at the Bob Dylan shows and see what’s going on. I’m sure it would be very exciting and what we made this is one way of doing it. So it was an obvious idea for a video for this particular song.

Why not to release the eponym song “Weekend-man” first ?

Adam :
Yes, why not.. like I said “When I see you Dance with another” is the chore of the album. Weekend-man is awesome but it’s slower, heavier, still as much RR but WISYDWA represent the band in a better way if someone ask me what is RR I will say this is it. But it would be a cool single. Who knows, it will be more single !

I have seen on Fb and Internet that you’ve got a French community of fans, are you happy about it ?

Adam :
We are extremely proud of everything we have accomplish. Fans clubs it’s just an huge honor, people appreciate what we’re doing and we are really happy about it so it’s awesome, it’s great !

Are you excited to play at the “rock en seine” ?

Adam : No. Not really. No obviously we are super excited !! We heard about great stuff of the festival so it will be great and fun and it’s been way too long since we play in France, I think last time was in 2014, so far. So we can’t wait to come back and for the tour in 2017 we will be in France no doubt because it’s been too long and we miss people.

So thanks, this is the end, so I let you finish this interview and maybe say something to readers of sdm and your french fans !

Adam :
Un croissant pour la petite déjeuner ! (laugh) Well, our songs are awesome. Can’t wait to come back, it’s been too long and we are thankful for everything. Sorry for our absence, it’s not cool but it’s not our fault. All is about logistical reasons that’s we don’t even know about it. But we’ll be back as soon as possible !
 
Critique : Aurélie
Vues : 2330 fois