Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Bang, bang, bang, bang. Bang.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, banger.
So we done here?
You guys have fun.
Who am I talking to now?
[00:00:46] Speaker B: My English so bad.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Maybe if I keep my eye right here in the middle.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: You're wearing the sunglasses.
[00:00:53] Speaker D: Yeah, sunglasses.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: So there's no problem. Just look anywhere, really.
How are you guys doing? Happy to be here.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Very happy. I'm a big fan of warm weather and heat and sun and I try my best not to complain today, but it is warm.
But we're happy to be here.
[00:01:16] Speaker D: You went in the tent.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: That was ing sick. You guys have it good out here, man. You've been in there? No.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: No, we don't.
So here is better.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Here is way better.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: Yeah, because you guys are doing an interview now with us and you're going straight after on stage. How do you like to like changing, switching your mind into like being promotional and then going on stage and I.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Didn'T even know, but now I'm getting a little stressed, to be honest.
[00:01:59] Speaker D: It's all. It's all promotional, isn't it?
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Oh, it's a good warm up vocally and stuff. You get, you know, you get the.
[00:02:07] Speaker D: Vocal cords warmed up and Johannes doesn't talk much backstage. He's like sitting quiet on the couch and then he has to go sing and he's like.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Thanks, man.
[00:02:20] Speaker D: So this is good. He has to pucker up. I have to pucker up too.
[00:02:34] Speaker C: Yeah, we can imagine like being promotion. It can be a bit like.
Yeah, boring. Because, you know, same question, same people.
[00:02:41] Speaker D: Maybe you know what this is like. Nice. Because we don't. We're not here promoting an album. When we're promoting an album, then everybody wants to talk about the same thing. They have the same questions. Now we're just here hanging out, drinking beer.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fine.
Let's see. As long as that's promotion, I think we'll be fine.
[00:02:59] Speaker D: It's important.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: As long as you don't ask us, so what is a Love Cop then we're out of here.
[00:03:05] Speaker D: If you had that question, refrain from asking.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: It's great for a band to be able to play to different crowds. Like in metal, it can be pop, it can be rock.
It has to be amazing, right?
[00:03:34] Speaker A: It is amazing. I don't know. I don't know how, how, how it works.
[00:03:38] Speaker D: We didn't really plan it, but that's like. Most of the stuff in Royal Republic isn't planned.
Yeah, it just sort of happens.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: But it was funny. What was the festival that Jim had to work for.
[00:03:51] Speaker D: Bloodstock.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Bloodstock Our agent, he was like, calling up Bloodstock like, every other day, saying, you need to put Royal Republic on there. And they're like, are you what? You do know we're a metal festival, right? They're gonna be people. They're gonna kill him.
[00:04:08] Speaker D: Like, if we. If they put Slipknot on the bill, they're like, oh, they're too pop.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. But then we got to play Bloodstock, and it was. It was a fucking success.
And I remember Adam saying. I thought that was really funny. We came up on stage, we played a few songs, and then Adam went, you know, we had. Have the pearl necklaces, right? And he went like, you motherfuckers know how much balls it takes to wear these on this festival. Fucking Slipknot is headlining. And then we went into Baby or whatever. It was great. It was good.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Maybe it's because of your sweet background, because in Sweden, like, rock is more of a common jar of. For people. Like in France, maybe it's a bit more like separated. Is it? Maybe it's maybe an explanation of that.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Could be. Could be. And I mean, whenever we feel like we're not really getting them, we just pull out the old Play Battery card and it's all good.
And we win a lot, which we do every night.
[00:05:18] Speaker D: We just like. Every time we play Battery, it's like.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: We'Re losing them Battery.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: I mean, we know the trick now. You please find another song for tonight.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:30] Speaker D: We tried last summer, we tried a few different Metallica songs and.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: And the crew hated it.
[00:05:38] Speaker D: None of them liked it as much as Battery.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:42] Speaker D: And to be fair, it was, like, obvious when you play Battery, everybody gets pumped. And whenever we play anything else, it's like, yeah.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: And it would be a shame because I'm just learning how to play battery, like, 10 years in, so I don't want to scratch it now.
[00:05:56] Speaker D: So we're still ref. Finding the culture.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: When playing a metal festival, apart from playing Battery, do you play the songs in a different way, in a different mindset?
[00:06:14] Speaker D: I think we did in the beginning.
I remember we had this conversation like, okay, we're gonna go play this metal crowd now, opening up for a harder band or something. Maybe we need to cater to them.
And then we just stop doing it at some point and realize that, you know, we just need to be us, do what we do. And that is what's going to set us apart from everybody else here, which is a good thing, in my opinion.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Just look at us.
[00:06:44] Speaker D: I picked this outfit on purpose today. I was like, okay, what can I wear? That is the least Hellfest outfit of the bunch. And I borrowed these sunglasses from my assistant. TM.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Venus Daily Race for like.
[00:07:20] Speaker C: In the video clip you just released for your cover, we guess there are some, like, jokes, inside jokes for Swedes that we don't maybe understand because we've seen, like. We've understood a lot of jokes, but maybe not all of them. Right?
[00:07:33] Speaker D: You mean the chocolate balls and the banana?
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Oh, we understand that.
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Did you? I didn't. Why are you talking about that?
[00:07:41] Speaker B: I love. Love for this.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: That's like. What's the word for it?
[00:07:48] Speaker B: But that's. There's the car. There's everything.
[00:07:52] Speaker D: I think. Yeah, I think it's.
It's past language. There's international language.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: The banana and the chocolate balls.
[00:08:01] Speaker D: I don't know if there are any Swedish jokes in there yet.
It's maybe the Volvo, but everybody knows Volvo, so it's like, yeah, it's funny.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: I was on YouTube checking out a few of the comments, and it's like all the sweets. The first thing they comment is, it's the Volvo.
[00:08:17] Speaker D: It's like, it's the Volvo.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: It's a awesome car, guys.
[00:08:20] Speaker D: The thing is, when we were making.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Do you like the music too?
[00:08:24] Speaker D: We were making the video. We were driving around in this awesome car, which was lended to us graciously by the bass player from the Cardigans.
I don't know how much more Swedish it gets. We borrowed a Volvo from the bass player at the Cardigans and he gave it to us for free, basically. And then we were driving around in this car and people would be like, wow, that's an awesome car. Like in traffic. And they look inside the car and we were there in full makeup, driving to wherever we needed to go. And they were like, what the is going on?
They would follow us and like, several people followed us with their car. And then when we stopped somewhere, they were like, I have to take a picture with you.
And they didn't know who we were or.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: We never felt more like rock stars than on this day. It was like, insane.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: As Swedes, how do you perceive black metal? Because it's part of the history of metal music in Sweden and you are making fun of it or laughing at it. I don't know.
[00:09:42] Speaker D: You're talking to the wrong half of Royal Republic. Me and Hannes, we don't know anything about metal. Metal or black metal or even like, metal, the thing you use to make things.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: But it is interesting that you mention it, because I remember thinking, what if this actually scratches, backfires these people, this community, the wrong way. What if they actually kill us?
[00:10:11] Speaker D: If it did scratch them the wrong way, they didn't tell us yet.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: No, no, they're preparing the big hit.
[00:10:17] Speaker D: Yeah. They're like, you don't warn your prey before you strike.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Now, as long as we don't go to Norway, I think we'll be fine.
They will fucking tear us apart.
[00:10:29] Speaker D: We should go burn down a church.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be fun, huh? That's good promo. Management would love it.
[00:10:35] Speaker D: That would be a good promo. And we'd be cool with the Norwegian black metal community.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:40] Speaker D: Or maybe they want us to kill somebody. I don't know.
See, I do know something about Norwegian black metal.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: We know that they burn churches.
[00:10:50] Speaker D: Like, for real.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: It's all good.
[00:11:17] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: Also, congratulations for playing the Zenith in.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Thank you very much.
[00:11:20] Speaker C: I mean, the crowd was huge. You see all different ages, all different people, different backgrounds. It was an amazing party.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: It was incredible. It was one of those moments that we're going to be carrying around for the rest of our lives, seriously.
And it was.
[00:11:33] Speaker D: Yeah, the thing is, we played the Senate with the offspring back in 2011 or something, opening up for them. They did two nights at the Senate and we were opening up both nights.
And I remember walking in there, I was like, wow, imagine selling this place out one day. And then. We didn't sell it out, but we. At least we played.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: It.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Looked really good.
[00:11:57] Speaker D: It looked very good.
And maybe next time we'll do it twice and then we'll be bigger than the Offspring. If they're still around.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: I can.
[00:12:06] Speaker D: Yeah, there are a lot of those bands now that are like.
We saw an undisclosed band the other week.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Don't throw stone in this Glass house, man.
[00:12:19] Speaker D: It'll be us one day. But we saw.
[00:12:21] Speaker C: Give him another beer and we'll know the full story.
[00:12:23] Speaker D: We saw another band. I will not disclose the name, but they took two Porta Potties on stage for their headline show just so they could, like, use the bathroom in between the songs.
[00:12:50] Speaker C: You're working with a great PR guy and he helps bands a lot. Like, obviously making them bigger and talking to the press, but also maybe in your management, in making you bigger in every country. Is it the same thing around?
Although across Europe, like, your PR helps you a lot to get to the.
[00:13:08] Speaker D: We've been with Olivier now for a long time. He's done a really, really fantastic job. And it's cool when you see him because it's like one of those friends relationship where you go out and have dinner and you're always excited to see the team.
There are other markets where there's, like new people all the time, kind of. Because, yeah, people move around or it didn't work out or whatever it is. And. But in France, we've had the same team now for a long time. And it's.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: I really love him and he's such a pro, but most of all, he's like. He's a music lover. That's. That's. That's the foundation of everything he does. And you can tell.
[00:13:46] Speaker D: And it. It makes a difference in the music business if you love music, believe it or not. Yeah, but there's a lot of people in the music business that really don't like music. Like, they don't care. It's like, why are you in this for? Like, you want to stand on the side of the stage or you want to hang with the bands or something.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: But the manager, on the other hand, that was the guy that just came over here and called us the first thing he did, so.
[00:14:11] Speaker D: And then the exec, the current exec. Not exx.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: He called me a. Yeah, but he's a music lover.
[00:14:20] Speaker D: Oh, I don't think he is. He's not. He's not a music lover.
Well, you. Bjorn.
[00:14:37] Speaker C: To finish with, can you pick up a video clip, musical video clip that, I don't know, like, maybe depicts what a festival for you guys is? What, like any music you've enjoyed listening to as kids.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: From a festival, if.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: It reminds you of festival, it's better.
[00:14:53] Speaker D: Oh, okay, okay.
[00:14:54] Speaker C: Or the vibe of a festival or the energy of a festival.
Trickiest question.
[00:15:06] Speaker D: I watched a band called Squid from the UK that played a festival. I think it was Glastonbury in the middle of the day.
And it's a band that sounds like they make up their parts individually and then, like, they don't have any idea. Like, they set a tempo and then the guitar player is playing this in one key and the other guitar player is playing this in another key and it turns into this very grunchy, but British, you know, it's not grunge, it's British grunge.
But it's really cool. I showed it to you. Squid.
He can't sing, or at least he doesn't want to sing. Like, he just goes like men.
Like, very British.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we love them.
[00:15:54] Speaker D: Oh, not animals.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Soul Squid.
That's okay.
[00:16:01] Speaker C: Let's go. Let's go with it.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: You don't have to choose another one.
[00:16:04] Speaker D: I really like Lord, he did the job.
Okay?
[00:16:10] Speaker A: So thank you for everything what he said.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Thank you, Fari, thank you for coming and have a great moment in the Hellfest.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having us.
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