- Wed, 2012-05-09 12:04
This is Hannes Irengård from Royal Republic on I Like Music! Yeeey!
I have the pleasure to present to you some of the musical highlights of my life! If the entire band was asked to agree on these things, we'd be stuck right here and now. So here we go; just a few highlights, reflections and hopefully some fun "facts" from me to you! Be safe out there!
Click the play button below to launch the pop-out player and stream the Royal Republic playlist, then scroll down to read their features...
Whenever you take a folk tune, add electric guitars, bass and drums and the slightest bit of attitude, magic happens. Well, if you do it right that is... This is just the case with About a Girl. It's really a folk song and even the title indicates that this is a big step away from the rest of the album (Bleach), which is mainly a collection of dark, moody grunge songs. I remember playing this song when I was a kid and sometimes I'm amazed that I still find it as awesome as I did 15 years ago. I guess that's good songwriting right there!
Legend has it that the song didn't have a name when Cobain first brought it into the studio. Chad Channing, who was the drummer for the band at that point asked Cobain what the song was about and got the answer; "It's about a girl..." How's that for trivia, huh!? Either way, it's an awesome song.
I don't think I ever worked as hard to get my hands on an album as I did with Eminem’s The Eminem Show.
I was 20 years old, wandering around in LA when I stepped into this record store on Sunset Boulevard. They had these listening stations where you could listen to the latest releases by various artists. I went over there, put the headphones on and pushed play. From the moment that guy started rapping I could not bring myself to turn it off. I listened through the whole thing and was just blown away by this super angry dude, trash talking everything and everyone. Since I didn't bring a CD player to LA I had to get a cassette of the album, which turned out to be way more difficult than I expected. I think I spent two days going through every record store I could find, asking for this album on cassette. I eventually found it somewhere in Hollywood and listened to it everyday for a month. To this day it means a lot to me and gets me in a good mood.
So that was more about me buying the album than the actual album. Just check it out! You'll be doing yourself a favour.
This is without a doubt the coolest music video ever made. The idea that less is usually more has never been more obvious than in this video. All of it is a super cool idea. No fancy stuff, one camera and that's it. The words are sometimes misspelled and out of sync which adds to the spontaneous vibe of the whole thing. The video was shot in London behind the Savoy Hotel and features Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth hanging out in the background.
Even for all you crazy people out there that normally don't get Dylan, the awesomeness of this video has to be obvious! I wish I'd wake up one day with an idea like this, making history in such an "easy" way...
Swedish four-piece Royal Republic barged their way into the lives of alt-rock fans in 2010 with their debut album We Are The Royal, and in particular the rampaging single Tommy Gun, which you can watch below. They are now planning their follow-up, with a new album set for release towards the end of summer 2012.
Find out more about Royal Republic at www.royalrepublicband.com
