Poised for a fresh run of shows with their bright and blistering new album LoveCop, Royal Republic can always be counted on for a rollicking, nuclear-grade night out. As frontman Adam Grahn reveals, it’s been an eventful road getting here.
You described Royal Republic’s 2024 Download appearance as “pure sex”. It went well, then?
There’s an excitement we get whenever we go back to England. It feels like it’s brewing. We just upgraded the venue in Manchester because it sold out. It’s the same all over Europe at the moment. We don’t have a ‘hit’. We don’t have headlines because none of us are politically involved or anything. It’s all just music, the live performance. It’s a slow burner, but if you’re looking at ticket sales it’s never been going as well as it is now.
You were a hit at Bloodstock last year. Seemingly there’s a lot of love for sequins and disco in the heavy metal community.
I think the heavy metal community is one of the most open-minded. There’s something in the outlet, because everybody carries those kinds of thoughts and emotions and aggressive stuff. So listening to aggressive music, maybe that’s what balances its fans, so you end up with these charming people.
If you could join any metal band for one day, which would it be?
I’d stand in for James Hetfield. Honestly, though, if I could sub for anybody, I would rather sub for Lars [Ulrich], because there’s nothing more fun than playing drums. I didn’t have any frontman ambition until late on. I was a really nerdy shredder alone in my room with my metronome, until I started writing Royal Republic songs. I’d sang only at weddings and stuff before that.
LoveCop is a banger-heavy album. Any of its songs you’ve particularly enjoyed playing live?
I always enjoy opening the show with My House. We knew the same thing when we wrote Fireman And Dancer [for 2019’s Club Majesty]: “This is it, this is the start.” We all knew instantly. So I always enjoy the last ten minutes, the walk up to the stage, standing there in the curtains… That’s the best feeling.
The video for My House featured your ‘looks’ from over the years (leather jackets, rollerskater outfits, cowboy hats…). Do you guys just like an excuse to dress up?
We have to come up with funny, freaky characters like firemen, aliens, cowboys and astronauts, because just being us is only so much fun. But yeah, a lot of it is Leo [Åkesson, video director]. It’s his brain, which we let loose.
Do you think other rock bands play it too safe?
I don’t know. I have on purpose stayed away from other rock bands’ new music, because I don’t want it to shape what we’re doing. That was my approach with this record. I remember Hannes [Irengård, guitarist] saying: “Have you heard the new The Hives album?” I still haven’t. It’s probably great. But right now there’s nothing that links us apart from the fact that we’re Swedish, in my opinion, but people still make the comparison.
What would we find on your playlists these days?
I’ve fallen back into Toto quite a bit. I was deeply into Toto when I was a shredder. And Dream Theater, because Dream Theater was a nice way to get a little heavier but retain the technical side.
Since 2016’s Billy Idol-esque Any Given Sunday, the word ‘eighties’ has cropped up in comments about Royal Republic. LoveCop was no exception, although it’s still pleasingly all over the place.
We tried to make LoveCop more cohesive, and we failed again. Music is too much fun to do. It’s like the cuisines of the world – there’s too much good food out there; we can’t just stick to curry, we need pasta, sushi and noodles
Since we last spoke, your second child was born.
We’re all dads now! So we understand each other, rather than having this situation where two of us are elbow-deep into the kids’ thing and two are raging single Tinder people. But it’s been as big a dream for me as having a band, starting and keeping a family together. Maybe because I’m a divorce kid. I don’t want to put my kids through a divorce. I really don’t.
That event came on the back of a serious low, losing your mother [to cancer] in 2020.
Mum was ill for a long time. The week before we signed our first publishing deal, in 2009, that’s when she got her diagnosis. But she was hell-bent on not letting the disease be the defining thing for whatever time she had left. She travelled. She packed her friends in a van and drove through Europe to see our shows… And then it just flipped. For the last forty-eight hours we [me and my brother] sat and held her hand and, you know, we were there.
I’d never seen anybody pass away before. It really changes you. I think it catapulted me into this weird midlife crisis, because it’s a very clear sign that you are no longer a child. And you were already questioning your choices in the pandemic, even without a parent dying – I think all of us were. How do I want to spend my life? And with whom?
LoveCop includes your first real power ballad, Lazerlove. Like so much of the best disco music – Chic, Donna Summer etc – it has a surprisingly dark, minor-key heart.
Everybody in this band writes songs. This one came from Per [Andreasson, drums]. He put the bones together, and then I basically poured my heart into the production, to get that mood it has now – this kind of desolate yet big, like being lost and tumbling a bit in the dark. To me it was about dealing with feelings about my mother. I told Per… Me and Per, it’s a difficult relationship. I love the guy but we’re very east and west. A lot of times with our band, that’s where the sparks happen.
Is it too early to ask about plans for 2025?
We have more dates lined up. We’re going to keep making music, and also there will be a revisit from some, erm [grins] ‘old friends’ in the coming years… They wear hats. Fans will know.
Royal Republic’s European tour begins on October 31 in Manchester, with further shows scheduled in January and February. For dates and tickets, visit royalrepublic.net.
