After waiting nervously for 10 minutes backstage in the green room, Hannes enters and I have no idea why I was nervous in the first place. After exchanging pleasantries’ and wondering if we would both fit on the tiny sofa (we did manage it) and a few jokes, we got straight down to the interview.

Kimberley: How is the tour going so far for you guys?

Hannes: The tour has been super good so far, we have been out for five weeks now, we have three more weeks to go and we are still alive and people are showing up to the shows, so we are happy about it.


You have been touring Europe, which country has given you the warmest reception?

[Laughs] that’s a trick question, isn’t it? No, to be honest with you, I think that we have been touring so much in Germany, it’s kind of our second home by now, so I’d say Germany is super good for us there’s always a lot of people showing up. But The Netherlands are getting there and the UK is getting there, we’ve seen a huge difference since we were here the last time, there was like 70-80 people showing up for every show and now there’s a couple of hundred, so to answer your question, the UK [laughs].


How will you relax once this tour has finished?

I will go back home and will enjoy some off time for a couple of days at least with my friends and family, catching up with my friends. That’s kind of the hardest part about being on tour, you kind of lose touch with your friends and family, it’s super tricky. But I’ll go back home and just sit on the couch and watch some TV and go see my friends and then we’ll start working again, writing some new songs for the next album.


How did you all meet?

We met in Malmö, Sweden at the academy of music where we were all actually music teachers, more or less. I’m a music teacher and a guitar teacher, Pers is a classical drummer so we all met there. There’s very little rock ‘n’ roll about our history together! So yeah, we all met in school.

How did you obtain the band name ‘Royal Republic’?

That was actually Adam, the singer of the band, he had this idea of us arriving at a gig in a limo with a red carpet rolled out and we would be like [makes royal fanfare sounds and does a marching motion] but that never happened like so far and I doubt it would ever happen.

Oh, it might happen one day!

Yeah? You think so? Let’s hope. But the name kind of stuck with us and it sounds cool.

It took three years from formation of the band to the release of ‘We Are The Royal’, how difficult were those three years?

We have been working our asses off, it’s like we’ve had a bit of luck and by luck I don’t mean being lucky, we just met the right people at the right time and we were fortunate enough to meet with passionate people who wanted the best for us, the band. But aside from that, we have just been working our asses off with writing and touring and all that kind of stuff for a couple of years now. This is the first tour where we actually have a driver and stuff.

Yeah, I have seen the tour bus outside.

Yeah? For the first couple of years we were driving ourselves, going from one gig in the middle of the night, driving overnight, sleeping sitting up in the van then waking up and going for the next show.


Who are your influences as a band?

As a band I’d say a lot of the 60’s, punk rock, British punk rock actually, The Kinks, The Who, stuff like that, but also Danko Jones, The Hives, really cool bands.


Has fame brought you any advantages or disadvantages?

[Laughs] I don’t know, I still don’t consider us to be “famous”, so I don’t know about that but as I mentioned earlier, the disadvantages are definitely to do with keeping in touch with friends and family but apart from that, I don’t see any disadvantages with this kind of life, this is the life we have always wanted to live and we are enjoying every minute of it.


When is the next album out and does it differ from ‘We Are The Royal’ in any way?

We don’t have a specific date just yet, we hope it’ll be out sometime next year, maybe in the summer if we are lucky. The people who liked ‘We Are The Royal’ will definitely like the next album but obviously, we don’t want to be one of those bands that are stuck in the same sound and doing the same thing over and over again. We will try to take it in some kind of direction, what kind of direction we will just have to wait and see because we don’t have the songs yet.


You played Download Festival back in June, how was that as an experience?

Download was super for us, I think that you can definitely tell that we did the Download Festival from looking at the crowds now, we often go out and speak to the fans after the shows and at least 50% of them seen us at Download for the very first time. It’s helped us out a lot and it was an amazing experience, we played an electric set one day and then an acoustic set the next and that was an awesome opportunity for us.


Do you have any plans for the festival season in 2012?

I’m sure our manager does, we don’t know about it yet but I’m sure there will be quite a lot of festivals next year.


What is the most bizarre thing that has happened to you on stage?

I actually fell off stage once! It was the first time in London. I was doing this typical rock, guitar hero pose and was walking all the way up to the edge of the stage and apparently the stage was much shorter than I expected! So during this guitar solo, I just fell down into the crowd! That was kind of weird.


Who in the band has the worst habits?

Adam has the habit of always getting this super nasty, junk food in the middle of the night at like 3-4am! Super nasty kebab with every sauce available!


What can we, the fans, expect from “Royal Republic” in the future?

We’ll just keep doing what we are doing so far and hopefully we’ll take it some place for each and every album, each and every tour. There will be something different every time. We will not be stuck and we will always put in 100% for ourselves and our fans.


Who are your musical and non-musical influences?

I’d say Bob Dylan and Kurt Cobain apart from the obvious ones like Hendrix and Zeppelin. Non-musical, well I’m a big Jennifer Aniston fan. I actually had a dream about her last night and I woke up and I was so disappointed and kept thinking “please, just let me go back to sleep!” It was kind of like, we weren’t hooking up, but she gave me this soft, tender, smooth kiss on the lips and it was just the best. [laughs]


What are your dreams and goals?

Actually, this is my dream right now, this is all of our goals, to be doing exactly what we are doing and if we can keep this up then I am definitely super happy.


What inspires you within your music?

Listening to other music, obviously and also travelling. Right now, I’m not that keen on travelling because it’s all I ever do. But I went to the musicians institute in Los Angeles when I was 20 and I had this awesome guitar teacher and he told us, “You can sit in your practice rooms and you can go through all these scales, but you need to be inspired. Instead of practising everyday, go to the beach and be inspired, go have a beer with some friends and get inspired so you have something to tell.” – So I guess everyday life, hanging out with people and doing what people do.


What advice would you give to other bands that are trying to make it?

You just need to go all in. That’s actually Adam talk, when we first started this band, Adam was like “Okay guys, you all need to quit your jobs, we’re going to do this 100%, all in” and we were like, “Woah! Chill man, I thought we were just having a good time?” And we had quite a few long discussions about it and he turned out to be right, he was right on the money. You need to go all in, we all quit our jobs and threw ourselves in 100% and it has got us this far and pretty confident it can take us further aswell, so that’s my advice.


What are some of your biggest pet peeves?

Hannes: Sorry, what’s that?

What really annoys you?

Hannes: You know I really hate napkins. Ordinary white napkins, I can’t stand them! If I see someone touch them, I get nauseas, I just want to throw up. If you were to put a napkin in front of me right here, and you rubbed your hand across it, I would just run out. I hate napkins!


Tell us what a day in the life of Hannes Irengard is like?

Hannes: On tour, a day in the life is getting up at like 1pm, not having breakfast, we never have any breakfast on the bus, then we do loading and sound checks, then we have a meet and greet with the fans, then it’s off to get dressed, do the show then have some dinner, then we go out and talk to the fans then we will do loading and have a couple more drinks then do it all over again. [laughs]