Ranaldo, of him having the balls to actually do it
and stand up for it. ‘It’s my art, and I mean it, and it
comes from here [pointing to his heart].’”
In their own way, Royal Republic’s disco
deviation sees them being equally honest and
resistant to restriction. Even when Irengård played
piano at school, he couldn’t stay in the musical box
he’d been assigned. Riffing too freely on a Chopin
tune, his teacher rapped his hand with a ruler.
“Yeah, and that bothered me a lot,” he says, still
smarting at the memory. “Because I’m not saying
I’m more of an artist than anybody else. But I am
trying to put my personality into my work. And
when people are trying to push that aside or
strangle it, I think that’s bullshit. And that’s what
happened there.”
The sight of a cassette of Nirvana’s In Utero
brings happier musical memories flooding back.
“I need to own it,” he gasps. “I’m going to own it...
oh, so cool! I like that it’s on a tape that’s almost
falling to pieces. This is one of my all-time favourite
records. I’m so happy about this.”
An In Utero songbook is even more evocative ofthe 37-year-old’s childhood,
when raging guitars
replaced rippling pianos. “Music books like this
used to mean the world to me,” he says. “It meant
I could actually play my heroes’ songs the way they
were supposed to be played. I remember having
this, Use Your Illusion II, Beatles and Bob Dylan ones.
I spent most of my money on songbooks and
records. Sounds like a good life? I think so too.
I was playing classical piano until Nirvana showed
up in 1991 when I was nine, then I got myself a
guitar, and became a hardcore Nirvana fan when
I was ten. When Kurt died I was just getting into
them, so it was only later that it hit me: fuck, we
only have these four albums. Now what am I going
to look forward to? But that’s where it all started
for me. I put together this Nirvana cover band, and
started writing riffs and songs with the main focus
of trying to sound like Nirvana.”
No one could replace Nirvana’s formative place
in Irengård’s affections. Instead, Cobain helped
broaden his tastes. “I read interviews where Kurt
talks about other bands, like Sonic Youth. Then Iwould hear Sonic Youth talk
about the Melvins. It was a
cool way to get into new
things. I don’t see a lot of
popular artists today doing
that.”
“Where’s Michael Bolton?”
Grahn interrupts plaintively.
“Oh, it’s under B for Bolton,
not M? I just think of it as one
word, Michaelbolton – right?”
“Yow!” he further exclaims,
moving to B for Beatles. “I just
found the first vinyl record
that I ever owned - Venus And
Mars by Wings. I got this along
with my first drum-kit and vinyl player on my fifth
birthday.” Unlike Irengård, though, no single band
lured Grahn into rock. “I grew up on my mum’s
and dad’s stuff,” he reflects, “like The Beatles and
Tom Petty. Basically, if you take all the Traveling
Wilburys’ discographies and smashed them
together, that was it. Metallica was when I came
into my own, when I was 12. I started with Load,
then worked backwards. And Toto and Steve
Lukather’s shredding opened a door into really
heavy, sophisticated musicianship.”
This all seems dangerously close to classic rock,
which clearly is in Royal Republic’s DNA. But then,
Grahn’s eyes alight on a tape of the Spice Girls’
debut, Spice. A pound of CR’s cash makes it his.
“When we were kids, my brother was always the
astronaut of finding new music,” he recalls. “He
was six or seven when this came out. Backstreet
Boys’ debut came out around that time, too, and
I heard them screaming out of his room.”
Then another soul album goes in the bag:“Adam’s^ actually^
looking for this^ one.^ In^
about an^ hour^ I’ll^ tell^
him^ I’ve^ got^ it,^ eh?^ Ha!”
“Gimme fifty – quid! We’re
done. Tack, Classic Rock.”“You can’t hear me
insulting your taste in
music when you’ve got your
headphones on, can you?”“The world
would be less
colourful if
we all went
middle-of-
the-road.”
HANNES IRENGÄRD
64 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM