André Lellitko, Kay Lipka and Casi Kriegler set up Rroyce a few years ago now. The band’s debut album “Dreams & Doubts & Fears” got released in 2014 on Thexoomo.net. The second full length “Karoshi” got released two years later on Kayal Records and got re-released in 2017 on Infacted Recordings. The growing enthusiasm in their homeland, Germany, brought the band to perform at bigger festivals. The electro/future-pop sound of the band stands for the revival of future-pop. Their newest album “Patience” only confirms the growing talent of the trio. This work has been again released on Infacted Recordings, which is a label with a nose for talented electro-pop music. The songs remind me to an imaginary hybrid between Mesh, OMD and Beborn Beton. I asked Casi Kriegler for more info.
(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)
Q: How did the story of Royce all started and what have been the main facts in this story so far?
Casi: Our journey started exactly seven years ago, where we participated in a band contest, which was called ‘UNBACO’. We won the contest out of numerous bands coming from the wave- and synth-pop-genre and we played the fifth gig in the band’s history at the ‘WGT 2013’, which was quite impressive for us. Later on we went on tour by supporting great bands like Eisfabrik, Solitary Experiments and Welle:Erdball.
We are glad to work together with our label Infacted Recordings. Our booking agency is Eisland Entertainment, which provides us with memorable festival appearances, like ‘Amphi Festival’, ‘E-tropolis’, ‘Plage Noire’, ‘NCN’ and many more. We´re glad that we found reliable partners to work with on our way whatever the future will bring.
Q: You’ve already released three full length albums so what’s your personal analysis from the evolution in sound and production from the debut album “Dreams & Thoughts & Fears” to “Karoshi” to “Patience”?
Casi: Our first album was self-produced, which was quite exciting as we didn´t know the people´s reaction on that. Okay, at that time our fanbase was quite small, but we already set ourselves high standards in the production.
For the 2nd album we convinced Dirk Riegner to work with us as a producer. The outcome was fantastic and we decided to rerun the collaboration for the 3rd album. Our success confirms that this was the right approach.
I think the evolution is quite obvious, because we always want to improve ourselves as musicians and our products and we´re working every day to achieve that.
Q: “Patience” has been preceded by the EP “Parallel Worlds”, which can be easily considered as your biggest ‘hit’. Tell us a bit more about this song, its writing, the lyrical content and the clip that has been made?
Casi: The song is based on our private experiences in keeping up the balance between the daily routine on the one hand and being a musician on the other hand. Sometimes it´s hard to switch from one world to the other, especially when you spent a weekend on stage and you´ll find yourself exactly 24 hours later, sitting in an office, in front of a computer and you ask yourself: ‘What the heck I am doing here’??!
So I had the idea to point out the inner struggle in a visual way by setting up two dancers dressed in black and white, fighting with each other –but also in very close interaction to underline how close the feelings and emotions are linked together, while hopping in between these two worlds. We wanted to produce a very clear and stylish video. We are grateful that we could achieve these visions with our friends from Tiefgang Erleben, who realized this lovely video project.
Q: When you listen to “Patience” right now, what are your biggest satisfactions and do you also notice some elements you want to improve?
Casi: We’re satisfied with all the different aspects from the album, otherwise we wouldn´t have released it. As I said, there are always aims for improvement, in song writing and in setting up the lyrics, as well. When you are not constantly moving, you might get fat and dull. That´s not our intention.
Q: So far you did interesting tours, but always as support band from a bigger name like the aforementioned bands Eisfabrik, Solitary Experiments and Welle:Erdball. How do you look back at these tours and live experiences generally speaking? How do you see yourself as stage band?
Casi: We love being live on stage. I love to see these faces, the reactions, the smiling people having fun. For us it has been a great honor to perform on huge stages, in front of hundreds of people. The number of supporters is steadily increasing and we are grateful for every occasion to present RROYCE live on stage. When I think of all these special tour-life/live-moments, I can say that we made friends with the bands. One could even go so far as to say we became good friends. Without exception. memories, that will stay with me forever.
Q: I noticed you already did an impressive number of live performances during the past years, but mainly in Germany! What about RROYCE and live shows abroad Germany? Do you feel to be unknown or misunderstood outside Germany? What brings 2020?
Casi: We already played in Switzerland, The Netherlands and England and we would love to play wherever you can imagine. Every gig abroad was a big success. If there´s any promoter, who wants to see us on its stage, feel free to contact our agency. But to see it realistic and considering the costs (flights, hotels, fees) it´s not that easy for a quite unknown band to realize these dreams –apart from their outstanding live qualities (lol).
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