With over 200 bands playing Camden Rocks, it was quite the task to grab interviews in all the madness. We managed to pin down Reckless Love in the yard behind the venue they were playing in, the Electric Ballroom, to have a quick chat about living life as though we’re still in the 80s!
BM: How’s today going so far, you were supposed to be playing two sets but now you’re only playing one?
Oli: Everything except for that fact is perfect. But now we have to rock twice as hard during that one set!
BM: What happened with the other show then?
Oli: There was some technical issues that we couldn’t figure out in time, so we had to face the music and say that we weren’t able to pull it off with this equipment and this schedule. It was a logistical nightmare
BM: Wasn’t it going to be a huge pain to take all of your stuff from one venue to another to play twice in the day?
Oli: Yeah, and the equipment at the other venue was not enough. It was not adequate. We simply didn’t have the right equipment to do the right kind of show. So basically they would have had the right equipment for us to do an acoustic set, but with the whole band they would have just run out of channels. Not enough mics and everything so… We would have had to rent some more stuff and it would have ended up costing a lot of money
BM: Your newest album InVader came out in March- how’s the reception been and how do the newer songs go down live compared to the older ones?
Oli: Yeah, I think this album has had the best reception yet, we’ve seen more and more people at the shows, everybody is singing along to the songs. We’ve had a massive amount of really good feedback. Everybody seems to love it. I haven’t read the YouTube comments but maybe there’s some hate on there…
BM: I know you’ll get asked this a lot, but who are your biggest influences, because you are quite a stand-out band?
Oli: I have always mentioned the three biggest, which would be Def Leppard, Van Halen and Kiss, but everybody has their own influences. 80s hair metal is the big one, its common ground for the band- we like to have a good time. Pepe likes Led Zeppelin a lot…
BM: Do you see it in your future to be the next band of that calibre?
Oli: I don’t think there’s ever going to be another band like that, we were discussing this the other day- all of the dinosaurs of rock ‘n’ roll are getting older and older. There’s AC/DC who are doing a show in London tonight (Saturday), but there’s only one original member in the band now. Even though I’m really excited about Axl being the replacement for Brian Johnson. But bands like that are dying, and I don’t see any of the modern rock bands taking that step up
BM: Do you think there’s anyone this era that’s doing a similar sort of thing to you?
Oli: I still haven’t seen anyone do this stuff
BM: So your songs seem like a lot of fun, are they as fun to write as they are to listen to?
Oli: Well Pepe does most of the song writing. Is it a pain in the ass?
Pepe: It can be a pain in the ass… If you’re writing a song that’s not going anywhere. But if I find one that’s really going somewhere… Oli writes the lyrics though
Oli: Well it really depends on the song, sometimes its good fun. For example on the new album, a song called Bullettime was one of the most fun to write, even though it is one of the most aggressive songs on the record. It only took about fifteen to twenty minutes to write
BM: You just realised a video for We Are The Weekend, which is a live video?
Oli: Yeah we shot most of that in the UK, Nottingham Rock City, then some of the material is also from London
Pepe: Some from Helsinki…
Oli: It was from this spring tour
BM: Was it meant to show for people who don’t know, what a Reckless Love show is all about?
Oli: Basically it just felt like a good approach for that particular song, it’s all about the feeling of being on stage and interacting with the audience. The word ‘we’ refers to the audience and us together. We thought there would be no better way to express that and show what we do live. Of course it’s also a tribute to our fans
BM: Your songs are like party songs though! Does it matter when you play them, do you still get the same party vibe if you play on a Tuesday night during the week or at twelve in the afternoon at a festival?
Oli: I think we do. We always get the same party vibe at some point. Maybe if we open a festival it’s hard to do that, the first two or three songs are like ‘oh I’m so hungover’ from the audience, and it’s the same thing on stage as well. But then we start to feel better during the set and the audience always leave with a big smile on their faces, so one way or another we’ll get there
BM: What do you do with your down time on tour? Today for example, have you been round London or?
Pepe: Actually it’s all been travel today, we were on an early flight this morning from Helsinki. We went to the hotel and had a nap- some beauty sleep! And now we’re here, doing interviews before the show
BM: So why should people check out a Reckless Love show?
Oli: Why shouldn’t they!?
Pepe: Best kept secret in rock ‘n’ roll, nobody has ever heard of us!
Oli: Well I mean life sucks anyway. The world is a cruel place to live in, there is plenty of serious bad shit that happens all the time. Why not take a vacation for a song or two, to check out Reckless Love and let us be your soundtrack to that!
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