Innocent Rosie - May 2009

Interview with

Innocent Rosie

It’s the 30th of May when we are going to Kalmar on this Spring Break festival thing, the sun is shining and is a good Swedish “pre summer day”. After we have parked the car on a field we head into the crowd of people that has come to enjoy the music and party. Since both I and my photographer Martina has worked all day we did not make it here until late afternoon, but we had some time to check out the area before we were to meet up with the band INNOCENT ROSIE. We meet up with the guitar player Joel Eliasson and the drummer Benjamin Boräng at the back stage area and sat down with them at first, then a couple of minutes later the singer Oscar Kaleva and the bass player Olof Oljelund joined us.

Reflections of Darkness (RoD): How would you introduce INNOCENT ROSIE to someone that had never heard about the band before?
Joel: INNOCENT ROSIE is a really good Rock’n’Roll band with a stage show filled with energy and attitude. We play the kind of music you can drink beer and just relax to.

RoD: How did you come up with the band name?
Joel: It was our other guitar player (Dick Börtner) who came up with the name; and there is no deeper meaning behind the name.

RoD: Which band/artist has had the greatest influence on your music and style?
Joel: Oh they are so many, everything that you have listened to like The Cult and Guns N’ Roses. It’s like everything from Punk, Rock to Blues. There are so many bands that has influenced us that it’s really hard to say. But lately I would say Backyard Babies and The Hellacopters.

RoD: What or whom inspire you when you write the lyrics and the music?
Joel: Ordinary and pretty normal stuff…

Here the singer Oscar Kaleva and the bass player Olof Oljelund join us at the table where we sit and do the interview.

Joel continues: When you write music you want it to be as good as possible live, you don’t write music that just will sound good on the record - you want it to sound really good live too! Oscar is the one who writes the lyrics in the band.

RoD: Oscar, what inspires you when you write the lyrics?
Oscar: Well it might sound funny but - life, everything in life that affects me and the band. I just write a lot and then take the best parts and use them to create something.



RoD: Do you need to be on a special mood to write?
Oscar: When you are in a mood of writing then you write, especially during the night when I know I have to get up early in the morning to go to work or something like that. Then you get into the mood of writing and you write a lot, because sometimes it’s hard to write or you can’t write at all, it’s a little like that.

RoD: What drives you and make you keep working with music?
Oscar: I don’t know but it’s the best thing in life - music and skating.
Joel: It’s the only thing we know how to do. *laughs*
Oscar: Yeah it’s the only thing we are good at doing. *laughs*
Joel: The hour when you are standing on stage is worth all the hard work.

RoD: You have released a new record called ‘Bad Habit Romance’, what can you tell me about it?
Oscar: It’s a record that was released in February, uhm, what more can I say…
Joel: It’s a really good Rock’n’Roll record!
Olof: It’s a Rock’n’Roll record with, drums, guitars and stuff like that *laughs*
Oscar: ‘Bad Habit Romance’ has no deeper meaning; it is not a difficult record that is hard to listen in on, it’s just…Rock’n’Roll. It’s music that makes you on a good mood and you can listen to it whenever you like to.
Joel: The record has the kind of music we like to listen to, when you listen to it you feel happy and you want to have fun.

RoD: Are there any song on the record that are a favourite at the moment, a song that you really look forward to do live?
Oscar: ‘Animal’ is my favourite.
Joel: Yeah ‘Animal’!
Olof: One of my favourite is ‘Sextalkin´’, we have not played it live yet but I think that song is damn good!



RoD: What are your expectations and hopes regarding the coming summer tour?
Oscar: That it will be like it is here today.
Joel: Good people and good weather, to do the stuff you like and have fun.
Oscar: When you are out on tour things can be so different, like sometimes you come to some place where there are a lot people and then sometimes you come to a place where it is not that much people, but it’s still so damn fun to stand on stage and sing,
Joel: It’s even better when it’s good weather.
Oscar: Yeah when the sun shines it’s wonderful.

RoD: You have been to the US and played there, what difference is it between playing there and playing in Scandinavia and Europe? Are they treatment from the fans different in other parts of the world?
Joel: Americans and Swedes are not that different, Sweden has a lot of really good bands and people are used to see them live. But if we go down to for example Italy where they don’t have the same music export, then when a Swedish band comes there to play they get crazy and that is really cool! They love seeing us play live as much as we love being there and they really go out to watch live music and people don’t do that here anymore…
Oscar: You could take one difference with California where we have been and played, there you have so terrible many bands so people get in a way pretty “well fed” and then it’s a really good thing to come as a band from Sweden because people really sees you! Sweden has a pretty good reputation when it comes to Rock’n’Roll and we have a lot of really good bands.

RoD: They don’t confuse Sweden with Switzerland then?
Innocent Rosie: Everyone agrees that people are confused about it and many people even believe that we still have ice bears and Vikings walking around on the streets over here.



RoD: What are the positive and the negative things when you are out on tour?
Joel: You lose the grip on life in a way, when you are out touring, there are no time, no responsibility or stuff like that. Also you turn into an alcoholic…
Olof: No but you can turn into one…
Oscar: Nah you don’t turn into an alcoholic, it’s just when you come home and “come down” you have had such a real good time and then you don’t really know what to do when you get home - if you don’t have stuff to do. I don’t know I only see positive things with touring.
Joel: You don’t really know where to go when you are home because you are used to having people around you all the time and then you come home to an empty apartment and you are like “OK what to do now…”
Oscar: There are only good things with touring.
Joel: Yeah only good things with being out playing, this is the only negative stuff I guess.

RoD: How do you warm up before a show?
Oscar: Well everyone is walking around and are pretty calm and then when you come on stage then the adrenaline comes. We have no routines or stuff we do together before a show.
Joel: Most of us are pretty introvert before a show, some closed or reserved…
Olof: Well everyone does their thing and focus on their own stuff in a way.
Joel: We don’t talk a lot before a show.

RoD: How much does music mean to you and when did you understand that you wanted to work with music?
Joel: Early, in upper secondary school I understood that music was the only thing I wanted to do and was interested in. I wanted to play in some hardcore band. Music means really much to me!
Oscar: I don’t really see it as a job; it’s more something that you think is so damn fun to do and then someday if it turns into just a job then that is the worst thing that could happen!
Joel: It’s our childhood dreams to become either a rock star or a cop… *everyone laughs*
Oscar: A cop…
Joel: Oh come on! Everyone wants to be a rock star or a cop!



RoD: How has the band affected your life?
Joel: It is our life…
Everyone agrees and laughs
Joel continues: Of course it we had not had the band then we surely would have studied or done some other decent thing with our life.
Oscar: This feels damn decent!
Joel: Music is life and the band has turned things upside down in a good way.

RoD: How has your own taste in music changed through the years, what did you listen to when you were younger and what do you listen to today?
Oscar: Indie
Joel: Yeah
Oscar: And Hip hop.
Oscar: All of us listen to different things. When I was younger some of my favourites were Roxette and Michel Jackson and then I started to listen to hip hop.
Joel: The taste in music is something that changes and develops all the time.

RoD: Are there any music you don’t like listening to?
Joel: Yeah I don’t like TV-produced crap, which the artist on stage has not even written himself I think those people should go and be models instead of destroying the music industry!
Oscar: I think there is something good it most kind of music, but it’s a real damn thin line between how long an artist is willing to go just to sell himself and to get money. When they have reached that line then the music becomes just silly and really, really bad.
Joel: But then the artist’s heart is not really behind it, then it’s not true or honest. Then you can sit and listen to what that producer has done, all the artists sounds the same and then the reason is just to sell and there has to be something more or I think it’s really boring.
Oscar: We like music, all music.



RoD: If you were hit by a car and lie dying on the ground, but you got to sing one song, a song that people would remember you for, a song that summed up you. Which song would that be?
Oscar sings “Always look at the bright side of life”
Joel: * laughs* that is really true…
Joel: Oh to chose one song…
Oscar sings “Teenage mutant ninja turtles…”
Olof: A song we have written?

RoD: No it can be whatever song you want
Oscar sings “This is the end…”
Joel: Oh what the…
Oscar: Oh come one! I have sung three songs here…
Olof: Ah but the world’s best song, it’s really hard to come up with that one…
Joel: Like you take one song that is your favourite at the moment
Oscar: I don’t know
Joel: I think I would chose something with Foo Fighters
Olof: I would chose “Pamela” with Arvingarna (Swedish band)
Oscar: “Pamela” is a strong song
Olof: It’s serious
Everyone laughs
Joel: It’s a really hard question! I would like to sit an entire evening to ponder about this, you don’t want to make anyone injustice. But I think I would say “Come Alive” with Foo Fighters.
Olof: Have a cigarette, a glass of wine and just think about it…
Oscar sings “I got hit by a car and now I lie here singing about a car…”
Everyone laughs

RoD: Do you have any message to your fans?
Joel: Yeah don’t be lazy and just sit home when we are playing, come and see the show!
Olof: Come out and check it out, it’s a cool show
Joel: There are not really that many of us…
Olof: It’s something like going to a small circus
Joel: Yeah it’s like going to a small circus, we are damn fun to see live!
Oscar: Everyone that has bought our record, we would not have done this if there was not for you who listen to us and has bought the record. We love everyone that likes INNOCENT ROSIE!
Joel: Yeah I guess we do.

Thanks to INNOCENT ROSIE for taking the time to do the interview and to Micke at Swedmetal for making the interview happen. For more information about the band please visit www.myspace.com/innocentrosie

All pictures by Martina Törnemyr
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