We caught up with Chris from London based rock duo ROYAL INDIANS ahead of East London's SHINDIGNATION Festival....
As you'll probably be aware, musicmuso is helping to promote an East London festival called SHINDIGNATION which takes over 4 venues with over 40 acts on Saturday August 5th. To generate a bit of interest, we thought it would be great to chat to a few of the bands who are to play there. We heard that an awesome rock duo called ROYAL INDIANS were opening the festival and we just had to get in touch and have a chat with them, read on to see how we got on....
You’re an East London based rock band but are originally from South America, how come you ended up in London?
Yes, we were born and raised in Venezuela, however, we never knew each other when we were living back there. Eduardo Cannizzo (Drummer) played in a band in Venezuela named StereoCinema before moving to London. After Eduardo quitted the band also lost their guitar player and Christian Dos Santos (Singer, Guitarist) joined... Due to Venezuela's political situation, Christian decided to move to London to continue his studies and met Edu at the same school. (coincidence? who knows?)
Please tell us something about the band or a band member that not many people would know….
Maybe that fact that we played in the same band in Venezuela at different periods of times, and never met and then we formed a band here.
I saw a video with a bass player, do you always play as a trio?
So the band is Edu and Chris, however, when we play live we play with a session bass player. The band is still pretty new and we want to include more musicians into the live act, maybe a rhodes player (if you know one let us know ;) ) - for Shindignation we will play as a duo!
Tell us which acts influenced you as a band? Do you all share these influences?
We all like very old stuff such as Blind Faith, Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Allman Brothers but also pretty new stuff: The War on Drugs, All Them Witches, The Lemon Twigs.
You’re playing at Shindignation in East London on August 5th, for someone who has yet to see you live, please describe a typical live show?
A typical show will start very loud and with a lot of guitar solos, then it becomes more mellow, lots of stops and unexpected changes in the music, lots of jamming, after a couple of songs Edu gets on the guitar and Chris goes to the drums, we play a couple of songs that way and then change back to finish the show with more solos and rock and roll. No two shows are the same for us, it depends on which musicians play and which songs we perform.
Shindignation is shaping up to be a great one-day festival featuring over 40 acts, which of these are you most looking forward to seeing?
We are the first band to play so we want to watch all the bands :) ... Black Mamba Fever, Skinny Milk and Rumble Fish sure look interesting to watch.
Have you any other festivals planned for 2017?
We haven't anything planned yet but always looking for new opportunities.
Staying with festivals, what are your top tips to surviving one? (let’s assume it’s a 3 day UK festival with camping with rain forecast!!)
Hahaha we sure have many tips but keep it off the record ;)... I would say just make sure that you select a festival with good music and a great group of friends and you will enjoy it no matter the weather.
I checked out your new single "Mr Fake", very impressive stuff, where did you record it and who produced it for you?
Thanks! that was one of the first songs we wrote, we recorded it at Musicland Studios in East London and was produced by us and Irish producer Ian Flynn.
Let’s pretend that you’ve been given the chance to pick the 3 headline acts for the bestest EVER festival in the world EVER, who would you choose and why? (super-groups are allowed and you can also pick deceased people too)
Allman Brothers with all the original members, Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes
SRV
Led Zeppelin
What's next for Royal Indians?
We are producing a new EP that we don't know when it will be released, but it will start the concept of the band, all of our releases will follow that idea as we progress, and it will make more sense each time we release more music.
We'd like to thank Chris for sparing his time to chat to us and we wish them every success both at SHINDIGNATION and for the future. You can keep up to date with the band's whereabouts at the following sites;