by Marija Brettle
– Senior Columnist —
December 06, 2014, at Rock City, Nottingham —
Fronted by former Crashdiet singer Olli Herman, Reckless Love first came together in 2001 as a hugely energetic, entertaining live act with a deep regard for rock’s most colourful icons, plus an unquenchable thirst for the brighter things in life.
Early in 2010, this Finnish outfit issued their debut self-titled album, an 11-track release which was soon praised by the fans and media as a true classic. Buoyed up by the sudden success of their debut album, the four began to tour outside of their native Finland; scoring front covers, headlining shows and being added to major festival bills.
With the second album, Animal Attraction, supported by two singles/videos’; ‘Hot’ and ‘Animal Attraction,’ the band continues to tour around the world. In September 2013, Reckless Love released their third studio album titled, Spirit, which also contains two singles/videos; ‘So Happy I Could Die’ and ‘Night on Fire.’
This month, the Finish rockers returned with their short U.K. tour, where Hardrock Haven caught up with the charismatic frontman Olli Herman, during their Nottingham (Rock City) show to get the lowdown on the band. Also we talked about his music heroes and his philosophy of ‘what Rock ‘n’ Roll should really be all about. As well as his Download Festival experience, working on the new songs and more…
HARDROCK HAVEN: Hi Olli, great to see you back here in the U.K. It’s been a while since your last show here in Nottingham. How was it last night in Glasgow?
Olli Herman: It was amazing! Yeah, Glasgow always has been good to us! I mean, we can’t really understand what they’re saying, but we understand each other! We both come from the north! (Laughs) Yeah, the further north you go the cold and the dark changes people…all for the good! (Laughs)
HRH: When I met you last time, back in 2010, you said that you didn’t like a lot of what was going on in the world of rock music these days and that you are on a mission to bring back the real power of rock. Are you still on this mission?
Olli: O Yeah! I think I was talking about all philosophy of ‘what really happened to the real power of Rock ‘n’ Roll this days. I’m still not happy of how things are going in rock music today! I always thought that rock music should be all about having a good time; because that’s the way it was born originally! Rock ‘n’ Roll was for teenagers to have something on their own. Something to rebel against dance music, their parents we’re listening to. So yeah, we’re still on a mission to bring that joy and power back to Rock ‘n’ Roll, because at some point it got really serious, really dark! (Laughs)
HRH: Was this one of the reasons why you were largely influenced in your earlier work by the ‘80s rock, especially on your first record?
Olli: Yeah! We were born in the ‘80s so I guess music from this era and bands like Motley Crue, Warrant, Guns n’Roses, Poison, and Van Halen were closest to us! That was our first touch with rock music when we were teenagers and I think that was the last era when Rock ‘n’ Roll really was all about having fun, party and girls! (Laughs) After that I think all the modern alternative rock bands, heavy metal bands were more and more aggressive, dark, depressed…
HRH: Are you referring to the whole era of the Grunge music and all those Death, Thrash Metal bands?
Olli: Yeah, yeah there was this element of darkness and false aggression, definitely! I mean, I am not putting down other bands. I don’t hate those bands! There were some really talented people and awesome bands and I love their music, but our philosophy of Rock ‘n’ Roll is more about people having a good time and enjoy life! (Laughs)
HRH: Tell me more about your more recent album Spirit? What was the dynamic in making of this record?
Olli: It was recorded exactly two years ago, but we had to sit on it-so to speak for quite a while, because Universal Music wanted to clear out for the next fall. We thought they were going to put it out the next spring so we had full album ready. In the meantime we gone on tour again and waited for Universal to release the album. Actually I think this is the most serious record that we have done so far! During the making of this album we thought that we need to come up with something that will go on the opposite direction from our previous record. It was like, ‘Ok, now we’re going to outdo Animal Attraction like 10 times more! (Laughs) This album really captures the real spirit of Reckless Love, which is why we called this record Spirit!
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