Indie sensation from Germany: Singer Fred Rabe and guitarist Finn Schwieters talk about the future plans of their band Giant Rooks.
They are one of the German bands that can also inspire internationally: After a successful North American and European tour with many sold-out shows, the Giant Rooks are currently entering the festival stages with their indie anthems. In mid-July, the band also played their first open-air show – in Dortmund, close to their hometown of Hamm.
“We’ve been on tour for three months, we’ve been to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and played in America. We’ve had 50 or 60 concerts behind us, and yet I was as excited as I was before a first concert,” says singer Fred Rabe (26). about the performance in a double interview with his cousin and guitarist of the band, Finn Schwieters. “If you know that your parents, family and friends are there from before, you also want to prove that you can do it,” adds the singer in an interview with spot on news.
Family as the “best compensation”
Many fans held up signs reading “We are proud of you” (in German: “We are proud of you”) at the open air. “I almost forgot the text when I read that, I was very touched,” says Rabe. In the meantime, the up-and-coming band has a real fan community in Germany, which thinks up many campaigns and is networked with each other. Friendships were also formed as a result. “Sometimes they even follow us through all the countries. That’s really wonderful,” says Rabe.
Luckily, those closest to her are less euphoric. “They’re all very happy about the success, but actually it’s not that important. There are other things in the foreground and that’s nice,” explains the singer. He was recently on vacation with his family and “we didn’t talk about music at all. If you move around in a tourist cosmos for three months, write songs and give concerts, this stark contrast is very good. This balance, what you learn from it is the most beautiful thing.”
“Surreal” festival performance
The band currently has the festival season firmly under control. “The Southside and Hurricane weekend in particular was really surreal and overwhelming. Personally, I’ve never been to such a big festival, I’ve never seen so many people at once,” explains Finn Schwieters. After by far the biggest concert of their career with around 60,000 people, the band couldn’t really believe in the performance. “It was like a rush. We watched this recorded video on the tour bus on the way to the Southside and then we realized how great it actually was,” adds Rabe. “When we got there, we were able to approach our performance more relaxed and enjoy it.”
In addition to the unforgettable performances, the band is also feeling the effects of the corona pandemic and the effects on the culture and festival industry. “It’s still a very difficult situation for everyone in the live area,” says Schwieters. “For example, you don’t get the technology that you normally rent, and if you do get it, it costs twice or three times as much and you can’t actually pay for it.” In addition, of course, there is the constant risk of becoming infected. “Then you stand there with your crew of 40 people and can only insure yourself against Covid at horrendous prices.” It is absurd that festivals like the Puls Open Air have to be canceled at short notice due to a lack of staff. “It annoyed me that the angry reactions and comments came straight away on Instagram,” says the guitarist. “People have to see what the organizers went through. They also wanted to do this festival, which they had to postpone for two years, and they put a lot of work into it. I wish for more empathy.”
The Giant Rooks have ‘never worked as well as they do now’
In 2015, the band from Hamm made their first musical steps in the family cellar in a very classic way. “Right from the start there was the very ambitious goal of really wanting to know without plan B,” says Rabe. “We said to each other after high school, we’re going to throw ourselves into it and we’re not going to do anything else.” Right from the start, the band met almost every day, played concerts and tried to open the next doors, adds Schwieters. “Really overambitious,” comments his cousin with a laugh. “Then we added on year after year and today it’s no longer an issue for anyone, fortunately,” says Rabe.
The band’s dynamic has definitely changed over the years, he continues. “I don’t think we’ve ever worked as well as a group as we do right now.” One hears from many bands that “they are best friends at the beginning and then after three years there is a big crash and they break up,” says Rabe. “For us it was more like that, with the exception of the two of us, we were never really friends.” It was only through the music and through the shared experiences that they became a real team and best friends. If there are quarrels in the group, then it’s about “little things, quarrels are also part of it, but overall it’s frightening that we get along so well because we really hang out with each other every day,” says the singer.
New music?
The group released their debut album Rookery in 2020. For their current title “Morning Blue” the Giant Rooks an Instagram post released, in which they talk about the pressure to release new songs. “I think the strongest pressure you can feel is always the one you put on yourself,” says Rabe. “And we’ve definitely done that for the last two years. Simply because we didn’t have such a clear goal in mind, we didn’t have any deadlines for an album or tour, it felt like a vacuum.”
During the two years, the band wrote an incredible number of songs and was looking for the one song like “Morning Blue” that they wanted to release to start the next chapter. “Now I don’t feel so much pressure anymore, we can now build on the song and approach things a little more calmly.” Schwieters remains reluctant to ask whether fans can look forward to new music soon: “We’re more of a friend of saying: Let’s finish things and then announce them. We’ve collected an incredible number of sketches and the songs just have to be finished We won’t have much time for that until August, September. But we’re really keen on releasing new music and we’ll definitely be writing a lot this year as well.”
A lot of love abroad
At the end of the year the band tours North America again. “Before the first American tour we were totally nervous and had a lot of respect,” says Schwieters. “But the people gave us a really warm welcome. It was really nice to see that they knew the album, could sing along to the songs and showed us a lot of love.” The group “met a lot of really great and hospitable people”. “People just come up to you, ask how you’re doing or give compliments, we don’t know that from Germany,” says Rabe.
The band is particularly looking forward to Canada and Los Angeles with its very own charm on the upcoming tour. “But we also play in areas that are still unknown to us, such as Texas, which will be exciting,” says the singer. Speaking of outside of Germany: After collaborating with German bands like AnnenMayKantereit, which international music act would the band wish to work with? “We heard HER supporting Coldplay,” says Rabe. “It was so good, it probably goes in my top five concerts – so it’s top of the list right now.”