Getting to Know… Robbers on Parole | Interview 🎤

For interview #40 in the Getting to Know series, The Musical Hype gets the scoop on alt/electronic rock/electronica band, Robbers on Parole.

We did it ladies and gentlemen! Who did it and what exactly did we do you ask? Well, The Musical Hype managed to land its 40^th interview, thanks to intriguing alternative/electronic rock/electronica collective, Robbers on Parole.  Plastic Barricades got us one step closer with the 39^th edition of the Getting to Know… column (the publication’s first interview in months), while Monica (vocals), Stephan (guitar/electronics), Ivo (bass), and Chris (drums) “bring it on home” with Getting to Know… Robbers on Parole | Interview #40.  From this colorful interview, we find out about the ambitions and backstory of the band, as well as unique characteristics about each member.  Without further ado, let Interview #40 commence!

Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype (Faulkner): Let’s get this started off right. For those who may not be familiar with Robbers on Parole, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

Robbers on Parole: All four of us grew up in wildly different environments, and were surrounded by the most varied influences, musically and aesthetically. This shows everywhere –in our music, in our live performances, even in our clothes. It creates something that probably most bands today try to steer away from, but we really embrace – to be a unique part of a whole and not just ¼ of a single unit. Our music combines all of these ideas and the result is always something unexpected, both for us and the audience. We’ve actually just started exploring the possibilities of that, so a lot of exciting things are yet to happen.

As far as rocking the socks off of people – we’ve always thought that our music is best experienced live. All these different nuances that each of us brings to the music are amped up to 11 in a live performance and we’ve been told the result can really blow you away. It made us very happy to hear that, ha ha!

Faulkner: “Amped up to 11,” huh? Rock on! Exploring some juicy backstories, how did Robbers on Parole form and what were some of the goals or the visions the band had early on?

Robbers on Parole: The very first thought of our bassist, Ivo, was to form a female-fronted pop-punk band and he tried to do it, unsuccessfully, at least twice, up until the moment when he contacted our guitarist, Stephan, with whom he’d been playing for the past 12 years in different projects. With his arrival came a lot of modern influences and, by chance, we found our singer Monica through him as well. She was an entirely different type of vocalist until she joined and being in a band was something new and exciting for her.

Finally, the three of us thought we needed a very versatile type of drummer that can pull off all kinds of styles and we thought of only one – Chris. Since the first time all four of us played together we were always on the same wavelength on one very specific thing – we wanted to make modern, diverse, electronic rock music with an edge and we wanted to make no compromises with the sound of our music.

Faulkner: Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

Robbers on Parole: We first started out rather naïve, mainly in our perception of the time needed for things to happen. Recording music and shooting videos are both very collaborative mediums. And if you’re a democracy, like we are, haha, everybody has a say in the final art piece. This makes the songs and videos richer but it also slows down the process. The key is to find the golden balance between our abundance of ideas and making them a reality as fast as possible. We’re still searching, haha, but our goals will always be – make no compromises with any song. If you can, add to the song’s experience with a visualization that looks at its core ideas from a different angle. And finally – combine all that in an audio-visual experience, whether it be albums or live performances. Everything else we want is a derivative of these main goals.

Faulkner: Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of Robbers on Parole’s biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

Robbers on Parole: Oh man, that’s a very tough one… As a band, all of us enjoy and find inspiration in twenty one pilots, Placebo, Bring Me The Horizon, The Neighbourhood, and Massive Attack… However, individually, it’s a real mess, haha! One of us grew up listening to the heavy metal of the ‘80s and then transitioned into the emo punk genre to finally reach the metalcore scene. Another has tried everything from punk, through dubstep, trip-hop, all kinds of metal, new wave up to trap. Then we have our singer who has mainly sung traditional folklore music, blues and also a bit of jazz, while still staying true to her love of modern female pop icons. And another one got into music by listening to all kinds of progressive rock/metal bands, then followed that with grunge and gothic rock, alongside a heavy dose of film soundtracks. It’s really overwhelming at times, haha!

Faulkner: Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative. 

Robbers on Parole: Well, our bassist did hit а singer on the head with his guitar at one time. But that was when he was in another band, so we’re not sure if it counts… We haven’t had that many live shows yet so those wacky experiences are still to come, we’ve no doubt about it, haha, however for now we can share about a concert we played for a luxury goods brand, in which they set the giant letters of their brand name on fire, right behind the stage. That was so rock ‘n’ roll of them, haha!

Faulkner: Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

Robbers on Parole: We really, really love one song that’s not recorded yet, that will probably become the fifth and final single from our debut EP. It’s a really gentle-sounding and passionate song, with ethereal guitars and it sort of soars in mid-air every time we play it – it doesn’t quite go off into space, it just flows around us and we kinda love that about it. All of us can’t get enough of playing it and it really shows, both in rehearsals and live performances.

Faulkner: Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

Robbers on Parole: Well, let’s see… Chris, our drummer, worships cats; [he] has an altar with candles and everything! No, all jokes aside, he just adores them, his whole family does and it’s very cute and awesome. Monica, our singer, is also an actress, devoted equally to both professions, which is very tasking, but she always finds a way. Also, she can always sing the right note, regardless of how out of tune the rest of us play, haha! Our keyboardist/guitarist Stephan deeply wants to be a cyborg and can’t wait for technologies to advance so he can turn into one, and we’re not even joking here. And our bass player, Ivo, says that if a vampire were to come to him right now and offer him eternal life he would immediately take it, without hesitation – there are just too many movies, books, comics & albums to experience in the world for just one life!

Faulkner: What more can you say to all of that but WOW! Closing this thing out, what is Robbers on Parole currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

Robbers on Parole: Oh, we’d love to share, of course! We’re doing a couple of shows this winter season and then we’re off to the studio again. This time we’ve decided to record three songs at once and afterwards release them gradually, perhaps one every two months. These three tracks will mark the finalization of what we like to call “our first period”, haha, and will be collected in our first EP, along with the two songs that we’ve already released. Basically, these five tracks are where we found our sound. It’s still raw and we need to polish it going forward. So that’s what we’re looking forward to – closing the first chapter and starting the next one!

Faulkner: Thank you so much for sharing and taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward.

Robbers on Parole: Thank you as well for the awesome questions and good luck to you too!

Singles: “Feel Complete” & “2 Far Gone”

Robbers on Parole Socials: Facebook • Instagram • YouTube • Soundcloud

Photo Credits: Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype, Robbers on Parole