Riders of metal! raise your swords and a beer! Today we have a great little interview for you! If you Love Lord of the Rings and the raw, glistening rock sounds of the past then you should check out Riders of Rohan!

TheNwothm: A warm welcome to you! Can you start by telling us your band name, who is in the band and where you are from?

R.o.r: We are Lisa, Tim and Stickan aka Riders of Rohan and we’re from Gothenburg, Sweden.

TheNwothm: And how did Riders of Rohan start? Did you all know each other beforehand?

R.o.r: We’ve known each other for about 15-20 years or so and have been playing in various bands together for many of those years. One of those bands had just come to an end in 2017 and through that “break up” Riders was born.

TheNwothm: If someone was listening to you for the first time how would you describe your sound to them?

R.o.r: Vaguely familiar.

TheNwothm: And what made you choose to use Lord of the Rings themes for the band?

R.o.r: Aragorn opening the doors to Helm’s Deep! Thirsty jokes aside, Middle-earth is the perfect world for adventure rock. The Jackson films came out when we were tweens and imprinted on us the way Epic Fantasy should sound, look and feel like. It’s also a hell of a lot of work to build a universe of your own for the music to reference – we tip our hats to Mighty Ravendark and the Emerald Sword Saga but stick with Tolkien for now!   

TheNwothm: You guys are from the wonderful city of Gothenburg in Sweden! So what can you tell us about the city and the country?

R.o.r: Gothenburg is a fantastic small harbour city in the western parts of Sweden. It is a city with a lot of history, not least when it comes to the labour movement, and it stands out from the other parts of Sweden with its proximity to the sea and the archipelago, but also when it comes to attitude and atmosphere. Sweden is generally a pretty boring country, but Gothenburg makes it a slightly more fun place to be a part of.

TheNwothm: Do you feel the culture and history of Sweden has had an impact on the band at all?

T: We’re clearly a part of a cultural and artistic continuum whether we realise it or not, and international listeners will probably be much better at telling if the music “sounds Swedish” or not than us, but a major thing to point out is the comparatively good access to free or very cheap rehearsal spaces and gear that the youth of Sweden have access to thanks to the labour movement and ABF, the Workers’ Educational Association. Without this, who’s to say if any of our previous bands, and by extension Riders of Rohan, would have been possible at all? Our current government is dismantling this, however, and although the consequences will take time to present themselves, I worry about the effects on the Rohirrim of tomorrow. Creativity is certainly not class dependent, but access to the necessary tools is. 

TheNwothm: Sweden is known to have loads of glorious heavy metal bands so what bands are on your playlist right now?

L: I listen a lot to Gene Clark at the moment, so no heavy metal unfortunately.

T: None here either, I keep a healthy 80/20 Taylor Swift/other diet in terms of music.

TheNwothm: So you put out “Your Demon” in 2020 which has this raw and rough around the edges kind of sound. It makes me feel that it has been lifted right from the 60’s/ 70’s era! Did you always want to have that kind of feeling to your music and would you say the past has a strong influence on how you choose to create and produce your sound?

T: We like old music for sure, and it’s absolutely a conscious choice to have the sound the way it is. The sound of the demo was achieved mainly by accident but it turned out really good. It’s a live stereo track, doubled on a dictaphone and with some dubs and vocals added afterwards. We “mixed” it on a distortion pedal and “mastered” using a regular tape deck. Impatient experimentation all the way!

TheNwothm: And reflecting on your sound are you fans of the digital era or do you prefer to go for more of an analogue approach? And did you all record together in the same room or do tracks one by one?

L: We’re definitely more of an analogue bunch. We record the basics together in the same room (drums, guitar and bass), but then we add extra guitar/bass/percussion and vocals separately.

TheNwothm: in 2022 after releasing a number of singles you put out you debut album “Riders of Rohan.” Can you breakdown that album with an overview of the tracks, the direction you took with the music and lyrics and a bit about the writing and production?

R.o.r: All the songs on the first album were written in different times/parts in our life, so the album is more of a compilation with all the songs we had so far and therefore a bit difficult to break down song by song. We tried lyrics-wise to cover as many different happenings/characters from the book as possible so that we didn’t write about the same thing twice, but music wise we were just inspired by the music we currently listened to at the time. 

TheNwothm: Stepping away from the music, what do you like to do in your spare time? 

R.o.r: Play board games, pet cute animals, read books and bake cakes.

TheNwothm: And if you had to step into the shoes of any Lord of the Rings/ Tolkien character who would it be?

L: Strider ❤

T: Tom Bombadil or Barliman Butterbur

TheNwothm: And out of all the Tolkien books, which is your favourite and why?

T: The Hobbit or The Two Towers tie for first place in my book. They obviously don’t compare very well, but both have an incredibly captivating tone – The Hobbit with it’s anachronistic tongue-in-cheek and The Two Towers with it’s building towards war and disaster, unmasking the adventure chic of the Fellowship of the Ring!

L: The Hobbit. It was the first book by Tolkien I read and it really opened up my mind to his world and just stuck with me.

TheNwothm: You managed to keep a consistency with your artworks so have you always worked with the same artist or chosen someone different for each release?

R.o.r: Always the same – Angus McBride.

TheNwothm: Congratulations on your newest release “With Hope Or Without…!” What kind of place were you guys in when you started writing songs for this release and how has your music progressed on from what you have released previously?

T: The lyrics are farther from the source material than before, perhaps figuratively inspired rather than literally – some would even say non-canonical! Musically, maybe it’s a bit more heavy rock than metal or proto metal or whatever? Going into the studio, I had Northern Light – Southern Cross by The Band on my mind, which I don’t think you can hear on the EP, but    

TheNwothm: And how has the reception been so far?

L: Really nice, people have been so kind about it!

TheNwothm: Looking forward to the rest of 2024 do you have any plans for any tours etc or gigs?

R.o.r: We’re gonna focus on writing new material and just take things as they come.

TheNwothm: Where can fans buy your music and merch?

From our bandcamp page – https://ridersofrohan.bandcamp.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069365194449

https://cryptofthewizard.bandcamp.com/album/riders-of-rohan

TheNwothm: Anything else you would like to mention?

Free Palestine!