THE RIVER PHOENIX

Birthed in the tightly knit community of Bornholm, a small island nestled on the Baltic between Denmark and Sweden, records were hard to come by for Nikolaj (bass), Michael (drums), Morten (guitar, Fender 6) and Ste (guitar). As for a thriving underground scene? Forget it. For most of the people on the island there is, according to frontman Kristian, a mentality of “Buy a house, get a wife, have children.”

Instead, huddled around Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr. records they began to shape their sound, coming into their own without the overbearing presence of a scene.

Four years younger than the rest of the band and in his last year of high school at the time, Kristian was drafted into the ranks of The River Phoenix, making the line-up complete.However, while the talent was there in its rawest form, the experience to shape it would take time and, in part, help create their moniker.

“Over the years, struggling as a band, our friendship got stronger and stronger,” says Kristian: “It was rather like the movie ‘Stand By Me’ (in which the late River Phoenix starred as a young boy) in the sense of that friendship and suddenly it seemed to tie in with the quest we’re on. ‘Stand By Me’ sounded too sweet as a band name though – like a Danielle Steele novel!”

Moving to Copenhagen and honing their sound, the next turning point for The River Phoenix would come when, frustrated at being unable to channel the sounds in their heads, Kristian would pick up the guitar alongside Morten and Ste. In direct reaction to the rash of artificial-sounding records that were popping up with alarming regularity at the time, with The River Phoenix what you hear through your headphones is what you’ll get live – only more so.

“We had all these overdubs on our songs that we couldn’t pull off live,” says Kristian: “With me picking up the guitar we were suddenly able to do the overdubs live. What thrills me most is that live, it’s all there.”

With a freshened sound, it was time for the five piece to start work on their debut album, which would eventually become ‘Ritual’. Titled so after the act of repeating something endlessly without questioning why according to Kristian (“The thought came from stepping back and looking at the band from afar, looking at years and years of nights in the rehearsal space with no real goal in sight and no outlet coming up, just working on the songs that we thought any day soon would become an album that a great label would put out.”), in many ways it’s also a telling insight into just how committed the band are to their music.

“I’d compare our mindset to Patrick Bateman from [the movie] ‘American Psycho’ - minus the murders naturally!” laughs Kristian: “That character is so extremely particular about the things he likes and enjoys, be it perfecting his business cards, discussing music or toning and lotioning his skin, almost autistic in his behavior and a savant in fields of interest but at the same time holding a total disregard for reality.”

Recording in Stockholm with Pelle Gunnerfeldt (The Hives, Logh) over the space of two weeks, the likes of ‘I’m USA You’re Canada’, ‘5 Wheel Drive’ and ‘Meteorites’ rise and fall with passionate, bombastic choruses and subtle, measured introspection, sketching out vast sonic patterns intricately weaved with swathes of lush guitar melodies as Kristian’s expressive and emotive vocals pine and pulse for “frustration, love and love lost.”

Progressing as a lyricist, Kristian drew inspiration from every well for ‘Ritual’, be it documentary programs or snatches of an overhead conversation, for better or for worse.

“The songs are real. They are courses of events seen in a way so that life becomes something worth writing home about. We may not be masters of our own fate and cannot control what happens to us, but the way we choose to see it? That we are masters of - nobody can control or dictate that. I try to see the adventure in everything.” Having already achieved a childhood dream, supporting The Smashing Pumpkins in Copenhagen, the stage is set for The River Phoenix to begin making a name for themselves on the European and world stage.

Says Kristian: “Basically we want to rock, we want to get goose bumps, we want to get tears in our eyes, we want to grind our teeth with a fist in the air and we want good things for good people. We want love, we want sweat, we want it heavy, we want noise, we want beautiful melodies and we think the listener feels the same way.” Damn right.