In my professional career, I don’t have the type of job that requires much travel. However, when I do have the chance to visit a city other than Columbus while on a trip, I try to find the cool club in town and catch a show. I’ve been lucky … in the past I’ve seen Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer in Orlando, Florida, Youth Group in Los Angeles, Kill Hannah in New York City, 500 Miles to Memphis and Warbringer in two separate trips to Des Moines, Iowa.
This week I’m heading to Philadelphia for a conference so I checked out Songkick.com to see who was playing. I came across a name that sounded familiar but that I didn’t (at the time), know anything about – We Are Serenades, a project featuring Shout Out Louds singer Adam Olenius and Laasko singer Markus Krunegård. The duo’s debut album, Criminal Heaven, came out just a few weeks ago.
Before checking them out at Johnny Brenda’s on Tuesday night, I sent Adam send questions via email. (If you’re a Donewaiting reader from Philly and are going to the show, let me know in the comments section).
I looked at the club listings in Philadelphia to see who was performing when I’ll be there. At first, I thought maybe it was a misprint and that We Are Scientists were performing. And then, there is also a new group called We Are Augustines. Have you encountered any confusion based on the name and were you aware of these two other bands with similar names?
We were first called just Serenades but we had to change it and added the “We Are” because it works well on stage. I was familiar with We Are Scientists but never thought about it in that way. It is strange with such an uncommon name like that.
It sounds like this collaboration was a long time in the making. Was there a certain point in time where the two of you said, “We really need to set some deadlines and get this done because if we don’t, it’ll be something that we talk about doing the rest of our lives but never complete”?
Exactly. We found some time in between touring and just set a deadline. SOL was having some time off so we just booked a small studio in Stockholm and started working. We found a swedish label that we liked but we never thought we would release it outside of Sweden. It’s like a big bonus.
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