Hailing from Eastern Switzerland, Rooftop Heroes is made up of Mike Frei (guitar, lead vocals), Daniel Frei (bass, vocals), Tobi Engeler (lead guitar, vocals) and Samuel Forster (drums, vocals). Originally called BluePearl (and with two former members), the quartet was featured on national German TV shows such as The Dome and Köln 50667. Now returning as Rooftop Heroes, the alternative collective found their core audience on YouTube, collecting over 1 million views on cover videos. Looking to give their fans more, they are gaining worldwide momentum with their original music. Rooftop Heroes will be featured on That Summer, Volume 2 , a sizzling summer compilation album hosting the best independent artists, from around the world, in multiple genres.
1. What is the name of the song you have featured on ‘That Summer, Volume 2’ – How does your song remind you of summer or how does it fit into a summer album?
The song’s called “Heroes”. Its hook line alone lets us feel the summer vibes right away, that’s why we’ve put it at the very beginning. Then there’s this line about the “summer heroes”, which wants to address people, who are working for our welfare in summer. But first and most it’s the people telling us every day that it definitely is a must have track on their summer playlist 2019 and we’re really thankful for it!
2. What is the inspiration behind your song? Or what is your song about?
“Heroes” is an homage on these thousands of heroes making our daily life worth living. The heroes who may risk their lives for ours. The heroes who care for us when we’re sick and weak. The single mother who works in the nights, that she can care for their children in the daytime The father who will do everything he has to for his family. They’re all superheroes, that’s why they definitely needed a song.
3. How did you write your featured song? Or can you describe your songwriting process?
That’s a funny story. It really was a complete new experience, writing songs in this new constellation and together with an award-winning producer. We wanted to create this modern sound without losing our band background (and the guitars). And in the days and nights of our first songwriting weekend, it was a really inspiring process, even when we did not write one single good song. But as a result out of it, the whole band composed fragments or parts of songs in our little home studio for about half a year, at least about 30 or 40 ideas. One of these unfinished songs was “Heroes”.
First there was only this dotted 8 delay guitar and the idea to write a song about real heroes. When we came back to the Principal Studios for our second songwriting weekend, the magic happened, when Mike, who brought this guitar track with him, but didn’t really like it, was on toilet. The rest of band and the producer decided to take this guitar as the basis for the song and started to play over it and when Mike came back, the hook line and even some cool key fragments were already born. The rest of the song was written in one day. So the song was born in a toilet break.
4. Of every song you have ever written, what is your favorite and why?
We have never written such good songs like the last 4 ones. They took us to a whole new level. Of these 4 songs, we think “Don’t Stop The Music”, which is released in the middle of June, maybe tops the other ones, because it already was one big party writing it and it has a killer hook! In addition, we definitely love groovy songs.
5. Who or what has inspired you most in your music career?
The one inspiring feeling is the love. It takes you for a ride of heights and depths like a never ending rollercoaster. And it’s really hard to say, but especially these darkest nights of being left by someone you love are the most inspiring moments where you’re writing in hope or complete sadness. The other feeling is anger. Thinking about all the things going wrong in this world and really getting them on the point once could be very inspiring and not only leads to new songs, but often to new solutions solving them, too.
6. Tell us where you live and what the music scene is like there?
All band members live in Eastern Switzerland, near or even by the Lake of Constance. Beautiful countryside. And so is the scene. The bands know each other, but since there’s a big band contest called “BandX” (best contest in Switzerland!), the scene has become very lively and creative. There really is a bunch of very talented young artists like Marius Bear, AVA, Private Blend or Benjamin Amaru, who are heading out across Swiss borders, all coming from Eastern Switzerland. Most of them joined or even won this band contest once (as we did). They complete a new generation of young Swiss artists, who break out of Switzerland and get noticed in whole Europe.
We see there’s a Swiss music scene with a never before seen self-confidence. We strongly recommend to listen to artists like Ikan Hyu, Black Sea Dahu, Black Tropics or All To Get Her. That’s the reason why we’ve recently founded our own agency “The Heroes Network Agency”, which concentrates on building up a YouTube-platform and management company for exactly these very talented Swiss artists. The main difference to other companies will be, that this agency is owned by the artists themselves.
7. Do you have any advice for new independent artists who are just starting out?
There’s one big thing we’ve never done before this big band member change: We’ve never planned whole years. Maybe that was the biggest mistake we did in 15 years of our career. It’s really important to plan your releases and the whole year because it’s like a red line and you can set your budget on everything without any stress.
So you have a clear view in every moment of your plan. And the most important thing: Never give up, even when everyone’s beating you down. Little side story: Our lead singer, Mike, has often been said to not be able to sing. It took a long time until the winning of the “BandX”, until people finally realized he isn’t as untalented as they thought. So often, people talk bullshit, because they don’t know better.
8. What are your plans for the summer? Doing anything fun and exciting?
This question is exactly why we have a whole-year-plan haha. We’ll be preparing for our very first festival concerts and the first tour in fall/winter. We’re perfectionists, that’s why it might take longer with us to prepare a whole show :P. Next to rehearsing we will record some video clips and hopefully write some new cool songs like “Heroes”. Inspiration we’ll get on quite a few festivals we will visit during summertime and in these really exciting discussions on BBQ-grillparties.
9. What’s coming up in the future?
As already mentioned, there are three singles being released until October, followed by our first tour. Next singles will be “Don’t Stop The Music” in June and “Forever” feat. a young American called Skrilla in August. We’re looking soooo forward to releasing them, but we definitely can’t wait to rock the stages again!
10. Tell us where fans can access your music.
Of course on Spotify (do not hesitate to follow us ;)):
BWH Music Group
