ROYA have emerged as an exciting act on the global music scene. We caught up with the electronic pop-duo ahead of their performance at Abbie McCarthy’s Good Karma Club on the 3rd of September in Colours, London.
Hey Roya! Nice to meet you. Can you talk us through your songwriting process? Do you believe that your music has been inspired by the area you grew up on the scenic coast of Denmark?
In our songwriting process our keyword is flow. The flow is for us a holy wave that we need to ride together. So when one of us brings an idea to the table and we jump into it, we are flowing with it and letting it lead the way. You can’t stop the process, and the rule is that you need to bounce off of each other’s inputs.
Our environment has definitely shown us wonders and beauty of life and there has been plenty of space to be dreaming big. We are both very grateful for having the feeling of home, and it allows us to go out in the world and chase dreams and be able to have a place to reload.
You’ve become a viral hit on TikTok, gaining millions of views across platforms. How have you found being able to connect with fans on this level?
One of the absolute greatest pleasures about this whole thing is the connection with our followers! To be able to share such a huge a dream with so many people and make music with and for them is the greatest joy.
We’re so grateful that people resonate with our music and it feels very natural to include the followers in the process and having their ideas and opinions in the back of our heads when we make music – because it’s all for them.
We try to go through every message, but unfortunately we can’t answer every comment and message. That’s why these live concerts feel so special, because we get the opportunity to meet everyone in real life!
How would you describe your latest single ‘Cruise’ and in what way has your music developed from the release of your 2023 debut EP ‘Dear Space’?
Our song Cruise is very intuitive. When you listen to it, you are being led through the roles of all the instruments while we are trying to set the scene for the nice memories we have of cruising into the sunset, biking with our friends, riding the wave or whatever. The sound of cruise is pretty different from our previous releases but again – we just followed the flow. And for this song our followers ended up being a big part of the flow. They contributed with lyrics and decision about the arrangement of the song and the production. It was such an amazing experience and we’ve never released anything that fast from idea to final mix.
You’ll be performing at Colours, London on September 03. What can fans expect from your live set?
We are so excited to play at colours in London! It feels so special to create music and play it out loud for people who has been a part of this crazy journey!
The audience at our concerts will always be a big part of creating the vibe and atmosphere for the evening, but we are gonna do everything we can to make sure that everyone will get a great evening with good energy, electronic beats, authentic music, maybe laughing, maybe crying and and hopefully they will get a feeling of being a part of the music rather than just listening to it.
Thanks for speaking with us! Lastly, have you got anything exciting coming up for the rest of 2024 that you can share with us?
Every day feels exciting and surprising at the moment, so we aren’t sure exactly how 2024 will turn out. Hopefully we’ll get the opportunity to meet people in different cities – putting up concerts, and writing more music with the followers. Our audience has a lot of power and a say in what will happen. Will we make another great song together that they want us to release? Did they find a nice place in Paris to make a pop up concert and so on. No matter what – we are extremely excited to see what 2024 has got for us.
