Who’s in the band and what are your roles?
Drums, Vocals – Rafael Hochreutener
Double Bass – Dominic Scheidegger (Management, Bookings) > Answers from his perspective.
Lead Guitar – Marco Zurbuchen
Rhythm Guitar – Roman Bur (Merchandise, Bookings)

What’s your ‘origin story’?
It all started in the Scouts when I met our drummer; we were about 12 years old. This developed into a long and close friendship. He plays the drums and has lessons. We got older and went to concerts. Live music, mainly rock and metal at that time, grabbed us… from then on forever –even though our preferred style has changed over the years. At some point, the drummer met our rhythm guitarist and they got together to jam. I held an electric bass in my hands for the first time and tried to follow the jam. We practiced and learned and did what all bands probably played in their early years: garage rock and punk. Later, we met our lead guitarist at a Restless concert and got together again to jam. The new style, heavily influenced by the Stray Cats, defined our style from then on, and I switched to the double bass. From then on, this was our direction, and we kept going…

Which bands / artists are your biggest influences?
There are many, lets name some: George Jones, Muddy Waters, Jay Swan, Buck Stevens, Stray Cats and more…We don’t have any specific artists or acts that We would model ourselves on. When I listen to all kinds of music, we look for the special, rhythmic edges and corners of the guitar or drums. There are many styles and artists that We like to listen to depending on my mood and the occasion and let them influence me.

The inspiration in the band comes from an input or an idea that one of us has. A riff or a solo, just a few notes, have often generated an entire song with lyrics and content. We go with it and almost always find our style and way to create the song so that we can identify with it – only then does it make it into our repertoire.

Do you adapt your sound between shows/gigs/recordings?
Normally we don’t adapt anything for anyone… but there are cases we do, because we want. If you play gigs in different countries, you get to know your audience. Some are more into boppers, some are more into jives. We always play our main set, we don’t change that for different countries. But we do play some songs more or less when we know or feel that a particular style is requested by the audience. The show remains the same, high energy and lot of stage presence – what’s what we are! For the recording session sure we have a eye on the
quality and focus on the beats, the tempo an the breaks and solos. I have never seen Roman jumping off stage on a recording session, but I see that often on the live shows.

How would you describe your sound?
Raw, unbridled and direct – But well, we are nothing special – just four guys form Switzerland having a good time doing what they like to do: rock’n’roll music in our own style. For more than 20 years and more than 400 live shows all over Europe we are celebrating our way of music to our loyal and pretty audience. We don’t do the classic authentic high technique root music style a lot of bands in the scene do… get me right, that nothing wrong with that and most of them play several times better than we do. but we like our own way – a
bit rougher, more energy on the guitar, a bit more modern, a lot of stage presence and energy is what we like.

What’s your favourite song to play live and why?
This Issue has more songs with our actual style and energy on. I mean all our albums are 100% us, but you know, you learn, you gain your growth . The beat’s getting tighter and you can do more fancy stuff with the arrangement of the band. with some time – and we’ve played twenty years now together – you can feel each other while playing, so you feel more and more safe to try things out and each of us is playing with their own personal stile of playing their instrument – that you can hear in this issues… and i forgot: there are more harp songs on this one than before…

What’s been the highlight of your music career so far?
Each release is a highlight for us – cause as we stated 20 years ago we didn’t even think about having our own CD in our hands – that was the first dream, followed by many more… being at an airport with our own guitars, heading to a show somewhere out there was the next step as example. and so take it as it comes – one highlight follows anther – some are planned, some are unexpected but still good – in any way. so there isn’t a highlight on the album for us, for us its the highlight to still going on and on after two decades – any style with the same band-
family – no member ever changed – that is maybe the biggest highlight – the still ongoing friendship that comes with this band.

Have you faced any difficulties or setbacks in your music career so far? How have you overcome them?
The band was also active during the Corona period. Live concerts only took place virtually, but thanks to a technology partner, fans were able to indulge in their passion and bring the good old concert atmosphere into their living rooms at four live stream gigs. Under the motto “Goodbye 2020” and “Goodbye 2021”, the Corona year
was driven out on New Year’s Eve with the wish that the coming year will be better for the cultural scene. And it was the end of the online Shows for us – we are lucky for that and even more lucky to be back on track with our packed Tour List for 2026 and hopefully more years to come.

TELL ME ABOUT:

Your last album…what was the process there?
We always to Germany to record. The Black Shack Recording Studio is oneof the best in the scene – the equipment is superb and the sound engineering really helps us to get most out out of our ideas and songs. From the first song till the release it was maybe 1 and half year incl. everything. The recording was done in 2 days: 13 songs… heavy but we managed it.

Favourite song of yours?
What Shall I Do
Run on Shine
White Lightning
I feel Rocking

Your craziest tour experience
There are a lot of tour experience that are crazy.
Here are some bad ones: The tour bus went down 100km after Paris – Children’s guitar equipment for the Show – No delivered luggage by some shitty Airline – Sleeping in a turned down shack together
with the Owner/Promoter with no toilet or water – but the most shocking and craziest tour experience (and it still happens) is no cold beer in the backstage!

Here is the best one: We played a show in Spain, on a Sunday in a tiny bar. It’s just a filler for the tour. We did not expect anything or anyone. Our show was announced at 4PM, the bar opens at 3PM – at freaking 1PM the place was packed with people and they all had a party as there is no tomorrow (or Monday) – it was loud, It was disorganized on stage, just some whatever equipment was provided – but the audience, the feeling and the whole setting was overwhelming for all of us! One of the best shows ever played.

Your dreams for the future! How would you describe them?

Survive and continue doing what we are doing now. May be the Stages and Festival getting bigger, but the intention, the feeling and our mission stays the same – pure rock’n’roll for a lovely audience. There are no dreams to catch – we are lucky to be there as we are, now we take it as it comes and make the best out of it. We don’t wanna be on TV shows – we dismissed several invites – we don’t wanna be a the biggest festivals as a dream. Sure, it would be nice to play em and will love to play every festival, but we stay down to earth – we are not complicated on backstage requirements or stage things – we just wanna play and we are thankful for every good show we can get.

Is there anyone you’d love to share a stage with, living or dead? Why?
For me personally, no! For some others on the band there where some artists as they where the idols at the beginning – we these dreams came already true e.g. with Restless we played several shows on the same stage.

The Royal Flush are also the masterminds behind Rockabilly Stomp:

The wild four have been organizing the Rockabilly Stomp Weekender since 2006.Not only does Elvis live on, but the enormous variety of bands also celebrating the rock’n’roll of the 50s is something you just shouldn’t miss. The bands and DJs appearing at the Rockabilly Stomp belong to the crème de la crème of the European rock’n’roll scene. Framed by many side events, the audience can dance until they
drop for two nights, because it’s open-ended! Flea market, dirt track racing, lifestyle & fashion and beautiful classic cars the motto: Let the Good Times Roll!

As told to Nick Constantine

Buy music from The Royal Flush here