While music groups of the 2000s like Bombay Bicycle Club and Two Door Cinema Club used the name ‘club’ quite a lot, how about The Jürgen Clubs? Indeed, these football fans who are greatly influenced by Liverpool’s beloved manager Jürgen Klopp decided to pay tribute to the aforementioned bands with the band name, The Jürgen Clubs.
Although football carries symbolic meaning for this group, The Jürgen Clubs creates incredibly clever sounds with their energetic and indie rock tones. Currently, they are undoubtedly one of Denmark’s most popular and rising indie rock bands.
The Jürgen Clubs was born when Victor and Julius Schack, brothers known from Magnus Grilstad and Heimatt with Alcabean, decided to create a new and ambitious project in 2021 after performing at Denmark’s leading festivals such as Roskilde, Smukfest, and SPOT. Later, Sebastian Toft joined the group, and together they created a unique universe in the genre they invented, ‘jacuzzi-rock.’
The band’s vocalist, Magnus Grilstad, explains this genre: “For us, a jacuzzi means relaxation, sun, warmth, palm trees, water toys, and most importantly, vacation. When on vacation, people don’t take themselves too seriously. They put aside their prejudices, meet new people, have an extra cocktail that brings out their emotions, and share funny and strange stories. The essence of The Jürgen Club is largely this; that’s why we call it ‘Jacuzzi’”.
Performing again at SPOT Festival during prime time, the group brought their colourful and energetic world to the audience. Despite the crowd, The Jürgen Clubs was quite successful in capturing the audience with their strong stage performance. Last Friday, the band also released a very catchy and fun single titled “Country Boy.”
We had the chance to chat with The Jürgen Clubs a bit before the SPOT Festival.
-Hey there, Jürgen Clubs! How is it going? Let’s kick things off with a funny question about your band name. Any Liverpool fans in the house, and spill the beans on where “Jürgen Clubs” came from, will ya?
Things are GREAT! We’re looking forward for SPOT Festival and have prepared a killer show for you!
Well it’s one of those questions we might be a bit afraid to answer, football fans are very dedicated you know and we don’t want to scare people away by putting ourselves behind the wrong team – but the answer actually is that we are very spread out when it comes to what teams we like. When we started working on this band during corona, we needed a working title for all our internal playlists with demo’s etc and we had talked about how charming and charismatic we all thought Jürgen Klopp was – and suddenly The Jürgen Clubs appeared as a funny suggestion as a little homage to all the bands from the 00’s (Bombay Bicycle Club, Two Door Cinema Club) – we had the name as a working title for so long that we just could not come up with any ideas that we actually liked better and that had that vibe that we also want our shows and music to show off – funny, outgoing and not scared to overshare some stories from our daily lives.
– So, when I tune into your tunes, those rapid drum beats and groovy guitar riffs make me feel like I have just entered a video game world. Especially by listening tracks like “Soft”, I feel like I am on a pixelated adventure. Was creating this playful, game-like vibe always part of the plan for your music? Tell us more about diving into that 8-bit musical universe of The Jürgen Clubs.
It is funny that you mention the video game world – we actually just had Soft added in a video game called Roblox and we absolutely love the upbeat music that is in a lot of these video games – i think we try to expand our musical horizon and hope that there a few things that binds it together so that we can allow ourself to release singles that can experiment sound-wise, while making sure that we keep the good melodies and Magnus’s vocal to make things come together. One day it might be 8-bit soundscape, the next day we want to do a catchy pop tunes, but bind it together under the quirkiness that is a big part of us.
– Let’s talk visuals. That SIMS-inspired band photo of yours is a real eye-catcher. How did that quirky idea pop into your heads?
Aaall credit goes out to our bloody amazing photographer Line Westerboe – we usually set up a session with her every 6 months and just do a lot of weird stuff, she is such a great artist working with landscapes and knows us very well and gets the vibe we want to sent out into the world. So we have a loooot of weird and funny photos with her.
– While coming to musical influences, or inspirations. Who are the musical maestros that have shaped The Jürgen Clubs; unique sound and vibe? Could you tell a bit about the jacuzzi rock as well?
So the beforementioned homage to the bands of the 00’s aren’t just for fun, we really digg the 00’s and the bands that came out of it – our musical liking is a lot from back then and a lot of new artists so the inspiration list goes from Bombay Bicycle Club, to Japanese Breakfast, Mew, Phoenix, and i just keep mentioning bands and artists forever.
– And looking ahead, what is next on the horizon for The Jürgen Clubs?
Exciting times! We’re recording new material this summer and hopefully it will turn into a debut album that will be released in 2025, but let’s see. We want to keep growing and specially take our babysteps outside Denmark too, so we’re trying to set everything up for a broader release outside Denmark and increase our touring activity as well – we have some shows next year, and hopefully a festival summer as well next year.
