Groupe:

Blues Pills

Date:

17 Mai 2016

Interviewer:

Blaster, Evanessa

Interview Elin Larsson (face to face)

You toured Europe again quite recently with a few dates in France. How did this tour go? Aren’t you tired of touring for the first album, you’ve been doing that a lot for the last couple of years, right?

Maybe I would be but I think our songs develop more and more as we play them live. And we also develop as a band so… For the last tour, we improvised way more than we did when we started touring, we changed bits in some songs and I think we make the shows more interesting now for the audience but also for us. And it was also the opportunity, recently, to play more dates in different parts of France, so it was nice.

You shared the stage with White Miles, how did things go with them?

It went good. They’re super, they’re a great band, so passionate, and they’re really in it for the music. We had great talks in the evening because we stayed in the same bus. So, yeah, it was really cool.

During this tour, you played a new song “Elements and Things” as well as “Yet To Find” an acoustic ballad that’s supposed to be a bonus song… Is it going to be a bonus track for the new album “Lady In Gold”?

The thing is we recorded “Yet To Find” but we weren’t really satisfied with it because it was done kind of in a rush… and the other thing is that, Cory Berry, our previous drummer, co-wrote the song with me and Zach. He isn’t in the band anymore but we wanted to record it the right way, let him play on it and give him the money for that song… So, for the moment, this song isn’t going to be released.

Have you, by chance, filmed one of the recent shows for a future DVD release?

The Hammer Of Doom show was filmed but it was even before the first album came out and it was released as a bonus DVD with the album… Some people filmed a show we did in Gothenburg as well but I think that now, with the new albums getting released, it’s going to be more interesting. We’ll have more songs to pick, we can choose the best ones from the first album and new ones to, and I think it might be a good idea to have something professionally made for the next tour.

Next summer, you’ll play at Rock en Seine, the same day as Iggy Pop among others… I suppose that's quite a highlight.

Yeah, that’s great! (laughs) And we’ve also got another tour coming up in October and November with four or five dates in France…

Yes, exactly. I was surprised to find there was no date planned in Paris though… Is this because you play Rock en Seine at the end of August?

No, I think we’re definitely going to play in Paris, they haven’t announced it yet but it will happen… We’ll to play at The Trianon on October 30th.

Great news! You’ll share the bill with Kadavar. Did you choose to tour with this band or is it something that came from the label?

No, we’re friends with them. We toured with them once in Australia and we supported them on that tour… it was in 2013. But we were actually friends before that… We have often talked about doing a tour together in Europe and this is the perfect time to do that. That’s going to be great! It’s going to be like a family tour.

You’re not a metal band, still you’re signed on a metal label, Nuclear Blast… Do you like this style of music? How come you've decided to work with them? Has the label ever tried to ask you to incorporate heavier elements in your music?

Yes, we’re definitely the weirdoes on that label, compared to Behemoth, Slayer and all these metal bands (laughs)… When we got signed, we actually had five offers that were super good for us so we had a lot to choose from and we could also negotiate better deals because of that… But the thing with Nuclear Blast is that they didn’t want to change us at all and we felt a connection with the people working there and I don’t regret choosing them, seeing how they helped and pushed us. So I think you shouldn’t look at the size of a label but you should look at the people and if you feel they believe in you, you know they’re going to do the extra mile and push you.

It’s cool they never tried to make you incorporate make you a heavier band…

Absolutely! They’ve been really supportive, you know. When we delivered the first album, we told them we’d like the second one to be more soul and they said “Good! No metal! Just soul! Excellent!”…

Great! What are your musical tastes? Do you appreciate bands or the style of music you can find on Nuclear Blast?

I’ve been trying to start becoming a Behemoth super hardcore fan but I haven’t really succeeded yet! But I’m trying (laughs). I take my time going through all their albums… That’s about it. And of course, Black Sabbath had a big influence on me when I was a teenager. Apart from that, a band that was important to me was The Doors. They introduced to me to music from the seventies or the sixties.

How did all the music you like come to you?

In Sweden, we can have music at school… I don’t know if you have this in France but in high school, the last three years, you can choose to go with either music, art or theatre and you can mix that with all the important subjects like English, mathematics, Swedish… I took music lessons there and studied the history of music. We were all kinds of different students put together, with different tastes and different influences. When I started singing, I listened to a lot of soul, so that’s my ground, so to speak. And then I met all these metalheads who were into Black Sabbath and Witchcraft… So what happens is that you share with your friends. I also come from an artistic family, my mom had this little theatre when we were growing up, we played, we sang, we painted, we weren’t allowed to watch TV… my dad is also very fond of music, he loves the Beatles, Cat Stevens, classical music too… so there was a lot of music, and lots of different kinds of music, when I was growing up.

Let’s talk about the new album now. Right from the first track; a new sound is noticeable, still very vintage but not as guitar oriented as for the first album. The presence of keyboards and other arrangements is also quite remarkable…

Yes, it’s a bigger production than the first album. And this one is more soul influenced. We started recording it at the end of 2014 and we wrote all the songs in the studio. We went on tour and back to the studio all the time. We recorded in the same studio and with the same producer that we had for the first album. I remember on the first record, I did all the back ups, the choirs myself, I had to figure out a harmony on the spot and that’s what’s on the record… But this time, I took all the demos and I started writing choir arrangements at home and I also picked out a few singers I know in Gothenburg and we practised harmonies and we went to the studio. I got a lot of support from our producer and from Zach, our bass player, as well because I had never done anything like that before... It was a challenge and it turned out great. I think we matured on this album… the fact that we played so many shows, that we’ve seen so many places and done so many things together, it gives you a wider perspective on things, so I think this album has a wider range of musical influences.

Was the writing mainly shared between Zach and you again this time?

Yes, we write together. It works very well for us. If I stop or if he stops, the other one comes up with input and it goes faster in a way, I would say.

Is there a theme, lyrically speaking, to this album?

We cover different topics but we used more made-up stories this time. I really got inspiration from listening a lot to Kate Bush because her lyrics are really like story-telling… So yeah, we created that more on this record compared to the first one.

I read somewhere that the lady in gold was a symbol for death…

Yeah. She’s a made up character symbolizing death. She’s this powerful woman, strong, beautiful but deadly… And you don’t want to meet her but one day you will. The song says that you should not be scared, not live in fear and that you should do what you like, basically.

What about the song “Bad Talkers”? Is it a message sent to people who criticize or say bad things about you?

Of course, there are people saying bad things about us… It’s ok, I don’t get sad about it anymore. It’s more about people interfering with other people’s business or lives. There’s a line in that song: “Haven’t you heard about evil? It tells you what to do. What if we all were equal and no one was judging you”… Which I think is relevant subject because in this society we deal with racism, sexism, homophobia and all kinds of discrimination. Why can’t people just let people be? That’s the message of that song.

Any singles or videos coming up?

“Lady in Gold” is going to be the first single. “I Felt A Change”, a ballad, will be the second one… We haven’t decided on the third one yet, we have to choose between “Burned Out” and “Little Boy Preacher”. I hope it’s going to be “Little Boy Preacher”, I really think this is a great song. We already shot two videos. In the video for the title track, I actually play the lady in gold character… this one is definitely going to be a little spooky but in a good way (laughs). We shot this video in a super old castle nobody had touched for years, all the scenography was there, you know, there was dust nobody had cleaned for so long…

As your music is obviously retro, did you record the album “live” like they did back in the day?

We recorded everything analog and the producer mixed it analog as well. But at first, we focus on the drums track and the bass track. But when we record the bass and drums, I still sing and Dorian plays the guitar too so we get the real feeling. Then, later, we overdub the guitar and the vocals. With the choir, we actually did overdubs too. We recorded two tracks. But we were all singing together in the same room but it sounds like we were eight people when in fact we were just four (laughs).

A word about the very vintage artwork, you chose the same artist who did your first album, right?

Yeah, we were just so happy we could work with Marijke Koger-Dunham again. She’s a legendary artist, you know. She’s Dutch but she has lived in California for a long time now. She painted Eric Clapton’s guitar, she’s worked with The Beatles, I think she has painted in George Harrison’s house, his fireplace… We were just super happy she wanted to work with us again. I think her art complements our music really well… it’s important as it is the first thing you’ll see about the new record in a store. There’s a lot of symbolism and it reflects our lyrics as well. All the artwork we use, she painted that in the sixties… but the recent one for “Lady In Gold” was actually in black and white, so she just coloured it for us recently.

Is a four member band the ideal formula for Blues Pills or have you thought about having extra members (a keyboard player, a second guitar player)?

Yeah, we’re actually having an additional musician on the next tour. His first show will be in Norway for the Tons of Rock festival. He plays the organ, he’s gonna play keyboards but also rhythm guitar and his name is Rickard Nygren. He’s super tall so we call him “Long Legs” (laughs).

Do you have any other projects not related to Blues Pills on the side?

Yeah, I write a lot of music in general but I haven’t really done anything with it yet… And we are all building our own analog studio in Sweden, so we think we’re going to create something there, maybe write songs for other artists or record things, maybe a solo record in the future…

The last word:

Well, to our fans: thank you for your support. Enjoy the new album… and I hope you’ll come to our shows in France in the Fall!!