Music > Interviews
First Aid Kit
09/12/14
You know you’ve hit the big time when you appear on your country’s stamps. This is exactly what’s happened to Swedish folk singers First Aid Kit. From Stockholm, these two sisters have been making music and writing songs since childhood. Their big break came in 2008 when their cover version of the Tiger Mountain Peasant Song by Fleet Foxes hit Youtube to wondrous acclaim. Since then they’ve gone from strength to strength and have worked with Jack White, Conor Oberst, The Knife and Jenny Lewis amongst others. Heading out on tour with their most recent epic album Stay Gold, they’ll be playing Norwich in January. I caught up with Johanna to find out more about their rise to fame and their heart rending harmonies..
You first played Norwich back in 2010 at our (award winning) Arts Centre and now you're playing our largest venue, The UEA. This UK tour finds you playing a host of substantial venues. How are you finding performing to bigger and bigger crowds?
We are finding it quite amazing. Of course it’s different to perform for 5,000 people rather than 50. The gigs now are a little bit bigger in terms of production, more people are involved and we have more lights. However, still we haven’t changed that much! We’re only a four piece on stage, and we keep performing our song ”Ghost Town” completely unplugged. There is still a sense of simplicity and intimacy. We want to stay true to our thing, connecting with the audience through our lyrics and harmonies. It’s so cool that more people have gotten into our music; we’re very happy and thankful for that.
In September you played and sold out The Royal Albert Hall in London. How was the experience of performing at such a beautiful and historic venue?
It was a surreal moment for us. When we met our booking agent back in 2009 she told us that in five years we’d be doing a sold out show at The Royal Albert Hall. We simply couldn’t believe her; we thought she was crazy. Yet she was right, and there we were! We were so freaking nervous the entire day. Just walking through the halls and seeing all the photos of the legends who’d played there before, it built quite an anticipation. However, the show went amazingly well. It felt surprisingly intimate despite being such a huge room. We had a lot of our family from Sweden fly to London for the show, so it was like a big family gathering. It was a special night we shall never forget; a true highlight of our career.
Your latest album 'Stay Gold' has a fuller sound and utilizes more instruments that your previous records. Were you involved with the arrangements on the album and do you enjoy being in the studio?
We loved being in Omaha and recording the album with Mike Mogis. He’s an incredible producer and his studio is insane. It’s a huge room with killer equipment. When we were working on the demos for the album we realized some of the songs called for a bigger arrangement, like an epic, grand, movie soundtrack sound. We wanted to explore playing more with outside musicians to create an emotional dynamic range, without of course overshadowing the message of the songs and our vocals. We’re really happy with the end result.
What is your songwriting process and how easily does it flow?
There is no real method to what we do. All songs are written in different ways. We try to be as emotional and intuitive as possible when writing. The more we start analyzing the more tricky it gets to write, especially lyrics. Inspiration can strike at any time so we have a lot of little audio recordings in our phones. Usually a song starts with Klara - she figures out a line or a verse. Then we get together and finish the song. We always write with just vocals and a guitar.
Your voices blend beautifully. Do you think being sisters gives you an intuition that you may not have shared with other vocal partners?
The fact that we’re sisters makes it so much easier to harmonize. It’s a very intuitive, automatic process. We have similar tones and phrase in a similar way. Usually it’s whatever harmonies I think of when we write a song that we end up using in the final recording. For us, figuring out the harmonies is the easiest part of arranging a song! Whenever we sing with someone else we’ve realized how tricky it is to follow them. There’s a lot we can take for granted when we sing together as sisters.
Who are some of your favourite exponents of vocal harmony past and present?
There are so many! We’ve been inspired by old country brother duos like The Louvin Brothers or The Everly Brothers. We of course adore Simon & Garfunkel. They have some of the best harmonies in the world. It’s also great to listen to other sisters who harmonies. For example Kate & AnnaMcGarrigle, The Staves and The Roches. Fleet Foxes are a big inspiration as well.
Do you have a favourite song to perform live (that you're BOTH agreed on)?
It’s always special to perform ”Ghost Town”. It’s a song from our first record that means a lot to us both. We perform the song completely unplugged, step away from the microphones and ask everyone in the room to be silent. It’s such a cool part of the show where we really get to interact with the crowd. It’s an icebreaker. It’s awesome to see thousands of people being completely quiet for 5 minutes.
You are only 21 and 24 respectively, yet there's a maturity and 'worldly wise' streak running through your lyrics and performances. What do you put that down to and do you think there is, in fact, something in the old cliche about Scandinavian melancholy?
Oh …we don’t know. We always get told that we have ”old souls”. It’s a strange idea for us. We don’t think we’re any more mature than other people our age. We’ve always loved writing stories and listening to music that relies heavily on the lyrics. We think we’re just inspired by other country music which in general tends to have pretty dark themes. There probably is something to the cliche about Scandinavian melancholy; it’s brutal to live in Sweden during the winter. The darkness, the cold… it’s very isolating and it gets to you. If you’re already in a dark place mentally, the weather just makes it can get hard to handle. We tend to write most in the winter. There’s something beautiful about it too. If you listen to Swedish pop songs, even the most cheesy popular ones, there’s almost always a sadness luring in the background.
When you're on a foreign tour what do you most miss about Sweden? For most 'Brits abroad' it's Marmite and 'proper tea' but what culinary and cultural treats do you long for on the road?
I miss Swedish coffee a lot; it’s just so good and strong. I’m always disappointed at the coffee outside of Scandinavia. Mostly though we miss home cooked meals. We bake our own gluten free bread with almond and coconut flour that is very good! We both miss Swedish TV, but we try to keep up with what’s going on at home by reading newspapers online and watching shows we like online. It’s tricky though!
Apart from established favourites what will you be playing on the tour bus this time around? Are there any contemporary UK artists you think we should check out?
Will be playing a lot of Hurray For The Riff Raff, Angus & Julia Stone, Amason Samantha Crain, Willy Mason. When it comes to UK bands, we love the sister trio The Staves, they’re insanely good at harmonizing. We also love a singer songwriter called Jo Rose, he just released his debut album. Other contemporary UK musicians we love are Bat For Lashes, James Blake, Laura Marling, Johnny Flynn, Slow Club. We’re very inspired by UK music.
Johanna, do you still have a penchant for German Techno?
No, I don’t, ha ha. It’s so funny how it says I had a big love for German techno on our Wikipedia page and now that gets brought up in interviews all the time. I had a crush on this goth punk guy when I was 15, so I got into the same music as him and started dressing like him to impress him. But it was only for about six months, a very brief period of intense German techno-listening!
In the past you've collaborated with Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes as well as The Fleet Foxes. Are there any musicians out there who you'd still love to work with and can we expect any more collaborations in the near future?
There are so many talented musicians out there. We’ve been so lucky to get to meet so many of our musical heroes. We’re thrilled we got to sing a little with Jenny Lewis on her latest record ”The Voyager”. We hope we can get to perform with her live some day. We’d also love to sing with Emmylou Harris. Or Leonard Cohen. You never know!
Along with fellow countrymen Goat and Robyn, you got to play (and went down a storm) at our local Latitude festival this summer. Did you get to enjoy any of its abundant treats or was it straight in and back on the tour bus after your set
It was a very hectic day. We got to Latitude straight from the airport in Norway and had only slept about five hours. So unfortunately we didn’t get to hang around. We passed out after our show! We have been to Latitude before though and it’s a wonderful festival, one of our favorites.
You just finished your tour in America and played the famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. As evident fans of country music is this something of a dream come true?
It totally was a dream come true! The venue has such a history you could feel it in the atmosphere. We got goosebumps just stepping into the room. It was one of the best shows on the tour. We did a special performance of Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? by the Carter Family, to honor the country music tradition and its roots. Just to get to hang around in Nashville meant a lot to us. We got to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame where we saw Maybelle Carter’s old guitar and Gram Parsons’ Nudie suit. It was magical.
You've also been invited to play on some of the big nightly talk shows that are a fixture out there. How was it performing to a potential audience of millions?
It was awesome! We’ve been so lucky to get to go on both Conan and Letterman twice. Those are shows we watched as kids. Both of those guys have been super nice to us. We get extremely nervous playing on TV but we managed to get through it alright. It’s weird because you spend all day there just waiting to perform and then it’s over in three minutes. Those three minutes feel like a second!
First Aid Kit play at UEA on 25th January. Tickets available from www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk