Hello, hey, hi and also welcome to the weird but curious minority who use hullo,
Welcome to another Monday instalment of your favourite music Substack letter. Today we’ve got Swedish sister act First Aid Kit telling about their poppy new record and breaking into glorious song for Niall. We could post the audio of that bit into the interview but is it worth it? Really? Nah, we’ll file it alongside the time Niall got all awkward when Perry Farrell started talking about threesomes and save it for the New Cue boxset that’ll come out in 2041.
I had been meaning to keep intro short and snappy, it’s a bad habit of mine, just can’t stop typing hot air, see, I’m still going, hey, what’s your favourite flavour Chicken Kiev cos you know you can get chip shop curry ones these days?
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Ted, Niall and Chris
Start The Week With… First Aid Kit
On Friday, Swedish sister duo First Aid Kit released their fifth album Palomino. It’s Klara and Johanna Söderberg’s poppiest record to date, retooling their folky harmonising with an uplifting sonic flourish and featuring some of their most charged anthems yet. Last week, Niall spoke to the siblings ahead of the album’s release, looking back to the first time they harmonised together, discovering that there’s a third member of the family who could one day join the gang and more…
Hello both, how are you?
Johanna: I’ve got a bit of a cold, excuse the sneezing.
Ah, it’s the season for it. Where are you at the moment?
Klara: We’re at Johanna’s house.
Apart from being a bit sniffly, how’s your Friday?
Johanna: We’re good. It’s nice having my sister over at the house and her dog Pablo.
Klara: Yes, please excuse any barking.
Johanna: We just did a music video last night so we’re a little tired from that but it was really great.
Who’s got the tidiest house out of you both?
Klara: Oh, Johanna, definitely.
Johanna: The tidiest or tiniest?
Tidiest!
Johanna: Mine is smaller and tidy, yeah.
Klara: Mine’s not too bad. I’m OK.
The new record will be out by the time this chat comes out. How do you feel just ahead of putting a record out, does it get easier?
Johanna: No, it’s scarier the more records you put out. We love the time before a record is out because it feels like you’re walking around with this big secret and no-one else has heard. But then it goes out into the world and it doesn’t belong to you anymore, it belongs to the listeners. And that’s the point, we have to release it!
What are the first things that come to mind when you look back over the process of making it?
Klara: I just think of being in the studio with Daniel Bengtsson, the producer, and Johanna. A lot of it was just the three of us working in the studio together and having a lot of fun and being very playful.
Johanna: It was the most pleasant recording experience we’ve ever had, it was so fun. And we said that in the studio, that when we look back at this record, we’re just gonna think about all these good memories.
Klara: And it also wasn’t stressful and that was a big thing for us because we were making it at home and we got to take the time we needed and come back every day, there was no rush. Before when we’d made records abroad, it’s always been this thing where we only have a couple of weeks to make a record and you don’t have time try everything you want to try. With this, if we wanted we could make five different versions of songs. It was nice to have that space and time to do that.
Was the decision to make it at home a circumstantial thing or deliberate?
Johanna: It was the global event! The pandemic forced us to stay at home.
Klara: And now we’re very happy about it. We initially wanted to go to America cos that’s where we made our last three records and we felt like having a ‘name’ producer was something we needed for our music, ‘let’s get an American producer!’, but now we’ve realised we don’t. It’s been great working with Mike Mogis and Tucker Martine but it’s such a relief to find someone next door who was also a great, creative person and who understood our music. It gave us a lot of confidence in that we know what sounds good in our songs and our vocals and all of that is enough.
Take me back to the beginning of it. Do you have an idea of what you want to make or does it just happen and you follow it?
Johanna: A bit of both. We started talking about it when we were on tour and that was the first time we’d talked about a new record, because we’re not always writing. Our initial talks were like, ‘let’s make a more uplifting record’, because the last one was very bleak.
Klara: And then the songs came and that’s the number one thing that dictates what the album is gonna be, the songs. We don’t plan that, it’s more one of us has an idea and we work on that.
The album has a poppy swagger about it, where did that come in?
Johanna: That’s something we wanted to try and we wanted to do for a while. It felt exciting and new for us to go in a poppier direction and I think we were ready for it. Before, we wanted it to be more indie Americana.
Klara: It also feels more of a challenge for us, like can we make a record if we take away these comforts, if we take these elements away, what happens then?
Johanna: And it’s listening a lot to pop music. It’s always been an inspiration – like ABBA, it’s so basic, we’re Swedish! That was the first record we bought as kids so it was going back to our roots.
And you’ve got the same thing where in your poppier moments, there’s a bittersweetness to it…
Johanna: Yeah, and I think that’s so important. If you read the lyrics, it’s a sad record in a lot of ways but the uplifting groovy sounds hide that, we love that combination of happy-sad.
Lyrically, what did you feel compelled to write about?
Johanna: It’s a mix. I haven’t analysed the lyrics yet and I don’t know if I want to…
Klara: You shouldn’t!
Johanna: It’s a lot of nostalgia and I think that’s largely due to the pandemic, we had stillness and we could actually reflect on everything we’ve been through together. When you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard to see what it is you’re doing and how crazy it is. There’s a lot of looking back.
What’s been the toughest time you’ve had making a record?
Johanna: When we made Stay Gold, we were short on songs going into the studio and having to feel three or four songs and felt rushed but that record turned out so great. It was hard but I don’t think you could hear it. Ruins was difficult because Klara lived in Manchester and I lived in Sweden and it was hard to write together. We even wrote a song over Skype and also we were going through such different things, Klara was going through heartbreak, it’s a lot about her emotions and I think this one is a lot more shared feelings.
Which song on the new record means the most to you?
Johanna: Angel is very emotional because it’s about self-acceptance. Klara and I are very hard on ourselves and the crowd really seems to respond to it, we’ve got a lot of messages to people.
Klara: 29 Palms Highway means a lot to me. It’s about losing the joy for music and then finding it again.
Johanna: Tell the story Klara!
Yeah go on Klara, tell the story.
Klara: Well, it’s about this trip that I took with a friend of mine to Joshua Tree right before the pandemic, in November 2019. I was really feeling very lost and I didn’t know if I could continue making music. The joy was gone. We went to Joshua Tree, which is me and Johanna’s favourite place in the world, and I went there and played Gram Parsons for my friend the whole car ride from LA out to the desert and then we got to Joshua Tree Inn, which is on 29 Palms Highway and I just started crying and felt like I was connected to that part of myself again somehow, being in that place and being reminded of why I love music and what it means to me. It was a powerful time and I put that into words on 29 Palms Highway.
There you go, you had to tell that story. What’s the most annoying thing about each other when you’re making a record?
Klara: Well, we’re very different energetically.
Johanna: Are we though?
Klara: Mmm, well, that’s not true. The best thing is that we both get very excited but the way that we work in general in life is different. I like to take things slow and I think Johanna is the opposite. That’s where we can have difficulty… do you not agree?
Johanna: ahhh…
Klara: [to Niall] What have you done now?!
Johanna: Yes and no. I think you can be kind of impatient as well.
Klara: That’s true.
Johanna: And I can be like, ‘let’s work on this’ and you’re like, ‘nah, I don’t feel like it’. I think the studio is a good place for us to be, we don’t really fight over things that much. We fight about other things but we’re in tune in the studio.
Who’s your favourite group that’s also got siblings in?
Klara: We’ve listened a lot to the Everly Brothers and the Louvin Brothers.
Johanna: Carter Family, old country. The Roaches are also great, a sister trio.
Klara: Also we love Kate and Anna McGarrigle. We didn’t understand the sibling thing was a special part of it when we started making music, we didn’t think about it until other people were like, ‘oh, you’re two sisters who sing together, that’s so cool, that’s so special’. We were like, ‘is it?’. That’s something now that when we listen to other siblings who sing together, we get it.
Johanna: It’s the best feeling when Klara and I sing together and feel like one, like it’s one voice. Sometimes we can’t even distinguish who is doing what, we don’t even know, we’re like one being sometimes.
Can you remember the first time where you sang together and you were like, ‘whoa!’
Johanna: We didn’t start to do harmonies until we were teenagers and when we started the band. We watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? and started singing those songs, that’s how we taught ourselves harmonies. [they both break into a perfectly harmonised rendition of Down To The River To Pray]. We used to sing that a lot. We still harmonise with each other all the time, just walking round the house.
Klara: We argue a lot about who gets to do the harmony.
Johanna: I really wish we had a third sister so we could do a three-part harmony. We have a brother though.
What’s his singing voice like?
Klara: Great! He’s 18 and he’s making his own music so we’ll see what happens with that. He’s very welcome to join us!
ND