TMC Interviews The Sounds : “Guilty as fuck”, apparently.

by Fairy Cake.  Photos by Kat Green.

The Sounds are inarguably good.  Like Dylan, or cookie dough ice-cream, or pictures of babies in hanging baskets.  They are a juggernaut of mass appeal and we are lying in the road.

I learned at their packed-out show at KOKO that maintaining a composed, journalistic facade was not possible in the presence of such punch-the-air tunage; shoes were kicked off, arms were flailed, drunk teenage boys were idly elbowed in the face.  Commercial Swedish rock may not be a genre you commonly frequent, but I guarantee if we deposited you at a Sounds gig with their infectious peppy melodies blaring in your ears, you wouldn’t be able to control yourself either.

13 years of supporting acts like No Doubt, hanging out on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and getting liked by the liked of Dave Grohl and Quentin Tarintino, and we have the new album, ‘Something To Die’ for, which sits slightly sweeter and prettier next to it’s more middle-finger predecessors.  The Sounds have always been a pop act, but on the latest LP the synths and hand-claps are out in force.  There is no room for rock-star indifference; this record wants you to get the fuck up.

The crowd at KOKO did just that.  Never have I seen such a universally positive reception from Londoners.  Vocalist Maja Ivarsson is a crazy-hot front-woman. The spirit of her idols Debbie Harry and Courtney Love shines through in each high kick and wail, while the boys in the band back her with a solid tight sound and a visible enthusiasm which is a joy to watch.

Before the big show, and before FC had any time to develop her now-unwieldy crush on said front-woman, TMC sat down Maja, and guitarist Felix Rodriguez, to ask stupid questions and talk about Hole.  I left all the bizarre grammar in; it just makes them cuter.

Okay, stupid sound-related questions!  What’s your favourite sound?

Felix : From an instrument you mean?

Maja : It could be anything .. it could be like, when your boyfriend is calling, that could be a good sound right?

Yep.

M : Actually, we’ve been fighting the last couple of days so right now *laughs* … but usually, boyfriend calling, that’s a good sound.

F : I’d say .. the wind.

That’s deep…

F : Nah, it’s not deep, it’s just nice.   I’m not deep.  It sound nice, when it’s hot outside and you can hear the wind?  Swwwoooossssh, like that?  It makes me calm.

And what’s your favourite sound from The Sounds?

M : Oh my gosh, for me it changes every day pretty much.  If I’m in a bad mood I enjoy more … I dunno, maybe then I want to hear a more upbeat up-tempo dancey track?  It changes. Overall, I’m really proud of an old song, Rock and Roll.  It’s one from the first record, always been a bit of a favourite for me.

F : I’d say Better Off Dead.  The new one.  Because that one is a different sound to us usually.

So, a few moths ago you released the sheet music to that song, Better Off Dead, and held a competition for your fans to do their own version of it.  Be honest – were some of the submissions really awful?

F : A lot of …

*mass laugher*

F : No no no .. I mean, I wouldn’t say bad because it’s fun for us to listen to.  Some versions were … different *laughs*.

M : They were funny rather than bad…

F : Some were a little bit odd.  But it’s cool y’know, they tried at least to do a little bit, their version of it, y’know?

M : And there was a couple of them that were really good, like a hardcore band or a punk band.  Yeah, they made a really cool version of it.  And, this other finish band, this is so funny man, she’s wearing a birdcage on her head?  I mean, they’re just dressed up as lunatics.  And they play this song, and it sounds so awful.  They can’t really sing, they can’t really play their instruments, but it’s got a lot of heart and a lot of passion, and that’s why you’re like, ‘oh I love this!’ y’know?  It’s awful but I love it!’

F : There was a lot of techno.  It’s kind of weird to hear, but it’s still the same melody and lyrics so.

You guys do seem to have fans from everywhere – in the submissions there were disco bands and hardcore bands …

F : We have a very broad audience.  People from every genre.  I’m not sure why.  We have a lot of difference influences in our music, maybe that’s why?

M : I think you’re right, and I think it’s been like that for a long time.  Even since we started, because the music we were doing for the first record was really retro so a lot of people in their 40s and 50s, they were ilk e’ I remember when I was a teenager and I used to listen to music like this’, and they all fell in love with the band.  But then, there was a lot of teenagers, like 14 15 years old, and they’d never heard about these old retro bands, so for them, our music was all new, it was pop music.  And we also, I think  as band, a little bit of a chameleon sometimes.  I mean, we can do the Warp Tour, with loads of punk rockers and me bands, and we would still fit in.  And we can go on tour with the Stroke, like a super-cool indie band, and we’re still fitting in.  We can do a tour with No Doubt, and we still fit in.

Ever engage in an standard ‘rock star’ behaviour on those tours?

M : Erm, I think we’re much better now than we used to be.   We were not really ‘terrible’ but we had a reaaaaally good time.

F : We were enjoying our jobs *smiles*

You guys have been together for 13 years.  So many bands don’t last this long; how have you kept yourselves together?

F : Hahaha, I think the main key is to be friends from the beginning.    Friends can stay friends for a long time, and also have more respect for each other.  We all love to play music, we all love to create, and we want to make music for ourselves and for our fans.  And if everyone is on the same picture, then I think you will be okay.  But, it depends what kind of  people you are.

M : Yeah, we don’t really have anything else to compare it with.  I mean, we’ve all been in bands before, but to be honest we got our first publishing deal even before we finished high school.    So we kinda grew up together as teenagers, we grew up on tour…everything I know and everything I learnt was from being on tour.  Working in a band, no one of us have had any education except for the basic stuff *laughs*  And, this is the life we’re been living.  I don’t think there is a recipe for how to make it last, other than – like you said – respect for each other, and passion for what you do.

So, you’ve an album called Dying to Say This to You.  Now it’s Something to Die For. Your single is Better Off Dead. Aren’t the Sounds just a liiiitle obsessed with death?

F : Nah… no I don’t think so.

Someone’s morbid…

M : Maybe me. *smiles*

F : This is the title that’s representative of the whole album.  For us, something to die for is something positive.  It’s important that people have something that they really believe in, and that they stand behind.  And that’s what we do … for us, something to die for is music, it’s nothing to do with death.  It’s nothing to do with like, ‘I’m actually going to kill myself because of my band’, but I would do anything and anything it takes to stay alive in this band.  Erm, so we’re not morbid … well, maybe a little bit.  We’re from Sweden, it’s pretty dark and boring there *laughs*  And we write the music during the winter…

Interesting, ’cause there’re a lot of great poppy acts from Sweden. Is there something about Sweden, the “darkness” and “boringness”, that makes people make this kind of music?

M : Maybe, and also I do think we have a tradition of great bands.  ’Cause when I grew up I remember, it was never an option for us to sing in Swedish.  You can look back in musical history, anyone from Abba to Roxette to Ace of Base, even though those aren’t your favourite bands.  *looks at Felix * Europe - you loved Europe when you were a kid! *laughs*

But as a kid it’s important to see that.  If you come from a really small country like Sweden, where you don’t have English as your first language, it’s important to have role models to look up to and say, “well, they did it, that means that I can do it too”.  Even a band like the Cardigans – they came a little ahead of us, and it was like the Bjorn Borg effect.  Like, when the tennis star Bjorn Borg became really successful, after him there were like tonnes of Swedish tennis players and they were all super-successful.  I think it’s almost the same effect in music.  And we do have a great tradition of songwriters and good music – and a lot of pop music.

Maja – you’re bisexual right?  Did you ever have to ‘come out’ in the band?  ’Cause it looks like it was never treated as ‘a thing’, even though a lot of your fans at are from the States, and they have issues there…

M : Well, to be honest with you, I think we had that gay following before.  And I’m going to be straight up with you, I’ve only had one girlfriend in my whole life, and I don’t think I will ever have another girlfriend… That says it all.   I had boyfriends my whole life, then I met my girlfriend.  We were a couple for seven years.  It was a long relationship.  But I will never ever date another girl again.

Would you still consider yourself bi?

M : Erm… right now?  I don’t know.  What is the term for…. I fall in love with the person.  And I was surprised myself when I met this girl, I was like – “dude, I think I love her, and I’ve never had any kind of relationship with a woman before, but I do love her”.  And we hung out, and then we became a couple, and it ended really bad.  It was a really sad story, um….

Oh…I’m sorry…

M : No, but it’s fine, it’s fine.  But, when that came out, I thought, “I guess I am bisexual then, cause I am dating a girl”.  It never really hit me before, until I met her.  Now I’m dating a boy, and, I dunno….maybe I just got burned really hard, y’know?  But this gay label that we had on our band, I think we had that before I met that girl.  Cause, Felix is such a cute boy, and Jasper, the keyboardist, he has a lot of gay followers.  Lots of pretty boys.  But actually, in America, I never even thought about it -  I know what you mean, ’cause they’re very conservative and religious and all that crap, but it’s been the opposite.  I think we gained a lot from being straight up honest about our lives.  It’s not that I wanna tell the world about everything about my personal life, but it didn’t backfire on us.  I think we got a bigger crowd, and a better crowd, yeah.

You’re on pretty much every ‘Hottest Women in Rock’ list going.  Who would be on yours?

M : Erm…I would say, I think Grace Jones is.  Only because she is so different.  She is so masculine and so feminine at the same time.  She’s so powerful.  And obviously I do think of Debbie Harry.  She’s an icon.  Because she could combine true rock and roll with being a bad girl.  I’m not trying to say that she was all bad – but she was a ‘bad girl’, she was a pretty woman, and she was doing it in high heels and a dress.  And that’s when I got turned on.  I was thirteen years old when I discovered that band and I thought ‘this is how it’s meant to be’.  ’Cause all the swedish  songwriters we had were writing for Britney Spears and Christian Aguilera, and all those boy bands and pop artists that were popular in the early 2000s, when we were starting out.  And all the young girls and girls my age were looking up to really innocent girls in school uniforms, and them being so like “I’m so innocent, I’m a virgin”.  I wanted to represent something else.  I wanna be the opposite.  I’m not, how’d you say, innocent!?  I’m guilty as fuck.  I’ve done shit you wouldn’t even … y’know …

I can kind of tell …

M : *laughs* I just wanna represent something else.  That young girls can look up to and say, ‘I don’t have to look like them’.  You can be a strong woman, and a bad girl, and you can do things your mom won’t agree with.  You don’t have to look like an innocent little school girl.

Okay so, I’ve got one more question.  Our site is called The Most Cake … you know after ‘I wanna bee the giiirl with the most cake…”

M : I loved Hole!  Live Thru This?

I totally grew up with that record.

M : Me too.   That’s why I got into bands.  Such an inspiration.

Really?  Oh wait, sorry, we should move on, we only have a minute left…

M : But I wanna sit here and talk forever about this!  *laughs*

And Violet was on that album too…

M : I know I know!

Right, shit, cake cake cake.   What’s your favourite type of cake?

M : Y’know, I have a sweet tooth, but I’m not really chocolate person.  I like carrot cake?  It is kinda weird maybe, but I love it.  ’Cause I’m not a big chocolate fan. *turns to Felix* What’s your favourite cake?

F : Princess Cake.  I don’t think you have it here.  It’s a sweet cake … like a marzipan cake, like your grandma and grandpa would make.  You get it for your birthday in Sweden.

M : It has creme, jam, sponge cake and a layer of marzipan.