Unmistakably Nordic in flavor, Sofia Talvik somehow still conforms to American interpretations of her own original music, a North Sea siren blending sparkle and melancholy, creating a special niche of folk music.
In just a week my US tour begins. December is already packed with gigs all over the Sunshine State (Florida). I mean it’s the place to be when my home country is all dark and cold, right! So I packed my bags and flew over the ocean and here I am. I just bought an RV that I’m fixing up so I can have somewhere to lay my hat on the road. It’s an old Gulfstream Conquest, and it turned out to be a bit more work that I had hoped for. But now that we tore most of the interior out, we can start putting things in and hopefully we’ll be able to live in it a week from now (termites and water leaks hopefully gone).
The first gig is at the Broward Folk Clubat Your big picture Café in Davie, December 2nd. Then we’ll head back to Orlando and work our way from there down the west coast and then up the east coast. You can find all information about dates and venues HERE! If you are interested in hosting a house concert or have a venue that you would like me to play at, please contact me here!
Soon the last part of H.A.T.E will be released by Swedish metal band Akribi. We managed to keep them still for a few minutes to ask them some questions about the meaning of life and metal…
Hi Akribi! You guys are doing “E – Part Four of H.A.T.E”. How has the experience been so far? Definitely different. We’re not at all used to interpreting other musician’s materials, nor working with such tight deadlines, but it’s been a very fun and rewarding experience so far.
Great! Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves? We’re a female-fronted progressive metal band based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The band started out back in 2003, based on the idea of playing ambitious metal with strong songwriting. It’s an ideal that has remained intact through countless lineup changes over the years. As a consequence of this, we like to work with a slightly expanded palette of scales, chords and time signatures in our music. Oh, and let’s just get one very common misconception out of the way… “female-fronted” in this case does not mean “gothic” or “operatic”.
Just like Badmouth you’re releasing this EP only a few months after your album release. Are you always this productive? Given the right circumstances, sure. As hinted above, the band has had a bit of a rough history with lineup changes and whatnot. We have begun writing the next album and it’s going surprisingly fast so maybe we’ve learnt a thing or two about efficiency.
Did you think it was hard to interpret Sofia’s songs into your own style or did you get ideas straight away? We decided to transcribe the chords and scales that Sofia used. After we had done that we stopped listening to Sofia’s versions and began working. We sent note sheets with ideas to each other; “Could this be something?”, “Would this passage sound better if we changed scales to Lydian?”, “What happens if we add this chord there?” and so on and then we tried playing the ideas. We changed a lot, added riffs and details to make it more Akribi. It took us about a month and then we recorded it, sent it to our mixing guys in Brazil and voilà.
Which of the songs are you most pleased with and why? It’s difficult to pick a song. It sounds weird but when you live with a song in the intense way that’s required for writing and recording it it sort of becomes your baby. The song we play the most often nowadays is The Garden. The guitar solos are great and Alexander gets to play his Chapman Stick and that always makes him happy. Our songs are usually pretty long and that makes set lists tricky to do so it’s good to have a shorter-than-four-minutes-song up our sleeve.
What’s your favorite gig memory? That must be the first time we were on stage and the audience sang along with our song Carry the Rain. It’s an incredible feeling. But if you’re looking for an awkward anecdote it must be when the guards didn’t let our drummer back into the building after a sound check. He tried to convince them that he was in the band but the guards told him “yeah right, that’s what everybody says”. The rest of us were backstage ready to go on stage not knowing where he was.
Can you tell us a little bit about the recording sessions and what was most fun with being a part of this project? Well, the recording workflow was the same that we always follow. When we’ve written the chord progressions, melodies and overall structure of a song, we record (or in this particular case, program) a drum track and have everyone record their parts individually to that. All recordings are then assembled in a sequencer and a rough pre-mix is done. Feedback is sent out, obscene words are exchanged, and adjustments are made. When everyone is sufficiently satisfied, the tracks are sent away for mixing. The most interesting and fun part of this project was that is was far out of the realm of what we usually do. Apart from on a few auditions, we don’t play or record external material. Oh, and we finally got to put a growling part in a song, courtesy of Rafael Basso of “Unlit Face”.
What’s next on the agenda for Akribi this winter? In October we got a new drummer and we’re in the process of getting to know each other musically and he’s learning all our songs. Parallel to this we’re in contact with booking agents and promoters around Europe. Music is always better live and life on stage is great so we’ll play live as much as possible.
If you would record a Christmas metal album, which three songs would be on your list? Hey, we’re a metal band! We don’t do Christian things 😉
Thanks for hanging out! We look forward to hearing the songs 🙂
I’m so happy to announce that we met our goal in the pledge and thanks to all of you who pledged we will be able to release the last part of L.O.V.E next week. If you haven’t pledged you can still pre-order the physical CD, T-shirts and other goods up till November 1st. After that the EP will only be available as a digital download.
For this update I thought we’d grill the producer a little bit, so I tied him to his amplifier and made him answer all these questions…
Marcus Högquist recording some guitar
Marcus Högquist, you are the producer of “E – Part Four of L.O.V.E” and you are also the guitarist in Sofia’s band since many years, how do you think this recording was different than the others you’ve made with Sofia? More guitars 🙂 The previous recordings I´ve done with Sofia have all been different from each other. For example, the first one we recorded almost completely live with just two microphones. All of us sitting in the same room and playing together. And for that one we used mostly acoustic instruments. For the following records we have been doing more and more overdubs, recorded separetly and used more electronic sounds. This time I’ve tried to capture the essence of Sofia’s songs and let them guide me toward where I was going. Maybe in some cases I’ve put them in a slightly new context, soundwise.
What’s your favorite song on the EP and why? I like them all. But if I have to pick just one I’d say If I had a man. I’m really pleased with how it came out.
If you would describe this EP as the love child of two bands/artists, which would that be? John McEnroe and Mats Wilander 😉
If you would have had an unlimited budget, is there anything you would have done differently? I think I would have recorded the songs live with the band in a big fancy studio somewhere in the countryside. We would stay there for a few days and be totally focused on making the best record ever. For relaxation between the sessions some of us would play some tennis, Christian would go fishing in the lake just outside the studio and Sofia would probably get a nice massage.
How come you chose “Lower Case Letters” as your re-make song? Actually the new rhythm feel of that song came out of a mistake during a rehearsal that Sofia and I where doing for a promotion tour a few years ago. So for the following tour we decided to stick with that new rhythm arrangement and we did on our last US tour with the band as well. Then, when I was asked to pick an old song for this recording I just thougt it would be nice to record it that way.
Marcus and Sofia playing live. Photo: Jonny Andersson
What was your biggest challenge as a producer? Because I recorded a lot of the stuff myself, I’d say being the the producer and the musician at the same time.
Exactly how many guitar tracks can we expect on “E – Part Four of L.O.V.E” ? 😉 Billions!!!
What’s your best words of wisdom when producing an album? Keep an open mind. It might be good to have a plan for how you want the songs to sound. But be open for new ideas during the process and let them inspire you.
Thanks Marcus! We look forward to hearing your awesome creation!
“E – Part Four of L.O.V.E” is being released November 1st.
We caught a few moments with Chris LeMon from Badmouth to hear what his thoughts about their new EP “T – Part Three of H.A.T.E” are. “T – Part Three of H.A.T.E” will be released November 1st and you can pre-listen and pre-order it here!
Badmouth, Photo by Michael Johansson
Hi Badmouth! You’re making “T – Part Three of H.A.T.E” would you start by telling us a little bit about your music and your band? Badmouth started 4 years ago, we released our debut album in 2008 and our second album this summer, which is produced by Chips Kiesbye. When we got the offer to do this EP we just couldn’t resist, such a cool thing to be part of, so even though we just released the album we called Chips and he was up for it … Badmouth is rock’n’roll, its about having a good time, we are having a great time and we want the crowd to smile as they see us live, its all about the love for music …
You’re usually writing your own songs, so what did you think was the hardest part of making Sofia’s songs feel like your own? Actually nothing was hard … haha … It’s great songs! The hardest one was “To watch the bridges burn” we had a different version going first but it was just strange … haha … but then we tried the way it is now and it sounds great! So it has only been a lot of fun!
T - Part Three of H.A.T.E
Which one are you most happy with and why? I guess it depends who you ask in the band, for me personally I would say Jonestown, I think the arrangement turned out great and it is truly a great song, but I also think Bridges turned out great in a different way, to me its a radio hit! I think it’s cool that all four songs turned out so different from each other so I would say I am really happy about all four ...
Rumor has it you’re on tour with Gilby Clarke from Guns & Roses, how did that come about? Totally true, actually sitting in the tour bus right now on our way to the last show, it’s been a great tour, 8 shows in Sweden … Well, I also work as a booking agent and I booked this tour and Gilby needed a band and it wasn’t hard for me to suggest the best band to him 😉
Chris LeMon and Vinnie Sharp from Badmouth with Gilby Clarke
What’s your all time favorite tour memory? There’s a lot, and some things that shouldn’t be mentioned here 😉 But right now I would say this tour, to be on a stage with Gilby Clarke is truly a dream come true!
Making rock music out of singer/songwriter tunes isn’t something bands do every day. What did you think about the experience and would you do it again? I would love to do it again, this shows that good songs are good songs no matter which category you place them in … We actually said that if this EP becomes a hit we will have Sofia write our next album! 😉
What’s your recipe for success? Be yourself and love what you do!
What’s in store for you this fall? Well, the release of the EP is the next thing and we have a release party for it in Stockholm on November 4th at RoQ. As soon as we are back from the road we will start planning the next tour, the main goal is to play live as much as possible and get out the word of BADMOUTH!
Thanks for chatting with us, can you tell us your three favorite songs right now? Thank you! Wow that’s difficult but right now I would say “Jonestown”, “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” (Badmouth) and “Tijuana Jail” (Gilby Clarke)
I haven’t made it as a play-mate yet, but I’m not sorry because I’d much rather be a K-mate!
I’ve done many interviews in my day, answering questions about my music and stuff like that. This time the interview was quite different. How would you react if someone asked you how often you pick your nose for example. Would you be offended? I wasn’t because my friend Scott usually says way worse things than that to me. I think he was even restraining himself when he did the interview with me for his new issue of K Composite magazine that’s available FOR FREE in the app store (for iPad).
K Composite
Now if I’d be the only one who was interviewed the magazine would be very thin, (something Scott also realized) so he made an effort and interviewed a whole bunch of other people too. You see the thing with the K Composite magazine is that it’s just a lot of interviews with ordinary – or maybe I should say extraordinary – people. You won’t find celebrities but you will find a bunch of weird questions and answers.
K Composite launched in 1991 as a fanzine and this is the first issue for the iPad. As I’m a designer myself I can tell you that Scott has made a pretty awesome job with the design, playing with different fonts and adding graphics and 3D pictures.
