MaidaVale

Matilda: Yes, we met at a music school there at Gotland Folkhögskola, which had a programme for women who played rock and pop music. So it was a stroke of luck that we all ended up there, because we didn't know each other from before. We just all applied the same year, got in and then met there.

Matilda: 2011 we started. We went there for two years. It was just a music programme. So cool. Unfortunately that programme doesn't exist anymore at that school.

Matilda: Yeah, it's such a small town, and it's mostly like everyone goes there in the summer, but during the winter not much else is happening there. So we spent most of the time just playing music together. So it was very creative, and we had a lot of time to explore different stuff together.

Matilda: Not always (laughs).

Matilda: We lived pretty close to Bergman’s place, but that didn't influence us. We never went there.

Matilda: No, we would very much like to record there, but we haven't. We just visited Maida Vale, but we have not played there. The name was actually taken from the tube station where the recording studio is. But at the time, it was just a place that sounded cool, and we just took the name.
Sofia: But now, it has got more like substance to the name after playing together. We went to London later. I don't have any source, but someone told me that the tube station, when it opened, was run by women. And only women worked there, which is pretty cool.
Johanna: Matilda lived in London before we met. Not in that area though.
Matilda: I was there for a while. So there are some connections.

Matilda: the first two albums were released on the same label, but for this last one we started our own label. So it's the first one, and the only one so far, released on our label, Silver Dagger. I think first,  we spent more time on this new album while recording, about three weeks recording in the studio in Svenska Grammofonstudion in Gothenburg. We hadn’t done that on the two first records. They were recorded in a much shorter time. It was three weeks, but they were spread out during the year, one in the spring, one in the summer, and one at the end of summer. 

Matilda: I think they are in the same building. Or probably many other bands. It’s a really good studio. Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm who plays in Soundtrack of Our Lives and György Barocsai,  [both] produced and mixed the album. They own the studio, so they produced it.

Matilda: They had done cool stuff before, so we took a chance and wrote an email.

Matilda: It was quite a long process. I’m not sure when we started actually writing. We write together, or we start together and jam on different ideas. And then I usually do my parts later on. The songs were written before we went to the studio, but not everything was arranged fully. So we did that quite a lot there. We tried different things with the producers. Some songs are really pretty different from what we took to the studio. And we produced them pretty hard. But some songs we were basically just jamming, and they left the studio and kept it on record. So it's a bit different. Some songs we went in with an idea and came out with something.

Matilda: It was very like, try this and that, the producers helped to lift up the melodies better and make the songs shorter.
Linn: Yeah, like more small arrangements.
Sofia: Because we have a tendency to play long songs with long instrumental parts, and they were like, no let’s try this better.
Matilda: In a good way the songs are shorter now than in our previous albums.

Matilda: I think we were more stoner–psychedelic, Sabbath-ish before. Our first album was more like blues rock, 70s rock. So I guess that description was quite fair back then, but we have evolved since then. I don’t think we play the stoner type anymore. We don't feel like we fit in that genre, maybe. Even though we have that as well, it's not like our only thing.
Linn: We broadened a bit now with a lot of different influences. Back then, that scene was really big. So it was good for us to play at those kinds of festivals, and shows, and work with those bookers. So that’s why you get grouped into that genre, even if you evolve from it.

Matilda: I think so. But we've always evolved. The second record is also very different from the first one. And now the third one is different from both of them.

Matilda: Yes, we have a lot more synthesisers now, I would say. We use vocoders too. In the other two albums there’s nothing of that at all, so that's pretty new now.

Matilda: I have a lot more to do. Before I was mainly a tambourine player and singer. But now I play some synthesisers as well. I’m really enjoying this new stage we are at, for me particularly because it's nice to play an instrument as well as singing. We still do live longer versions of the songs. Not all the songs, but we like those parts where you can just drag out.

Matilda: Absolutely. Mostly on long parts. Live we use bass, guitar, drums, synths, vocoder, some synthesisers and I play a bit of guitar as well.

Matilda: In the new record [there’s] a guy from a North African blues band, Tinariwen. His name is Said Ag Ayad. He plays like the djembes on a couple of songs on the album, which is really cool because we like the band a lot.
Linn: Also there is a mixer guy. His name is John Agnello. He mixed the song Fools. He has previously worked with  many legends, from Cyndi Lauper or Twisted Sister to Redd Kross, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile,  and many other cool names. We’ve collaborated with a few people, but not necessarily met them.
Sofia: We also collaborated with the studio Smack! and recorded a live session.

Matilda: It's fun to do something more than just the music, but we are not that good with video [formats] so we ask and collaborate with some artists. In fact, today is the first time we're going to have some visuals on stage. We like something that adds to the whole experience. Most of the people we work with are friends of ours, someone we know. But we don't do the visual work ourselves.

Matilda: It's hard, but it's true. I read about that as well. Why do we have to be content creators? And it feels like the best content creators get the most hype, like their music does better, but I don't know. If it's not enough having a good song or a good production. Yeah, you have to reach people and then you reach people through, I guess, TikTok and Instagram. And that's quite hard because none of us are like that type of social media person, posting videos and pictures all the time. it's quite tricky, actually. And we don't really want to be like that either. No one in our band is, and I'm definitely not like this. I'm more like a passive scroller person. So it's hard to force yourself to do it. But we try. Johanna is our social media person and she does it well. We post stuff that's related to our music and the band and not like much everyday content. It is tricky nowadays when you're just trying to connect content with music and all that.

Matilda: We are the label as well as the same people involved. That gives freedom, I guess. What we liked about it and why we wanted to start the label was that you can control everything and do it the way you want to. And that's a plus. But we also don't have the big muscles that big labels have. But we work with some PR companies in different countries to reach radio and magazines and stuff like that. We don't have anyone else.

Matilda: Yeah, I do. But I also think there are challenges that aren't met. Things have changed everywhere. Venues closing, no rehearsal spaces, no money to support more artists or educational institutions. It's hard for smaller bands and new bands to keep going, really. But that's not only Sweden or Stockholm of course, I feel like that's more global. I can't speak for the rest of the world but I feel like it's the same in most countries that venues close down and good institutions struggle. For example and looking no further, the school where we met doesn't exist anymore. The school is still there but the programme we went to for women is not there anymore. So there's no education like that in Sweden anymore.
The funding for culture and music makes a lot of sense but at the same time there are a lot of musicians in Sweden. And there are a lot of bands and people who want to play. The structure is there for cultivating new talent. Most people start playing in school because it's mandatory to play an instrument. I think that's very good for getting kids interested in music and playing instruments. But I wish there were more incentives to get people to keep playing not only when they're teens but after teenage years too. We agree that when people from outside say “it's a Swedish band, we are interested”. I don't know why exactly but people are positive towards Swedish bands. I guess this is due to the good reputation, quite a few famous bands and artists compared to the size of the country, that stands out.

Matilda: We are proud of some events we participated in, for instance Way Out West in Gothenburg last summer was a really cool gig. We played at a club very late at night and there were a lot of people there, apparently a very long queue to get in, which it would have been fun to see but we were inside getting ready and we heard about it. Things like that are really satisfying. We've done some more good places like the BurgHerzberg Festival, a really legendary festival. It was a few years ago now, but it was really good to be there. We have some shows with GOAT next month touring the UK together that we are looking forward to.

Matilda: We played with them before a few shows around Sweden. So we've done a few shows together.
Johanna: We toured Norway with them also.
Matilda: That’s right. Then we just got asked by our agent, the booker. Since we know each other that's how it came about. This is really cool for us, the venues we’ll play in the UK are great. I think it'll be the biggest venues we've ever played, places we wouldn't be able to play there just ourselves.

Matilda: Hopefully. We feel like their audience is a good audience for us as well.
Linn: Because with the third record, I think we are a bit more, I would say, dancey. People are dancing more. Before it was more like a head-banging thing (laughs). Now it's more dancing. So that feels great. We feel like hopefully some of their fans will like us.

Matilda: We have scheduled a few more gigs in Sweden and we’ll do Germany and a few neighbouring countries to Germany by the end of 2024. The plan is to tour in the spring 2025 as well. No official dates yet. That’ll be announced, definitely. We have played in many countries around Europe, Spain, Germany, many times but have never been outside of Europe. So it would be awesome to go somewhere like SXSW or the US.
Sofia: Maybe, if someone wants to bring us over there, we will gladly come. It would be fun to do North America, South America, and Asia.

Matilda: I think from the early years, the best part is that we played so much, so often and together. We rehearsed a lot after school as well. We decided to move to Stockholm together, we rehearsed so much. We didn't know anyone in Stockholm, so we just played. So I think we really got tight. We lived together back then for seven years. There's probably a lot more that we learned during the school years.