Added by Electronic Brain | 19 August 2014

CRUCIFIED BARBARA: An interview with MIA COLDHEART & KLARA FORCE

Crucified Barbara are an all Female Hard Rock band from Sweden. Since forming in 1998 they have released three albums as well as building a fearsome live reputation. The Swedish quartet have just released their fourth album, ‘In The Red’, and Dave Scott took a trip to London to have a chat about it with vocalist Mia Coldheart and guitarist Klara Force.   

In March you announced you had signed a deal with Despotz Records, what promoted a change in label and what drew you to this label specifically?

K – We had heard about them for a couple of years and we heard that they were good. They offered us a great deal and seemed to be great people with their heart in the right spot.  They seemed to love music and they based in Stockholm also.  

Ah, that must be a major bonus if they are based where you are.  

K – It just felt good.

M – Yeah and it’s great to have people around you, on the label side, that are really in it for the right reasons. We are on the same side and on the same page.  

Generally speaking, I can imagine there are not many things more frustrating than being with a label that isn’t supporting you as you had originally hoped.  

M – Yeah, or maybe they don’t understand everything about the band or they want to promote you in a certain way. They are really good for us and we are really happy with this choice.  

What was the rationale behind your choice of album title? Was ‘In The Red’ simply a choice based on being the strongest song or is there a deeper meaning behind that choice?

K – Basically the title of the album came before the title of the song; the title came up first and we were inspired by these old VU metres, you know the ones... it’s like when it peaks

M – Pushing it to the limit ha-ha. That’s what we wanted to do with this album ha-ha.

I know what you mean, when you’re recording the black and red sections on the levels or like red lining when accelerating in a car. One obvious question that fans might ask is how does this album compare to ‘The Midnight Chase’ and your earlier work?

K – You will definitely know that it is a Crucified Barbara record that you are listening to. Of course I think it is the best album we have ever done and I am very proud of it. I think it is the heaviest album but also contains some of the most refined songs that we have written. The melodies are great and the riffs are heavy.  

In the press releases you have mentioned that you are taking a stand against certain subjects that you are all very passionate about. Before coming to the individual songs themselves and how these thoughts fit in, what are these subjects from a general perspective?

K – I think all of us are very emotion based in our point of views; anything that really hits our hearts or that we really feel something about, could be a subject in a song for us. We are definitely into animal rights, feminism and stuff like that. I am not sure, but in the U.K. feminism is more of a bad word...

Funny you should mention it, just in the news this week the government is having a reshuffle and bringing new faces and a lot of the talk has been about women replacing the men and positive discrimination etc. The debate often centres on selecting to fit quotas/diversity aspirations or selecting the best person for the job regardless. Do you have much discussion or talk of that in your part of Europe?

K – Yes we do. That is a big subject; you are either for it or against it I suppose. There are different ways to look at things.

A government always has to be representative anyway so from that perspective it is important.  

K – Yeah but you should also think about the structures behind why you would think someone is better for the job than that woman. It maybe not always a fact, it might also be like really old boring structures behind your point of view. So it’s more complex than just to say who is the better one and I think you should always try to reach equality and justice between gender, races or whatever. I think it is a very important issue.  

Aside from music, I think in life that is important. You need different viewpoints whether you are running a business, music industry, politics, sports etc.  

K – Always, I think that it is very important personal work that everyone needs to do to actually see your own privileges and see all the good things that I have that someone else maybe doesn’t have and maybe take a stand for those that are weaker or in a worse position than yourself.

May I quickly ask...are you both vegetarians?

K – Yeah.

Have you been vegetarians for long?

M – No, like six years or something.

K – Since I was a teenager so for about fifteen or so years.  

Moving back to the music and the individual songs themselves, how do you bring these important themes and subjects into your music? For example, I know the latest single has a connection to some, to quote your own words, “dark statistics”. Can you give me an insight into two or three of the songs and the things you are trying to express in those songs.

K – For that particular song, ‘To Kill A Man’, the inspiration for it was that we were reading all these horrible stories about women being raped and abused in relationships and it’s a very common problem all over the world. It goes on everywhere and there seems to be no ending to it.  

Sadly it does seem something that is actually getting worse if the regularity of related stories in the news is anything to go by.

K – I read something that was really scary; for the World Cup, in the U.K., that domestic violence went up by something like thirty percent. When England were out of the World Cup it was even higher.  

I wish I could say I think that statistic is wrong but I can’t.

K – It’s very depressing; it goes on everywhere and there seems to be no end to it. As a woman, as a person...everybody not just as a woman, it is very frustrating to see those go on all the time, reading about it...it is very sad. You get kind of this hopeless feeling and so that anger and that feeling of hopelessness became that song.

Are there any other songs with hard hitting messages or where you explored any other deep themes?

K – ‘The Ghost Inside’?

M – Yeah, ‘...Inside’ is dealing with self confidence and it’s also like a frustrating that made me write the lyrics for that. It’s about how society, the fashion industry, put pressure on people, especially young girls, to be a certain size, fit in, have the right clothes, caring to much about how’s you look and behave and things like that. This song is about the voice inside you that keeps telling you that you do not fit into this world and trying to tell people that you should not listen to that voice. It’s not the easiest thing I think...to silence that voice.  

How does the writing process work within CB and have you tried anything different this album that you haven’t tried before from a writing perspective?

K – I would say what we have done different this time is we have been jamming more. We have always done that to a certain extent but even more so now. We have been in the rehearsal place everyday for almost half a year just jamming and writing songs.  

And that’s how it works is it? Maybe you will come up with a riff or you and say this is quite good...

M – Then we change it a hundred times and eventually we have the perfect song ha-ha.

Do the lyrics or music come first, I assume from what you are saying it is the music?

M – Yes, mostly music.

Do you (MC) write most of the lyrics?

M – We do something’s together...

K – I would say you write most of the lyrics, I mean you are the one who is very precise how you want the words to be.

M – True, I suppose I have to sing it ha-ha.  

It has to fit your voice; there is no point coming up with a great vocal line if it doesn’t fit the way that you sing.  

M – It’s really hard sometimes to write lyrics that also fit well with the melodies that we come up with.

As with your last album, you recorded the album at the Music-A-Matic Studio with Chips Kiesby and Henryk Lipp handling the technical duties. What qualities made you return to work with these guys, was it a case of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” or is it something far more fundamental to your sound and success.  

K – We were really satisfied, not only with the outcome of the last album, but also the way we worked together. We found a way to work that was really nice and they are great people to be around. They have a vision to try to keep it as analogue as possible which is great because that fits us perfectly; there are no unnecessary computer effects or stuff like that. If we were looking for a certain effect, we tried to find it within the studio not afterwards on the computer. You can use a lot of natural verbs which I think is a great way of working.  Lipp, the sound engineer, is a microphone collector. All the guitar amps, we put like a thousand microphones on everything then chose by ear what sounded best; not by the brand of the microphone ha-ha.

Is that how you got that meatier sound...the extra heaviness; is that where you got it from, from playing around with getting the sound right?

M – For every song you have no idea which one of the mics was used from which amp. One song could be taken from something like an old boat microphone ha-ha for the guitar solo...

K – And no one knows in the end, not even him, because he just chose by what he heard and not what he saw which I think is a cool way to do it.  

M – As with the choice of label, we chose Kiesby as a producer because he also doesn’t want to change us in any way.  He just sees the band as we are.

That’s important, you don’t want to go to a new label and new producer and have them say “we love what you have done before but let’s do this instead”. That can walk you away from the fans you have already built up.  

M – If you want to go do something new...do it by your own choice or choose a new producer because you love a special sound but I don’t want to work with someone who tells me “use this amp” and “use my old guitar because we have used it on all these albums...it’s perfect”. Some producers are like that and that’s not our choice.  

You have already recorded a video for the ‘...Man’ single; how did you translate these important standpoints into a visual representation?

K – It was actually Mia’s brilliant idea.

M – We wanted to make a video to show this but it had to be right because it is a very fragile and delicate subject so it was important that it turned out right. So we had to find all the things to put in it but I was like “we have to use this” and “it has to be like this”...there was a lot of research and thought into it.  

I think the newspaper images that you slotted in are very powerful.

K – Because we didn’t want to exploit and glorify rape victims with visuals of real women so we thought it was better to do it with newspaper clips instead of making entertainment out of a horrible thing.  

M – We let the facts speak for themselves.  

It is a very hard subject to bring attention to in the right way without as you say glorifying anything.

K – Exactly right, we really didn’t want to glorify it in any way

M – The television and movies are doing enough of that.  

I believe from your Facebook posts that you actually recorded two videos at the same time.

M – You are correct.

Am I allowed to ask, and more importantly are you allowed to say what track you recorded the other video for?

K – No, we can say it... the other video is for a song called ‘I Sell My Kids For Rock ‘N’ Roll’.

You have a really bright front cover that really stands out; who designed it and what was the reason that you turned to that person?  

K – It by a guy called Eric Rovanpera and he lives in Stockholm; we have seen his art before and we really love it. We have been discussing working with him before and now finally it happened. I love his style I think it’s really gorgeous.

Did you have input into it, or did you just give him a vague concept and let him go to work?

K – Yes, we gave him like a few key words and some bits and pieces and asked him if he could do something and then he did this wonderful piece of art.

You have already announced a European tour in autumn, are you planning to return to the U.K.?

K – No ha-ha.  Just kidding...of course we are.

When was the last time you here? I know you have done some festivals but I was looking through you website and it seems that you have done a multi date tour for a few years.

K – I know, there have been way too few shows in the U.K. We have been touring a lot but unfortunately we haven’t been here for a while.

M – It’s been a long time. We did the Motorhead tour which was one month but that was in 2006 I think. We also did the tour with Backyard Babies.  

Now that one I have heard about, I believe you meet Brian May?

K – That’s right...at The Backyard Babies tour in 2008.  

Are you looking forward to coming back to play over here after such a long time?

K – Yes, it’s going to be great and it’s also our own shows and not just as a support band.  

Are these going to be your first headline dates over here?

K – I think we have done one or two club shows but not much else so technically yes.

What can your fans expect on this tour? Have you got anything special planned or anything in mind that you want to do?

M – We want to play a lot of new songs, as much as possible from the new album, because we really like it. We have been playing it so much in the rehearsal room now we really want to get out there.  

You obviously have a strong gigging ethic, I take it you would both happily choose the road over the studio any day of the week?

M & K – Yes ha-ha

Given you spent so much of your time on the road, is there any memories or moments that you remember with particular fondness? Immediately I think of Motorhead where Phil Campbell joined you on stage and you meet May afterwards.  

K – That was a nice evening when Campbell joined us; he said “when we play London my good friend May is coming to say hello. I replied to him “oh you will have to tell me when he arrives so I can say hello, could you introduce me please?” He said sure and I was looking forward to it. When it finally happened, he came knocking on our dressing room and said “hey come and meet my good friend”.  I got so nervous I couldn’t even speak, I couldn’t even speak English...I was like “hello I am Klara” [in a strange accent]...I sounded like the village idiot.  Then I didn’t say anything...nothing...I should have said “I love your music” or “I am such a fan, you are great” but I couldn’t think of anything to say. All I managed was “hello I am Klara” in very bad English ha-ha.  

M – You did get a nice picture though ha-ha.  

K – I think that was the only time I ever got star-struck.  

Have you got any other memories from playing in the U.K. or maybe one big one from touring in general?

K – I think we have had a good time in general in the U.K. The Backyard Babies tour was great; we were talking about it earlier today. We had the best every night in the tour bus; we had a great curry dinner. We ordered like half the restaurant food every night after the show ha-ha.  

Curry fans huh...you will be fine in the U.K. that’s for sure.  

M – Yeah that’s a good thing...the best food. So every night we ate a lot...sometimes a like 1am in the morning after the gig. Sometimes I got so much pain in my stomach I’d crawl to my bed like “urrrggg I am full” because we weren’t eating at all during the day then having these huge portions but of course I couldn’t stop doing it. So I would fall asleep in this great pain every night ha-ha...but it was worth it.  

You recently donated merchandise to Rock Against Cancer and your latest single appears on a compilation CD. Am I right in translating it as Feminine Initiative?

K – Feminist Initiative.

Ah there you go I knew it had to be one...ha-ha fifty-fifty chance. Your music has also appeared on the board game ‘Z Or Alive’.

K – Yes

Is important to you all, as a band, to contribute to these causes as well as simply taking a stand against it with your music?

K – For me personally it gets more important every year. The older I get, the more I feel I should really do something with the voice that I have. There is so much going on, horrible stuff, going on in the world and I feel it is really important to take a stand. It doesn’t have to big, it doesn’t have to be a very clear subject with the band but just to be able to always take the discussion places; just going to the pub...where ever...just to take the discussions about things like racism for example. When there is bad stuff going on I think it is very important to speak your mind and keep on doing that. For me, it is very important. 

I hate to use this term but it does say it in a nutshell, but to kind of use your fame for a better good...

K – Well that’s not really my thing.  

...even to draw attention to it. Your album is doing that already; here we are talking about it and it will be in the magazine which will no doubt prompt others to discuss these sorts of things. Even if that’s all it is.

K – Sure, but even on a personal level...just going to the pub round the corner where nobody knows I play in a band. If people say stupid, racist stuff it is very important to take a stand on every level.

So you would, in a pub, if someone’s giving it the unpleasant lines on racism, you will get up and speak?  

K – Oh yeah...ha-ha...I was in a fight the other week at my local pub...ha-ha... “Mr Crazy Eyes” was talking about a racist political party and we had words. But I think all those small things, you don’t have to be famous or in a band to take a stand...you can just do it on every level.

I know you are very much into your politics.  

K – On a personal level but nothing more than that.

I take it the board game was simply an unusual way to help spread the word about CB?

K – Yeah and that was a fun thing. It is not often you hear about board games...it is quite rare.  

How did that come about; did you approach them or did they come to you?  

K – Yeah, they wanted to use a song for the trailer for the board game and it looked quite cool.  I liked the fact that it was an old school board game.  

Mia, although now you sing and play guitar, you started in CB as a guitarist. Which came first historically for you personally? We’re you singing and then learned guitar or were you playing guitar first and then moved on to singing?

M – Actually the accordion came first ha-ha...but I started as a guitarist when I was fourteen or something; that’s when I first picked up the guitar. I joined the band as a guitar player, I have been singing for myself at home before that. I had a secret dream, or a wish maybe, to sing in a band at some point. Even when I was a teenager I put up notes, or more I answered some ads I can’t remember fully, to start singing in a band. But once I was going there for an audition and I was like “I don’t have time to sing in a band...what am I doing?” So I had to send the email to say sorry I took up your time but I can’t come. I didn’t go there but I didn’t think about it seriously more than that. It was in 2003 when we had to look for a new singer and I just tried.

Did you volunteer or where you subtly suggested or persuaded by the other ladies in the band?

M – Ahhh...I had been singing backing vocals and I did a lot of writing song melodies in the band, but had no idea to sing. But when we had to look for a new singer, we had one audition I think...

K – And it just felt weird.

M – It ended up me showing her how to sing it all and so it progressed to “ah maybe I should do it instead of trying to...” It sounded really bad in the beginning...

K – No it didn’t actually. Of course it sounds much better now.

M – I hear it. On the first album, I remember the time in the studio when we were recording; I screamed the hell out of myself. I had like a headache between each take, I was fainting and puking...it didn’t feel good.

How did you develop your style...as you say you kind of naturally progressed into with the band but you have a hell of a vocal roar on you?

M – Thank you very much. But in the beginning I didn’t, I mean if I listen to the first album I feel like you can’t hear on that album how much I am really screaming because I didn’t have the right technique at the time. I had only been singing in the band for like three or four months when we went into the studio to record these songs.  

Have you taken lessons or sought out advice?  

M – Yeah. In the beginning, when we had done like a weekend gig, I was totally destroyed and I used to work as a phone operator. I went in on Monday morning really hoarse and barely able to speak. I was really scared when we were going on our first tour which was ten days or two weeks. I thought they are going to send me home after two days so I have to do something. Our first Swedish tour ever was with a band called Pain. The singer there said he had been taking lessons and I was like “why...you are screaming?”So he said that he had a person that had helped him, not to try to change anything, but to do what was good.  

Using different muscles to get sound out and such like?

M – Yeah. So I went to this coach and she taught me some stuff. We didn’t even get to the singing part, I was there for four times maybe and it was more about learning how to relax the body, muscles and loosen up. I learned that a lot of times, or most of the time, when you have a harsh voice and you feel like you can’t make the sound, it’s that most of the muscles in the throat are tense. So once I got into that, I know how to make it last.

It is different when you do throaty style to say a cleaner vocal approach.  

M – I use the same technique even for singing really clean or if I scream; it helps me either way to use the techniques I learned.

Would you ever consider just singing?

M – Nooo ha-ha.

I can’t sing and I can’t play a guitar. I can’t begin to comprehend how someone can do both at the same time. Have you ever considered, especially maybe when it comes to live shows, where sometimes it might be easier to just do vocals.  

M – I would feel absolutely naked without the guitar. I would have no idea what I would be doing with the time in-between...no idea what I would do with myself. I had a time when people started to call me the singer...and I was like “nooooo I am still the guitar player” ha-ha.  But I have grown into being the singer so it’s okay.

Moving onto you Klara, how did you get into playing guitar and how did you develop that thumping style that you have got?

K – I started to play in a band without even knowing how to play a guitar, maybe just two chords. So I guess it was just from listening to Nirvana.

I know they are quite key for you.

K – Yeah from the beginning definitely. I watched Nirvana unplugged, you know the ‘MTV Unplugged’, and tried to watch how he played the chords and basically learned from that.

Do you read music or do you learn by ear?

K – No I don’t read music, I mean I know the principle but it’s not any help to me because I am so slow reading music.  

So it’s more a natural side to you rather than schooled?

K – I am not schooled at all.

As for you Mia, is it ear?

M – With the guitar it’s that, but I learned some theory when I was at school but I used it mainly because I was starting with the accordion when I was ten or something. But I used it before we had computers and phones to record. So for example if I was sitting on the bus and came up with a melody in my head, I would draw lines on a notebook and actually draw notes so I could sing it when I got back home. It was a help to know in the beginning for sure.

I followed you ladies on Facebook since I covered your last album for Fireworks. I have to say it does look like you all have an absolute blast away from the stage. There’s always photos of you all doing crazy things. Can you give our readers an insight into what you two, and maybe the other members of the band as well, like to get up to?

M – Look at Facebook ha-ha.  

K – But I would say I am quite boring when I am home.

Do you all have different personalities and is one person into a particular thing? I know you like your food ha-ha.

K – Oh yeah we love food.  

M – We love cooking and eating.

Is one person the practical joker or one person the main cook?

K – You know all four of us are great cooks. We are all pretty good with food I think.  

M – We have all personalities that work very well together as a four-piece. We are good at different things.  

K – We complement each other quite well I think.  

What sorts of things do you like doing away from the stage? I know you’re (MC) quite into your horse riding.

M – Yes, I try to find time to do that.

You won some sort of competition about two years ago didn’t you?

M – Yeah, it was in the Stockholm Globe Arena, it’s a huge thing at the Stockholm Horse Show. But I was not in the main competition; it was a kind of celebrity show jumping thing so it was a lot of fun for the crowd. For us who were in it, it was bloody serious ha-ha. It was one of the most serious things I have done in my life I think and I won it.

Was there anyone else famous on there that we might know?  

M – It was Swedish musicians, artists, television personalities and from movies and stuff.

And what do you like doing Klara, how do you get away from it all?

K – I just love being home and reading books. I get to party basically when we are on tour and quite calm at home.  

Take the foot off the gas and unwind?

K – Yeah exactly.  

M – And the Rock Club?

K – Ah yes that’s true. Me and Ida Evileye, who plays bass, we have a Rock club every Monday in Stockholm; it’s at a small bar and we have a guest DJ. We go out and play shows at the weekend when we are home when everybody else is having a party or doing something fun so we thought let’s do something fun on Mondays when we are at home.  

When you are together at home and rehearsing or something, do you ever get the urge to get the acoustic guitars out and go out and play in a bar or a pub or something for the hell of it?

K – No not like that.

Is it because you are playing when you are working so you kind of want to step away from that in downtime?

M – There’s no time to go out and play in bars. We have to have time to drink the beers ha-ha.  

K – But sometimes when we have parties at home.

Given some of the subject matter of your latest album, if you don’t mind me asking, how have you found the music industry being an all female band. You are quite right it shouldn’t matter, and from an ability perspective it doesn’t matter, but there are people out there who do have a different outlook. Have you found any negativity simply due to being an all female band?

M – I think it’s hard to answer because we only see our own point of view.  

K – From our point of view we have always been women ha-ha.

Let me put it a different way, have you ever found being an all female band a hindrance?

K – Of course we know some people think like that, they don’t take female Rock musicians seriously, but it doesn’t really affect us anyway because they were never our fans to begin with. I think it’s more a matter of they are missing out than we are missing out.  

Have you found it any easier since you started? I suppose over the last ten years there has been an explosion in Female-Fronted bands out there; has that made life any easier or are things now just as they always have been?

M – We are just doing our thing and don’t really see bigger things like that. I think the only ones who can answer that one is the agencies and the promoters who are talking about things like this I guess. We are just playing and doing our thing.  

K – It is hard for us to know why someone would book us or don’t book.  

I did think about that, that you are doing the music and not the back room dealings.  

K – And to be honest if someone has a bad feeling about us and don’t like us, we don’t know it.  

M – But I know that we win a lot of people over because sometimes come up, it happens quite often actually, and say that they kind of apologise because they had such a negative thought about us but they decided to go and see what we are doing on stage and they end up buying all the albums and having a great time.  

That must be a great thing to hear; it must be disappointing to hear someone think like that but to know that you have won them round...

K – It’s nice.

M – Yeah, to make someone change their mind and be a bit more open-minded, it will give them a happier life I think if they can think more openly.

You probably haven’t given it much thought but I will ask anyway. What next for CB; have you got any side projects on the go...a possible live album maybe?

K – We always have a thousand side projects we want to do, but we are always together. We have fun ideas too like sticking Nicki Wicked up front and we call it something crazy and do some strange music. But it’s just ideas and fun stuff we talk about on the tour bus.  

What about a live album given your live reputation?

K – Yeah sure.

M – We are thinking about it a lot ha-ha.

K – We talked about it and I think it would be a great idea. We are definitely a live band, we love to tour and we do it a lot so I think a live album or a live DVD would be a great next thing to release.  

Before we go I have a couple of quick ones to ask. I did a lot of research and I don’t know whether it’s because the latest pages came up, but I haven’t seen anywhere why you are called Crucified Barbara?

K – We have the name since 1998; in Sweden, you know those blow up sex dolls with all the holes etc ha-ha...the name that we call them in Sweden is a “Barbara”. We went to a festival one year and we saw someone had put one of these dolls on a cross and it looked hilarious. So we thought we would write a song called Crucified Barbara and it ended up being the band’s name.  

M – We really should make a song called that sometime ha-ha.  

The last little thing I must ask, is what made you bring out the hot sauce as part of your merchandise?

M – There is a story. We all love the spicy food and I had a colleague in my day job who gave me a recipe for a habanero sauce. So I was home experimenting with this and it turned out great. I put it on Instagram when I had prepared it and used the hash tag “habanero” for it.  Then I got a like from one called HabaneroMan and I thought who is this and I checked out his Instagram page and found a Japanese  habanero producer...called HabaneroMan...how perfect is that ha-ha. He has this farm in Japan where he grows it and he makes these sauces. We became friends and he sent me some samples that we gave out to people. We loved it...it is so good then the idea formed that we should make our own sauce with him and he thought it was a great idea and so here it is.  It could be easier to buy band merchandise from somewhere else where it is easier and cheaper to import in but we wanted this from him because we have a great relationship. It is soooo good.  

K – It really is so good.  

M – The great thing is we genuinely love it and it tastes so good and we have people messaging us saying “I am out of it...I need a new bottle” ha-ha. When we were in the studio and making the album, Kiesby came out from the room and said “yeah I done five today”. I was like “what five songs??” and he was like no “five drops of the sauce” ha-ha. Even in the studio everyone was talking about the sauce ha-ha.  

Ladies, it has been an absolute pleasure this afternoon. Is there anything you would like to add or that maybe I have missed?

K – I think you did really well and I really hope to see everybody on tour. See you on the road.