Tag: First Aid Kit

First Aid Kit Find Beauty in the Wreckage of Ruins

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Let it be known that no pint glasses were shattered during the recording of “Hem of Her Dress,” the raucous sing-along and penultimate track on First Aid Kit’s new album, Ruins. It only sounds like there should be peals of clumsy laughter following the crash of a drink hitting the floor at the end of a rowdy night out on the final cut, and that’s exactly what Klara and Johanna Söderberg were going for when they wrote it.

“We were so drunk!” “No, we weren’t — but it sounds like it!” The sisters exchange conspiratorial chuckles when they look back on the “Hem of Her Dress” session, which had Klara serving as a conductor for the family and friends they’d assembled at producer Tucker Martine’s Portland, Oregon, studio. “I got into it,” Klara stresses, recalling how her dad, mom, and little brother — along with producer Martine and his wife, folk singer Laura Veirs — lent rounds of slurred la laaa la laaa la las to the song. (Thanks to her raspy “HERE WE GO!” before they dive in, her claim checks out.) “Dad’s played the bass on every record that we’ve done, and then our mom and Irik, they clapped and did percussion stuff on the last record. It’s nice to have a moment where they can join in.”

“Everyone in Portland was there!” Johanna adds. “Klara was kind of the choir leader. She was orchestrating everyone, mixing everyone … We decided before we were recording it that we were going to have a choir. It’s sort of inspired by Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. It’s really lo-fi, and it has this rawness to it that we really liked.”

This attraction to rawness is part of what separates Ruins from the rest of First Aid Kit’s catalog, a 10-year swath of stunning harmonies and neo-folk that includes 2012’s debut studio album, The Lion’s Roar, and 2014’s Stay Gold. But what separates “Hem of Her Dress” from the rest of Ruins is rawness of a different ilk: It’s a happy release in an unrestrained capacity, and a welcome one, too, as it follows some of the most painful and cathartic verses Klara has ever written.

Thanks to the success of The Lion’s Roar and Stay Gold — and the relentless touring in support of both albums that had them living out of suitcases for years — the Söderberg sisters found themselves far from their hometown of Stockholm, Sweden, more often than not. Klara decamped to Manchester, England, to live with her then-fiancé when the shows in support of Stay Gold eventually dissipated. But, by the time she and Johanna reunited in Stockholm and started piecing together ideas for what would eventually shape up to be Ruins, Klara’s engagement had ended and left her reckoning with the relationship in her work. This posed a new creative and emotional challenge for Klara and Johanna, as sisters and collaborators: When your sister is devastated and putting deeply personal thoughts to paper, what do you do to help — especially when you know she needs to sing through it in order to heal?

“I think it was different than previous albums, because Klara and I were just in very different places in life, and I think that was a challenge for Klara to sort of let me in,” says Johanna. “We always share, Klara and I; we’re in a family where you don’t have a lot of secrets. If you have an issue, the way to deal with it is to talk through it. Still, songwriting, I think, is more personal and more sensitive than talking. I think that it was, in a way, quite scary for Klara to share it and to let me in and let me have opinions about the songs. I had to respect that. Just because I wouldn’t go through the same things, although I can totally relate to it, I had to step back a little bit more than usual. I mean, yeah, Klara, she’s a wise lady! You can hear it on the album, her perspective and mindset, and I think it’s fascinating.”

Klara responds with an instant, appreciative “Awww!”

“The way we’ve collaborated throughout the years is, I’ve started writing songs, and then we’ve finished a lot of them together, or Joanna had input on different kinds of melodies or ideas I have, stuff like that,” she says. “For me, that’s incredibly helpful because, while I’m a creative person and I write a lot, I don’t finish a lot of stuff. So when I was starting to write, I was just writing for myself, really, and then it felt completely natural to share it. Joanna knew what I was going through. I didn’t have any secrets about that, but it was really hard. Of course, it was helpful, and I felt a lot of support, working through it and writing about it certainly helped me and gave me perspective on things.”

Ruins is rife with tributaries that spring forth from the deepest fissures of Klara’s broken heart. They flow with stark introspection and inconvenient revelations, and Klara doesn’t spare herself when looking in the rearview. The album’s opener, “Rebel Heart,” has her staring down a tendency to favor momentum at the expense of her relationship: “I don’t know what it is that makes me run, that makes me want to shatter everything that I’ve done.”

Klara and Johanna sing of frustration and longing throughout the album, but cut to the chase on “Distant Star” with lines like, “Well, a goodbye never seems finished, just like these songs that I write.” Growth is gradual and doesn’t need a deadline or permission in order to begin, and Ruins acknowledges that closure isn’t necessarily required in order for lost love to mean something. If rawness is the goal, accepting anything less than the stripped-down, naked truth is a part of achieving that, no matter how painful it is to confront it.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of asking why,” says Klara. “I don’t necessarily think you ever have the answers to those questions, and maybe that’s okay. Our hope is that people who are going through this or have gone through it, they hear it, and feel that we’ve all been there. To me, that’s always been so helpful in my life.”

Even “Hem of Her Dress,” palpable joy and the voices of loved ones in stride, reiterates this: “I learned some things never heal with time.”

Photo credit: Lauren Dukoff

MIXTAPE: The Shook Twins’ Songs by Siblings

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Being in a band with my twin sister, and writing songs that we sing together, is a very special and powerful thing. Blood harmony is a true gift that we always knew deep down that we could not waste! Playing music with family members has a wholesome and comforting quality that I think fans can feel and it brings them this sense of warm nostalgia even without them knowing it! Here is a list of some of our favorite songs from my favorite bands that have siblings in them. — Katelyn Shook 

The Wood Brothers — “The Muse”

This song gets me every time. It’s a song about Oliver Wood’s muses — his wife and child — and something about his brother, Chris, holding down the back bone of this beautiful song on the bass makes me think that he’s supporting his brother in these tender moments of pure love and joy.

The Barr Brothers — “Even the Darkness Has Arms”

This might be one of my favorite songs of all time. It doesn’t surprise me that the way the groove and the rhythm make me feel is attributed to the brothers Brad and Andrew Barr locking in so perfectly in the pocket on guitar and drums.

DeZurik Sisters — “The Arizona Yodeler”

Someone told us about these sisters when they heard my twin and I doing some interesting vocalizing, but the way Mary Jane and Carolyn yodel is a whole new level of singing together! They grew up on a farm in the ’30s, and their yodeling style is said to mimic the birds around them. It’s our life goal — my twin and I — to be able to sing like the DeZurik Sisters.

The Brothers Comatose — “Cedarwood Pines”

These guys are friends of ours, and that’s not the only reason I love their newest single. This is a bit of a new sound for them and it really grabbed me and kept me there. Usually, Ben Morrison is the dreamy lead singer, but on this track, his brother Alex is leading, and his voice has a very captivating quality that surprised the hell out of me. I love the good feeling groove this song brings. I’m so happy they wrote this.

First Aid Kit — “My Silver Lining”

I love this song so much. The production, the vocals, the message … just everything seems to be perfect. These Swedish sisters, Klara and Johanna, really do it for me.

Joseph — “Whirlwind”

This band is even extra sibling-y because there are twins involved! Meegan and Allie (identical sisters) join their big sister Natalie, and they absolutely kill it. These girls are also friends of ours, and we really love the music this beautiful family makes.

Brandi Carlile — “The Eye”

Most people know that Brandi’s band includes identical twins, Tim and Phil Hanseroth. They harmonize with her so perfectly, you’d think she was their triplet. This song displays that beautiful three-part harmony they achieve so well together.

Boards of Canada — “Peacock Tail”

This duo is one of my staples for calming my nerves and chilling the F out. They are creative and soothing, and it, of course, consists of two Scottish brothers, Michael and Marcus.

The Kinks — “Sunny Afternoon”

This is an amazing band that I have loved for years, fronted by two brothers, Ray and Dave Davies. They made such amazing music together for so long, it’s a shame their creative differences grew too large to keep going.

The Staves — “Tired As Fuck”

These three beautiful sisters are courageous and powerful. Love this song and love their sound.

Photo credit: Jessie McCall

Marching Songs for Defying Fear: A Conversation with Joseph

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Joseph, the harmonizing trio of sisters whose big voices are taking the stage on late-night shows and festival bills in an aggressive fashion, may have the kinds of pop hooks you might find at the top of the charts or in the latest radio single, but their sound is rooted in something bare-bones and almost primal, filling spaces like living rooms and small house shows around the Pacific Northwest with the kinds of performances that hang in the air and bounce around in the brain long after the final note. But their rich, three-part vocal harmonies began with one voice — that of Natalie Closner — in search of the kind of aural chemistry that might invigorate the music career she’d already begun to pursue in the studio and on the road.

She didn’t have to look far to find the inspiration she’d been seeking and, once sisters Meegan and Allison Closner began adding their voices to the songs, the trio knew they’d hit on something work sticking out. Their debut full-length, Native Dreamer Kin, was released in March of 2014 and, while the chilling vocals and poetic lyrics set the tone for their future successes, it was in the live setting where the three sisters really captivated new audiences. Playing small shows in unconventional settings gave way to bigger ones and, by the next year, they’d hooked up with ATO Records and signed on for another full-length. This time, though, the Closner sisters worked with producer Mike Mogis, whose résumé includes albums with Jenny Lewis and First Aid Kit and makes a solid case for his gift in pushing strong vocalists and compelling lyrics to their potential. Joseph took the writing process for the record outside the family, too, co-writing with the Belle Brigade’s Ethan Gruska and tapping into a sound that lent itself to more extensive production. The result is the forthcoming I’m Alone, No You’re Not — an album that bounces between contradicting emotions and employs a similarly varied array of sounds and instruments.

You’re sisters, so you’ve obviously all known each other your whole lives, but you haven’t always sung and written together. How did that begin?

Natalie: I was doing music by myself for a while, and I was just not that into it. I had a friend encourage me to think about ways that I would become compelled by my own music, and I had the idea to ask Meegan and Allison. I knew they could sing because I’d heard them harmonizing to the radio growing up and everything, but I didn’t really know to what extent, until we started doing this.

Meegan: Al and I were not thinking that we would do anything musically, at that point. I think we always probably dreamt that we would sing with Nat, but I would say we said yes to it not realizing exactly what we were signing ourselves up for. [Laughs] But it’s been a great experience, obviously. Life-changing.

You named the band after your grandfather and the town he lived in. Why was that important to you?

Allison: We grew up going out to Joseph [in Oregon] a bunch. Basically, we were out in Joseph a couple years ago with our grandpa for a trip, and it was just a really incredible trip. When we were coming home, we were right in the process of writing and recording the album we have now — which is Native Dreamer Kin and it’s been out for like two years — and, on the way home, I had made a music playlist of a bunch of artists. I was like, "What should I name this?" and I named it "Joseph." There was just something about the name, when I was thinking it in my head, that felt like more than just a boy’s name. I’d always thought it felt like it held so much more depth and story to it. I was like, "Interesting — that would be an interesting band name for somebody." But we already had a band name, so I was like, "Whatever — I’ll tuck that in the back of my brain."

We got back to Portland and we were in the middle of making our record, and our producer Andrew, who’s also co-written a bunch on our records, he was like, "Are you guys all married to your band name?" And Meegan and I said, "No." and Natalie was like, "What!?" [Laughs] Basically, he asked if we had any ideas and I sheepishly was like, "Yeah …  I have something." Once everybody forced me into saying what it actually was, it was like something just shifted completely. We sang a couple of the songs underneath that new name and it was like a completely different band. It was like the songs changed. I don’t even know how to explain it, except that everything just shifted.

You’ve made some big changes to your sound with this record. It’s a more of a step toward pop than your previous work, but it does stay true to a lot of the strengths of your previous work — strong vocal harmonies being at the top of the list. What were you going for on this record?

Natalie: The first feet that have been put forward on this album have been the most poppy tracks on the record. There is a lot of diversity on the album, as a whole, and the songs sound really different from each other. We’ve been thinking about that a lot. We really like pop music, and so it was really fun to get to play with that more straightforward pop form and melodies and things. Really, as the songs were being written, it wasn’t like, "Oh, let’s write a pop song." It was like, "Oh wow — that song is a pop song that we just wrote!"

We did a bunch of co-writing sessions, which was also really cool, and it really wasn’t a conscious thing [when it comes to deciding what songs or sounds made the record]. It was about which songs rose to the surface as the ones that we felt like we loved the most. And then, how do we — in production — make that song its best? Then it ended up that a few of them came out as just roarin’ pop music. [Laughs]

Speaking of production, you worked with Mike as producer on the album. How did that influence the way the final product sounded?

Natalie: We needed a guide for this album because, really, we’re singers. We’re not a band with a bunch of instruments. We needed a producer to kind of direct the tone and feel of the album, and to build out the other instruments and arrangements. We found Mike through our label — they suggested him — and when we got on the phone with him, we really connected and felt like he understood the vision for us.

We brought in songs that were pretty bare bones. He created the textures and the landscapes for it, because we would bring in pretty stripped-down demos — just melodies, the vocals, and guitar parts.

I particularly like “Honest,” which is where you plucked the title of the record. What about that line stuck out as a way to tie together the album?

Meegan: It just comes from the back-and-forth in your brain, I think, that all of us do between truth and lies. Just trying to discern what is true — oftentimes, the lie is the thing that feels the most true. That [line] was just from a pure moment of me actually thinking those thoughts in my head. Saying, "I’m alone." And then being like, "No, you’re not. You’re not alone." But I feel so alone, and that’s what feels like it’s true.

But you’re not alone. That is what’s true. I think that just mimics a lot of what is happening on the record, as a whole — just the back-and-forth and paradoxes and contrasting themes of feeling alone and knowing you’re not alone, feeling afraid and hopeful, morning and night, and thinks like this.

Natalie: The record holds a lot of tension, so that line from the song “Honest,” it really encapsulates that tension throughout the record.

“White Flag” is about facing things that scare you. What are some of the things you had to face that scared you when you were writing it, and what are the things you’ve had to face since then, tackling things as a band?

Natalie: At the time, it was really a response to that New Yorker article that came out about the earthquake that was supposed to hit the West Coast. It was really oppressive for us. You’re walking around like something’s going to happen at any second. At some point, we just kind of had to break that. What are we going to do, are we never going to go home? Are we going to move away? No, absolutely not. We’re going to keep living our lives and we’re not going to live in fear of these things.

It’s been really interesting. Since the song has been written, I’ve needed it, honestly, and sung it to myself so many times. There are so many things in our culture of fear in this country to be worried about. The world is scary. There’s a lot of tough stuff happening right now — even just getting on a plane, or being in a foreign country. There’s so much risk and so many possible [outcomes]. There’s this great quote that I love that I found in processing this whole idea of the world that we live in right now, where you could slink back into yourself and into self-protection and stay in your house and never go anywhere. A friend shared with me a statement made by C.S. Lewis during the time when the atomic bombs were supposed to potentially hit at any moment, anywhere. He basically says his response to living in an "atomic age" is, "If the bombs are going to come, let them find us drinking beers with friends and laughing and enjoying our lives, not cowering like scared sheep waiting for a bomb." Isn’t that good?

That’s kind of what it’s meant. There are so many daunting things that you face in this lifestyle, too, putting yourself in front of people all of the time. It has been exactly what it says — it’s just this marching song for living your life and defying fear.

 

Like Joseph? Check out our Cover Story on My Bubba.

Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz

Between the Lines: ‘In the Hearts of Men’

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As a kid, Bob worked with horses. He was convinced this would always be his trade. It wasn’t just a part he played, but gave him a sense of himself. Bob knew what he was doing, so he thought. There had been the family farm outside of a small town, but that was decades ago. It’s a regret of his that they — his siblings — lost the plot. Poverty and eminent domain. Now there are meth labs everywhere, and when he drives by the old land, there is no use. Past closing time at the sole bar, toothless men cough and scream. Bob doesn’t go back often. It’s as if he simply no longer agrees with the fields, the skies, the blurred moon’s half-hearted smile.

He remembers one night in particular. A spooked black stallion ran off and went off into the fields. Someone had left the gate wide open. He tells himself it wasn’t his fault. He thought he knew what he was doing. He thought he was doing things right. Bob spent weeks and months asking and looking around for the dear creature. It died of heartache near a pond, high up in the hills during a vicious winter. If a horse can expire from loneliness, what then, lies in the hearts of men?

He spoke of this one night to his lover. Muriel yawned as Bob looked up at the fan. She was not surprised. Another story of incompetence and mistakes from her fuck-by-propinquity. Muriel lived in the building. Bob often had whiskey. Finally, she found herself there most nights. She was playing a part. She couldn’t convince herself of it, though. There were numerous books she’d read next to the bed. She thought it over. The lights were nearly out, save the one lamp that bloomed yellow on the nightstand. She nearly picked up a novel while he spoke. Finally, Bob’s reminiscences were at an end. His voice no longer made a sound. A sudden, goddamned smile crept onto her lurid face.

“That’s nice, Bob. I’m sure the creature is better off than we are.”

The fan whined. In the interstices between waking and sleep, between reason and madness, dream and nightmare, Bob was certain he was going to kill Muriel that night. He did not figure the word kill as a euphemism or matter of speaking. His revolver was in the car, tucked in the glove box. He would retrieve the gun and then finish off the bookworm who never listened, who could crush him with her harangues and exaggerated rolling of eyes.

Bob missed the arms of his mother. She’d passed just after the incident with the horse. Cancer. Her fierce cough as he stared out at water that dreamed of sky. Memories of the skeletonized horse, miasmas rising like banshees off the scummy pond.

He was not there the night his mother died. He tried to speak up over the phone. He thinks of this too often. He gives it up now. He walks with a limp. Bob’s thoughtless, drunken friends laughing in the background. Time claimed her. It had its way, a new and malignant life being born inside her. His sister gave the eulogy inside the white church. When they buried her, Bob wailed out and no longer knew what he was doing. There were no manuals or books to figure this sort of grief. He had rented his suit at a shopping mall far away in the big city. He never returned it. His hands shook like leaves in neurotic gusts. Too many times. Death came, as it always would, as a surprise.

As Muriel drifted off to sleep, Bob rose and lit a cigarette. He thought of all the wasted time. He smiled, blowing smoke near her vacant face. Outside, the night had settled down and he got the Glock from the glove box. Stars shaken out from an infinite, black sheet, eleven o’clock. Wrapped in an oil cloth, it was sure to never misfire or jam. He went back into his apartment. He pointed it at Muriel’s face and waited. There was a sound and as he suddenly thought of the dead stallion, Bob’s life began again. Muriel was too pathetic to murder. She was dead to him already. You can’t kill death itself. You just can’t. Bob sat on the couch and, come morning, Muriel found him sleeping, the pistol on the coffee table. She picked up the phone and dialed 911. Her tone was bored and stiff as a corpse.

“He’s at it again. Yeah. Come and get him.”

Story based on the song "In the Hearts of Men" by First Aid Kit. Photo credit: Alyssa L. Miller / Foter / CC BY.