Photo: Richard Gray
It's been exactly a year since First Aid Kit released their grand, transformative third album Stay Gold - an album that, with one fell swoop, derailed the patronising disclaimer critics often tacked onto discussions of their talent: "considering their young age." This was an album that needed no such qualifier.
Our last interview with Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Soderberg (if that description sounds a little reductive, it's how they introduce themselves at the start of every live show) ended with them explaining how their plans for the next year were "touring, touring, touring. Until we die."
They weren't lying. Their blissful sunset performance at Isle of Wight was the first of many festival performances the pair have lined up for this summer. But that hasn't stopped them from looking to the future.
Last time we spoke, you were about to play the Royal Albert Hall. How did that go?
Klara: I was kind of surprised by how intimate it felt. I had just imagined it would be this huge place but - I mean it was - but the crowd was really cool for us.
Johanna: I've never been so nervous for a gig. I was scared the whole day, because it felt so prestigious to play there, and it's such a big deal. Our booking agent told us when she first met us, 'In five years you're gonna play the Royal Albert Hall and it's gonna be sold out', and it actually happened.
Klara: And it was exactly five years, which is insane. So we'd been anticipating the whole thing for a long time!
You've been touring Stay Gold for a while now. How has it been recreating a more orchestral sound onstage? Are you still enjoying it, or are you anxious to start writing new stuff?
Johanna: We don't have strings for every show, we just play with a four piece, it's a pretty simple set up - and all the songs from our past records and Stay Gold kind of meld together nicely I think. But yeah, of course we're excited about the future.
Klara: I think that should always be the case. We don't know what direction we're going in for the next record, so... It could kind of be anything.
You've talked about how you've made your live show more theatrical, and transitioned from wearing jeans and t-shirts to more extravagant backdrops and outfits.
Klara: Mostly for us it's just because it's fun. I mean now, we just wear whatever we feel like wearing, and we had a theme. We had the gold theme, which we stopped doing.
Johanna: Because we got tired of it!
Klara: Yeah so now we're going back to t-shirts and jeans. Not really, but almost. It's not that important to us, but when you start doing big shows you realise that you need more of a show.
In an interview with you, The Telegraph asked: 'How does it feel as one of the few all-female groups in the music industry?'... which seemed like an odd thing to say.
Johanna: Yeah that's bullshit. But we were talking about it last night, how it's only men on this banner [points to banner of past Isle Of Wight performers] and not a single woman.
Yes, and there are lots of festivals, like Reading & Leeds, whose male to female ratio is far, far worse.
Klara: Their excuse is like, 'Oh there aren't any female artists', which...
Johanna: Which is bullshit, because there are so many popular female artists today, they're huge, so I don't understand why. It's like, if you don't want to put female artists at headline spots... It's just so old and conservative, it really is. But I do feel like Sweden has been good in that, in that we've really embraced having 50/50 female-male ratio at a lot of festivals. I think it's great, and it's not like tickets aren't selling.
People have a knee-jerk reaction against the idea of quotas, but perhaps that might force festivals to be more creative
Klara: Yeah because then they'll HAVE to look out for those, and there'll be like 'Oh yeah there are loads of them'.
