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We catch up with Swedes The Concretes slap-bang in the middle of their lengthy UK tour, promoting their latest long-player, 'In Colour'. Clearly, it’s a part of the job that musicians definitely either love or hate, and for frontwoman Victoria Bergsman, it’s surprisingly not her favourite thing to do at all. “I don’t really enjoy touring that much because you’re away from home, you’re sleeping on a tour bus and I have a cat at home and I don’t like to leave him." Bless. As tonight's Brimingham show proves, once onstage, it's a totally different story. She adds with renewed enthusiasm: "I get excited playing live though if there’s a big crowd and everyone’s really excited.”
Having spent what seems like aeons on the road, the band admit they couldn’t wait to get back into the studio and work on new material. “We’d been on tour for a while and hadn’t had the chance to sit down and write songs and record, but now we had the chance everyone really wanted to go for it,” reveals Victoria. “We wanted push ourselves and try to see what we could do ourselves with eight people, like play twenty two different instruments and everyone singing as much as possible”.
The results can be heard on the album which is a considerably sunnier affair than the previous one, 'Layourbattleaxedown'. “The last album was distant. This one is closer, more of a different feeling. There’s moments of hope and truth I think,” reckons Victoria. “I know that some people think that this is too different and that we should continue to do another of the first album and I don’t understand that thinking at all”.
Sharp listeners may notice Romeo and Michele Stodart of the Magic Numbers making appearances, notably Romeo’s duet with bandmate Lisa Milberg on the lovely 'Call Me'. The two bands have in fact been friends for years when it was the Magic Numbers who were supporting The Concretes. Nowadays Victoria notes (without any bitterness) “it’s the other way around,” before describing them as “lovely people.” In fact, the Numbers appeared onstage with them during their last tour.
For the un-initiated, The Concretes were started by Victoria and fellow art students Lisa, and Maria Eriksson back in 1996. “We all made friends and there were no bands around and we were record collectors and had clubs and things and it was like ‘let’s start a band’. It was more like playing around and not really doing anything. Then we started to try out instruments and who was going to do what”.
From originally having three members the band grew over the years to be the sizeable eight piece of today, as Victoria puts it: “It just accelerated, lots more people wanted to join us. I think it’s a good and bad thing having eight people in the band. If you have a fight with someone you can go speak to someone else. I think it’s harder if it was only like two people”.
They released their eponymous debut album in 2003 which included the breakout single 'You Can’t Hurry Love' and yet another homage to the Supreme diva on the track simply entitled Diana Ross. With a huge number of artists to have come out of Sweden in recent years (The Knife and Jose Gonzalez most notable recently), do they feel like they’re part of that scene? “I don’t think we are part of it because we’re so big, we’re eight people so it’s like a little a scene ourselves, our community. So the only thing we have in common with other Swedish bands is that we’re Swedish”.
As well as working with the band, Victoria is also experimenting with some solo material. “It’s much more minimalistic because it’s only me. I haven’t recorded anything properly, only at home but I’m going to get musicians for it because I can’t play drums or anything”. Whatever the future holds for the Concretes there’s never a quiet moment that’s for sure.
Live photo by: Chris Birkinshaw
