“We tried not to think about it,” she says. “You’ve got to write for yourself – if you don’t do that, you’re going to lose your creative spark. It was really tough, though – there was a block of time where we thought there may not even be an album. We had to let go and not think too much about it – I can’t think of a particular moment where it turned around, but it took a lot of time. We thought that if we didn’t finish it then and there, we’d never get it done – it was something that we did for ourselves more than anything.”
Stay Gold was what got the Söderbergs touring around the world again. Some of the more left-of-centre highlights of their year, however, came from more unexpected places. Having already performed on television for the big guns – David Letterman, Jools Holland and Conan O’Brien – there was only really one more mountain left to climb: Ellen DeGeneres.
“It was amazing,” gushes Johanna on First Aid Kit’s first-ever visit to the world-famous eponymous morning talk show. “Ellen heard us on the radio in her car – that’s how we got on the show. She asked for us to come on the show while we were on our US tour, and it all came together with really short notice. I can’t believe how sweet she was to us. She was watching our soundcheck in her pyjamas. It’s a very big show, but I think the crowd really got into it.” They all went home with a copy of Stay Gold, right? “That’s right,” she laughs.
The Söderbergs have started 2015 by getting the backs of their heads licked. No, really – just last week, the band were featured on a series of limited edition postage stamps in Sweden. It may seem a bizarre thing to even discuss, but it’s just – pardon the pun – part and parcel of Swedish pop culture according to Söderberg: “We do a lot of fun stamps in Sweden – we have soccer players and pop stars. That’s how we roll,” she says nonchalantly. “We haven’t seen the actual physical ones yet, but the designs look amazing. It’s going to be so weird to lick one of those for the first time.”
Wild, the new movie starring Reese Witherspoon, has just hit cinemas here in Australia. If you do make it along to a screening, make sure you listen out for a musical appearance from First Aid Kit. As a part of the film’s soundtrack, the Söderbergs were asked to cover a relatively-obscure track from R.E.M. The song is called Walk Unafraid, which comes from the band’s 1998 album Up – a record, it must be mentioned, was released when guitarist Klara Söderberg was all of five years old.
“I hadn’t really listened to R.E.M. at all,” confesses Johanna, “but they approached us and we somehow made it work. The original version of the song has a very different feel compared to the way that we ended up doing it. It was quite a challenge, actually. It’s a tricky song, but I think we incorporated it into our style.” Surely covering the legendary Athens band would have sparked a further investigation into their 30-year-plus canon of work? “No, actually,” she replies with a nervous laugh. “I know their famous songs from when I was a kid, but I don’t really know all that much more. Maybe I should look into them?”
March will see the sisters back in Australia once again. As well as appearances at Golden Plains and WOMADelaide, they’ll take in some of their biggest headlining dates in the surrounds of some truly luscious theatres. Even after several years of visiting, the excitement and awe never seems to lose its touch for Johanna.
“It’s been nothing but fantastic from the start,” she says. “We came over for the first time in 2010, just doing some really small shows, and they all sold out. We had absolutely no idea that people had even heard of us in Australia. That seemed like such a bizarre thing to us. It’s across on the other side of the world – that felt completely unheard of. Our Australian fans and the friends that we’ve made there would have to be some of our best in the whole world. We love triple j, we love Melbourne, we want to move there… This isn’t something that we say about every country. We really do love it so much over there.”
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
