Media Roundup No. 3
| It's time to comb the media outlets once again in order to find those nuggets of gold from The Cardigans. This roundup includes a little bit of everything + a little bit about Bankeryd (!). Enjoy. | ||||||
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| Here are the quotes: Peter: We've reinvented ourselves with every new record. If we would stick to one sound, we would bore ourselves to death. We wouldn’t have succeeded in sticking together for 13 years now. That was difficult enough anyway, because we are such bloody pigheads who love to smash eachother in the head. [Piranha Magazine, November 2005] Peter: With us, what's inside a record is never what the name on the cover promises. It is almost like there are five people, totally different from the ones on the record before, showing up in the studio to record the new Cardigans record. To be honest, I like to do it like that, it makes our existence, well, an exciting adventure. Up until now we all, although we are now in the middle of our thirties, cannot get enough of this. It’s almost like in this life we get the chance of a continual reincarnation - as a small artist, can you expect more from this great existence? [Piranha Magazine, November 2005] Nina: Everyone is saying, and we talk about ourselves in those terms as well, that we're into "chapter two" in this band kind of. And that chapter started when the last record was released or when we had had our break. A lot of different things make it feel like it's a "chapter two", a lot has to do with how we're working together and how everyone is enjoying being in the band and the music we're making as well. Our ambitions, that we're... right now we're so kind of goal-oriented and we really want this, we choose it every morning when we wake up. That's why it feels like we're a few pages into chapter two right now. I don't know how many chapters we're going to get, maybe just two but hopefully this second one will be a long one. Peter: It feels really great, this that Nina's describing as the second chapter, it's some kind of... it has come from us finding a nice creative situation but also some kind of... well, our relationships have landed in a way and the band is working really well socially. And after being in this band for 10-15 years it's not about us doing this because we can, because we have some people that listen to our music or because we have a nice contract that's lucrative or anything like that. There was no way any of those things would have been allowed to influence us when we had our big crisis. There was no way we would have gotten back together just because... just because someone had bought an appartment that was too big and needed to take a mortgage loan [laughter]. That was never on the table. It was all about finding our way back to our relationships and thinking that it was fun and making great music. So since we feel like that it really feels like you can enjoy it and feel a lot of pride over the fact that we've done what we've done. [Musikjournalen, SR P3, 13 October] Nina: I don't think I'm ever going to do anymore A Camp records, ever. It's something I've just decided recently. I think It will be only that one in my life, at least under that name. In a way I have a lot more personal involvement in The Cardigans now, so it's "my baby" just as much as A Camp was. [TT Spektra] It's been 11 years right, since the first album came out? Nina: Yes that's right. How have you changed as a singer during these years? Nina: Well... completely! I think. Or rather, from barely even thinking that I would be able to sing I've become a singer kind of during the way somewhere. What do you think your strengths are as a singer? Nina: I still think that... that I should be careful not to learn too much theory, in a way. Sometimes I get the urge to like learn how to read music or to play an instrument. But sometimes I think that it's part of my stength that I don't know that much. That I still kind of sing from instinct. [Swedish talkshow, 'Carin 21:30' 23 November] You don’t like to talk about lyrics? Nina: It’s not that I don’t like talking about them, but I think it’s difficult. When I’ve written the lyrics, I’ve said everything. Sometimes I don’t know what to add. Does it go on your nerves when your lyrics are being misinterpreted? Nina: Lyrics are extremely important. And that’s another reason why it’s hard for me to talk about them. Of course I know what I am talking about, at that moment when I’m doing it, but it’s very interesting when people interpret my lyrics for themselves. That’s how it’s supposed to be with songlyrics. Nina: Yeah, exactly. When I listen to music that is important to me, I make the songs my own. I think they are about me. That’s a good feeling. [Musikexpress, November 2005 issue] Nina: People can believe whatever they want to. When I listen to music I get so wonderfully frustrated when I don't get to know everything. I can be so tired of people being completely open. I get really fun messages on our website where people interpret my lyrics and that gives me just as much because I can think "whoa! of course! and then my songs is about that as well. When Magnus all of a sudden says that the other bandmembers also speculate on what the songs are about Nina exclaims: But you only think the songs are about you! I know they want to get me drunk and force the truth out of me! [Svenska Dagbladet, 14 October] Nina Persson is often described as reserved and difficult to interview, something that is very difficult to understand. She has several theories about it. Nina: It's about me not giving in to the sensationalist press. I am terribly talkative but I often lose interest very quickly when people have already decided what picture they want of me. I'll give my answers and I can see on the reporter's face that I've given the "wrong" answer and that his angle is breaking. They always want to talk about whether I'm regarded as a sexual object or how it is to be the only female in the band. Not to speak about the whole "I want to have children"- talk that has become so tiring. [Svenska Dagbladet, 14 October] You've travelled all around the world and I'm thinking that you've had to have been in a lot of these kinds of talkshows. I'm sure you don't know how many but what's the weirdest thing you've done in this world? Nina: In the TV-world? It's always wery weird to do TV-shows in Japan. Here everything is very pedagogic, a lot of people with headsets come up to you and tell you exactly what you're supposed to do and when you're supposed to play and when you're supposed to talk and things like that. But they don't really do that over there. Or maybe they do but in Japanese so we don't have a clue as to what to do. It's often these very cheery game-shows and stuff where we're just supposed to stand there like some... damned exotic props and you know they're laughing at you all the time. [Swedish talkshow 'TV Huset', 16 October] Nina, You spend a lot of time with only guys in the band. Nina: Yes. How does that affect you? Nina: It's so difficult for me to say, objectively... I think that genereally, to be so close to men that aren't my husband or my brothers, I think there's something really good in it because we wouldn't normally have chosen eachother. It's the same thing with me, I'm probably the woman that they've... I'm not a relative, I'm just a very, very close workmate. I think it's really great to have that kind of relationships, where there's nothing sexual or any other ties. It's very healthy Nina: It's really interesting the whole social phenomenon that a band is. Because it really cannot be compared to any other kinds of workplaces or relationships. [Swedish talkshow 'TV Huset', 16 October] You grew up in Bankeryd, a bit outside of Jönköping. Was it a good place to grow up in? Nina: Yes, I think so. In what way? Nina: It's a small community and you had this smaller universe to keep track of. But did you know all through your teens that you would leave? Nina: Yes, actually i did. I used to sketch in my mind and fantasize about my future appartment in Stockholm and where I was going to go in life. And then when you were 18 you moved to Malmö? Nina: First to Malmö, yes. Why Malmö? Nina: It was because... the whole band moved there, we had begun working at a studio there, Tambourine Studios. And they were the only friends we had outside of Jönköping really so it was very logical to move there so we did and we worked on our music for a while and then we ended up staying. And then you lived with the other guys in the band. What did mum and dad think about that? You being 18 and living with them. Nina: At the time it was the only possible thing, we couldn't afford anything else. But I can imagine that mum and dad thought it was a relief that I was in safe hands together with my friends. But where all the guys in the band in love with you then? I have to ask! Nina: I can tell you that I ask this question myself quite often. [laughs] I dated one of the guys for 4 days when I was 14, that's the closest I've ever come to that. Honestly, there have never been any love-affairs, at least none where I am involved. [Swedish talkshow, 'Carin 21:30' 23 November] How much of a small-town girl is left in you? Nina: I love running into people I know on the street. That's a small-town thing, isn't it? Would you say that you have... because everyone feels these expectations from home, from your parents, that they expect you to do something with your life? Do you feel that you've lived up to your parents' expectations? Nina:Well, nobody expected this! Absolutely not them, certainly not me, and nobody else either! So I don't think it's the right question to ask. I think that they thought for a long time that "It's fun that she's doing this before she starts her real life and gets a real job." But then I passed that stage and there was no real job and a couple of years went by. But now they've... now this is my real job. Now I sit around with my brothers and my parents and we talk about what everyone's done at work today and it doesn't really matter what it is you actually do. What do you think they had imagined for you? Nina: My mother still goes on and on about physical therapy, I don't know where she gets that from 'cause there has never been a shred of that in me. But I guess... I guess that was one of the nicest things she could imagine me doing. Although now I think the thinks it's pretty cool to have a popstar offspring. And she's happy about it? Nina: I think so, yes. [Swedish talkshow 'TV Huset', 16 October] Nina and Magnus are a bit excited to learn that I grew up in the same bible-belt hicksville town as them (Bankeryd). Nina is cheeringly trying to mimic the ugliest dialect in the world. Nina: "If I hadn't started making music I would have been sniffing glue and spraying graffiti on 'Peter's Kiosk' (local hangaround). Or made a mess of myself at some artschool somewhere." Magnus: I'm sure you would have had a shop in Bankeryd called "Nina's crafts" or something. Nina: And you would have been a kids' recreation leader and forced the kids to listen to Joy Division instead of Smurfhits. Magnus: We wouldn't have been that successful I think. Nina: Nope. [Chili #6 2005] *** #4 is still in the foggy haze of the (distant?) future. But do keep an eye open. As usual, thank-you to our very own forum member -berlin- for the press clips from Germany. |
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