First Aid Kit mends after duo’s ‘divorce’
Klara and Johanna Soderberg of the Swedish duo First Aid Kit don’t sugarcoat what went down between them after the release of their 2014 album, “Stay Gold.” The album was the duo’s breakthrough, but it nearly broke them on the subsequent never-ending tour.
“We started touring in 2009, and between playing and recording, we never had a break,” Klara Soderberg says. “By 2015, I was kind of spent. I had a hard time expressing, let alone understanding how exhausted I was until I couldn’t do it anymore. It was sad and I had to pull the brakes.”
Her sister was going through a similar downturn. “It just came to us in different ways, having breakdowns, crying on stage, feeling it was too much,” Johanna says. “We’re very different. I’m driven, ambitious, and I think I pushed Klara too hard. We decided together we needed a break, and it was really hard for me to do that. I got restless and struggled with the down time, but we both needed that space. We didn’t speak for months. We had to have a divorce before we could write music again.”
Klara had moved from their hometown of Stockholm to live with her fiance at the time in Manchester, England. When that relationship disintegrated, Klara found herself processing the aftermath in the songs that began pouring out of her. When the two finally convened in Los Angeles in 2016 to begin working on their next album, Johanna saw that their usual songwriting method needed to change.
“In the past Klara and I lived together and we’d be jamming, doing octaves, then singing melodies that became songs,” Johanna says. “It was very organic, collaborative. This time it was trickier because Klara was living in a different country. She had bits and pieces of songs and I operated as an editor. I helped her see the bad and the good. Klara just went through a breakup and this was more Klara’s story, and it was important that it stayed her story. I wanted her and us to be as honest as possible in the songs.”
In January 2017, the Soderbergs moved to Portland, Ore., to work on the album that would become “Ruins” (Columbia) with producer Tucker Martine, who helped assemble a top-notch band that included Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche and exREM guitarist Peter Buck. The album toughens up the duo’s sound while retaining the Laurel Canyon-pop harmonies that defined its early recordings. “It’s a Shame” weds a lilting melody to a country-soul arrangement, and “Hem of her Dress” strips everything down until all that’s left is the raw ache in the sisters’ voices.
That sound isn’t exactly a family tradition. The Soderbergs’ father was in a rock band, Lolita Pop, and he and his wife were fans of punk progenitors such as Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and Patti Smith. “We rebelled against them by listening to soft music,” Johanna says with a laugh. “You can be rebellious in many ways. We were listening to Emmylou Harris, Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, which is what my grandparents listened to.”
“We decided together we needed a break, and it was really hard for me to do that.” — Johanna Soderberg, left, of her split from sister Klara