Music, Style & Culture

In Conversation: Those Dancing Days

Development, creativity and the importance of taking things seriously… sometimes.

In anticipation of their second album and another cascade of glossy Scandinavian feel-good pop, Peter Bloxham has a conversation with Those Dancing Days singer Linnea about development, creativity and the importance of taking things seriously… sometimes.

Hi, Linnea. What have you been up to recently?
Well actually this Saturday we played on Swedish television!

How was it?
It was crazy! We’ve never really done anything like that before. It was a Swedish awards show for musicians [P3 Guld Public Radio Awards]. It was a lot of fun and a lot of people liked it, so it was good.

So you’ve not done much in the way of television gigs before?
Not that big, no.

Nerve-wracking?
It was! Ha.

When people talk about Those Dancing Days you often hear words like ‘cute’ and ‘adorable’. Do you think as you mature musically that perception might start to change?
Yeah, this record is different because we have grown up. We started when I was fifteen and I’m twenty now, so of course it sounds different. We never really liked being called ‘cute’ and ‘bubblegum pop’ and stuff, but we also didn’t say “OK, let’s make these songs more mature”. It was just a natural progression.

Was that difficult to deal with, not being taken seriously? I read about people asking if you would like them to tune your guitar for you and such. Has that improved?
It definitely has. We still meet people who wonder what we can really do ourselves, but it was particularly great when we played on Saturday - people who didn’t know us as much were saying “I didn’t know you sounded like this, this is good!” So it feels good with this new record because we’ve proved that we’re both capable on record and live.

With the performances on the new record, there’s an almost euphoric sense of movement and energy that comes through. Is there some sort of new enthusiasm you’ve found as you’ve spent more time together as a band?
I think these songs are closer to our hearts. We’ve always written our own songs and they’ve always been meaningful to us, but maybe even more so now since we’ve gone through more in life, so we feel more when we perform them. We are so proud of this record and these songs so it’s definitely more so now than before.

Has the creative process has changed much since you started out?
Things have changed a lot. We recorded the EP [2007’s ‘Those Dancing Days’] with our friend [Max-Måns] and he is the same age as us, so it was new for both of us. This second album was recorded with Patrik Berger, who’s been working a lot with Robyn, and he is really very good. He told us “No you’re not ready, you need to go away and rehearse, you need to know your stuff. I’m not going to record with you until you do!”

It’s good to have someone strict and forceful around you sometimes, right? It can get the best out of you.
Yes! I was like “Yes, you’re right! Let’s do this!” while some of the others were like “...What?”, haha. It was really good for us because we’ve always done this for fun but you have to put the effort in if you want it to be as much as fun as possible. We went back and rehearsed for a couple of months and then we recorded and it was really, really good. Everyone was saying “Ohh, you really can hear the difference and that you’ve been rehearsing more.”

Which must be a great thing to hear to build enthusiasm.
It’s nice to know the effort was not pointless!

You guys sound like you’re having fun, but when does it start to feel like work?
I always look upon this as work, because I’m just that kind of person. I think the other guys are a lot more “Woohoo, this is fun!” but for me I need to be serious to feel good about it. If you see it as work you can do so much more with it. You can control things that happen around you and decide for yourself. It’s healthy to separate it. When we have our meetings and we talk about money and stuff then it’s “OK, let’s focus,” and when we play we can say “Let’s have fun.” When we’re on stage, it’s never work.

Have you played any terrible shows?
Well, I think this last year we’ve only really done good shows! Although at one of our first gigs in London we had a couple of football guys in the audience who were doing... inappropriate things.

It had to be London, didn’t it? I’m really sorry about London!
Haha, don’t worry about it. We were really young then so we were like “Ohhhh! What are you doing?!” Oh, we had another show in Kingston where everything went wrong. We got on stage to find the support act had spilled beer on the keyboard so it didn’t work and we had to borrow one from the other, nicer, support band. Then I couldn’t hear myself at all so we just played wrong and just hated it, it was horrible. That was the worst gig I have ever done.

So your two worst were both in London!
Sorry!

I guess London owes you a really good gig?
Oh, we’ve done a lot of good gigs in London, too.

OK, so when have you felt happiest on stage?
Hmmm... Hard question! All of the shows we’ve done recently have been just great, but I think that’s because we’ve been playing the new songs and people are really approving. I remember in the beginning, in something like 2008, we played this Swedish festival called ‘Peace And Love’. There’s always a really good feeling there and the crowd was crazy, so we’ve always carried that with us. That concert was just such a big surprise that people loved it so much.

So what are you guys looking forward to over the next couple of months?
We’re going to Europe - I’m really excited about Berlin actually because it’s on my birthday! I’ve never had a birthday on tour before and I love Berlin. Then we go to the US for SXSW.

SXSW is exciting.
I’m really nervous actually!

More nervous than before you had to play on TV?
Yeah! I always get sick, and it’s going to be an intense festival, and there’s going to be so much fun going on...

I’m sure you’ll be OK, you just need to pace yourself a little bit!
Haha, yes. I’ll try.

Those Dancing Days’ debut album ‘Daydreams & Nightmares’ is out now via Wichita Recordings.

Taken from the April 2011 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.