First Aid Kit (band)
Origin Stockholm, Sweden
Genres
Folk Indie Folk Americana Country Folk
First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk duo that consists of the sisters Klara (vocals/guitar) and Johanna Söderberg (vocals/keyboards/Autoharp/bass guitar). When performing live, the duo are accompanied by a drummer, a pedal steel guitarist and recently a keyboard player. In 2008, they became internationally known by their YouTube video cover of the Fleet Foxes’s song “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” that gained significant Internet popularity. They have now released four albums, four EPs and a handful of singles. In 2015 they were nominated first time for a Brit Award as one of the five best international groups. They were nominated again in 2019.
Sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg are from Enskede, in the outskirts of Stockholm. Johanna was born on 31 October 1990 and Klara on 8 January 1993. Their father was a member of the Swedish rock pop band Lolita Pop but he quit before Johanna was born and later became a teacher of history and religion. Their mother is a teacher of cinematography.
From childhood, Klara and Johanna were eager singers by giving concerts using a jump rope as a pretend microphone. Klara’s first favorite songs were Judy Garland’s songs from The Wizard of Oz and Billie Holiday’s version of “Gloomy Sunday”, which she sang without much understanding of the English lyrics.[10] Klara wrote her first song “Femton mil i min Barbiebil” [Fifteen miles in my Barbie car] when she was six.
They both attended the International English school of Enskede. Klara applied for admission to a music school but she was not accepted.
In 2005 when Klara was 12, a friend introduced her to the band Bright Eyes.[10] This led her to country music stars such as Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Carter family, Louvin Brothers, Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. The same year she received a guitar of her own as a Christmas present and quickly learned to play it.
Johanna enjoyed a wide range of music from Britney Spears to German Techno. However, it wasn’t until watching the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and listening to the film’s soundtrack that she was inspired to sing “Down to the River to Pray” with her sister, Klara. Fascinated by the result they started to sing together first at home and then as street singers, for example in the Stockholm metro and in front of liquor stores. Klara preemptively came up with the name for their band at age 13 by looking through a dictionary. She found the term “first aid kit” and thought it described best what she wanted her music to be.
Klara and Johanna also started to write and compose their own country-folk songs inspired by Devendra Banhart and CocoRosie, among others, without much influence from their parents who were more fond of Patti Smith, Velvet Underground and the Pixies. Their father confessed later in a Swedish radio program that he was astonished and actually a little jealous of the ease his daughters had in producing top-notch music. The most important advice their father gave to them was to sing so loud that even somebody behind the wall could hear it.
In April 2007 the sisters started to upload their self-made songs to the social networking site MySpace. They also sent a demo of their song “Tangerine” to the Swedish radio.[19] It immediately went on air and was listed as one of the best songs of the summer 2007,[20] which led to requests for live performances and even some offers from record companies. The first official performance as First Aid Kit was at PUNKTmedis library in Stockholm on 6 October. More gigs followed but as Klara was 14 and still at school, they could only play during weekends.
Meanwhile, their younger brother attended the same kindergarten as the daughter of Karin Dreijer Andersson, half of Swedish electronic duo The Knife and also known as Fever Ray. Their mother asked Dreijer to check out her daughters’ songs on MySpace. After doing so, and seeing them play live, Dreijer said that the duo had to be saved from bad deals with the industry. It was decided to sign them to Rabid Records, a label co-owned by The Knife with conditions that allowed the duo to have full control over their music and album art.
April 2008 saw the release of the debut EP Drunken Trees in Sweden. The EP was produced by their father and was a re-recorded collection of songs from their MySpace site originally called “Cross Oceans”. Their first appearance in Swedish TV was also that month.
The duo was already quite well known in Sweden by August 2008, when they uploaded a cover version of “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” by Fleet Foxes to YouTube. Robin Pecknold, frontman and lead guitarist for Fleet Foxes, noticed the duo’s message about the video and praised the song on his band’s webpage with multiple exclamation marks, causing a surge of popularity of the video It led to First Aid Kit becoming internationally known, and them signing with Wichita Records at the end of 2008.
Due to international touring, Johanna quit high school in the autumn of 2008 and Klara never started it. Their father took a leave from his job as a teacher and accompanied them on tour, also helping with soundchecks. First Aid Kit’s first show outside Scandinavia was on 22 November 2008 at the Crossing Border Festival in Netherlands. Fleet Foxes performed the day before, and when Pecknold spotted the duo standing at the edge of the stage they were unexpectedly asked to join to sing “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”.
Wichita re-released Drunken Trees on 23 February 2009 as an enhanced EP with “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” added as a bonus track along with some videos.
2018–present
On 12 January 2018 BBC’s Graham Norton Show was broadcast where First Aid Kit performed “It’s a Shame”. At the same time Johanna and Klara were interviewed on the Norwegian-Swedish Skavlan TV show where they also performed “Fireworks”.
Band members
Current line-up
Klara Söderberg – vocals, guitar (2007–present)
Johanna Söderberg – vocals, bass guitar, keyboards, autoharp (2007–present)
Melvin Duffy – pedal steel guitar, mandolin and electric guitar (2013–present)[138]
Scott Simpson – drums (2015–present)
Steve Moore – keyboards, trombone (2017–present)
Previous members
Mattias Bergqvist – drums (2009–2012)
Niclas Lindström – drums (2012–2014)
Discography
Albums
Year Information Peak position Sales Certification
2010 The Big Black and the Blue
Release date: 25 January 2010
Record label: Wichita
Producer: Benkt Söderberg
UK: 16,244[145]
2012 The Lion’s Roar
Release date: 18 January 2012
Record label: Wichita
Producer: Mike Mogis
WW: 250,000[146]
UK: 100,000+[145]
SWE: Platinum[117]
UK: Gold[118]
2014 Stay Gold
Release date: 10 June 2014
Record label: Columbia
Producer: Mike Mogis
1 9 — 80 7 10 9 1 37 23 11
WW: 200,000[147]
UK: 100,000+[145]
SWE: Platinum[117]
UK: Gold[118]
2018 Ruins
Release date: 19 January 2018[116]
Record label: Columbia
Producer: Tucker Martine
1 13 37 7 28
[148] 10
[149] 10 4
[150] 11 47 3
SWE: Gold[117]
UK: Silver[118]
EPs
Year Information Peak position
SWE UK vinyl
2008 Drunken Trees
Release date: 9 April 2008
Record label: Wichita/Rabid
Producer: Benkt Söderberg, First Aid Kit
— —
2014 America
Release date:
28 November 2014 (vinyl)
13 January 2015 (digital)
Record label: Columbia
Producer: Mike Mogis, First Aid Kit
— —
2018 Live from the Rebel Hearts Club
Release date:
8 June 2018 (digital)
Record label: Columbia
— —
2018 Tender Offerings
Release date:
14 September 2018 (vinyl and digital)
Record label: Columbia
— 1
Singles
Year Single Peak chart positions Certification Album
SWE
[155] AUS
[156] FR NED NOR US
AAA
[86]
2009 “You’re Not Coming Home Tonight”/”Tangerine” — — — — — — — Drunken Trees (EP)
“Hard Believer”/”Waltz for Richard” — — — — — — — The Big Black and the Blue
2010 “I Met Up with the King” — — — — — — —
“Ghost Town” (7″) — — — — — — —
2011 “Universal Soldier” (7″) — — — — — — — Non-album single[157][158]
“The Lion’s Roar” 22 — — — — — — The Lion’s Roar
2012 “Emmylou” 24 — — — 20 — —
“Blue” — — — — — — —
“Wolf” — — — — — — —
2014 “My Silver Lining” 38 76 19 50 — 22
UK: Silver[118]
Stay Gold
“Cedar Lane” — — — — — — —
“America” (10″) — — — — — — — America (EP)
2015 “Stay Gold” — — — — — 26 — Stay Gold
2017 “You Are the Problem Here” — — — — — — — Non-album singles
“Gloomy Sunday” — — — — — — —
“It’s a Shame” 77 — — — — 16 — Ruins
“Fireworks” 47 — — — — — —
2018 “Ruins” 85 — — — — — —
Other charted songs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia