Pop music is one of Sweden’s major cultural exports and over the years it has given us a wide diversity of talented artists such as Robyn, ABBA, The Knife Lykke Li, Icona Pop, The Cardigans, Swedish House Mafia and Zara Larsson. Ten hours from the hit-making hub of Stockholm, above the Arctic Circle where the sun doesn’t rise during winter, lies the sleepy town of Pajala, home to 2000 residents…and The Magnettes, a fearless 21st Century fuck-pop trio who think ugly and weird is cool and that the patriarchy needs to be crushed. Right now.
This remote region has a minority language called Meänkieli, a language that was forbidden in Sweden until 1957 and today only spoken around 50 000 people. The Magnettes celebrate their roots and incorporate Meänkieli and the area’s old folk music into their infectious and inimitable glitter punk pop. The band is Rebecka Digervall, Sanna Kalla and Tomas Backlund who’s mission is the right to be as you want to be.
The Magnettes’ founders and co-vocalists Rebecka and Sanna describe themselves as ‘non-normative’, ‘witches’, ‘Tornedalingar’ (which translates as natives of the Torne Valley, a Swedish minority) and ‘Sisters of the Ugly Youth’ and this subversion is evident in their spellbinding songs. “We’re reclaiming the word ‘ugly’” declares Sanna “Why does beautiful have to be the standard? We have no regrets. We’re saying exactly what we want to say”.
“There’s some sort of Northern rebellion” adds guitarist, keyboardist, and producer Tomas Backlund. “We don’t want to be your average singing self-obsessed diary entries. We aim to do something bigger but we want to do it without moving to Stockholm, London or LA and writing songs about beaches and being super fit because what’s interesting about that?”
The seeds of rebellion were planted when Rebecka and Sanna met at school aged six-years-old. By 14, Rebecka had written a plethora of songs for the duo. In 2012, they released their first official song “Paper Cut” and performed a series of shows across Europe and Russia. By 2014 Tomas joined
and the duo became a trio.
In 2014 The Magnettes went to the
States for the first time to
perform at the New Music
Seminar in New York. In the
same year back in
Sweden they were the
main subjects of
Hans-Erik Therus’s
documentary
”Pajala State Of
Mind”, which
featured
in the Gothenburg
Film Festival, the
Tempo
Documentary
Festival in Stockholm
and on
Swedish national
television. The director
was so fascinated by the
band that he’s embarked
on a fly on the wall sequel
with the band, documenting where they’re at three years later.
In the spring of 2015 the group headed back to the States to perform a string of head turning shows at SXSW, followed by a trip to Nashville for a pivotal song writing session. “Something happened in Nashville,” says Rebecka.“we were just like, ‘Yeah it’s time to be fearless and write whatever the fuck we want.’So we did!” Energised by the trip the band began recording in Tomas’s kitchen, carving out a middle ground between their main influences, including Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Bikini Kill and Katy Perry.
The band’s shows at SXSW led to a booking at The Great Escape in Brighton the following month, followed by a series of summer shows and festivals across Europe. In the autumn they returned to the States for a US tour including New York, where they played CMJ and signed a record deal with Nashville based label DigSin.
Since then they’ve barely paused for breath. They’ve released four critically acclaimed singles (‘Bones’, ‘Killers in a Ghost Town’, ‘Hollywood’ and ‘Sad Girls Club’, which received support from Spotify and key bloggers including Perez Hilton), toured incessantly and written their debut album ‘Ugly Youth’, that was released on 30th June 2017. The song Young and Wild got A-rotation on Swedish national radio over the summer of 2017 and in the end became the 10th most played song on Swedish radio 2017. They also were nominated one of 20 emerging acts on the worlds biggest festival Summerfest in Milwaukee in the USA. Their lives was followed on Swedish Television in the TV program “Min Squad”.
The Magnettes describe the themes of the album as being “mainly about adolescence and identity, coming to terms with who you are and finding your place in the world. It’s also about
friends, fucking, fighting, and drinking. One pretty central theme for the album was the idea of an alternate universe
where the tables were turned, the freaks had
taken over, the goths were cheerleaders
and cool kids, and were being weird
was just normal.” And there you’d
find plenty of Magnettes fans…
who the band says ‘like
things that are kind of
leftfield yet straightforward and
tend to get into a lot
of heated arguments
about, for instance,
social issues and gender norms. They could be punks or indie-fans, but could just as well be into hip-hop or
mainstream shiny
pop. For us, it’s
pretty much the
same, because when
it’s good it’s simple,
like a splash of red on
something black-and-
white, or a punch to the
face.”
Featured Artists
13 - September - 2019