Photo Credit Emily B Hall
Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden are cool through and through. Their songs have been featured on Make It or Break It, One Tree Hill, Pretty Little Liars, CSI Miami and more! With such illustrious credits to their name. we were thrilled to get to chat with them about musical influences, their new visual album, how Nashville influences their music and more.
Young Adult: How did you guys meet?
Kate Tucker: We met in Nashville. Wes and Ethan had just moved here from Pinckneyville to play music and I had posted on Facebook that I was looking for a band…
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YA: Who are some of your musical influences?
KT: I listened to a lot of nineties bands and I think you can hear it in our sound, especially The Cocteau Twins, The Cardigans, and Mazzy Star. As a band we listen to a little bit of everything, but lately we’ve been spinning lots of Kitten, Metric, Interpol, Kopecky Family Band, The Boxer Rebellion, Tristen and Black Angels.
YA: Your new album is totally amazing and very progressive. How did you come up with this concept?
KT: I knew we needed to do a Kickstarter to fund a new record, and I wanted to find a way to stand out amongst the myriad of music projects on the site. I’ve had the good fortune to work with a couple amazing directors on several music videos for past records, so I thought, why not see about making a music video for every song. Film factors hugely into how I write and how I communicate with my band. Our creative process is very image driven and our sound is often described as cinematic, so it only made sense to give this project its own unique visual form.
YA: Yes, your work is very inter-disciplinary. Who are some of your favorite artists outside of music (photo, word, etc.)?
KT: I read Hafiz nearly every day. I also love the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Fernando Pessoa. Federico Garcia Lorca slays me. Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the book I most often return to for inspiration. On the visual side, David Lynch is a huge influence. I am obsessed with his television series Twin Peaks. Jessie English is one of my favorite photographers and we were so excited to have her work on this project.
YA: Speaking of inter-disciplinary, your songs have been featured in numerous TV shows and movies. Tell us a little bit about some of that process and some highlights?
KT: It’s been great fun to see our music end up on the big screen. Being asked to provide the entire soundtrack for the feature film Everything Went Down was probably the most exciting part of that process thus far. I was also asked to take a lead role in the film and as a non-actor with no training, that experience was something I’ll never forget. Seeing the film actually reach people and win awards in the indie film festival circuit has been incredibly rewarding.
YA: What’s coming up next?
KT: Well now that things are wrapping up on the visual production side and our album has been released, we get to be a normal band again and hit the road!
YA: What are some songs you would like to cover?
KT: My dad really wants us to cover “Paint it Black”. In fact, I think we owe him a version of that from our Kickstarter project.
YA: What’s some advice you’d give to your younger self (musical or otherwise)?
KT: Trust your inner voice, your gut, your heart, your first thought. You are far wiser than you give yourself credit and no one will believe you until you believe yourself. So relax. Life is strange and wonderful and you are the only one who can live it like you can.
YA: And what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
KT: You always have a choice. The degree to which you can accept your current situation is the degree to which you can change it.
YA: You relocated to Nashville from Seattle? How has the move affected your music?
KT: I’ve said it many times, (I wrote about it recently in a blog for American Songwriter blog for American Songwriter), we would not have been able to pull off this project without the amazing community of collaborators we’ve come to know here in Nashville. It was the best thing I could have done for the way in which I want to play music and make art.
YA: What’s been your biggest success thus far?
KT: Staying alive and making art.
YA: What 5 songs are on your iPod right now?
KT: She is the One – Kopecky Family Band
Keep Moving – The Boxer Rebellion
Breathing Underwater – Metric
Dark Matter – Tristen
G#- Kitten