For stoner-rock-soul band Blues Pills, the attraction of ‘70s rock’n’roll is in its sincerity. “I think the biggest thing that I love about this kind of music is it feels very true and real,” says vocalist Erin Larsson. “It felt like music was lacking of that these days. I always been into huge, strong and soulful voices and it actually doesn’t matter for me in what music I find them,” Larsson says. “But truth is in today’s modern music they are hard to find and the sound is way to clean for me, which kind of makes me not interested in it, there is no truth in it, over trained and over effected and over produced.”
The genesis of Blues Pills came in 2011, when Swedish-born vocalist Erin Larsson was visiting California. “I met Zach [Anderson] and Cory [Berry] during a trip to California in the USA where they were living at the time,” Larsson says. “Since Zach and Cory are step brothers they’ve both been playing together for a long time and also in different local bands in Iowa.”
Discovering that they shared “a love for blues and soul rock”, Larsson, Anderson and Berry put down some tracks in Anderson’s father’s garage, with the simple objective of “making some songs for fun”. “We uploaded these two tracks on YouTube,” Larsson says. “It got the attention of a few people, and soon we were offered a Spanish tour, and an EP on Crusher Records in Sweden.”
Deciding they needed a second guitarist, Anderson and Berry remembered a crack young guitarist they’d met previously, a French teenager by the name of Dorian Sorriaux. “They’d been blown away by his talent,” Larsson recalls. “I remember them telling me over Skype that they met this wonder child from France and they actually said to each other that same night, ‘If we ever start our own band we have to get Dorian playing the guitar’.”
An early incarnation of Blues Pills had played its first gig in Minnesota at a “BBQ joint”. “There was maybe 15 or 20 people there maximum,” Berry recalls. “Even though everyone was sitting down in the crowd and eating good BBQ, it was still one of my favorite Blues Pills shows to this day. I think it’s mostly because that was our very first show and that was also my first time ever performing a real concert on electric guitar. The best thing about that first show was definitely the food – there really wasn’t a bad thing about that show that I can recall.”
Blues Pills’ music is heavily influenced by the classic rock sounds of the ‘70s, and the occasional contemporary heir: Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, The Who, Dead Weather and early Fleetwood Mac.
“It’s very interesting to see such a revival of [‘70s rock],” Larsson says. “Although I think a lot of bands in this style just kind of copy a lot of other bands, so it’s a huge difference of copying and just using their inspirations to create something new. The really great ones managed to do it in their own way and make their own sound and music out of their inspirations. And that’s what really make them unique.”
Given the band members’ shared musical interests, the members’ various different cultural backgrounds weren’t much of a major issue. “Other than very small differences I don’t think this has had a big influence on our music. Although we are from different countries, the thing that brought us together was that we loved the same kind of music,” Anderson says. “Of course, we do have some differences in the music we like, but I don’t think it’s any more than if the band members were all from the same country. The internet has made everything so much more connected, and you can find people who you have a lot in common with, all the way across the world. So in a way, I feel like we have more in common musically, than if we found band members in our hometown or even our own country.”
Larsson’s rich vocals lend Blues Pills a soulful edge that sets the band apart from other pale rock’n’roll imitators. “Having a female singer definitely makes it easier to add a softer touch to our music,” Anderson says. “Not only the fact that she is a woman, but Erin in particular has very soulful voice, so that brings a lot of the blues/soul into our sound. The fact is that having a girl singer does make you stand out, simply because there is much more male singers in rock music, however at the end of the day, the quality of the singer is all that really matters.”
Now based in Sweden, Blues Pills are performing their first live shows outside of the northern hemisphere, including a spot at this week’s Cherry Fest. “All our songs are based on feeling so I think we perform differently every night when it comes to tempos or extending jams and solos,” he says. “If I’m grooving on a certain night it’s OK to play around and jam. We all understand each other musically so we don’t get confused when one or the other is playing around. It makes it different and more interesting for us, and our fans. In the end, that is what’s important for us.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
