DATE OF INTERVIEW:

CRUCIFIED BARBARA

10th July 2009

IDA EVILEYE; KLARA FORCE

METAL DISCOVERY: I read an interview with you last week - I think there was a link on Blabbermouth, and you said that you get asked the whole time about being an all-female band and ultimately you said gender shouldn’t matter as people are just people…

KLARA FORCE: Exactly, we’re all individuals.

(Ida Evileye on Crucified Barbara's accommodation while playing at a French biker festival)

"We opened the door in the morning and we were staying at Europe’s biggest nudist camp! Everybody was naked!"

Ida Evileye in the VIP tent, Rockweekend, Kilafors, Sweden, 10th July 2009

Photograph copyright © 2009 Mark Holmes - www.metal-discovery.com

Interview & Photography by Mark Holmes

RELATED LINKS

Official Crucified Barbara Website:

Official Crucified Barbara MySpace:

CRUCIFIED BARBARA DISCOGRAPHY

In Distortion We Trust (2005)

'Til Death Do Us Party (2009)

Albums & EPs

GMR Records Website:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Susanne Wallerstein at GMR Music Group for arranging the interview.

Cheers to Ida and Klara for taking time out to be interviewed.

Singles

Losing the Game (2005)

Rock 'n' Roll Bachelor (2005)

Play Me Hard (2006)

MD: Okay. Thank you very much.

IE: Yeah, thank you.

MD: Sorry to make you miss some of U.D.O.

IE: That's no problem. Thanks very much for the interview.

MD: Exactly, people are autonomous with their own minds, regardless of gender. Hypothetically though, if somebody left the band, would you deem it necessary to find a female replacement, or would you consider anybody?

KF: Well, if someone left the band, it wouldn’t be the same band. I don’t know if we would even carry on. But I wouldn’t care if it was a male or a female.

IDA EVILEYE: I think it would be a very strange thing to consider - it’s not up for topic.

KF: Yeah, yeah, we’re gonna stick together, so…

MD: Okay, a bad question that one then! How is your fan base in the UK because you‘re not really a big name in the metal press? But you have played Download in the UK, supported Motörhead on a big tour, and last year you were over in September supporting…?

KF: Backyard Babies, yeah.

MD: Do you actually see the same faces turning up to gigs?

KF: Yeah, it was quite fun when we came back now with Backyard Babies - like at every show I saw a few people that I met before on the Motörhead shows. They were originally Motörhead fans and they came back to see us which was great. It was fun.

IE: Everybody’s talking about the scene in England being a very hard thing to come into. I think, for us, we’re very welcome there.

KF: Yeah, but we heard so many things about the British audience being quite mean to bands playing, so the first time we played in the UK, we were quite scared; like, “oh, what’s going to happen?” Because if they hate us they will throw pee at us or something. But it never happened so, for the most part, we feel very welcome in the UK. We’ve had good support shows, and the aims is to, of course, come back on our own. It would be fun to see.

MD: I was reading through some of your tour diary entries on your website, particularly the UK ones last year, and you seemed to live off Indian food for a couple of weeks or something…

KF: Oooh yeah! Yeah! [laughs] It’s not only Indian food - it’s any kind of food!

IE: No, but Indian food in England.

MD: Is that just a touring England thing?

IE: Yeah, well, we heard a lot about Indian food in England being really good, so we just, er…

KF: That’s like your national kind of food!

MD: Yeah, yeah! Chicken Tikka Masala is a British national dish! You’ve toured with some big names over the years like Sepultura and In Flames; obviously Motörhead as we mentioned; Pain as well; and Jon Oliva’s Pain…actually you must be the only band to have toured with both Pains - like Jon Oliva’s and Peter Tägtgren’s…

KF: Oooooh, I love that band - Savatage/Jon Oliva.

[At this moment, U.D.O. commence their set with the old Accept classic ‘Metal Heart’ over on the left hand stage]

KF: It’s too loud, I can’t hear now.

IE: Ooooh, we have a club in Stockholm called Metal Heart, me and Klara.

KF: I love this!

IE & KF: [sung kind of tunefully, with fists pumping the air, to the backing of U.D.O. in the distance] "It is 1999. The human race has to face it…"

KF: Sorry!

MD: No problem!

KF: I think you’d better ask her because I can’t hear you from over here...

[...at which point Klara picks up her jacket and walks off, presumably to watch U.D.O., whereas Ida kindly stays to finish the interview]

MD: Which of those tours hold the happiest memories from everyone you’ve supported?

IE: I think, without a doubt, the Motörhead tour was very good for us. I’d heard a lot of people say that Motörhead are very friendly towards the support band, and that was very true. We had a great experience on that tour, and very well treated, and big arenas, and that was amazing. So it was a very good experience, also for learning playing for a few thousand people every night - that was big for us. Yeah, that was great.

MD: What band, or bands, have you been most proud to share a festival stage with?

IE: Judas Priest, no doubt!

MD: At what festival was that?

IE: We played at Sweden Rock, but it wasn’t the same day. But if you’re asking who we played with at the same festival, then maybe Jon Oliva’s Pain. I love Savatage. We love Savatage. But we’re playing at so many festivals that we don’t even remember! There are very many great bands like Judas Priest and U.D.O. I guess I’m a bit like an old lady! I like old stuff!

MD: You don’t look that old though!

IE: No, but I’m getting there!

MD: How old are you?

IE: 28.

MD: 28?! That’s still young! I’m 36 so you can’t say that you’re old!

IE: Okay, sorry! [laughs]

MD: Every band seems to have had their Spinal Tap moments on tour - what’s been your biggest disaster while touring?

IE: There are so many different strange things! For instance, we were in France playing at a biker festival and they told us “ah, you’re gonna stay in nice bungalows” but, when we came to the place we were gonna sleep, it was more like trailers. We opened the door in the morning and we were staying at Europe’s biggest nudist camp! Everybody was naked! It was 3,000 naked people…everywhere. Me and Klara were into football so we were gonna watch the world championship football, and it was just German naked guys and us watching the game! Of course, we lost against Germany, so…

MD: Not so good.

IE: That was a strange happening, and we have had a lot of other strange things happening where we were in Champs-Élysées in Paris playing….a guy who runs the biggest radio show in Paris…his birthday party which was kind of like a can-can place, so we were led down the silver stairs with girls in big feather hats, and it was extremely weird! We’ve had a lot of different, strange things!

MD: Okay! What’s the weirdest or funniest piece of fan-mail you’ve received from someone - like an email, MySpace message or whatever?

IE: Our fans are very friendly and nice in every way but we have one guy and he’s kind of retarded. But he’s very into the band and he writes these emails in all big letters, and he just writes “I love you. I want to blah, blah, blah…”. And he sends something every week. Every week in my mail.

MD: He’s your stalker?! An internet stalker!

IE: Yeah. But I receive a lot of different mails - people wanting to do different stuff, it’s…you can’t imagine how many different weirdos are out there!

MD: Yeah, of course. Finally, for anybody who will be reading this interview and haven’t heard of Crucified Barbara before, what would you say to recommend people go check you out?

IE: Er…if you’re any kind of a music lover that likes hard rock music, I think we’re something for those people. I think you can collect anything in our music. I hope that they check us out and eventually like us, of course, but that’s up to everybody to decide, but if you have the music interests which we have as well then check out our band.