– Hello and, first of all, thanks for taking your time to answer to our questions. How’s everything going in the band’s camp?
Thank you for reaching out! We are currently experimenting with new material, at the same time we are planning our Spain, Portugal, France tour with Ya Ya Yeah bookings.

– How was CB3 born? What was the purpose behind forming a band like this?
We formed in 2013. Me (Charlotta) and our former doublebassplayer Jonas and a drummer called Anton started to play together. It was because of a gig that I was given at a jazzclub, so I needed a band. The gig was fun and we wanted to continue. Then when we started at study at Malmö Academy of Music we met the drummer Natanael. At the school we had a rehearsal space, so we played a lot of times during a week. Exploring music together, endless jamming. Then in january 2018 we started to play with a new bassplayer called Pelle, and he is our main bassplayer nowadays. He plays electric bass and is a true pedal effects nerd.

-And what’s the music background of the members involved in CB3? Where do you come from?
It’s diffrent both me and the drummer comes from small places, I come from the middle of Sweden, Natanael from north with not so much culture at all. Pelle comes from the south and on the other hand had more of a musical enviroment. We all like to play music, practise and experiment with sounds. We like the band enviroment with a clear goal more than temporary projects.

-Nowadays that with technology and easy access to a lot of different bands the attention span of most listeners seems to have shorten, do you think it is more of a challenge to have an instrumental band in the present days? As generally it seems it’s more difficult to get keep attention awake toward instrumental music.
Yes, I guess it’s true but at the same time we and instrumental bands don’t aim to reach that kind of audience. But it’s actually a topic we’ve been thinking about when doing «Aeons» – how to make intrumental music insteresting and not a sleeping pill. One other aspect of our instrumental music is that improvisation is a big part of our band, so the live experience is actually the most important. Also what we aim for capturing during recording sessions.

-Your new album is «Aeons». How does its title reflect the content on it?
Aeons as a name can have many meanings it can be a long period of time, an otherworldy kind of being. With the titles, the progression I think Aeons as a name summarize it all as a whole. As an album «Aeons» has a a bright, explosive expression and an album full of energy – which also reflects the name, word «Aeons». It’s the kind of opposite to «From Nothing to Eternity» which is more about how far can you take an idea and long periods of time and space.

-On it once more you mix Jazz, Space Rock, psychedelia… Do you have any music limits?
No not as individuals, but we will probably never start playing pop music or irish folk music in this band. Why we mix jazz, space rock, psych and even some progressive, is because it becomes natural. We all has played or studied jazz or improvisational music, we’re all in to space sounds and effects and we love experimenting with riffs and different structures. We have this foundation but we always try to bend the comfort zone.

-As I said, there are some Jazz hints. How much of improvisation is there on «Aeons»?
Every solo and athmosphric part on the album is improvised and in the moment, live together. Actually some of the jazz records that are recorded nowadays the solos isn’t live, which is very cheesy when you think about the history and the recordings of jazz. But we do it, because it’s a big part of the live experience and to keep a recording organic sounding.


– You draw from traditional influences but aren’t a conventional band in the sense you give your influences a twist, add your personality and build a sound of your own. Usually tradition is detrimential to conventionalism and vice versa so how easy is to get a good equilibrium? Is it something that just comes out natural when writing?
I guess it depends on different things. At first the reason why you start a band or project, do you decide what kind of genre or music from the start? Then I guess it can be kind of ordinary and not interesting if you stay in that safe place. Or are you openminded? In our case it started out with a trio, then it has developed to what it is today. We’ve been embracing our different influences and experimented, believed in ourselves and having the courage to do something different. It’s actually in the later years I think we’ve found «our thing», and now we try to bend that safe place. I guess the best mix would be to have frames and a open mind from the beginning.
The second I think may be the craft of your instrument, how dirverse or not diverse your playing is. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, because we come from a jazz tonality background. We have a different approach to soloing than most of the instrumental psychadelic bands, they usually have a more bluesy, «in the box» soloing style while we have a rhythmic approach, a free tonality, we listen to each other and talk to each other with our music. While they have clear boundaries and we have not our battle is how to create creative frames within our music, so it can be clear and then easier communicated to the listener.

-In fact you deliver a really big sound. How do you obtain this being a trio?
Thank you for mentioning, that’s what we aim for. It’s in the composition and arrangements. We don’t use any loops or anything. We work and think a lot on using different frequencies, contrasts, odd and even rhythms combined when composing, playing together. When working on frequencies, we try to be like an orchestra, combine the lower, mids, higher sounds. Combined with contrasts, like first a broad spectrum of sound and then suddenly playing one riff together and so on.

-You also build different ambiences, from mystical passages to more epic moods. What do you want your ambience to convey?
Depends on what songs, but it is as you describe it: mystical, epic. It’s in the moment, improvised so each athmosphric passage can be different. For me personally I try to find a flow within, sometimes images comes into my head like a scene from a sci-fi movie when the astronaut is drifting in space.

-And what do they come from? What does inspire your atmosphere? It can be music, travels, books…
Like I said before it’s improvised, so it depends on what is happening in that moment. We have different pedal effects that we improvise with to find a nice flow throughout the passage. If someone sneezes loud in the audience we may react on that, and let it be part of the music, the moment.

-With so much diversity in your music; what would you say is the main trademark that defines CB3? Musically or not.
Cosmic jams that makes your mind blow.

I would just summerize «Aeons» as a trip. A quite cosmic trip. How do you perceive «Aeons»? What is it for you?
It’s a bright, explosive album.

-And all this about «Aeons» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?
Bright, explosive, cosmic


– Metal has always been a male-dominated community and in art in general women have always been made invisible, so Metal is not an exception. Would you say the way the Metal world (and society in general) perceive women in our community is slowly changing? As it seems people are more aware nowadays or aren’t that afraid of speaking out and calling out on sexist (and other shitty) behaviors anymore.
There is a slow change indeed, because there are many problems. I think It all come down to this: what society do you want to live in? Do want it do be equal? Do you love your neigbour as yourself?
Men, women, the music industry, people in power, audience – every part must be aware and give space and help eachother.

– As I said, women in art and in masculinized spaces have always been made invisible, that’s why there’s not just less women metal musicians (even though there are tons of them), but less women in any artistic field. Because female artists have to face more obstacles, they have to fight against sexualization, invisibilization, infantilization, etc. By the simple fact of putting albums out and going on stage you are pushing other women to do the same. I guess this is something you are not really aware or think about when you are writing music but would you say you can also use your position as a artists putting our records and being on stage as an empowering tool even for other women?
I have become more aware of it, but for me it’s also important to not be catogorized as a female guitarist. It’s diminishing and exploitation of power. But yes I hope that, also for me it’s important to dress to be myself on stage, not to dress to comfort others. And I hope that can inspire girls, women to have the courage to be themselves and not adept to the values of the society.Women always have to take the double amount of shit for doing the same work a man does, also to work harder to get to the same position… Do you have any mechanism to cope with different kinds of bullshit?
No, not any actually I just keep practicing and I’m trying to remind myself why I do music, the fundamental why I started. And it is that music is supposed to be fun. But I guess I never encountered so much bullshit yet, because the audience or guitarpeople that goes to our shows has no idea what I’m/ we are doing since it’s improvised passages and perhaps because it’s often something they aren’t used too. I got one bullshit thing, it was a guitarplayer, he tried to make fun of me playing fast, I guess because he couldn’t. I didn’t understand that it was like a joke so I answered him seriously and explained that using contrasts in music like fast and slow is an smart effect which makes music interesting. Then that conversation was over, I thought I was going to be an interesting talk one guitarist to another, but well it ended there. I guess take over the situation, don’t be rude, be clear. But I guess it’s easy to say, but hard to do when you are in a difficult situation.
I admire fellow guitarplayers like Lauren «LG» Gilbert from Thelma and the Sleaze, Filippa Nässil from Thundermother and the list goes on… that doing their thing.
I also try to surround myself and play with people that are nice, I think that is important too.

-And before we wrap this interview up, what are now your near-future plans?
We’ll release our album 28 of February on The Sign Records and we’ll have a hangout at Rundgång Rekords, a record shop in our hometown Malmö. Then we go on a small tour with Katla, a doomy, psychadelic band from Stockholm. Then we’ll have a releaseshow and in April we’ll tour Spain, Portugal and France. So swing by and say hi!

That’s all from our side, thank you once more for answering our interview. If you’d like to add some final words; feel free to do it.

Tania Giménez
tania@queensofsteel.com

Deja una respuesta

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada.

Highslide for Wordpress Plugin