Sometimes a new band arrives that doesn’t so much appear on the music scene as blitz it, arriving with an explosion of noise and intent that ensures that everyone’s attention immediately focuses on them. And Dolores Haze are very much that kind of band. Since announcing themselves earlier this year with the Accidental EP, the group have made the Swedish music scene their playground, releasing some A-Grade tunes and having the kind of gang attitude that makes it clear that for them, being in a band is simply the most fun thing in the world. Their début full-length, The Haze is Forever is out now, and we caught up with the band for a chat to discuss it.
So give us a little background on the band. How did you guys meet and evolve into Dolores Haze?
Nicki (Groovy Nickz, vocal/ bass): I met Tyra, Groovy Fuck, at a party in the spring of 2012, so about three years ago. I had a band already, with another girl, but she didn’t really like playing in a band that much, so I needed a new band. And then I met Tyra. And she told me she had a guitar, so I said ‘You can join my band!’. So she joined, we had another girl who played drums, and we just started jamming together. Playing Nirvana covers, things like that. It didn’t quite work out with the other girl, she dropped out a few months after.
Tyra (Groovy Fuck, guitar) : Then we needed a drummer, so we printed out ads, y’know ‘Drummer Wanted’, and we put them up all over Stockholm.
Really traditional
Tyra: Yeah, really! One person called, and she’s now our best friend and drummer, Foxy Sagz.
Lovina (Lucky Lollo, guitar): I didn’t really know them [at this time], but I had met Tyra a couple of times in the years before, so we had friends in common. I knew Nicki had a band, and we had been introduced once. Then we met at a gig, and I knew she had a band and I wanted to join one, so I said ‘Oh, I heard you have a band, do you need a guitarist?’. Then I joined the band, and we had Dolores Haze.
Nicki: We gave birth to Dolores Haze
So album number one, The Haze Is Forever, is out now. Does that feel like a massive step for the band, to have it out there in the world?
Tyra: It feels like having a baby. Like giving birth.
Nicki: Yeah, it’s so cool. I’m actually going to go to a record store now and check it out, because I haven’t seen it properly yet.
Lovina: Yeah, it’s a really unreal feeling, to have an album and to walk into a record store and see your album there.
I’m interested in the chronology of the songwriting on the record. What were the most recently written songs and do you think they represent the direction you’re moving in stylistically?
Tyra: The most recent is ‘The Garden’, the last song on the record. That one we wrote the day before recording, because we realised we needed eight songs to call it a proper full-length
Nicki: And you need to have a full-length to win awards and stuff.
Trya: Which was of course the only reason we made an album, to win prizes! But yes, that was the most recent but I don’t know if I would say that that one indicates which direction we’re moving in, because it was written so quickly.
Nicki: I think it’s one of our best though.
Tyra: The other more recent one is ‘Crazy About Me’, which we wrote with Rebecca & Fiona and Little Jinder. But that one was a collab, so I’m not sure it’s so indicative of our direction either… I don’t know where we’re heading really (laughs)
As you just mentioned, the second single off the record, ‘Crazy About Me’, was written with Rebecca & Fiona and Little Jinder. How was that experience for you guys, working on music and specifically the songwriting part of things with these big Swedish music figures?
Tyra: It was fun.
Lovina: Yeah, we had a great time, it was very social, pretty much hanging out.
Nicki: Yeah, we just hung out on a summer day with Rebecca & Fiona and Josefine (Little Jinder). I think we wrote the song in one day, basically. It was fun.
You’ve paid tribute to really great artists like Peaches and The Jesus & Mary Chain (the latter on a EP with Dr. Martens) by covering them. That got me thinking: what are some of Dolores Haze’s absolute favourite bands and records, the ones you keep returning to and can’t do without?
Tyra: I think The Jesus & Mary Chain is the band I constantly go back to, regardless of whatever phase I’m in. It’s my solid.
Nicki: Kind of a standard answer, but mine is Nirvana. I don’t listen that often anymore, but I always go back to them at some point.
Lovina: Yeah, the album I always go back to is Goo by Sonic Youth.
You’ve had these remixes of ‘I’ve Got My Gun’ by Systraskap and Johannes Österberg. Is it cool to see someone else play around with your music like that, to turn it into something else, something new?
Nicki: It’s so much fun. I think it’s so good, that they’ve actually sat and worked on it, our song, and made it their own.
Tyra: Yeah, you get to see how they see the song, because I know how I see it. So it’s cool to get to see their vision of it, which can be totally different. It’s really cool.
Nicki: Flattering
Tyra: Yeah!
In an interview with Bon that “it’s important that people take us with a pinch of salt, and don’t think of us as just teenagers in a rock band, without being aware of how much effort and love goes into what we do”. So I was wondering, you have this image as bratty funtime punks, and that’s something you obviously enjoy playing with in interviews etc. But do you want to ensure that this doesn’t overshadow the music? To make sure that people take the music as seriously as you do?
Nicki: Yeah, the image is important, definitely.
Tyra: And we love to play with it.
Nicki: Yeah, but at some point we’re not going to want to be teenagers anymore, and just create music that we like without having that image. You can’t have that image when you’re thirty.
Tyra: I don’t want to be a forty year-old trying to act like an eighteen year-old.
Nicki: Plus, we’re going to develop as people, we’re not going to be the same forever. It works now that we’re eighteen, nineteen, twenty, but it’s not permanent. People should focus on the music.
It’s fun to have the image and to mess with people, but music is always number one?
Lovina: Yeah, we are a band after all!
Tyra: We’re very serious with our music, but we get to play around and have fun with the image.
If I gave you a button that would play a certain song any time you wanted, at a bar, club, car, bus, wherever, what song would you choose?
Nicki: Ohh, that’s a hard one.
Tyra: I think if I’m at a club, I always get really happy and really dancey if ‘Common People’ by Pulp comes on. I’m not sure I would want it on the bus on my way to school, because I really listen to it too much, so it’s mostly for when I’m dancing. But it would be nice to be able to play whenever I wanted.
Nicki: I’m really into ‘Bulbform’ by Trust. It’s mellow, it works at anytime
Lovina: Tricky question! ‘Beez in the Trap’ by Nicki Minaj.
Tyra: I know Saga, who isn’t here, would choose ‘Hotline Bling’ by Drake. I’m quite sure I can speak for her on that one.
And the reverse of that: If you could delete any song in the world, i.e. press a button and guarantee that it disappear from the world and you’d never have to hear it again, which song would it be?
Trya: Well, ‘Blurred Lines’ is the obvious answer, but everyone says that. But that would be the ‘proper’ answer.
Nicki: I want to say something fun. Who do I hate? Who do I hate the most?
Tyra: Maybe some song that makes you really sad.
Lovina: Yeah! ‘No Time For Us’ by Broder Daniel. Especially the acoustic version that lasts ten minutes. It’s so sad it brings out all the feelings in me. It needs to be deleted!
Nicki: Yeah, I agree.
You also said that you already want to begin work on album number two. Is constantly writing and working on music, pushing on to the next thing a big part of what you do?
Tyra: We don’t always have time, but whenever we do that’s all we do. We never really just rehearse to improve, we’re always just writing new songs. We want to write new stuff now, and have it done by spring or something. Because that’s the most fun part of having a band, writing new songs.
What do the next few months have in store for Dolores Haze?
Nicki: We’re playing in Gothenburg and Malmö in two weeks, and then we’re playing a gig here in Stockholm at Debaser.
Lovina: And then the P3 Guld gala
Tyra: At Skandinavium in Gothenburg, it’s our first arena show.
Lov: Where we’ll win a lot of awards! Then we’re going to Oslo and then Netherlands as well.
And finally, if you do win all the P3 Awards, where are you going to keep them?
Nicki: In the bathroom.
Lovina: We actually have fights about this all the time, over who’s going to keep the awards.
Tyra: Yeah, probably in the toilet. Or as a bookstand.
Nicki: In my heart.
Tyra: I’ll put it on a chain and wear it around my neck all the time, so everyone knows I’m a winner.
Like full-on Flava Flav?
Tyra: Yeah, that’s what I would do.
Dolores Haze’s début album, The Haze Is Forever, is out now on Woah Dad Records. They’ve also just released an EP of covers in association with Dr. Martens’ Stand For Something promotion. They play Debaser Strand on January 9.
Words: Austin Maloney
