Oregon Music News

Oregon Music News caught up with some of the ladies from the bands featured in Revolver’s The Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock Tour for interviews when the tour stopped in Portland on April 28th. We spoke with Sister Sin’s Liv Jagrell and band, Straight Line Stitch’s Alexis Brown, and In This Moment’s Maria Brink and Chris Howorth.

Up first, a chat with Sister Sin:

The last time we caught up with you and the band, Liv, you were supporting Michael Schenker at a smaller venue with a different type of audience.

Liv Jagrell: That’s right. We would have been back but the dates on the Black Label Society Tour were changed.

Dave Sundberg: It was a financial thing the label simply wouldn’t pay for us to leave them to comeback. It was just too expensive.

Then there was a matter of a bass player, too. There was a change in line-up before the Schenker tour, right?

Liv: Right, that was before that tour and we had a stand-in at the time. That’s our new one over there (pointing to the corner at Strandh); he’s shy so he’s hanging out back there.

You guys are familiar with Spinal Tap, right? You know, they had a problem with drummers blowing up on stage.

Band: (laughing) Right!

Strandh, you’re not going to blow up on stage are you?

Strandh: I don’t think so! (laughs)

Liv: You never know! (laughs)

The bass player vacancy has been resolved then?

Dave: Oh yeah, he’s the guy. We’ve been together for about seven years now and it wasn’t until recently that we’ve had issues with the line-up. It’s not as bad as it appears. Two bass players? It’s not bad at all.

Liv, you were in Hysterica? Is this the same all-female power-metal band from Sweden?

Liv: Yeah I formed that band. I wrote three of those songs on their album Metalwar. I get paid for those songs. I’m not in that band because Dave and I were very serious about touring and playing live and it got to the point where I couldn’t handle two bands. I had to make a choice because there were too many demands and it wasn’t working out. So I chose these guys.

A wise decision, I think. Often times bands have other jobs to pay the bills when not recording or touring. Is that the case with you guys?

Jimmy Hiltula: Yeah we have other jobs. The three of us work in warehouses.

Liv: I work as a personal trainer; I do this as my own business. I do some fitness classes and I also do work for another company.

You picked a couple of great covers for your albums: “Make My Day,” the Motorhead track, and “24/7,” which is an U.D.O. track; great interpretations. Is that something that will be a tradition with Sister Sin?

Jimmy: I think that this will be the last cover that you’ll hear on one of our albums. I think you’re right; “24/7” is a track that we could have written. It sounds like one of our songs. I think the same about “Make My Day;” it sounds different than the original because it’s us doing it. Liv does something different vocally and I think it’s better. Not to put down Motorhead, but we wanted to make it our own. Part of the reason for “24/7” on the new album is that we had less time to write and record it so we used it because it sounded so good.

How much time is Sister Sin allotted on this tour? How hard was it to select the set list for you?

Dave: We are playing 25 minutes, it’s pretty tight but we have it down. We can get six songs in each night, but we do plan on switching it up every three nights or so. We have asked people to make requests on our Facebook page and that is a good opportunity for fans to pick what they want to hear.

This is a great high-profile tour for Sister Sin. As mentioned, a slightly different audience than what you saw last tour with Schenker. This is a younger audience, you’re a few dates into The Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock Tour; what’s been the reaction to Sister Sin? You’re the least abrasive band scheduled to play tonight?

Liv: When we came here last year we weren’t sure how our music would be accepted, but we have had more fans coming out to see us. This has happened at all the shows we’ve played on this tour so far.

Jimmy: We’ve toured with heavier bands. I think even if people aren’t initially into our type of music they get into it. They feel the energy and they get into it.

Liv: I think people really like to hear old school Metal because not many people do it anymore.

What happens once you guys wind down with this tour?

Dave: Once we’re done with this tour, more touring. We actually got confirmed for another tour after this one ends. We’ll be here through the fall of 2011.

Liv: We’ll be back soon with Ote; we’re looking forward to that tour.

How do you guys like touring America?

Dave: I think I speak for all of us; we all like it very much. I love being able go to see all the American movies and stuff. To us this is like a dream come true, we love it.

Jimmy: It’s a good experience for us to be able to be on the road here for this length of time. We’re doing about 65 shows back-to-back and we’ll be doing our first headlining shows for ten dates. Things are starting to happen for us.

This question is open to all of you. What’s some essential music that you must have with you on the road?

Jimmy: I have to have some of Devin Townsend’s albums, I also have to have Type O Negative, which I use to relax in the car, and I also have to have some Pink Floyd.

Dave: I really like the new Amon Amarth album (Surtur Rising). I like House of Pain and also Dr. Dre.

Liv: Right now I’m listening to the new Danko Jones album (Below the Belt). It’s a great album. I also love the band The Last Vegas; they have a great album too. I also recently discovered the U.K. singer Jessie J. I love her album.

Strandh: I’ve got to have The Hellacopters!

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Straight Line Stitch’s Alexis Brown:

Straight Line Stitch is based out of Knoxville, Tennessee?

That’s where the band was formed but we’re from all over the place. I‘m from Tennessee. I come from a military family and we wound up in Tennessee.

When you think of Tennessee, Country music comes to mind. You don’t associate Tennessee with heavy music like Straight Line Stitch; how did you get into Metal?

It’s funny because I didn’t see myself doing this style of heavy music. When I was a kid I liked music, I knew I wanted to be an entertainer. I was really into R&B and that’s what I saw myself doing. I wanted to have a girl group. It was actually my father and my brother who introduced me to the Hard Rock genre. I started listening to bands like Styx, Journey, Bad Company, and stuff like that. It was my brother who introduced me into bands like White Zombie, Korn, and Ozzy Osbourne. I just feel in love with the genre. I thought to myself, “I could have done R&B but it would have been like everybody else or I could something different.” At that time Korn was starting to get big and they opened some doors for a new form of heavy music. I wanted to do something like that.

How long has the band been together?

The band has been together since 1999, which was a few years before I came aboard. I joined the band in 2003. Seth (Thacker, guitarist) is the founding member of the band; he’s been there since day one.

You’re a female doing heavy music. There are some people out there that still stereotype. Have there been additional barriers to you being a woman doing this type of music?

There was a little bit of a stigma, but also a blessing at the same time. We’re starting to get a little more recognition because of females that are fronting heavy bands. It can be a crutch if that’s all that you’re leaning on. It doesn’t matter who you are, what creed, what color you are; if you don’t bring your “A” game it means nothing. It’s about the music, that’s what it’s all about.

How did you guys wind up on this tour?

When we did our last tour with Devildriver we met Maria (Brink) and we spoke about, down the road, hooking up together for a tour. When they were putting together the line-up for the tour our name came up and it was a no-brainer; we had to do it.

How would you describe the progression with Straight Line Stitch between When Skies Was Ashore and the new album, The Fight of Our Lives?

I would have to say that the new album, The Fight of Our Lives, is more of our record. Skies Was Ashore was more like teaching a baby how to walk, we had a lot of help on that album. There were people telling us how to do things, when it came time to write the second record we knew how to walk. The apron strings have been cut. You get a chance to see the real band on this record; we wrote how we felt. There were no rules. If it was a good song it was going on the album; it didn’t have to fit any kind of criteria.

You had a slight change in line-up, can you fill us in on that?

We’ve been tour a lot….obviously you have to tour. It’s our bread and butter; you have to have your name out there if you want to make this your living. It gets tiring; we’re human. People sometimes think that musicians are superhuman, nothing phases us, but it does. Our previous guitarist Pat Pattison was tired. There wasn’t any drama or anything like that. He approached us and said “hey guys I’m just tired I think I need to go.” We didn’t want him to go but it was for the best. We still talk from time to time. Kris Norris who was in Darkest Hour came out to a show to see us, he liked us and auditioned. We liked him, he liked us, and it was a great fit and he we are today.

You guys will be back in the Northwest later this summer with The Mayhem Festival, right?

We’ll be doing The Download Festival in the U.K. before that and then we’ll be doing The Mayhem Festival in America. We’re excited about going to Europe; we hear a lot of great things about Europe. It seems like people in that part of the world appreciate music a lot. We’ll also be doing some more touring in the U.K. aside from the festival appearance, but I can’t really say who just yet. They’re good friends of ours. Then it’s The Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, we’ve worked very hard and we have a great team behind us; it’s nice to see the progression.

What are some essential tunes you need while on the road?

(pauses) I’d definitely need to have something from Bad Company, and I need some Al Green. I can’t live without my Al Green.

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A conversation with headliners Chris Howorth (guitarist) and Maria Brink (singer) of In This Moment:

We’ll start off with the serious stuff and then we’ll get to the fun stuff. The proceeds from your CD sales on this tour will go to benefit a special cause. Can you elaborate on that?

Chris Howorth: Yeah it’s for the Keep a Breast Foundation. It’s a breast cancer awareness thing that we thought would be really awesome to do with this tour and our label was really behind the idea. A portion of every CD that we sell goes toward the foundation.

Maria Brink: I think it’s a great cause. Cancer is out of control and there’s too many cases of breast cancer. If you can do anything positive to help the cause we’ll to do it. Eventually we want to do more and get more involved, but this is just one small step toward that.

Chris: With this tour being a woman-fronted tour it just seemed like the right thing to do.

You guys were in Portland this past March with Disturbed on their Music As A Weapon Tour. How was that tour for you guys? You got to play some bigger venues – all arenas, I think.

Maria: We never cease to amaze ourselves when we get new tours; we’re always surprised, and we’re excited and happy. There are always several bands trying to get that exact same slot that we just so happen to get. We are just so grateful to have been able to play on that tour. The lighting was great; we got to play arenas in front of huge crowds every night. You can see that our audience has grown since we did Ozzfest a few years back.

Chris: I think you can see the growth in the band since the Ozzfest. I think we fit in nicely on that Music As A Weapon Tour because the Disturbed, Korn, Sevendust audience – that’s our audience. We had a great connection with that audience; they got our music and it was just a great experience.

What about a DVD? That tour was probably a good opportunity to shoot one with a bigger stage and big production, no?

Maria: Actually we did shoot some footage. Our friend Ryan Gardner got all sort of footage. He’ll be putting some stuff together for us.

Chris: We have tons of footage but I’ve got to say there will be no official DVD.

Maria: We’ll be releasing it on our own I think. We‘ll probably sell it for ten bucks or something.

The set list for tonight, will it be a balanced set with music from the three studio albums?

Chris: We’re leaning heavily toward the new record.

Maria: We’re doing a lot of the new record than anything.

Your last studio album, A Star-Crossed Wasteland, is closing in on a year since it’s release; how close are you guys to getting back into writing mode?

Maria: We literally just started officially a few days ago.

Chris: We’ve tracked a few things. We’ve all got our own ideas and then we start putting things together.

Will you be using Kevin Churko to produce the next album?

Chris: Yes, definitely.

What are some essential tunes you need while on the road?

Chris: I have a huge Heavy Metal pump up list that she can’t stand! (laughs)

Maria: It’s all 80’s stuff! I’m hearing some right now. (laughs)

Chris: I love all that 80’s stuff, man. I have to have Ratt, Queensryche, Poison…

Maria: I don’t listen to Ratt!

You don’t like Ratt?

Maria: I used to listen to Ratt when I was little! I‘m just saying!

Chris: To me it’s like this; they were an arena, multi-platinum band that also crossed Metal with Hard Rock and melody with hard stuff.

Maria: When we get pumped up we usually agree on stuff. Lately we’ve been into heavier stuff. In my own time I like listening to stuff like Sigur Rós and M83 because life on the road is crazy. This kind of stuff helps me just relax and chill out.

Chris: One more thing with the 80’s music – it’s the stuff that inspired me to play music. If I listen to that stuff before we go on stage it really gets me pumped up.

When you wind down The Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock Tour, what’s next for In This Moment as far as touring?

Maria: We’ll be on a summer tour that’s like The Warped Tour but we can’t say what it is just yet, but keep an eye for an announcement.

*The tour mentioned in this interview by Maria is The All-Stars Tour; no dates have been released as of ye,t but it will kick off July 22nd and will run through August 28th. We’ll keep you posted on any Northwest dates.