The Swedish folk-sensation First Aid Kit gained massive attention last year when the hippie-sisters Klara (16) and Johanna Söderberg (18) posted their brilliant Fleet Foxes-cover on Youtube. With a little help from Karin Dreijer of The Knife, their first EP “Drunken Trees” was released in April 2008. Since then the girls have toured both Europe and UK. While the rest of the world awaits the teenage girls to blow new minds away with their angel voices, we hooked up with Klara to hear how they were doing.

What’s on your mind right now?
How excited we are to tour the US, that is such a dream come true.

Name three bands that has inspired you and tell why?
Joanna Newsom — for her rawness and pure emotion, and for her magical, magical songs.

Leonard Cohen — for the songwriting that never ceases to amaze. His words are golden.

Louvin Brothers — for proving that you can make great music with your sibling, that has definitely given us hope, haha.

How is it being in such a busy band with your own sister?
It’s not easy! But having to live so close to anyone, whether it’s family or not, will never be easy. But we make it work, you can’t let yourself close up too much on your own thoughts, you have to listen.

How do you combine music with school?
We don’t! We used to before the summer, but now we’ve both graduated. It was definitely hard trying to work on an album, tour and go to school at the same time. We basically had to give up most of our free time and work on the music. But we always knew that it was worth it.

So what’s the new album going to sound like, and when can we buy it?
The album will be released in January 2010. We definitely feel like we have evolved since we made the EP (in late 2007) and it feels great to finally get to share these songs. We feel like our harmonies have grown more together, and we’re more secure in our music. While the EP was more of an experiment, this feels more like a planned thing.

Could you tell us a bit about how you make your song?
Most of the time I [Klara] come up with something, like a melody or some lyrics and we work from that. Other times we just sit and sing and the song comes out by just doing that. But most of the time we go from an idea and make it in to a song.

How does it feel to watch people all around the world do covers of your songs on youtube?
It’s surreal! We are so thankful that people take the time to learn our songs and make the effort to share them to the world. It’s such an honor. It’s hard to understand that you’ve written the song they’re singing, it’s a remarkable feeling.

Do you have any dreams yet to be fulfilled? Anyone you would die to work with?
Loads! We would love to do a real tour in the States, now we’re just coming over to do a few shows but we’d love to really travel through the whole country. We have someone influences that were born in the US and so to see these places with our own eyes but we amazing.

We wouldn’t die to work with anyone, but to have Alan Rickman sing on our album would be sweet, haha. We’d also love to sing a duet or two with Conor Oberst since his music has been such an inspiration to us for so long.

Tell us about your plans for the future!
Well, we’re going to release our album in January and then we’ll see how it goes. If people like it we’ll probably tour a bunch around the world. No matter what happens, we’ll always sing and write songs. That’s all we know.

What is your best advice for young artists out there?
To believe that your music is good, because if you like it then other people will probably like it too. Don’t let yourself be understated just because you’re young, make it an advantage instead of something negative. And have fun.

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First Aid Kit — Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (Fleet Foxes Cover)

First Aid Kit — You’re not coming home tonight

(Via Radar Maker on vimeo)

First Aid Kit — Hard Believer

(Via Radar Maker on vimeo)

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