Band Girl Scout Singles Debut: “We Have Comfortable Fans”

The Girl Scouts had been around for less than a year when they sent their indie rock-style demo songs to promoters and record companies. Jonathan Morley, a British manager who had run Northern Lights for twenty years, was soon contacted.

– He had heard our demo recordings and was very excited to work with us, says Emma Johnson, singer and guitarist in the band.

Morley began booking shows for Girl Scouts in Great Britain and Sweden. Although they haven’t released any music yet, the band performed at festivals like Way Out West and Popakanda this summer. They were also in contact with British singer/songwriter Holly Humberstone in London and Manchester.

Did you have an idea from the beginning that you would be standing on these big stages?

– No, when you played jazz before, I think those dreams die very quickly, says Emma Johnson and the whole band laughs.

The quartet met precisely through jazz. The three members were in the same class when they studied jazz at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm.

Emma Johnson and Viktor Spasov were the first couple to start. They earned extra money by playing jazz covers at corporate events and social gatherings. Then both got tired of playing that particular genre. Instead, they were united in their passion for the music they listened to in their teens: Nirvana, Radiohead and Elliott Smith.

Shortly after, the orchestra filled out when Per Lindberg and Evelina Arvidsson Eglind joined. When DN meets the four musicians, they are gathered around a table, each with a cup of tea.

How would you describe your music?

– I usually say that we play some kind of indie rock, says guitarist Viktor Spasov.

He continues:

– Although some of the chord changes are heavily inspired by older American jazz songs. But 00’s indie rock was a wink.

You haven’t released any of your own music while you’ve played festivals in the UK. What was it like playing live with those conditions?

– We played for a cold audience and we had to prove ourselves. The audience has never heard us before. But people have responded positively, Spasov says.

The band’s bass player Evelina Arvidsson Eklind adds:

– If we don’t get any music, it means that people who participated in gigs and who follow us are tagged. We have comfortable fans. They are expectant and beautiful, waiting for us to release music.

After almost two years as a band, the first single is now “Do You Remember Sally Moore?”. The single features a pumping bass line and progressive electric guitar reminiscent of British band The Vaccines. The text has a nostalgic narrative in the style of the early Hello Sephardic.

The song is about a guy in high school secretly in love with a girl. There is also a singing girl. Was it a conscious choice to capture a whimsical feel in the song?

– They wrote about the song in The Guardian newspaper. They thought I was a lesbian. “But I’ve had a partner for years and he’s a man,” says Emma Johnson, who sings on the single.

– but one of the songwriters, Viktor Spasov, says that it would have been more difficult if the text had been changed to be about falling in love with a boy.

– I think it’s better if people interpret it that way. It doesn’t matter. Then we’ll become a freak band, says Evelina Arvidson Eglind.

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