Redbrick Meets: Normandie

Self-described as ‘Sweden’s Best Kept Secret,’ Normandie have been making music since 2013. At the moment, Normandie consists of frontman Philip Strand, guitarist Håkan Almbladh, and drummer Anton Franzon. This Stockholm-based band released two studio albums, Inguz (2016) and White Flag (2018) and are due to release their third official album, Dark and Beautiful Secrets, on 19th February 2021.

In a Zoom interview with Philip Strand, we discussed topics including the new direction Normandie has taken in the upcoming album, the dual impact of COVID-19, and the importance of fan interactions.

I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to be interviewed by Redbrick. We will jump right in. I attended the Zoom call with fans a couple of weeks ago and you mentioned how personal you made this album, so I want to start with that. Why this album, why now?

Well, it’s our third album. We did not have an ideal studio set-up for us to experiment with both our music and lyrics, but this time, we have our own studio. We really, really wanted to experiment when it came to the instrumentals and lyrically, it just felt right. One of the songs just clicked as a personal song and then the rest just followed in that track. I think it was with ‘Jericho’ – which we had played for two tours – and we came home and I had this feeling that changing some words could create this big story of a moment in my life. So I tried to do that and then all the other songs just fell into place. Just exploring, I don’t know … I’ve been my own therapist for a year now, writing lyrics. It’s been weird but it’s been cool also.

We really, really wanted to experiment when it came to the instrumentals and lyrically, it just felt right

Is there an overall story or idea that emerges for you when you look at this body of work as a whole?

For me, personally, there is. It’s about my upbringing and what I’ve gone through that I’ve kept to myself. At the same time, I want to leave it a bit open to interpretation for the listener. There is for sure though, the main thread of this entire album is subjects that I’ve been too ashamed of talking about, things that I wouldn’t want the public to think of me earlier, or have in the back of their mind when they talk to me. But now, I feel like… whatever. I’ve played my part so far in being this public figure and being a frontman in a rock band and touring, and I felt like: ‘okay, I’m at the level now where I can let people in a little bit closer.’ I tried really hard on this album to make sure that others can relate to what I’m singing about, and even make it their own.

I think it will be, topics like grappling with religion or straying from your upbringing are things that will touch a nerve with lots of people.

The album as a whole has been a bit of a religious piece, but also it’s not really about religion as a whole when it comes to me, it’s more about my story within religion, because religion can be so much to so many people. I’m not one for pissing on religion because I’m still a believer. Some people think that ‘Holy Water’ is doing that but it isn’t. I still have some type of faith, but it’s been more like the exact time and place I was in when it came to my faith.

It’s not really about religion as a whole when it comes to me, it’s more about my story within religion, because religion can be so much to so many people

I know you wrote all the lyrics so this may be a hard question, but is there a song you personally connect with most?

Yeah, it’s a song called ‘Atmosphere.’ It is about my relationship with my phone, basically. My relationship with social media, and it’s a song that is sad in a way that I think a lot of people can relate to. You have maybe 100 friends online but scrolling through your phone you don’t really know who to call if you just wanna grab a beer and talk deeply with somebody. I think that’s a sign of the times today, especially with Corona. So for me, it’s a very personal song about how I can sometimes feel very, very lonely. The search for genuine connection is basically what it’s about.

I mean, this album is so personal that you are actually on the cover. That is a big change from having just album logos. What was your experience with that?

It wasn’t really what I expected. In the beginning, we had the idea of everything being under plastic – like in the ‘Jericho’ music video, we are playing under plastic. That kind of the layer of cover you have between you and the world, and we wanted to illustrate that with the entire album. And they just said ‘fuck it, why shouldn’t it be you [on the cover]?’ and I said ‘well, because I don’t want myself on a wall of my own studio, almost naked.’ There were discussions on how it wouldn’t be visible under the plastic but yeah, you can really see that it’s me. And I don’t know, now that we’ve confirmed it’s a really personal album, it makes sense.

That kind of the layer of cover you have between you and the world, and we wanted to illustrate that with the entire album

Next, I wanted to discuss more about something else you have mentioned a lot, which was experimentation. Tell me more about that.

I like to think of myself as a genre chameleon and you can really sense that in this album, I think. We took inspiration from samba music to very electronic 80s music. Sometimes there’s nothing new to do except bring in new genres and remake them. I think on almost every single song on this album there’s a hidden genre. You can create an edgier or darker sound without having to include breakdowns which can be repetitive.

Did you have any particular musical inspirations for this album?

I’ve said this in interviews before but two, three years ago, I took an open decision to stop listening to music. Every Friday I try to look up new releases just to keep track on what’s coming out. I opened the old catalogues I had from when I was a kid, everything from Toto to Metallica to Beyonce. I explored that instead of looking into what’s new. I prefer vivid memories of music from my childhood instead of listening to new songs all the time, so I have my favourite albums saved back in my mind and that’s where I draw inspiration from. Especially old Toto stuff, they were genre blenders as well.

So were there any perks to COVID-19?

The album was supposed to be released in May of this year, but that didn’t happen – everything got postponed, but that gave us time to write more songs. We wrote ‘Babylon,’ which is gonna be one of the singles, and a bunch more. So I think COVID was good for us but we hate not touring as our audience is mostly from the UK and the US. It feels weird to not go over there and connect with people. It’s not very beneficial for us to be stuck in Sweden when it comes to connecting with people.

The album was supposed to be released in May of this year, but that didn’t happen […] but that gave us time to write more songs

How many single tracks are there? ‘Jericho’ and ‘Holy Water’ have already been released, and how many more can we expect?

I can’t say. I can just say how many I want the album to have, which is eight [out of ten]. Yeah, it’s all of the songs almost. It’s hard to pick out singles. So deciding on singles this time around, we decided to use songs that differ from each other. Not polar opposites, but trying to fill different pockets before the album release. So yeah, I can’t say how many singles, but there will be more than one more.

You currently have one song, ‘The Bell,’ that features Swedish lyrics. Do you think there will ever be a day when you put a Swedish song on an album, or at least another with a Swedish verse?

I don’t want them to compete with each other, so I don’t think we’ll release another song with some Swedish words, but I’ve been thinking of translating one of the songs from the new album, and making an acoustic rendition in only Swedish. We love the reception the song has gotten, especially ‘The Bell’s Swedish lyrics, it’s had a bigger impact than I thought it would have.

I’ve been thinking of translating one of the songs from the new album, and making an acoustic rendition in only Swedish

Normandie seems really big on fan participation and interaction – you released various content during lockdown, made a Facebook group for fans, ‘The Inner Circle,’ shared exclusive content with them first. How and why is this important to you?

Fan culture, it’s a little bit frowned upon to be a fan of something in Sweden because it means that they’re putting themselves below that person and it’s kinda like a fandom in a way, it’s something for the kids – which is something I hate because I’m a big fan of a lot of people. So there’s not really a good platform for us to connect with people here in Sweden. But whenever we go to Germany and England and all those countries we feel like we can connect with people that admire the work we do and we admire all of their opinions on the work we do and take them into consideration. It’s not like they’re being fans because of who I am, because they don’t know who I am – it’s more like we create something and you connect with it. You can be a fan and also friends. Yeah, I just hate anti-fan culture that is so big in Sweden. If you’re a fan of the music, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Is there anything else you want to add before we finish up? What do you recommend for first-listeners, people being introduced to Normandie through this album?

I would say, bring up the lyrics for all the songs, wear headphones and listen through the entire album at once. I think without the lyrics, this album may be a little bit hard to connect with. Like, it’s very important that they hear the words that come out of my mouth, they really need to understand. This time we put a lot into it and it’s 50 percent music, 50 percent lyrics whereas our previous releases were maybe 80 percent music and 20 percent lyrics. There are some cool 3D effects that we put into the album. We have the corona loop in ‘Babylon,’ which is the song we wrote straight after lockdown kicked in so there’s a coughing sample. So yeah, look at the lyrics and wear headphones.