Crucified Barbara has been added to my list of some of my favorite Swedish exports along with Graveyard and Witchcraft. After being turned on to their latest album The Midnight Chase, I was so stoked to find out that Crucified Barbara would be playing Atlanta. Just to make it that much sweeter, this was Crucified Barbara’s first ever US tour making yours truly their first Atlanta interview.
I had the opportunity to chat pre-show with lead singer/guitarist Mia Coldheart and she couldn’t be further from her last name. She’s a really sweet, warm, and very funny person and I really enjoy talking with her. We talked about her love of Denny’s, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Hole and her just where her love for heavy metal came from. I really enjoyed getting to know Mia and I hope you will too. Kick back and get to know Mia Coldheart of Crucified Barbara.
Welcome to Atlanta, Mia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.
Thank you. I’m really happy to be here.
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I have to say that I never heard of Crucified Barbara until my friend Loana over at Nuclear Blast turned me on to you guys.
[laughs] Ok! So she’s doing her job! [laughs] She is great. When we were in California we went to check out Clutch and Scorpion Child at the House of Blues. We hung out at the gig with Loana and some others. They are all really good people.
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So this is your first time touring the states. Has it been a huge culture clash or what?
We’ve been traveling so much as a band that we’ve gotten used to just about anything. We’re kind of hard to surprise and hard to impress [laughs]. This tour has made a big impression on us. It’s been a dream to come to the US and tour with a band so this is incredible. We’ve been out for six weeks and touring from coast to coast. We’ve seen so many faces and met people everywhere. It’s been great.
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How has it been meeting some of the US Crucified Barbara fans for the first time?
Oh it’s been great. We’ve had such a gracious and overwhelming response. People are being very enthusiastic and have been enjoying the sets. We’ve been meeting a lot of new fans mostly but then we’ve also met fans who have been waiting to see us since the first album was released so they’re really happy. Some of these fans I have been chatting with since the MySpace days about 7 years ago so that’s been cool to meet them.
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What has been some of the biggest surprises for you on this tour?
There have been a lot of surprises [laughs]. I was really surprised at all of the vegetarian food. I was not expecting that at all [laughs]. All I ever heard about the states was all the junk food and so much food. I know you are big meat eaters here [laughs]. We have been eating some really good food. I have also never met so many nice people before. That has been a really great thing.
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Well, you’re in the South now so we’re known for our hospitality.
[laughs] Yes. I really like that a lot. In Sweden, we’re known for being a kind of cold, shy people. We don’t say “hi” to everyone, everywhere like you do here and I think this is a nice way to be [laughs]. I’m going to take this back to Sweden with me [laughs].
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Crucified Barbara has been around a while but just really started to make some waves here in the US after the release of the new album “Midnight Chase.” Has being signed by Nuclear Blast been a big help in spreading the word?
Oh yeah. They have done a lot for us and it has been really great. I can’t think of a better label to be on. First of all, they are the biggest underground label and they have all the coolest bands. To know that they like our band so much and they work really hard for us makes us happy. We didn’t want to sign with any big labels. We a lot offers from bigger labels in the past but it just feels like they want to control way too much and have too many opinions.
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Mia, you are a really sweet and somewhat shy person but live you really come out of your shell. Does it take a lot out of you to go out on stage every night and put yourself out there?
Not at all. It was at the beginning. Of course, when you first get started with a band and you do those first shows. It took some years for me to find my role. I started out as a guitar player in the band and then I started to sing after a couple of years. We’ve now been around for 13 or 14 years. It was actually just a couple of years ago that I really found my place and felt really comfortable. People always say that I’m so different on stage but for me it’s just different levels of energy that I put out. I think I’m not at all putting on a role when I go on stage which is both good and bad. I don’t have that wall of acting to protect me so I’m really very sensitive when I’m on stage.
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Playing on stage is a very honest thing to do. I mean, in some ways it’s like you’re leaving a journal opened on a public table for everyone to read. There’s almost an increased sense of vulnerability when you’re performing.
Yeah, that’s definitely how it is for me. We’re all kind of like that in this band.
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Women in heavy metal music have been very prominent these past few years. Do you 
feel like that women playing heavy metal is less of a novelty now and more acceptable than it used to be?
I’m not really good at the whole history thing but I do know that there has been a lot of female bands in heavy metal. Not as many as the male bands of course [laughs]. I was surprised when we released our first album that so many people were asking us things like, “How does it feel to be a woman playing metal… blah blah blah.” When I started to play as a teenager, it was me and my friends from school and we were inspired by bands like Nirvana and Hole and we just wanted to be like them [laughs]. We were just one of the bands in school. We were like every other band. There was no difference. Nobody really talked about boys and girls bands. We were just a band playing and hanging out. I feel like now that I’m older I’m facing more prejudices and people seem to be so focused on us being females playing music. I think for me as a human being, it’s kind of insulting to hear people say, “Wow, she can actually play.” Why shouldn’t I be able to play? I mean, of course there are bad girl bands playing but there are so many shitty boy bands that you wouldn’t believe [laughs].
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Some bands have a little ritual that they do to get themselves pumped up for a show. Do you have a pre-show ritual of any kind?
No. We don’t really have anything like that. Sometimes we’re just happy if we can just sit together for like 30 seconds because everybody is just everywhere in the venue before the show and then next thing you know the intro music goes on [laughs]. Right now, we don’t have a ritual. I think it’s good to not have a ritual to be honest. I try to stay out of any kind of rituals and habits before I play. As long as I have water, that’s it. I don’t want to be in a situation where I lose something, or I forgot to do something, or someone’s not there to do the hand clap, and then it’s going to be bad [laughs]. I just try to stay away from all things like that.
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What goes through your mind that very second that you walk out on stage?
I’m thinking let’s do this. Let’s go get ‘em [laughs]. Like you said, I’m pretty calm like this up to the very moment I walk out on stage and then the adrenaline just rises and then I’m 100% focused on stage. I can go straight from bed to the stage and then go straight back to bed [laughs]. I’ve learned that I can really turn it on and off.
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After a show, what do you do to come back down from that rush of being on stage?
I’m just really happy if I can have 15 minutes in the dressing room to just cool off. Sometimes, like on this tour, we don’t always have a dressing room so I just walk off stage and go to the bar and just chat with people. I have just found a way to relax inside my head. I can pretty much go straight to bed right after a show if I need to. I feel very blessed to have that ability because I can turn it on and off very easily. That’s been very useful [laughs].
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Mia, what made you want to be a musician?
From the beginning, it was hearing Nirvana and Hole. Those two bands are the ones that made me want to start playing music. That was the big turn from being a horse loving little girl to finding a cool identity, picking up a guitar, and plugging it into an amp. Hearing them made me feel like I could do the same thing. My best friend who was two years older than me played in a death metal band and I was a big fan of his band. He introduced me to bands like Yngwie Malmsteen, Dream Theater, Megadeth, and Helloween which were all quite different than the bands that I was hooked on. Something about those bands caught my ear. Marty Friedman and John Petrucci were my big favorites. I had the VHS tapes and I would play along with the. I wouldn’t say that you could hear them in my playing nowadays kind of stopped practicing a bit too early [laughs]. I kind of lost connection to my guitar playing when I started singing in ’03 or ’04 but now we’re starting to find our way back to each other [laughs].
Alice in Chains [laughs].
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Wow, you didn’t even hesitate on that one.
[laughs] That would be the one. No doubt. They’ve been my favorite bands since I was 14 or 15. I don’t think I’d be able to do it though because I would be so excited that I would faint [laughs].
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How do you like their new material with William DuVall?
Oh I like it a lot. It’s great. I am so sad that I couldn’t see them with Layne. I haven’t seen them live ever but I really want to see them. I really want to meet Jerry Cantrell sometime [laughs]. They’re one of the few bands that I listened to when I was a teenager that inspired me so much when I grew up. Still, when I listen to them I get so excited and I still find new things in the songs that I didn’t hear before. That doesn’t happen with many other bands.
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Being that you play heavy music for a living, is there any other kind of music that we’d be surprised to hear you’re a fan of?
[laughs] I think you would be surprised to hear about all the music I listen to [laughs]. I don’t have any limits anymore. I stopped being just a rocker when I was about 17. I like all kinds of music. When I am home I don’t listen to much rock music if I am alone. If I have friends over or I’m at a party or a bar I love to listen to rock and metal but if I’m alone, I like to listen to bluegrass, singer/songwriter stuff, and just listen to the radio. It’s fun to hear different songs. If I’m in the songwriting process, I don’t listen to much music at all.
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What is your favorite junk food while on the road?
Oh, I’ve found so much on this tour [laughs]. The first night we were on the tour we went to Denny’s and we were so excited to finally be in a place like that [laughs]. We’d only seen places like that in pictures and in the movies so it was fun to be in it.
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Was it any good?
It was so much food [laughs]. The fries, the eggs, the cheese. Oh yeah, it was really good [laughs].
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When you’re driving around in your car, what song do you always find yourself singing along to?
[laughs] Right now, I drive so seldom that when I do I have to be quiet so I can keep focus [laughs]. I hate to listen to rock music in my car because I have shitty speakers so I usually listen to something quiet [laughs].
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What is the strangest gift a fan has given to you?
We get a lot of stuff but the strangest one was this little tiny pot with a little metal tree in it that a guy gave me. He painted each of the leaves different colors and painted my name around it. It’s a really nice souvenir but it was a bit strange [laughs].
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At some shows, women have been known to toss bras and panties to the band. Have any guys been tossing up boxers or jock straps to you girls?
[laughs] We get a lot of shit thrown at us on stage [laughs]. I did just find a wet pair of men’s underwear in my bag the other day but I think they belonged to someone in Crash Diet [laughs]. It was really kind of nasty and I threw them away [laughs]. It was really gross and sweaty and I have no idea how they got there.
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In your opinion, what is the one heavy metal album that everyone should own?
Ooo, that’s a hard question [laughs]. That’s a very hard question. I think everyone should listen to Phantom Blue’s “Built to Perform” album. There’s not a bad song on that album and it really inspired me.
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That is a kick ass album. I never hear anyone really mention that one.
That album is so great. I actually got to meet Gigi (Hangach; Phantom Blue vocalist) on this tour and I just couldn’t believe it. I never thought anything like that could ever happen. She was so cool.
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So what’s next for Crucified Barbara?
We talked a bit with Nuclear Blast in Hollywood and they want us to come back again soon. I hope that will happen and that we’ll come back in the Fall. We have got such a good response on this tour so we don’t want to wait another year to come back. We want to come back soon because it’s been great.
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Mia, finish this sentence: If I wasn’t a musician, I would be ____________.
I would be a farmer somewhere out in the middle of nowhere [laughs]. Maybe not a farmer but I’d love to live out in the countryside with a lot of animals, do some painting. I’d love to live close to nature.
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One last thing. I have a horrible habit of asking bands to play songs that for some reason never make their setlists. Is there any way you girls can play “Rules & Bones” for me?
[laughs] Oh, alright. Well, It’s not in the setlist for this tour but that could happen [laughs]. (Note: They played this song for me during their set.)
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Mia, thank you so much for doing this and congrats on your first tour of US.
Thank you Don and I hope you like the show tonight and don’t say, “Awe that sucked!” [laughs]
For more on Crucified Barbara, check out http://crucifiedbarbara.com/
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