Through the strengthening crucible of the vagaries of the music industry, the ups and downs of road life, the uncertainty of long-term success, and the sometimes demoralizing lack of internal cohesion, Swedish metal guitarist/bandleader/songwriter Filippa Nassil took stock of the situation here beloved band Thundermother was in during a critical period towards the end of 2016.
At this mid-decade crossroads, she was asking some big questions. Should she stop. Should she look for other musical avenues to follow, should she put her dreams on the shelf for a time? No, Thundermother had potential, it had a small, but growing and fervently loyal international following. Instead of packing it in, she built up from a new foundation. Enlisting a core of creative collaborators who were committed to musical excellence, and who would put the work, energy and passion into the band, a reconstituted lineup was launched, Phoenix-like on the music scene in Sweden in 2017, centred on the exceptionally compelling vocal talents and enormously evocative persona of frontwoman/songwriter Guernica Mancini, and the powerhouse drum skills of percussionist/songwriter Emlee Johnansson. Joined more recently by bassist Majsan Lindberg, Thundermother has released its second album since it’s bombastic revival – Heat Wave, the band’s fourth overall. A self-titled album was released on 2018. Two records were released with the previous lineup: Rock ‘N Roll Disaster in 2014 and Road Fever the following year.
“First of all, the most special part about this album is that all members have been involved in the songwriting process, whereas before Filippa was kind of stuck being the main creative person for everything. I would say she wrote 90 per cent of the stuff on the previous albums, and she did a great job in doing all that. But now that we have become more of a solid unit over the last three years, everyone wants to be involved in the creative process. We are all musicians and we enjoy it as much as she does,” explained Mancini from her home in Sweden, which is literally next door to her bandmate Nassil.
“It was really nice of her to open up this process to all the band members. It helped create a unique Thundermother sound. We’re not recreating the wheel with the kind of rock that we’re doing, but I do think we’re bringing something fresh to the table with our classic rock style. And I think we’ve managed to do that now that we’ve all been involved in the songwriter, because we all come from very different musical backgrounds. We’re a Swedish hard rock band, but we’re not doing the same thing as a lot of the other bands from Sweden with female singers. We’re not doing the symphonic metal or orchestral metal thing. Personally, I am not a big fan of that, so I am very happy that we’re staking out our space as far as possible from that. I don’t know what to tell you other than we all really like classic rock, we just like it to be groovy and fun. We really love the kind of music that we do.
“If I were to explain it to a new person who has never heard of us before, I usually just go the simple route and say that we’re sort of like a female AC/DC. We have that AC/DC or even that Motorhead vibe, but obviously we have a different kind of vocals. Someone told me when we were once on tour that we were like if AC/DC had a child with Led Zeppelin. We have become way more bluesy since I joined the band because that’s the kind of music I love to sing and that suits my voice. Janis Joplin was for sure an influence because she understood the importance of meaning what you’re singing and feeling the words. Janis inspired me with her truth and honesty and the realness of her performances. Its just so raw and true and that’s what I want to accomplish with what I am doing. I usually tell people that when I actually started singing, I was trying to mimic Sebastian Bach and Dio. Those were two vocalists I really looked up to once I got serious about being a singer.”
Working alongside veteran, lauded producer/songwriter Soren Andersen from Denmark, Thundermother has just begun to scratch the surface of their talent. His hard rock and classic rock pedigree includes work alongside the likes of Deep Purple’s Glenn Hughes, Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, fellow Dane Mike Tramp (White Lion) and many other European acts.
“In 2019, when we were touring, we went off on these writing trip sessions, which was something new we did for this album. We met up with other songwriters and producers just to see what would happen and if it would boost our creativity. The guy that we bring on tour with us as a sound guy has his own little studio, so that’s where me, Filippa and Emlee went to write and demo some songs. So, in breaks from touring through all of 2019 we were writing songs,” she said, adding that eventually the sessions with Andersen proved to be the most fruitful and inspirational, and they brought him in to produce Heat Wave.
“It was the first time that we had worked with Soren. He is one of the best human beings ever. He is so humble and nice, just a lovely, lovely, lovely person, and he really brought out the best in each of us. Me and Filippa went over to his studio in Denmark for the first time in May of last year and it was the first time I met Soren and we all just hit it off. We wrote six of the songs then and there, and he did such a good job capturing the vibe on those recordings that we actually used my demo vocals on the album What you’re hearing are the vocals from our first sessions. I think I only had to go in and fix a word or two. I am lazy with English pronunciations sometimes, so I had to go fix that.
“After that, because Emlee couldn’t make it in May, she came with us the second time and then we wrote three more songs, this time with Emlee too. We all just loved Soren. And after those writing sessions, we knew we wanted him to produce our album because it’s just a good energy all over. He understood right away what we wanted to do with this album.”
The first single from Heat Wave is the ebullient, upbeat and somewhat cheeky, role-reversal song, Driving In Style, which looks at the rock and roll lifestyle from a different point of view than most similar songs from the 1970s and 1980s.
“I actually had the idea for this song when I first started in the band. I had read The Dirt, the Motley Crue book, and have these visions of all this silly shit going on in bands, that’s probably not really true. And it’s not the same, at least not for female musicians. I thought at the time, well I am going to go on the road and it’s going to be crazy and there’s going to be guys everywhere – but that did not happen. I realized that for a female rock musician, you have to go out yourself and approach the guys, whereas in male bands, the women come to them. So, the second part of the song is kind of owning that and picking someone from the audience to join us backstage. It’s turning the tables a bit. I think it’s a funny song, because it’s reversing the perspective,” Mancini said, adding that the compelling song, Ghosts was born out of an initial idea from drummer Johansson.
“It’s about all those little voices in your head that just talk down to you and mess you and mess with your confidence, and we all have those. It’s something real that I have to deal with daily and that we all have to deal with in some sort of way every day. Especially in the pandemic when there is so much more alone time, you really have to manage that so it doesn’t take over. I know a lot of people have problems with depression or anxiety and it kind of starts there with talking down to yourself. It’s not a good situation. Emlee had the initial idea and I know it’s been a struggle for her to be okay with saying she struggles with this too. She is a female drummer and sometimes its tough to be a female drummer. She is great, she is the best, but confidence wise it takes a while to be okay with your own talent and ability. With guys, they can just get behind a kit and start bashing away and call themselves a drummer. Whereas a female, and this applies to lots of areas of rock music, we feel we have to overcompensate and be so much better than everybody else for us to be even able speak the words, ‘yes I am a drummer’ and be confident in their role.”
Sleep is also a very personal song which began in the fertile creative mind of Nassil.
“She had written the music and had some ideas for words and brought it all in, but we weren’t really feeling the lyrical part of it, so me and Emlee changed it up a bit. And then we put it all together, all three of us and it came out great. It’s talking about the heartbreaks in life. I have had situations where things are about to end and you’re still living together with the other person and it’s really tough and awkward. I think most people can relate to it, just the heartache. It’s a situation where in your heart you know its over, but still haven’t physically separated yet,” Mancini explained.
“You’re both there and you just know that everything’s shit and you haven’t even spoken the words to end it yet, so you just fight, fight, fight and it’s horrible. I hope it never happens again, but it has happened to me and I think to most people. The other girls in the band can all relate to it – it’s just a shitty situation where you want out, you want it to be done.”
If dear readers will allow for a little sideline discussion, Mancini’s first name is an obvious topic of discussion, as it is the name of a famous painting by the legendary Pablo Picasso. It was painted as a deeply powerful, emotive anti-war statement in response to the bombing of the small Basque town of Guernica by Fascist forces, including Nazi German and Italian, as well as Spanish aircraft during the height of the Spanish Civil War in the mid-1930s. Far from being a coincidence, Mancini was in fact deliberately given her first name because of the famous work of art and the community for which it was named.
“My parents are political refugees from Uruguay [in South America] and they moved to Sweden in the 1970s, so they are obviously very political. My mom really loved the name. The year I was born it had been 50 years since the event happened, so that’s the reason. It was actually a decision between Guernica and Laika, which was the first dog in space, put in a rocket by the Soviet Union [in November 1957]. So, I am really happy I ended up with Guernica,” she explained.
“And because it’s an anti-war painting, which is definitely something my parents believe in, it is really dark and maybe to a lot of people it would be strange to have a name like that, but I think there’s a lot of beauty in the fact that Picasso made that just to highlight this horrible incident. And it gives me a chance to teach people, because it comes up on conversation, I am passing on new information, because not everyone is interested in art, or in history. I only see the positives in having this name. I am the only one with this name as far as I know. I have three sisters: two of them were named by my mom and they were more political names and my other two sisters got more traditional Catholic classical names.
“My dad named my oldest sister Regina and the youngest is Cecilia, after the patron saint of musicians, and my dad is a drummer. My mom chose Guernica for me and Liberty or Libertad, for my sister. She thinks the name is too political: she is more of a private person and doesn’t necessarily like to have to explain her name. Whereas with me, I choose to talk about it. I am a very extroverted person and I don’t mind telling people about my name. I see it as an opportunity for people to learn and remember.”
Mancini said it was to her good fortune that she was born in Sweden, although it was by a whim of a United Nations bureaucrat that brought her parents to the Scandinavian nation all those years ago.
“They didn’t pick Sweden. The U.N. was helping the political refugees from Uruguay and Sweden was one of the first countries that accepted refugees, that was their first option. I think at the time they weren’t allowed to go to America. But I have to say, I am super happy, and I feel very blessed and fortunate to have been born in Sweden. I have had a great life here. I love Sweden, it truly is my home country. I know, ethnically I am South American, but Sweden is where my heart is. I do hope someday, when I have time, to go back to my roots and learn more about Uruguayan culture and music,” she said, as the subject shifted back to music and Thundermother and how, perhaps, having a name that represents boldness of ideas and the strength, power and evocative nature, that somehow these traits have been infused in her psyche and spirit, making her the exceptional vocalist and frontwoman that she has become.
“I think it’s become one of those things where it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy where I was given this name and now, I am kind of living up to it in some way. Obviously, I am anti-Fascist, and obviously I am anti-Nazi and all that stuff. I am happy that I can show off my name in a positive light and be a powerful front figure for an all-female rock band.”
Mancini had been part of the Swedish hard rock and metal scene for a number of years and had been aware of Thundermother for some time. When the chance to join came in 2017, it almost came about by happenstance.
“I auditioned in 2017, so I have been in the band for three years now. I had my own band before Thundermother, and while playing in that band, I got to know Filippa through her other band, HiFLY a side project from Thundermother. We exchanged contact information at that time and one thing led to another where she would book shows for my band. By the end of 2016, I was having problems in my band. The bass player had quit, and I contacted a bunch of people that I knew in the industry just for advice and if they knew any bass players and what should I do. While talking with Filippa, she kind of mentioned that Thundermother was also having problems, although she didn’t tell me what the problems were,” she said.
“So, being the person that I am, I jokingly said to her that if she ever needed a singer, I will be there tomorrow. I didn’t think in a million years that I would become the singer in this band, honestly. I never thought that a singer would ever quit a band. But she said, ‘well, actually, would you be interested in auditioning.’ And I said, ‘holy shit, yes!’ A few months passed, I did the audition, and the rest is history. I am very, very happy that I ended up in Thundermother. Although I had several bands before this one, the amount of touring we had done in Thundermother has helped out with the confidence level of the band and for me becoming the performer that I am today.
“This is the second album that this lineup has done, and I know for a fact that Thundermother, as a band, has never toured as much as we have done with this new lineup, because we have all been really eager and hungry, and we all want the same thing. So, finally, Filippa who started this band and has worked so hard as it’s driving force, has bandmates that are as ambitious as herself and it’s made it possible for all of us to actually go all in with the music. We all dropped our day jobs last year, which was amazing, and a huge milestone in all of our careers.”
For more information on Thundermother and Heat Wave, including possible post-pandemic tour dates, visit www.thundermother.com, or www.facebook.com/thundermother.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
