Another day on Electroqueer, and another interview: this time with an amazing Swedish popband called MissMatch. MissMatch started their career in the Swedish Melodifestivalen – a contest to pick the act that represents the country at Eurovision – and after that, released an album, ‘Just Push Play’, full of electro-pop smashes that can be brought here. They are also amazing to the fullest degree.
Hello Miss Match. Firstly, can we start by asking how the hell are we supposed to spell your band’s name? Is it ‘Miss Match’, ‘MissMatch’ or something between the two?
It’s MissMatch! We are two misses in a perfect match! We wanted to keep the words together just to make it a little bit crazy, just as we are! We think that being a little bit MissMatch makes the world a funnier place…
On the back of your album’s cover – you have a picture of two dogs, with bows on them – making the dogs as sexy as dogs can be. Should all animals be more sexy? Should zoos start putting lipstick on the giraffes?
Of course! But they would have to make sure that they choose the right colour for their skintone.
As a group, you started your pop career performing on the Swedish Melodifestivalen – a contest to decide who would represent Sweden at the Eurovision. Sadly though, The Ark, not you won. Do you have any ill will towards The Ark?
Well thank you for the compliment! No, we don’t have any ill will for The Ark. They are one of the bands in Sweden that we really like because of their good and artistic shows. We liked being in the same contest as them!
Next year, would you consider the idea of trying to get into the Eurovision by getting citizenship in a country that couldn’t give a toss about the contest, such as the UK, and running for them?
Absolutely! We love Sweden, but we love MissMatch and performing even more, and music has no borderlines! Actually we have been flirting a lot with different country’s men on our vacation this summer. We met a lot of cute French and Italian guys, so maybe one of us will get a proposal soon…!
Your album, as a whole, reminds us a lot of an exercise video with its "eleven step programme". Should more albums have commentary in them, including a prelude involving a man talking over the sounds of women who seem to be near orgasm?
(Laughs) Well, we don’t know about the orgasm thing… we like to have fun and get crazy-creative in the studio, and this is the result of that… but of course everyone is free in their imagination.
Your album also has one of our favourite tracks on it – ‘Unabashed’ – which really is pop done the way it should be done. In our view it is better than ninety per-cent of what Britney Spears has made over the years. Is this something you would think?
Oh my god, that’s a great compliment for us, ’cause we love Britney’s albums. So it rather makes us inspired to do more pop albums in the future!
At the moment, your Wikipedia page is all of three lines long and it doesn’t have a trivia page. Can you tell us something of a trivial fact about MissMatch for us to put on Wikipedia…
OK, we have some facts for you: we have known each other since we were 4 years old; we went to the same schools, parties and worked together. We have also always been neighbours. We grew up 30 seconds from each other and when we moved from our parents’ home we got, by luck, apartments just as close. We also share a lot of our best friends, and are sure that we will spend our future together as well… both as best friends and as business partners.
We have been working for other artists before our break, such as the ‘Swedish Danceprincess’ September. Also the Eurovision winner Charlotte Nilsson Perrelli and Swedish Melodifestivalen winner Pernilla Wahlgren.
Trival facts about Carin: she loves to jump on the trampoline and competing in horse back riding. Emma’s hidden talents are eating a lot of food and then burping for hours. And her favourite thing in life is driving a great car way too fast!
And now, because Wikipedia seem to like proof that something is true, like the person whose page it is writing it, what would be a good lie about Miss Match, which could masquerade itself as a truth on your page…
In the song ‘Drop Dead’ we wanted a real dog panting in the background so we decided to organise an open dog audition in Stockholm. It was almost as tough as the auditions for Idol, but at the end of the day we found our star – ‘Fantastic Pam’. During the Melodifestivalen she also stood backstage panting live because as you probably already know – all vocals have to be totally live! We are the first artists in the contest’s history who have used animals on stage!
The week of these questions being written, Robyn – a Swedish singer, looks set to be number one on the UK charts, which in itself is quite amazing. Do you ever think that Miss Match could be number one in the UK?
That would be such a dream for us, because we have always loved the UK pop-scene We hope to come over to you soon and to tour the whole country…
About three metres away from where we are at the moment is a copy of the new Harry Potter book. If you could have a magical power, what would it be and why?
Carin: I would like to have the power to make people laugh because it would make the earth a better place to live!
Emma: I would like to be able to be invincible! Then I could listen to peoples’ conversations and peek in the boys changing room! (Laughs) Also it would be great when you are just about to bump in to someone you’d rather not meet…
As you are a girlband who has obviously done their research – what other girlbands do you love at the moment?
Sugababes are one of our favourite girlbands, because of their great songs and the girls’ fantastic vocals. And of course Spice Girls will be forever in our minds…!
What is your view of the UK’s true girlband – Girls Aloud? And what is your favourite Girls Aloud song?
Girls Aloud are not that big in Sweden unfortunately, but we hope that Swedish radio will take up more of their songs soon. They are a really great set of girls with a lot of attitude, which we love! Songs like ‘The Show’, and ‘Life Got Cold’ are really cool. And we just love their new single ‘Sexy! No No No’ and the cool video for it!
While writing these questions – we’ve just been listening to some Beyonce. She recently fell over during a concert. What is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you?
Emma: I forgot to spit out my chewing gum before entering the stage and I had to get rid of it before the song would start. In panic I couldn’t find a good place so I had to put it in my hand, but the problem was that I had gloves on. Well, the song started and I realized that one of our first moves is to put the same hand on the mic stand. Of course it stuck and I had to move from the stand, so when I did everything came with it and crashed on the stage. When I finally stood up I had to leave a glove stuck on my mic stand for the whole show…
Carin: Once I invited our two dancers up on stage… well that’s what I thought anyway, but since the audience were kind of wild the whole crowed jumped up on stage and Emma’s necklace got lost in the chaos and my high heeled shoe broke!
Lastly, if you were the president of the world, imagining the position existed, what would be the first law you would make?
To make fun, not war!
» If you would like a free, legal download of ‘Unabashed’ click here.
» If you would like to check them out on MySpace, click here.