My Bubba: The 13th Floor Interview

My Bubba combines the musical talents of Icelandic singer/guitarist Guobjorg (Bubba) Tomasdottir and My (pronounced “Me”) Larsdotter, who sings and plays the Norwegian Lap Harp, and hails from Sweden.

The duo began making records in 2010 and have released three full-length albums full of music that they describe as “lullabies from the countryside”. This year they recorded and released a single on Jack White’s Third Man label.

With My Bubba due to perform in New Zealand as part of WOMAD 2018 this coming March, The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to “Bubba” recently while she was spending some down time in Washington State.

Click here to listen to the interview with My Bubba:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: Are you in the middle of touring the States?

BT: No. I am here in a cabin by the sea, writing.

MD: Oh, that sounds nice!

BT: Yeah; so, we’re not touring so much this fall; taking time for writing and being creative.

MD: So, you’re writing songs?

BT: Yeah.

MD: Do the two of you write together, or are you writing on your own?

BT: We are apart right now, but we gather our thoughts when we write songs together.

MD: How is the process going?

BT: It’s going good. We’re just enjoying silence for a moment, and being in our own creative world. I look forward to coming together soon.

MD: And it’s being broken by me, calling from Auckland…. I’m sorry about that!

BT: But it’s fine.

MD: So, you’re coming to New Zealand for WOMAD in a few months. Is this your first trip to New Zealand?

BT: It is. We have wanted to come for a long time; so, we are very happy that we can make it to New Zealand.

MD: Yeah, it should be exciting. For folks who may not be that familiar with what you do, can you give a brief summation of how you describe what you and My do?

BT: Well, we play music. I play on acoustic guitar, and she plays a very old table harp from Norway, and we sing, very often, in harmonies, and the music is soft and playful. It’s an acoustic experience.

MD: When the two of you are harmonising together, is it a natural thing? Do you have to work at it? How do you make it happen?

BT: It is a very natural thing, in its core. Of course, there is work involved when you work on a specific song. Sometimes it just falls very naturally, sometimes it needs a little bit of work, but our musicality, or our musical collaboration, is based on a very natural connection. That is the thing that I enjoy the most about playing live: is, of course, the connection with her, and then the connection with the audience, which I experience through the music.

MD: When you’re playing in a new territory – such as when you’re coming to New Zealand – how do you make that connection with a new audience? Is it different than when you played repeatedly in the same place?

BT: Good question. I think when you are in a new territory, there is often… extra excitement: when you are also experiencing something new during the day, and during your travels, it helps you to be extra awake, and extra sensitive to the circumstances; but I feel touring is almost always something new. We’ve been touring in many countries and situations and people and festivals, or wherever you’re at, there’s always new elements to it; so, it keeps it exciting.

MD: Are you going to get a chance to look around the country? Do you do any kind of research about the places you’re going to, before you go there?

BT: Yeah. We haven’t decided yet, but… we are planning to spend some time, after the tour, in New Zealand; looking forward to that. Any tips of what we should see and do?

MD: You can’t go wrong! Everything is fantastic. There’s plenty to see. And you’ll be here in March; so, it’ll still be warm and summery; so, that’s good thing as well.

BT: Oh, that’s good.

MD: Speaking of connections: the two of you – if I understand correctly – met about eight years ago in Denmark; is that right?

BT: Yes.

MD: Maybe you can just enlighten us about what it was about working together…? How did you realise should work and sing together?

BT: She had an apartment to rent, and I was looking for a room to rent; and I moved in, at her place, and I used to hear her sing when she was doing the dishes; and I used to play music just for my own pleasure, and I was writing a song at the time, and asked her to harmonise on it. She was very reluctant at first, because she hadn’t sung with anybody before, or wasn’t even aware of what a good singer she was; but she agreed, and from that day, we sang together for our pleasure; so, it was a very natural start – we sang because we enjoyed it; we enjoyed spending time, that way, together. Then, a few months later, we decided to perform the song live on an open mic night in Copenhagen, and then… we made some friends there, and people were so appreciative, and we got the taste for what it was like performing for other people, and after that, began a very long and beautiful adventure.

MD: Very good! Part of that adventure included touring with Damien Rice, and also with Mathew E. White; is that right?

BT: Yeah, that’s right.

MD: What can you tell me about some of those experiences that you had, over the years, working with other artists?

BT: We have been very fortunate on our way. It’s always happened very organically when we meet artists or people that we like. Sometimes it has led to these collaborations or tours. We just feel very fortunate for those encounters. With Damien Rice was extra special, because we got to play in theatres and beautiful venues around America and in Europe.

MD: Did you actually sing with him, or were you just opening…?

BT: We opened, and we sang with him a few nights. We had a little collaboration going on, and we became good friends; it was a great adventure.

MD: My understanding is your most recent single was released on the Third Man label – Jack White’s label – is that right?

BT: Yeah, that’s right. That’s another fun collaboration.

MD: How did you work with Jack?

BT: Jack contacted us and said he was interested in doing something, and when we were in Nashville, we went to his studio and we worked a day together, there, recording two songs on tape; and he produced it and he played some, and some other Nashville musicians stopped by; and it was a very fun collaboration.

MD: One of the songs you recorded is a Bob Dylan song, You’re Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go. Who decided on that?

BT: … It was one of the first songs that we sang together back in the apartment in Copenhagen, and we’ve been singing it almost every night ever since, and Jack is very fond of Bob – not that we knew that when we recorded – but for some reason, we always wanted to record it – and we didn’t have a good recording of it – so, that opportunity felt like the right one to release it as a seven inch single.

MD: It’s one of my favourite Dylan songs. It’s got one of my favourite rhymes in it, where he rhymes Ashtabula with Honolulu; because I grew up near Ashtabula, just near Pennsylvania and Ohio. Coming from Scandinavia, have you ever been to Ashtabula?

BT: I haven’t been to Ashtabula, no; but, hopefully, one day. Yeah, it’s a really great song.

MD: It is indeed…. You kind of got started doing Swedish folk songs, and then you did covers; and now: is this a new thing for you, to be writing your own stuff, or concentrating on that, or is that what you’ve been doing all along as well?

BT: No, we have been doing that all along. We have released three albums with our own songs so far; so, we have written plenty, and will continue doing so.

MD: A quote I found that… describes what you do is ‘lullabies from the countryside’. Is that still accurate?

BT: Yeah, in a way…. I think that describes our first album very well…. For our last album, a friend of ours described it as ‘milk from another planet’. But yeah, ‘lullabies from the countryside’ is a good way to describe it.

MD: So, now you’re holed up in Washington State, and you’re writing new songs. How much does the environment – where you are, your location, and what’s around you – affect your ability to write and what the songs end up sounding like?

BT: I think, for me, not necessarily so much. It’s more of an ‘inner location’ – if you know what I mean – rather than ‘exterior location’, that determines what the music sounds like.

MD: Do you have a goal or a target of when your next album is going to be released?

BT: No, not right now. We are just enjoying the quiet for a moment.

Click here for tickets and more information about My Bubba at WOMAD 2018