Northern Souls: Those Dancing Days

“We all have our common songs…” Linnea puts forward before Mimmi pipes up – “we’re all music nerds”. Like most, when put on the spot they find it difficult to codify just what their favourite music is. Rebecka suddenly leads an unexpected sing-along of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s finest, and then the girls get all credible. Cissi’s favourite album of all time is ‘Hunky Dory’ by David Bowie, and Mimmi loves The Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album. These two are the group’s musos. Linnea once more remains inward, offering “I don’t know, I’m not that good at listening to music”. It’s pretty strange that her Northern Soul tones may not be derivative at all. “Food and the good looking guys” are what inspires the infectiously chirpy Rebecka, whilst Lisa is into “hip-hop, books and movies”. They all, however, agree on the Spice Girls. Because after all, they were just regular school kids in the 90s. Next comes a best left anonymous admission that, one of the band, as a proper youngster, had a thing for Michael Jackson where she was watching him on-screen in concert and “went to the TV and kissed him because he was so cute” – it’s surely best left nameless, isn’t it Lisa?

And why ‘Those Dancing Days’, pray tell? Well of course it’s not eponymous. It’s after the Led Zeppelin track ‘Dancing Days’. Mimmi clarifies: “I just went through my iTunes list because I like song names and I looked for inspiration and I just found it”. Rebecka goes on: “It was ‘Dancing Days’ in the beginning and then it was going to be ‘The Dancing Days’, and ‘Those’ is more flowing.” It suits them – it’s got the twee that they may not be aware they possess in droves, and the kitsch cuteness they surely must be more conscious of.

Off-track of music, does their relationship ever get a bit intense? Cissi thinks so, but it’s not a problem: “It would be weird if everything always was perfect because that would make you not appreciate when it’s good.” It’s the best attitude to take, surely. “And of course we got up this morning at 4.45… you get tired but it’s nothing serious. We like each other!” Mimmi offers a similar reflection. These two are perhaps the mouthpieces of the band, with Lisa and Rebecka offering sporadic bursts of light and Linnea’s presence and few words providing as much intrigue. “It’s like a marriage”, Rebecka submits. “Or a family”, provides Cissi. They’re having way too much fun for anything else to get in the way. It’s just normal day-to-day friendship for them.

And the interview couldn’t be closed without mention of The Strokes. A chorus of drools is initiated upon mere mention of their forefathers, and whilst there are similarities in that each musician in both bands is not a filler but instead a recognisable individual, Those Dancing Days do not belong to that imitative post-Strokes, pre-schmindie school of thought. Mimmi believes that “they’re iconic but still in the game… they’ve inspired us to make music”, and Lisa realises she’d never thought about that before but admits it to be true. Their gushing on perennial NYC cool sums up everything that they are: they aren’t ashamed to be long-winded on certain things for fear that they’ll be accused of lack of imagination. They’re only too eager to have the chance to tell more about themselves, in fact they jump at it.