{"id":11234,"date":"2013-05-10T01:00:07","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T05:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=11234"},"modified":"2013-05-06T14:58:03","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T18:58:03","slug":"blowin-wind-with-crucified-barbaras-mia-coldheart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=11234","title":{"rendered":"Blowin\u2019 Wind with Crucified Barbara\u2019s Mia Coldheart: \u201cIt\u2019s kind of insulting to hear people say, \u201cWow, she can actually play.\u201d Why shouldn\u2019t I be able to play?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CB-mia\"<\/a>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\u2019s first ever US tour making yours truly their first Atlanta interview.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I had the opportunity to chat pre-show with lead singer\/guitarist Mia Coldheart and she couldn\u2019t be further from her last name. She\u2019s a really sweet, warm, and very funny person and I really enjoy talking with her. We talked about her love of Denny\u2019s, 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.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to Atlanta, Mia. It\u2019s a pleasure to meet you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you. I\u2019m really happy to be here.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Ok! So she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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So this is your first time touring the states. Has it been a huge culture clash or what?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been traveling so much as a band that we\u2019ve gotten used to just about anything. We\u2019re kind of hard to surprise and hard to impress [laughs]. This tour has made a big impression on us. It\u2019s been a dream to come to the US and tour with a band so this is incredible. We\u2019ve been out for six weeks and touring from coast to coast. We\u2019ve seen so many faces and met people everywhere. It\u2019s been great.<\/p>\n

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\"Dsc_0066\"<\/a>How has it been meeting some of the US Crucified Barbara fans for the first time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh it\u2019s been great. We\u2019ve had such a gracious and overwhelming response. People are being very enthusiastic and have been enjoying the sets. We\u2019ve been meeting a lot of new fans mostly but then we\u2019ve also met fans who have been waiting to see us since the first album was released so they\u2019re really happy. Some of these fans I have been chatting with since the MySpace days about 7 years ago so that\u2019s been cool to meet them.<\/p>\n

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What has been some of the biggest surprises for you on this tour?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Well, you\u2019re in the South now so we\u2019re known for our hospitality.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Yes. I really like that a lot. In Sweden, we\u2019re known for being a kind of cold, shy people. We don\u2019t say \u201chi\u201d to everyone, everywhere like you do here and I think this is a nice way to be [laughs]. I\u2019m going to take this back to Sweden with me [laughs].<\/p>\n

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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 \u201cMidnight Chase.\u201d Has being signed by Nuclear Blast been a big help in spreading the word?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yeah. They have done a lot for us and it has been really great. I can\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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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?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019ve 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\u2019m so different on stage but for me it\u2019s just different levels of energy that I put out. I think I\u2019m not at all putting on a role when I go on stage which is both good and bad. I don\u2019t have that wall of acting to protect me so I\u2019m really very sensitive when I\u2019m on stage.<\/p>\n

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Playing on stage is a very honest thing to do. I mean, in some ways it\u2019s like you\u2019re leaving a journal opened on a public table for everyone to read. There\u2019s almost an increased sense of vulnerability when you\u2019re performing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, that\u2019s definitely how it is for me. We\u2019re all kind of like that in this band.<\/p>\n

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Women in heavy metal music have been very prominent these past few years. Do you \"Dsc_0057\"<\/a>feel like that women playing heavy metal is less of a novelty now and more acceptable than it used to be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m 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, \u201cHow does it feel to be a woman playing metal\u2026 blah blah blah.\u201d 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\u2019m older I\u2019m 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\u2019s kind of insulting to hear people say, \u201cWow, she can actually play.\u201d Why shouldn\u2019t 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\u2019t believe [laughs].<\/p>\n

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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?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. We don\u2019t really have anything like that. Sometimes we\u2019re 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\u2019t have a ritual. I think it\u2019s 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\u2019s it. I don\u2019t want to be in a situation where I lose something, or I forgot to do something, or someone\u2019s not there to do the hand clap, and then it\u2019s going to be bad [laughs]. I just try to stay away from all things like that.<\/p>\n

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What goes through your mind that very second that you walk out on stage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking let\u2019s do this. Let\u2019s go get \u2018em [laughs]. Like you said, I\u2019m pretty calm like this up to the very moment I walk out on stage and then the adrenaline just rises and then I\u2019m 100% focused on stage. I can go straight from bed to the stage and then go straight back to bed [laughs]. I\u2019ve learned that I can really turn it on and off.<\/p>\n

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After a show, what do you do to come back down from that rush of being on stage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m just really happy if I can have 15 minutes in the dressing room to just cool off. Sometimes, like on this tour, we don\u2019t 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\u2019s been very useful [laughs].<\/p>\n

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Mia, what made you want to be a musician?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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 \u201903 or \u201904 but now we\u2019re starting to find our way back to each other [laughs].<\/p>\n