Ivy Crown: Who We Are
After such a promising year for Danish metalcore newbies IVY CROWN, October finally sees the release of their debut album Echo. Drummer Sara Gacic takes time out of teaching drums at a girl’s music camp for the week, to talk to Distorted Sound about the forthcoming release and the band’s history. “Everything is falling into place right now.” Gacic enthuses. To celebrate, the band have a release party planned in Copenhagen to play through Echo. “We actually finished the album two years ago. There’s been a lot of back and forth as we just wanted to get it right. We’re really excited to get it out there but we’re also a bit anxious because you spend so much time working on it and making it perfect as it can be.” IVY CROWN needn’t be anxious, as Echo is one of the strongest debut albums of the year.
2019 has also seen the band sign with Long Branch Records, so it’s full steam ahead for the all-female quartet. However, Gacic and guitarist Natasja Stormly are not new to the scene, having formed IVY CROWN from the ashes of their former punk band TARAS. Having played together in bands for the last 15 years, it was after their vocalist moved to New York that spelled the end of TARAS. “Me and Natasja weren’t ready to quit with the music, so we took a long time to figure out what we wanted to play.” Gacic explains. When they started to write new songs their sound got a lot darker and heavier, “We wanted a metal sound.” Bassist Maria Engstrøm joined after they knew her from filling in for TARAS, then after finding vocalist Maria Kjær, IVY CROWN was complete.
Gacic has to quickly check on the girls at her camp before resuming the conversation. With her involvement in the camp and being in an all-female band, it seems natural to ask if Gacic wants to inspire other girls to get into metal. “I hope that some of the girls [at the camp] do, but for a lot of them this is their first introduction to actually playing music.” Drums aren’t usually the first instrument girls try to learn, but for Gacic it was the most appealing. “I just really liked that drums were big and loud and I could hit hard on them.” At eleven years old her parents wouldn’t allow her to play drums and so Gacic had to learn the flute instead. Once she turned thirteen and started going to youth clubs, she could finally learn how to play drums and joined a cover band. The rest is history!
IVY CROWN haven’t completely lost their punk attitude though, with their brand of melodic metalcore sprinkled with hints of other genres. The catchy heaviness of their music is one of their biggest appealing factors, but what are IVY CROWN‘s influences? “We all really like BRING ME THE HORIZON, ARCHITECTS, BEARTOOTH…” Gacic then continues with their personal favourites, “I’m really into KNOCKED LOOSE, I know Natasja is really into SLIPKNOT…we really like the energy that those bands bring.” Gacic also mentions LOATHE, whose vocalist Kadeem France features on the track Bad Dream. “We never thought a guy like him would feature with us.” After Stormly sent France a message on Instagram, the LOATHE singer agreed to appear on Bad Dream. “We sent him the finished song and he was super into it, it was awesome!”
Echo is full of dark references. Starting with the dark depths of Lonesome And Cold, the album ends with Rising which is full of optimism and strength. The order of the songs makes the listener feel like they’re emerged from a dark place. “For us it’s quite important to let people know it’s gonna be OK on the other side.” explains Gacic. Before the lyrics were written they could tell how the album was going to be structured by the sound of the songs. “We knew Rising was going to end the album, it has a big sound, it’s a big song. Then with Lonesome And Cold we knew that had to start the album because the song gives a great introduction of the whole IVY CROWN sound.” Lonesome And Cold also features fellow Dane Kim Song Sternkopf from MØL, who takes the song to even darker depths.
The Danish metal scene is spilling rapidly worldwide into all the sub-genres, with bands such as VOLA, BAEST and SIAMESE gaining more momentum by the day. Alongside Sternkopf as a guest vocalist, Echo features another talented Dane in the form of GHOST IRIS‘ Jesper Gün on That’s What You Do. Both songs highlight the strength of the talent coming out of Denmark right now. But where do IVY CROWN fit in the Danish metal scene? “That’s something we’ve been wondering about as well.” ponders Gacic. “We’re not death metal, and we’re not totally rock. So I guess like MØL, we’re just trying to find our place.” Time will tell for IVY CROWN to find where they fit in, but one thing’s for sure, their crossover appeal will be one of their biggest advantages.
It would be easy to assume for people who just see you as an all-female band that all the songs are about men. However, your songs could easily be seen from a male perspective too. Do you want everybody to be able to relate to IVY CROWN songs?
Sara: Yes definitely. The songs are in general about losing. For example, a song like Not Who We Are, that song is about your mental health, that you’re not in a good place and all this medication you’re having is giving you this false feeling of happiness. That’s relatable to all genders. I think it’s important for us that our music, not only builds bridges, but speaks through generations and genders. So we hope the people who listen to it, can relate to it, no matter their age, or where they’re from, which gender they are. That’s one of our goals, that’s what we hope for. We’re not specifically writing for only females between 20-30 years old, but it is for everybody. If this album can help them somehow, that’s amazing.
Is there anything else in particular you want to achieve with IVY CROWN?
Sara: I think we want to tell our story and Echo is a version of our story as a band, as people. I think as there’s not that many women in metal, there are a lot of stories that are lost and never told. So I think this is our chance to tell people our story through music, that’s what we really want to achieve with the band. As a band we want to play a lot of shows and have a great time with the audience if they like it.
What can fans expect from an IVY CROWN show?
Sara: We’re doing live shows in Denmark right now, it’s an energetic show! You can expect a lot of good energy, people singing along…with our songs we have a lot of choruses that you can sing along to. A lot of great vibes. I don’t want to say too much because I want you to come to one of our shows (laughs).
Have your experiences with TARAS helped with IVY CROWN?
Sara: Yeah definitely. I think TARAS was a great learning process for me and Natasja, because TARAS was very DIY. In that time we experienced a lot of great things, like we ended up doing a national commercial on TV and we played with a big Danish rock band where we ended up playing an arena show in front of ten thousand people. So it was a huge learning process, and when you’re doing everything yourself and you’re only three people, you don’t have time to just sit and experiment with different songs.
What was the biggest learning curve?
Sara: Just saying no, cancel everything out and just focus on the songs. We learned how this business works and the most important thing was to stay humble to everybody and just follow your gut. If something feels right, it was right. If something doesn’t feel right, just say no. Maria our singer, is new to this whole band thing and she gets anxious if we have to turn down a show. We tell her it’s okay, you don’t have to be afraid of people getting mad. We just matured a lot in TARAS and we could use all these experiences in IVY CROWN to make it even better. I think when you’re a young rock band, you just want to write some songs and go and play, drinks some beers and whatever. I think with IVY CROWN we just appreciated we wanted to be a part of everything, like the whole image thing. The masks were our idea. What I’m most proud of is we came up with everything ourselves. We designed the whole concept for the music videos and that as well is a learning curve from TARAS.
Echo is out now via Long Branch Records.
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