Strong Together And Apart: The Sirens Unite

Solo careers are tricky. In the overlapping worlds of rock and metal, for every Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper there are 10 copies of Scott Weiland's Christmas album knocking around.

The Gathering’s Anneke van Giersbergen, Liv Kristine of Leaves' Eyes and Theatre Of Tragedy and The 3rd And The Mortal’s Kari Rueslåtten have all made it work, though, carving their way through a sea of beer bellies and beards to rule the proverbial roost on their own terms.

And then came the Sirens, the band that finds the trio joining forces for some sort of Justice League coalition. Having only released two songs online – Mothers Of The Earth and Embracing The Seasons – they're still a relatively unknown quantity.

So, as hordes of fans paved the streets of Islington in readiness for their debut UK show at the Garage, we sat down with them to get the skinny on the band, their side projects and respective solo careers.

Liv, your upcoming album, 'Vervain', is home to Stronghold Of Angels, featuring none other than Doro Pesch. She is regarded as one of the first women to make an impact in the metal scene – what was it like duetting with such an icon?

Liv: Wonderful, just wonderful. Doro's opened many doors for us female singers who came after her, and I was really hoping for a female singer on Stronghold Of Angels – maybe not in the same singing manner as myself, though. It was actually my husband's idea to call Doro, like: 'I've got her number, just call her!' So I did, and three days later she was in the studio. She's highly professional, she was well-prepared and she knew exactly what to do – we had so much fun, we talked through the whole night and nearly missed the train. Doro's a sweetheart and, for me, she's number one. Next to Ozzy Osbourne.

Both Liv and Anneke cite you as an influence, Kari. When you were recording with The 3rd And The Mortal, were you aware that what you were doing would have such an impact or was it simply: 'Oh, we're just recording some music.'

Kari: Definitely just: 'Oh, we're just recording.' We were just doing our thing, and there weren't any metal bands that we knew of back then who had a female front-singer. So that was new, but it was just natural to us. In my younger years, I tried to sing like Doro, like, 'Raaaaargh!', but I just lost my voice. So I just had to sing like I do now, but it was only later when we discovered that what we did was so creative and influential. Bit of a surprise.

Anneke, as well as your work in the Gathering and your solo career, many know you for your collaborations with Devin Townsend. What's it like to be in the studio with him?

Anneke: Devin writes all of the music, and he knows exactly what I'm supposed to do – he has it all in his head, and he sings all the voices himself on the demos, because obviously he's a phenomenal singer. So he sings all my parts, then he sends them to me – but he does my parts in his falsetto voice – and I know that the falsetto parts are mine. He doesn't tell me what to sing; I just get sent the whole thing, go in the studio and repeat it.

He's super-fast, just like 'Bang! Bang! Bang!', because usually the choirs are four lots of four voices – but only mine, right? But he's a machine. I sang the whole 'Z²' record in three days, doing 12 hours each day, with food, obviously. But I love it, because Devin makes me sing all that I can do and up to this day, he will still say: 'No, no, I think you can do it.' It's never too high or too low. He just says I can do it and, well, fucking hell, I can do it! I've learned a lot from him. He's so focused, such a nice guy, so funny and working with him is one of my proudest moments.

Sisters Of The Earth and Embracing The Seasons are both very different songs. Is it important that you established a diverse sound as The Sirens' template?

Liv: Absolutely, because we're three personalities. We all had our bands in the beginning and the middle of the ‘90s, then we each developed solo careers, and it would be boring if all three of us were just blonde and doing the same thing. That's the thing the Sirens are about – it's the right combination of various elements.

We are trying to unite all the spices we have in order to come up with songs like Embracing The Seasons and Sisters Of The Earth. On the other hand, it's important to show sides of each personality. We made a big step with those two songs; both are artistic works that fulfil what the Sirens are about, yet they are both contrasting. That's the nice thing about it.

Anneke: All of our characters really come together. The other day, a fan said to us: 'You're playing songs from seven bands.' As in all of our former bands, our solo bands and the Sirens songs. It's a huge thing and it's true, and it gives us such a diverse sound. We have pop, rock, doom and ballads. We have a long show.

Liv: When we picked the songs in practice, we did it by heart, thinking: 'I could do this!', or Kari saying: 'I think Trollferd is a song for you and me.' It's all come together.

Given how well the recording of those two songs went, can we expect a full-length album any time soon?

Kari: No plans for a full album, but we do have plans to release another song – it's not recorded yet, so it's a mystery. Hopefully that will happen before the next lap of the tour in November.

Anneke: We don't really think that far ahead. I do think it's nice, like everything coming round full circle. We all have had similar careers, so it's a celebration of what we've been doing all this time. It's cool to just do these live shows and it's very much a live project. We could do it till the end of time, but at the same time, every one of us is ready to release a solo album again, so we'll all be super busy in the next year. We didn't know how well the Sirens would work when we started it, but now we're playing live we can see how it's growing.

Kari: It's all coming together. I had a feeling it would work out fine, but after our first show in Germany, it was just...wow. For me, to play the old 3rd And The Mortal songs is a very special moment. With the Sirens, I can play those songs in a fresher way. It's been, like, 20 years but the songs are still so true to their original concepts. I feel lucky to be on stage playing those songs.

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