Blues Pills had just begun recording their fourth album when singer Elin Larsson discovered she was pregnant. “We’d just come back from tour with [Australian rockers] ,” Larsson recalls with a laugh, speaking to alongside Blues Pills’ guitarist Zach Anderson. “I thought that was hilarious: we come back from that tour, and I’m pregnant.
Thankfully my son looks like my husband – he didn’t come out with an Australian accent!” It was a turning point for the Swedish rockers. Larsson, determined to finish the album, continued to record vocals for what would become right up until her ninth month of pregnancy. “It was harder to sing,” she says.
“Your lungs are sort of pushed away from your stomach. But it turned out great. I think it added more flavour to it.
I’m super proud that I could finish it.” The band also decided to put the pregnancy front and centre of the new release: the front photo cover of Birthday has the rest of the band (Anderson, drummer André Kvarnström and bassist Kristoffer Schander) all in black, while Larsson sits in the middle, heavily pregnant, wearing a beautiful 70s-style blue dress. “For me it symbolises strength,” Larsson says of that image.
“I kept working when I was pregnant, like lots of women do. It feels like it’s a big part of this record.” “Rock music is so dominated by all-male bands,” Anderson adds, “so it feels like a cool thing to have a super-pregnant lead singer on the cover.
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