Swedish band The Sounds gear up for No Doubt tour
NEW YORK (Billboard) - A word to folks in the cheap seats who arrive early to a No Doubt concert this summer: The first blonde to take the stage won't be Gwen Stefani. That role goes to The Sounds frontwoman Maja Ivarsson, whose band will be opening the tour, along with Paramore.
The Swedish group, which owes more to Blondie than to the Specials or Madness, releases its new album, "Crossing the Rubicon," June 2 on Original Signal Recordings.
"We've done big festivals in Europe, but never anything of this size in America," Ivarsson says.
She hopes the tour marks another milestone for the new wave band. "Radio has never picked up on us in the U.S.," she says. The group's new label is working to change that. The Sounds' album will be the first one released under Original Signal's new venture with Universal Motown.
The band was previously signed to New Line Records, a division of the movie studio. Its 2007 record, "Dying to Say This to You," sold 106,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, based largely on critical acclaim and word-of-mouth.
"When we were looking for a new label, we got a lot of offers, but we wanted to have bargaining power," Ivarsson says. "So we kicked out everyone in our circle and paid for the recording ourselves. We talked to big labels, but they didn't feel right. Original Signal felt like a good home, and they were just as passionate about music as we are."
(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)
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