Celebrity Spotify Playlist: Crucified Barbara’s Nicki Wicked on Her Biggest Influences
It’s hard to disagree with Crucified Barbara’s own self-touting assessment that they are “Scandinavia’s leading all-lady hard rock/heavy metal outfit.” For one, if not them than who? But more importantly we’re really into what these girls are doing. They first caught our ear and eye with their video for “To Kill a Man,” released earlier this year, a song that appears on their brand new album In the Red, coming out on September 10th via Swedish label Despotz (order here). Diving further into the record, there’s a lot to like: simply put, Crucified Barbara know how to write catchy, driving rock n’ roll, and they don’t fall victim to so many of the trappings many all-female acts do. They just rock, which is all that matters.
We asked Crucified Barbara drummer Nicki Wicked to put together a playlist for us featuring some of her biggest influences, and she did just that. Like us, the grunge bands of the early ’90s were some of her earliest influences, so we had plenty to talk about in the quick five question Q&A that follows the playlist below. Enjoy.
http://open.spotify.com/user/metalsucks/playlist/73okEqQe7KH4Li8eqHcsAj
Your playlist is heavy on “classic” grunge. Was that stuff your intro to music with loud guitars?
Yeah, definitely! I remember my early teens and how amazing it was when I began to love music, and grunge was the music I started listening to. Everyone in the band grew up during the grunge era and that stuff inspired us to start playing music ourselves.
Which of your influences do you think can be heard most directly and obviously in Crucified Barbara’s music?
That’s a hard question… I think you develop a blind spot for your own music because you’re so into it. All of us listen to a lot of different music, so I guess there’s a big mixed bag of influences shining through! Lately, someone told me that our latest album is a great mix of old ’70s style, heavy riffs and metal. Sounds nice to me!
Everyone’s got a Led Zeppelin memory from their teenage years, possibly involving weed, booze and/or sex: share yours!
I have listened to Led Zeppelin a lot through the years and I’ve got a lot of nice memories! I have no special moment I can remember. I love the mix of blues, folk and metal, the big sound and their great musicianship. I’ve listened a lot to John Bonham; I love the way he plays and I took a lot of inspiration from him.
Thoughts on Alice in Chains’ two post-reunion albums?
I remember buying Dirt. I totally loved that album and it went on repeat for quite a while. It meant a lot to me. You know, it’s a classic album and it’s really timeless. I can’t really compare the two new albums to that but I still think they’re great!
You’ve got a time machine to 1994 and you’ve got invisibility powers. You can stop Cobain from pulling the trigger that day. Do you do it? Why or why not?
Yeah, I would have tried to stop him! Because it’s a very futile thing to do for yourself and the others around you. Life is fragile enough and existence is basically about avoiding death. Soon or later you’re going to die anyway, and you never know when… to take your own life is such a pointless thing to do.
