Comprised of Merseyside, UK-born twin siblings Martin Baxter (drums) and Fran Baxter (vocals, guitar) along with Lincoln,UK-born James Corden (bass), the up-and-coming Stockholm, Sweden-based indie rock act Birthday Girl can trace its origins back to 2016 when its founding trio relocated to Stockholm. At the time the trio were living in a single room with one folding down bed and were DJ’ing for pocket change when they started the band. Swedish-born and-based Joakim Sandegård joined the band shortly after and the members of the newly constituted quartet began focusing on creating music that combined raw aggression and noise with gentle melodies and harmonies.
The up-and-coming Stockholm-based band released their debut single “Welcome Home Frank Bastard” through British label Hide and Seek Records in 2017 — and the song, which is about a lonely man, who takes his frustrations out on his pet cat eventually caught the attention of Iggy Pop, who featured the song on his BBC6 Radio show. And as a result of the growing buzz surrounding the band, they started playing shows around the Stockholm area.
After DJ’ing at a local bar, the members of the and found a lost credit card, which happened to belong to Glasvegas‘ lead vocalist James Allan, and upon returning his credit card, they struck up a friendship, which lead to Allan inviting Birthday Girl to open for his band during their 2018 UK tour. Following their UK tour, the members of Birthday Girl opened for The Underground Youth during their Swedish tour before heading to the studio last winter to start working on their full-length debut. In the meantime, the up-and-coming Swedish band’s latest single “I Came Here to Eat” is a mid-tempo track centered around a chugging bass line, atmospheric, swirling blasts of feedback-driven guitar, Fran Baxter’s plaintive falsetto and a soaring hook. And while the song finds the band meshing 90s alt rock — thanks to an alternating quiet, loud, quiet song structure — and 80s post-punk, the track possesses a murky and menacing air. Interestingly, the band’s Francis Baxter wrote the song about the feeling of “wanting to completely devour someone to the point of cannibalism.”
Directed by Sebastian Paez, the recently released video was filmed at Stockholm’s Scalateatern and while emphasizing shadow and dim lighting, the video focuses on the act of performance — both as something incredibly phony and artificial and as an interpretation of human behavior and character.
