Lambretta-Linda goes solo

TEXT: DAVID BARTAL PHOTOS: TOMAS BERGMAN & RASMUS MOGENSEN/©MUNTHE PLUS SIMONSEN A/S

“So you want to be a rock n’ roll star? Then listen now to what I say Just get an electric guitar Then take some time and learn how to play.”
                        The Byrds, 1967


         Most people know her as Lambretta, one of the internationally most promising female rock singers to ever come out of Sweden. But the lead vocalist’s name is actually Linda Caroline Sundblad, and for the past nine years she has been the heart and soul of pop/rock band Lambretta, a group that produced three popular albums and hit songs like “Blow my Fuses,” “Creep” and “Bimbo.”
         After nearly a decade in the spotlight as one of the country’s few successful female rock singers, Linda has now moved to California, started a solo career in a different musical direction… and quietly gotten married!
         It is ironic that at the age of 24, when most Swedish professionals are starting their careers, Linda “Lambretta” Sundblad can already say about her own tenure as rock n’ roll star: Been there, done that.
          “It felt like I was standing still and I was thinking, should I keep living here and keep doing the same thing for another 20 years? I was starting to feel like an old woman in a young woman’s body.”
         Linda Sundblad was only 15 years old when she quit school and joined Lambretta at half the age of the oldest members of the band. That led to a lot a discussion. It didn’t help matters either that most people came to think of Lambretta as a one-woman show—ignoring contributions of the drummer, bass player and guitarist. Charismatic vocalist Linda was more talented than the rest of the band, music critics repeatedly declared, arguing that she would be better off on her own. That can’t have done much for group morale. But Ms. Sundblad always stubbornly insisted that she wasn’t ready to go solo.
         Now, the critics will get their long-awaited wish.
          “My band doesn’t exist any more because we found out we had been working too long together. I’m not sure if we will ever play together as a group again,” Linda says in a telephone interview in early October, about two months after the band’s break-up (which has at this writing still not been made public).
         Her latest CD, called “The Fight,” released late in 2004 by Universal, was marked by the tensions in the band, and the divisions between the manager and the band. The music and lyrics are kick-ass aggressive and bitter in the title track and in Courtney Love-ish tunes like “Kill Me.”
          “At that time of my life I was very angry, but I’m leaving that behind me now. A lot of people were bad to us…the manager…and one band member (guitarist Eliasson) actually dropped out of the band one week before we released the album.”
          “Part of the problem was the media, which kept going on and on about how I shouldn’t be in a group with the old boys,” Linda explains.
         Linda Sundblad grew up with her parents and two brothers and two sisters in Lidkoping, a little city in south of Sweden. Her father, Ulf, is a musician so songs and music have always been part of her life... Many people who know the singer only through her rock star role or via glossy magazines associate Lambretta/Linda with glamour and glitz.
         The Swedish edition of fashion magazine Elle, for example, honoured Linda for having the “best festive style in 2005.” Her ability to look sensational when wearing edgy fashions on stage or in party situations has caused some to compare Linda to Gwen Stefani of “No Doubt.”
         Linda/Lambretta has also modeled for rock-fashion designer queen Ylva Liljefors and even more recently for Denmark’s Munthe plus Simonsen, but she feels as comfortable in Doc Martens boots, an outfit from Tiger, an inexpensive blouse from H&M or second-hand clothing.
         Judging by the number of celebrity snapshots taken of the rock star at openings in the Stureplan entertainment district where “rich brats,” and trendsetters hang out, the singer does get out at night. But there is another side to Linda.
         At the televised Golden Button gala hosted by magazine Damernas Värld -the main fashion fest of the year- the rock singer came together with her Mom, and introduced her mother to everyone. How cool is that? Similarly, I was impressed a few years back when Linda generously shared half of her narrow chair at a standing-room-only fashion show with one ragged male journalist (yours truly) who was looking frantically for some place to sit down. That was nice, too.
         Lambretta/Linda is highly conscious of the public image she projects.
          “I really want to be a good role model for young girls, so that they know that you don’t have to take your clothes off to be someone. You don’t need silicon breasts to be on television. It’s kind of sad when you see girls wearing make-up when they are really, really young,” says Sundblad.
         Although she is a celebrity in Sweden, few details about her personal life leak into the tabloid press. It is not widely known, for example, that she was married last year in Las Vegas to a Swedish-American named Jonas. She didn’t want her husband’s name to be known, but when it slips out in the course of our phone conversation, Linda says: “Oh well, now I’ve said his name. OK.”
          “I’m flying to San Diego tomorrow, (via London and Los Angeles). I don’t like the winter at all,” the singer says.
         About a year ago, Lambretta/Linda started to work on her solo project, which she says won’t be rock music: “It is electro, kind of commercial pop, with the sound similar to some of the early Madonna tunes. It will be a strongly positive album, pop music but in a new way, that’s right for the year 2006.”
         The working title of the album is LS, for the vocalist’s initials, and she isn’t sure about the business details: “At the moment, we are talking to a record company in England, a production company in Sweden, and we have a good manager in the USA.”
         If all goes according to plan, the recording will take place in December or January, and Linda Sundland’s first solo CD will be released in the Nordic countries in April. We may not be calling her Lambretta any longer, but we haven’t heard the last of the singer named Linda Sundblad.

“Linda recently modeled for Denmark’s Munthe plus Simonsen, but she feels as comfortable in Doc Martens boots, an outfit from Tiger, a blouse from H&M or second-hand clothing.”