Feminist Rock’N’Roller Solvej Schou Set to Release Politically Charged New Album, Quiet For Too Long, as a Fuzz-fueled Shout to Stand Up and Sing Out
Solvej Schou, who has interviewed and written about icons including Aretha Franklin, Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde, brings soulful vocals, garage-y guitars and pertinent lyrics to her new release.
Fierce feminist musician and writer Solvej Schou (SOUL-vye SKOH) will release a new album titled Quiet For Too Long on June 7, 2019, the same week as the 100th anniversary of Congress approving the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. The record will be available digitally on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and CD Baby, and as limited edition vinyl.
On the album, Schou dives into issues ranging from police brutality, anti-immigrant fervor, gun violence, gender equality and powerful womanhood to mortality, depression, love and David Bowie’s death. It’s no wonder that as a teenager Schou performed as part of the Riot Grrrl-led scene of female artists in Los Angeles and at cultural hub Regeneración (co-founded by Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha). The six tracks on Quiet For Too Long are “America,” “Age and Beauty,” “No One Can Take Our Love,” “Flicker Away,” “In A Minute” and “Stardust Hero (for David Bowie).”
“These songs, which I wrote before and after Donald Trump was elected, represent me as a woman, a feminist, the American child and grandchild of immigrants, and as someone who unapologetically loves rock,” says Schou. “The album’s title comes from a lyric in my song ‘America’: ‘I’ve been quiet for way too long / In my home, in my bedroom, with my headphones on / As the world burns red / Blue kills black / America, your hatred is gonna crack.’”
Personal and political, loud and passionate, Quiet For Too Long is filled with Schou’s belted vocals and driving guitar, and also features talented Chelsea Jean Speer-Guzman on bass and back-up vocals, Eric Hasenbein on guitar and Bryan Bos on drums. The album was recorded, mixed and engineered in August 2017 at L.A.’s Station House Studio by Mark Rains, who recorded Alice Bag’s critically acclaimed recent solo albums. The album was mastered by Marsh Mastering’s Stephen Marsh (The Donnas, Ozomatli, Los Lobos) in Hollywood. Iranian feminist artist Delbar Shahbaz painted a defiant portrait of Schou for the cover.
Born and raised in Hollywood, Schou is half Danish and half Jewish-Polish, and the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. Now based in Pasadena, California, she has been singing since she was a kid, and has played solo and in bands (Bitch & Moan, The Lassiebeat, Racquet, Naughty Bird) in Los Angeles, New York City and Copenhagen, Denmark. A 5-foot-2-inch woman with a big ferocious attitude, she showcases a raw and bluesy rock ‘n’ roll vocal strut with guitar inspired by Janis Joplin, X, Pretenders, Etta James, Bikini Kill, PJ Harvey and Patti Smith. Hailing her “lightning riffs and hear-me-roar attitude,” Flavorwire premiered the fiery video for her single “Cruel Hearted Woman“ from her self-titled 2014 debut album, which Schou followed with the 2015 single “Friendship.” Pasadena Weekly praises her as “a feisty PJ Harvey-influenced rocker.”
Her experience as a writer includes former staff positions at The Associated Press and Entertainment Weekly to freelance work for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and other outlets. She’s interviewed artists including Aretha Franklin, Brian Wilson, Karen O, Chrissie Hynde, Katy Perry, Patti Smith, Ringo Starr and Jimmy Page. She contributed essays on Patti Smith, PJ Harvey and Sharon Jones to the 2018 book Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyoncé. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl, and she is on the steering committee of the new L.A. based group Turn It Up! seeking gender equality in music.
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