Klara and Johanna Soderberg have come a long way  since they first started making music together. First Aid Kit may have melted hearts last year with their YouTube-friendly cover of Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song", but the sisters have been forming bands since they were tiny. just don't ask them what they were like. "Horrible pop songs," they shout, collapsing in giggles. "We had our own small bands with our friends and we wrote Britney Spears, Spice Girls-style songs," says Johanna, 17, before her 14-year-old sister steps in. "I wrote a song in Swedish when I was six," chimes Kara. "It was called, 'We Drove 50 Miles In Our Barbie Cars'. Pretty catchy!"

They're far more sophisticated now, peddling narrative folk so charming and wise that it's easy to forget they're still teenagers, albeit teenagers who have been living the dream for the past year. It started to get serious in early 2008, when their neighbour Karin, from The Knife, heard their stuff on MySpace and signed them to her Rapid Records label (they recently signed to Wichita in the UK). "She's like our mentor," says Johanna. "Her label is the best. She saw us play live, and just thought, 'These girls need to get out to the public.' She's not involved in the music but she helps us all the time with everything."

The girls also rely on their incredibly supportive parents. "They're very involved. They're like our managers and arrange where we're going to play, because we can't do it ourselves while we're still at school," says Johanna. "But they won't say, 'Hey, play this!' or whatever." It won't be this way for long, though. johanna, is graduating next year, and Klara is taking a year off, because, as she reasons - "you have to prioritise some things and right now it's music."

"The teachers don't like it," says Johanna. "But this is such an opportunity. it's a once in a lifetime thing."

Such prioritising means that it's getting harder for them to see their friends, not least because they're playing in clubs thattheir friends can't get in to (a situation Klara describes as "boring"). "I don't think they can grasp how big it is," says Johanna, "because we don't talk about it that much. There's a thing in Sweden - you can't brag too much about what you're doing and talk about yourself in too positive a way."
"But I brag anyway," whispers Klara.

First Aid Kit's MySpace quote is, "We aim for the hearts, no the charts." It paints a perfect picture of their music. "The charts are not what's important to us,' explains Johanna. "It's about having fun and making music and reaching out to people. That's our silly band name, First Aid Kit - it's about helping people." So, no more Britney-style songs? "You never know about that."

Text Rebecca Nicholson | Photography Erika Svensson
As featured in Dazed & Confused January Issue.