Totally Stockholm 1
Which has resulted in half an album that will be
released later this year… I have made the whole album! It’s just production that takes ages, as usual. What can you tell us about it? I mean I’m in the middle of this choosing synthesizers and drums phase. I don’t really have a good outside perspective. So what can I say? The latest single [Se Mig] has got a bit of an ’80s vibe but that’s not a theme across the whole album. God, it’s hard to describe it… You weren’t prepared for a question like this? I have always been terrible at answering things like that. Artists usually are actually. Are they? That’s a relief to hear. Most albums feel like either day or night. This feels like night. There’s a lot of longing. It feels a bit dreamy. And it feels very synth-y. So there’s something at least. The first single is on heavy rotation on the radio now, what can you say about the next one? It feels like night too. That’s the thing about music, it’s more fun to experience it than talk about it. The second single is a bit more melancholic, but really has the same theme. Two people that cannot really… I wish you could hear it instead. Is it different making music now that you are one of Sweden’s very biggest artists? I guess you have already turned most of the stories you had inside you into songs after making six albums. I know. I try to filter out words I have used too much. It gets to the point you have to opt out from certain things. Instinctively you often repeat the same things. It feels good for me, but everyone else finds it boring. So I try to sharpen up. You always have to try to come up with a new angle. Not only new words, but a new language. Not to be too literal. Not too much of the kitchen sink realism. Now I try to be more vague. More of a fly on the wall in someone else’s relationships. I try to mix it up a little. 10 Do you feel that now, the things you make have to get a certain reception from critics and fans in order for you to feel content? No, I don’t think I do. It would be insane to demand the same reception every time. That would in itself be a big ask. I think I measure myself a lot by what the expectations are from the record label, sadly enough. If they’re satisfied, then so am I. That’s more important than your own feelings? The most important thing is of course that I’m content with the music. But if they don’t seem satisfied with the reception or the numbers then it weighs on me. Why is that so important? I feel a responsibility towards the people I work with. Because I know that they all work so hard. You feel ashamed if it doesn’t turn out like everyone expected. It’s a tough thing when you have worked for a long time. That people have a respect for you in a strange way. To me that feels totally unreasonable. Then I want to live up to the image they have created of me. And that I can only do by making them satisfied. It’s strange to enter a room with people who have a higher opinion of you than you have yourself. Because you’re the same person you were when you grew up in Uppsala? Of course. Who do you think will be the new Veronica Maggio? The new Veronica Maggio? What a horrifying question. Why is it? It’s like me saying someone else is like me. I don’t feel like that. And that’s not how it works. If there in fact was someone who was a bit like me, I don’t think she would be ‘the new’ anything. It would have to be something entirely different. Then it will be a new era. And then that person will become himself or herself. You have said that when you get tired of being a pop star, that you will take up writing (scripts). What is it that makes you feel that you might eventually get tired of being a pop star? It’s hard to always look at yourself from the outside. To have used up the little schtick you might have had for so long that you finally think you have nothing more to offer. You begin to like yourself less and less. Both your looks as well as your gimmicks. All the party tricks you ever had have been used up. In the end you think ‘oh my God, are these all the tricks I have’? Plus then it’s of course the classic everyday things, it’s not like you can go back to being un-famous again after your career. It’s not like you can magically enter the grocery store without anyone pointing at you. Unfortunately.