MC: In listening to Queen of the Clouds the productions are epic, but they have a lot of space in the mid-range for your voice.
TL: I receive a lot of tracks from the label or a publisher, and they might tell me, “This is really amazing.” And it is amazing. But there is no space for me to write in there. I prefer to get a track that’s half-finished, just some chords and maybe a beat or a cool sound and I can work with that. Because when it is already so finished it’s hard to get any vocals in.
The vocals are the part that the most listeners relate to. So there always has to be space left for them.
MC: Does the label weigh in on songs as you are working on the project?
TL: They do give feedback, but it was very much like us saying, “Here’s the order, and here are the songs.” And I guess if they hadn’t liked it they would have said so. But they are very on board with my vision, and they trust me, and my choices. It’s very cool to know that they are on my side. It means a lot to me.
MC: Queen of the Clouds is a concept album, with the three themes: The Sex, The Love and The Pain. These are introduced by spoken interludes: a very unusual approach.
TL: I had to fight a bit to get the interludes. For me it makes it feel like chapters, that there is cohesion, the first part going into the next part, and the narrative setting the stage for the next series of songs, so it’s not just thrown together.
MC: In the U.S. we often think of Scandinavian women as being powerful and self-determined. Do you think this is true of Swedish women?
TL: I think so. We are raised very independently to be what we want to be. I never had the thought of “I can’t do this because I’m a girl.” Sweden has a long way to go, but we are very ahead in equality in many ways. We don’t even question it, or talk about it––it’s just there. It’s cool. I’m glad that I was raised that way.
MC: In thinking about the demographics of Sweden, it might come as a surprise to some U.S. listeners how multi-ethnic that country is.
TL: Totally. There is a big spread of styles and people and you can discover new music that you would never come across otherwise. And with Sweden being so small, it’s all in one place. So, you don’t have to go very far to find a new style or a new culture.
MC: You went to school at Rytmus Musikergymnasiet, which you have described as a very open music school.
TL: Totally. When I went there it was a full-on hippie vibe. I met people I never would have met from different areas of Stockholm with whom I had nothing in common, but we had music in common. Everyone got to be who they wanted to be.
MC: What were your initial impressions when you began touring in the United States?=
TL: I’d been here a couple of times, but it was overwhelming. I would get questions like, “What do you love about your music? What do you want people to feel when they listen to it?” I couldn’t say what I love about my music––that’s weird!
When I did my first U.S. interviews I thought, “Of course I should love what I release myself. I do love my songs––I’m so proud of my album, why shouldn’t I be able to say that?” Now I’m the other way.
It’s so weird that I ever thought I shouldn’t be proud of what I do.
MC: Self-promotion is not a Swedish quality, correct?
TL: No, we just don’t get it. I love that I’m allowed to be proud and confident here. I was almost holding back my confidence in Sweden because I didn’t want to offend anyone. But that’s all gone.
Contact Nadia Ali, Island Records, Director of Publicity, nadia.ali@umusic.com
