Sometimes you have to burn yourself to the ground before you can rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
When you're writing about difficult things and darker issues, it's nice to offer some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. Some sense of hope. Sometimes, the best way to do that is by offering it in the music, so that you can dance your way out of the darkness.
I don't like irony and sarcasm very much. But I do like it when you think someone is telling you a joke, and then you discover it's serious.
I think, in a world of mouths, I want to be an ear.
What I can't fit into my suitcase is probably something I don't need.
Goteborg used to be a not very cool place to live. The culture centered around shrimp and bingo. Bands played Copenhagen and Stockholm and skipped Goteborg.
I think it's because Toronto is the Gothenburg of Canada, with the trends and the music and everything. I feel very at home when I'm there. Everyone has always been so kind to me.
My aim is for every song to have a purpose - for you to be able to say, 'This song is about this.' But love and heartbreak are some of the most abstract subjects.
I had a drummer in my band who started teaching me tricks to come up with interesting rhythms. Because I don't come from a musical background, I've never studied music, and I don't know music theory at all, so a lot of stuff I discover on my own are things students would learn in the first grade of music.
I feel like it's my responsibility not to leave the listener in a pool of dread.
I think a lot of my anxieties and fears are things that are very abstract.
I think all the best songs do that: they offer some sort of hope and light in the darkness.
I struggled with a lot of doubts around my songwriting and around what I was and what my purpose and mission were.
Every wedding is slightly different from the other. But you always get to meet the funny uncle and the weirdo relatives, and there's always someone trying to beat you up for not playing enough Beatles songs or something.
My songs don't deal with locations that specifically, even if there are very specific references to them in there; they're sort of just where stories happen, not the stories themselves.
'Postcards' was just a way of slapping myself in the face and saying, 'You can do anything! Just go for it!'
My old songs used to take place in Gothenburg; then, when I lived in Melbourne, the songs just naturally took place more in Melbourne.
I started running to different albums, and I was starting with the short albums and moving on to the longer albums. I was interested in how they built up, in tempo and intensity. it made me interested in albums again, too.
I grew up in the '90s and remember the lyrics back then were so abstract and open to interpretation. That always drove me crazy.
If there's two things I will never do, it would be grow a beard and pick up the uke again.
