the focus be on the music and have people connect to it in the right way. I do have that in Sweden now, as well. People have really adapted with how I've changed my career. Yes, I'm famous and people know my face, but people are not as into celebrity culture and it's really easy there. We don't have paparazzi. Well, we do but they tend to leave me alone.
Sharin Foo of the Raveonettes told Spinner that one of the reasons there's humour in a lot of Scandinavian acts (like Jens Lekman, Peter Bjorn and John) is that there's a Scandinavian sensibility that if things get too serious or intense, they have to be taken down a peg or two. Would you agree?
I think we do have a pretentiousness meter. It's an ironic culture. But sometimes it gets a little too much for me, because strong emotion is really important to my music, as well. Even if you look at a band like ABBA, they were super-kitsch, but they were really dark sometimes as well and they were talking about really depressing things. So I think there are a lot of us that are really funny, but I think the combination of those two things, the darkness and the humour, is really more Scandinavian.
Your image as a performer isn't as bluntly sexy as many female pop artists like Rihanna or Lady Gaga -- you appear sexual, but not a sex symbol.
Yeah, it's very difficult for me to see myself as a sex symbol, but that probably has to do with being Scandinavian as well, it's a very equal culture and I'm aware of those issues, they affected me as a person. Sometimes I think it was maybe more important to me earlier in my career because I was more conscious of protecting myself in that sense.
