When I started making music, I made music in a very commercial space and I didn't have room to really explore things on my own terms. It took me awhile to create a little bubble where I could explore other things, and new things. When I did that, my tools were songwriting and arranging.

History is filled with fictional people.

If everything really does get better, the way everyone claims, then happiness should be graphable. But that's crap, because better isn't quantifiable.

My parents had an independent theater company here in Sweden during the 1980s, so I was raised watching my parents create independently, having a lot of fun and just doing what they wanted to do. I think that idea of independence as an artist was something I was always used to. And then I entered the industry from a very commercial perspective, and things were very different then from what I grew up with.

I always felt like I could combine good pop songs that are easy for people to like with a real person and a real mind and integrity.

Maybe I bring people into that pop world who don't usually find themselves there because there's not enough stuff for them to get excited about otherwise.

The marketing is just as important as the music, almost.