Darin's interview at "Äntligen Morgon"

Not only did Swedish people hear Darin talking once on the radio, but twice and on two different radio stations. 
In fact, he also was the guest of the day at Äntligen Morgon, a program which usually airs in the morning on the Swedish radio Mix Megapol. Here's the interview in full, way more interesting than what we've heard/read so far.


Welcome Darin! How are you?

-  Thank you! I'm fine thanks, how are you?

I'm great! It's nice that it's Friday and all.
-  Yes, very. 

You're having a huge success on TV now. It's sick! The show was recorded this summer, and now you have to keep it all for yourself until it's on air. Are you good at keeping secrets? 
-  Yes I am. But of course I've told my closest about what happened over there.

But isn't that a bit perilous?
-  No, it's not.

But then it's easy that someone would leak something...
-  Yeah. It's hard for them to know what it has been like when they haven't seen it. Now when they have seen the show they know what I meant. It's hard to gain insight into that situation and it's a very special situation as well, the whole abidance in Gotland.

But at the same time there isn't anyone who'll win Så Mycket Bättre, it's not like you destroy anything in that way.
-  Exactly, it's not like "this week Uggla is out".

The songs you sing in the show you record in the studio afterwards, right?
-  Yes, exactly.

How long afterwards do you do that?
-  I did it maybe a month later. I had recorded two of the songs before the show was recorded, it was "En spa som liknar dig" and "Stockholm". That's because those songs were the most programmed. Some others, like Sylvia's song "Magdalena", I did together with the band in Gotland.

So the band over there is not the same band you record with in the studio later?
-  Stefan, the bandleader, and I did most of the songs. Then I did "En apa som liknar dig" and "Stockholm" with Niklas Bergwall. Stefan is the one who plays guitar, he was producing with me.

Did you understand before the show that there was gonna be many hits?-  I didn't know that it was going to turn out this way.

Didn't you have a feeling?
-  I knew that there was many good interpretations, but I didn't know that it was going to go as well as it has gone. I'm incredibly happy! I have both the #1 and the #2 on iTunes, so...

Do you get to choose the songs yourself?
-  Yes. We get some suggestions as well but we go through all the songs, I opened Spotify and iTunes and went through their repertoire.

What happened if you had chosen the same song as someone else?
-  It didn't happen to me, so I don't know. I don't know if it happened to the others but it didn't happen to me. I didn't choose the most obvious songs though. I chose the songs that I felt I could interpret well instead of the biggest hits.

When TV4 called and offered you a place in Så Mycket Bättre, did you say yes right away then?
-  Yes I did actually. I don't know if I would have said yes f they had asked me the year before, I probably wouldn't have felt comfortable with it then. But now I felt ready to take that step and don't just show who I am musically but also be a bit more personal. I know that there surely are many who know who I am and have seen me on stage but not know who I am as a person.

Is there anything special they tempt you with when they call and ask?
-  No, you just go through the show...

Because it was a rumor that said that Christer Sjögren said no even though he would get 700 000 swedish crowns. He said that he didn't need the money. 
-  Okay, I don't know, I hadn't heard that.

So you didn't have to be convinced?
-  No, I was interested right away when they called.

Did you get to hear who the other artists would be then?
-  Some of them, not them all. Half of them were done when I got asked.

Were you nervous?
-  Before I went there, of course. The only one I knew from before was Magnus because we did a tour together before, but I didn't know the others at all. I just hoped that we would click. It would have been hard to live in a house with people that you don't connect with. It was so good because I felt already on the first day that there was a nice bunch of people and that we were going to have fun. Then I wasn't nervous anymore.

Now we're going to talk a bit about how you write music. You're releasing a new album in January. But I also read that you had an album which you trashed.
-  Yeah, it was an EP that was done in April this year that I was going to release. My gut feeling said that I wasn't going to release it. There were many good songs, but… I have to do the one thing that feels right, so I started from scratch and I have just been in the States and written with many great producers. We wrote 25 songs in one month. It feels like those songs suits me much better, both the lyrics and the sound. I'm glad I did it because now it feels completely right.

It can't be normal to write so many songs in that short amount of time. 
-  It was the only reason I was there for, a songwriting-tour.

So how does a day over there look like? Do you get up early, or late…?
-  Americans don't like to start early, which suits me very well because I don't like to wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning. It works, it's not that I don't get up, but I just don't like it. They usually want to start at 3 PM, then you just write. We usually start with the chords. I started with Jim Beanz, who have worked with Timbaland, the first week in Philadelphia. We actually wrote 6 songs in 5 days.

So you two must have been getting along well.
-  Yeah, we connected. I connected with all of the songwriters over there. That's why there came so many songs.

Are you a person that connects easy with people? 
-  I don't think I'm difficult to work with. But I'm very determined when it comes to work, like "I think we should do like this", but I'm also open for suggestions. I think it works pretty well to work with me in the studio.

But you can't have written the lyrics too, 25 lyrics in one month?
-  Yes. Sometimes even two songs, and recorded all the vocals in one day. There was a lot of stuff to do. But I felt like I should do as best as I can when I'm over there and all, and make a great album.

That's crazy. Anyway, it feels like there is no David Bowie-ruggedness anymore.
-  I think that it is the same, it's just another genre.

Do you get out and party a lot when you're recording?
-  Oh you mean in that way. I don't feel like I should work to death when it's such a tight schedule. When I got back to my hotel I fell asleep right away because I was kinda exhausted. I didn't party that much, maybe once or twice.

I have one weird question. If you and I were going to sit down here with a piano and a guitar, how fast do you think we were gonna write a song from scratch then?
-  It's always different. When writing "Nobody Knows" with Tony Nilsson, we were done in 15 minutes. That went very fast. But sometimes it takes two days to write a song, so it's very different. But I like to write fast, and most of the people I work with are the same. When it goes fast it's most often a good song, and when it takes a lot of time it's reversed. It doesn't have to be that way, but most often it is. So, we would have a good song in one hour, sort of.

Last question - what's the weirdest thing you have ever eaten?
-  I didn't eat it, but I remember a few years ago when I was in California, there were California rolls with spiders in, spider rolls. I even asked if it were spiders in the rolls and they said yes. That's the weirdest thing I've even seen, but I didn't eat it.


So after this interview, it seems to be quite sure that the two songs we've heard during this year, which were included the rejected EP project, will not be part of the new album. Sad to know.

However, for those able to speak or at least understand Swedish language, you can watch the full interview below.



Translated by Nathalie Pentler.