Loreen interview with SVD
Really insightful interview! SVD.se - 19/10/2012 Loreen beyond Euphoria
She is a human rights campaigner who do not appreciate politics, a spiritual person who does not like religion. Loreen isnow releasing her debut album, with flowing dark undertones from the artist who broke through with the most euphoric pop.
- I have not worked on this album for eight years, I have worked with myself for eight years, says Loreen.
Dressed all in black, with black pointed boots and the patented black hair Loreen feels like more than a pop star. She is a revelation. Wafer-thin, uber cool and smooth.
Calm has subsided somewhat since the Eurovision final in Baku, where she both managed to capture Europe’s musical heart and shake up an otherwise fairly tepid pop world by questioning the host country’s domestic politics. But now it is time again - releases, press visits, television appearances - Loreen jokes about how she flies around while the glaciers melt.
- It’s a carousel. Celebrity status is an illusion, and if you’re going to be in that position you should have something to say, I do not think you should waste people’s time, says Loreen.
But now is not the time for speaking out, with an album to promote. She says she has left the glitzy Europe behind for a grimmer, more thoughtful tone. The album “Heal” deals with its own internal dissensions, but Loreen does not think her own image of herself has changed since the spring’s big break.
- Absolutely not, quite the contrary: I have been thick skinned. I must be. I thought I was keeping my integrity “back in the day” - that I was strong - but this attention reaches a whole new level when it is international, she said.
The album’s darker streaks explains Loreen as a way to raise the problems of life, rather than creating a barrier around her. She thinks we should use music to discuss mankind’s big questions.
- I do not like doom and gloom as a kind of identity. However, I know that the first step in a process of becoming whole as a human being is to focus on certain key issues. So I sing of false security, destructive behaviors and bitterness to open up for discussion. It fascinates me - very‘re based on my own experiences and thoughts.
Loreen seems a curious humanist, and a spiritual one. She speaks of energies between people and released suddenly and with sweeping hand gestures to his great interest in quantum physics. While she stresses that she is not religious.
Even outside of music, she has become known as an interested problem solvers - the Eurovision finals stated she is the only artist dissatisfaction with Azerbaijan’s policy, and when she visited Belarus in July, she managed to arrange a meeting with the human rights group Viasna.
But Loreen emphasizes that she is not a politician.
- I understand that human rights and politics go hand in hand, but actually I’m quite uninterested in politics. My focus is right on people - I can influence people, things affect me, and it’s because I‘ve lived with many different problems around me. Why am I such that interested in women’s rights? Well, it’s because I’m from Morocco, and Morocco has not the woman always had it so easy.
What the next step is in Loreen’s career she does not know, or maybe she does not want to speculate yet. Loreen says she is not planning on changing her approach to music, yet she is not afraid to change her mind and go where she feels at that moment.
- I have a structure, I have a plan and a strategy, but I’m also fully aware that it can go straight to the woods, says Loreen and laughs.
