Getting my hair cut is just a very special moment for me. I don't know exactly why, but it's such an intimate, almost religious experience. I'm very careful with who gets to cut my hair.
— Jens Lekman
I think a lot of my anxieties and fears are things that are very abstract.
I think, in a world of mouths, I want to be an ear.
I'm not too fond of the typical Australian activities or culture. I'm not into surfing - that's what I'm trying to say.
In the past, I used to rely on the randomness of working with samples, which was a good way because it threw you in a completely different direction. You just thought, 'What if I take this samba drum and combined it with an '80s synth line or something from this record?'
I found a favorite chord, which is B flat 7 - that's my favorite chord.
It's weird talking about the album as a living being with its own thoughts and direction, especially if you're the one creating it.
I wanted to write songs about other people because I was sick of myself, basically. I didn't like myself very much. 'Ghostwriting' became an outlet for that. And then I could get back to get Jens Lekman again.
When I was a kid, I had a period in my life when I was eight or nine when I was so scared of dying that I wouldn't go out of our house for a whole year. I refused to step out of the door because I thought something would happen. I had all these compulsive thoughts or whatever, and my head was really messed up.
I went to Legoland in Denmark when I was five, I think, but I went to Germany when I was 17 to have a little adventure after graduation.
Making albums is a very lonely process sometimes. Sitting around working on songs, feeling the pressure.
I try and take it for what it is, and I'm very at peace with the fact that when I'm done with the songs, they don't belong to me anymore. They belong to the listeners.
When it comes to heartbreaks and disappointments, I often have to be more or less done with them to be able to write about them. Then you might ask why I would write about them at all, but I think I owe it to the Jens of the past.
I've started listening to music in a new way after I started running. When it comes to running, I really got into the idea of track listings that way, too.
Some very silly songs can have an almost melancholy feeling when you put it in a different perspective.
Once I release a song, it's not just about me or the people... I write about. They're my stories, but they're not really mine any more.
Australia's beautiful, but I'm not too into Australian culture.
The whole thing with playing on a stage with mics and all that has always been kind of uncomfortable to me.
Of the times that I've been able to overcome a fear, it's been by making it something that I can understand, that I can hold on to - just something that's more tangible.
Older men in my family - back to my grandpa - were basically completely bald.
I love playing small towns, but in Sweden, it's sometimes a little bit weird, because all small towns are just so close to bigger cities that people are not as grateful when you show up as they are in Odessa, Texas.
I think there are definitely a lot of subjects I don't share with people, but I'm not sure where that border is.
I really love the idea of stepping into another character and being able to sing maybe stuff that is not my thought and my own opinions, but be able to portray someone else and take a walk in their shoes for a while.
I realize that 'Postcards' was like input, and 'Ghostwriting' was output. I had all these frustrations and feelings before I did those two projects. 'Postcards' was something that brought new life and creative inspiration into the record, while 'Ghostwriting' was relieving myself.
Christmas music is usually more concentrated pop music in a way. It's meant to make us feel good, and it's meant to make us like we belong somewhere.
I actually have all these tapes, from when I was five, from when I was 10, and from when I was 15, that don't really have to do anything with each other, but they're sort of archeological in my musical history.
It's good to let go of control. That's probably something all artists and song writers will say at some point.
I still love touring rock clubs around the world, and that's something that's really a part of me. I love making albums, and I'm a wedding singer on the side; that's my parallel career. So I love all those aspects of making music.
I think that's a responsibility I have, to not leave the listener with complete dread or depressing, dark thoughts, but to leave a little door open so that you can dance your way out if you want to.
I remember when I grew up and Dad would take me to kindergarten in the morning, and you could smell the chips in the air from the factory nearby.
When I was working on 'Night Falls Over Kortedala,' I was listening a lot to 'Graceland,' the Paul Simon record. I really got into the lyrics on that album. The opening line is so brilliant, the way he sets the scene.
I think a lot of my songs are very silly and very stupid, written to entertain people, but in the end, I always come to that last line, and I feel that I have to wrap this up with a bit of dignity and a little tear in the eye; otherwise, the joke would be on the characters in the song.
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 need to write a sitcom, but something with warmth, not one where the dad comes home and he's treated like an idiot.
The idea of printing out something that's as scary as a tumor into its concrete form was something that spoke to me - there is something very liberating about that idea.
I think South Korea was one of the best shows I've ever done in my whole life. The people there were crazy. It was literally Beatlemania.
I like short beards. Not a big fan of the bigger beards.
I'm very very happy for my hardships and misfortunes: they build character and make you a better person. Even if I think it's something you have to carry with you, it's definitely something that makes you more empathic towards other people, makes you understand people and relationships so much better.
Ever since I started writing music, I've wanted to know what the songs are about and to be able to tell stories.
The 'sent' folder of my email program is really my biggest inspiration and my biggest source of lyrics. That's where I go to pick up a lot of the lyrics that I'm writing.
'Postcards' was just a way of slapping myself in the face and saying, 'You can do anything! Just go for it!'
I really do believe in clearing samples, and I believe that people should be compensated for them, but the laws are just so stupid.
It's not difficult getting into the charts in Sweden. It's a very different musical climate, and in a very good way, I think, because artists like Jose Gonzalez or The Knife can actually get on the charts.
Sometimes you have to burn yourself to the ground before you can rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
Hmm... at some point when I was making 'Postcards,' it struck me, what the underlying themes for the record would be. It would be about choices, fears and doubts, and it had an existentialist theme to it.
I think of the Jens Lekman in the songs as a completely different person who's stealing my stories.
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 realised that music controls me more than I control music. I had to write songs that were convincing me that things would get better.
I have a very nice voice.
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.
