Swedish singer Lykke Li crafts perfect pop songs and each track she's revealed from her new album is better than the last. Lykke will perform new songs from that highly anticipated new record, Wounded Rhymes, live on Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.
Transcript:
Jason Bentley: Lykke Li live on KCRW, very nice!
Lykke Li: Oh, thank you!
JB: So this is crazy but one of our engineers, John Lewis had brought in a 7" from your dad's band from 1978.
LL: Yeah? Which one?
JB: Dag Vag is the name of it and I can't really...maybe the single is called "Dimma."
LL: Yeah I think so. I don't know! I don't know it so well, actually.
JB: It's crazy, isn't it?
LL: It's strange!
JB: Also there's a set list from 1978 and it's all hand written. Very cool! Also, was he known as the "Silver Surfer?"
LL: The Silver Surfer!
JB: Just a little interesting bit. So it leads to a question about your upbringing and your family. I understand that both your mother and your father were in bands as you were growing up.
LL: Yeah, my mom was in a band for a very short time. She realized it wasn't really for her. But she did start one of the first female punk bands. And then my dad was actually the musician in the family.
JB: So, was it always sort of predestined that you were going to be an artist and a musician?
LL: No, not at all really because my dad — he made lasagna, that's what I remember the most. So you know I really think I tried to follow my own path…but I did end up as an artist somehow.
JB: Well did they kind of nurture that in you at all or you just kind of struck out?
LL: Well, they're really free. They don't tell you to do anything, so I think I just followed my own path. I don't really remember them telling me anything to do. I studied hard, you know. I tried to rebel so I got good grades but they were like "Yeah…great…whatever."
JB: Ha! It's like "How about an F once and a while?"
LL: Yeah! So I don't know.
JB: And you moved around a lot as a child.
LL: I did. I was born in Sweden, in the south. And then we lived in Stockholm. Then we moved to Portugal when I was four and I was there for five years. Then I was back and fourth a bit.
JB: Where do you call home now?
LL: I really don't think I can connect with that word because I never really had a home. I think home is where the hatred is.
JB: I noticed in the record some imagery connected to rivers and I wondered if that's something you identify with, the idea of a river?
LL: Yeah, I very much do. I think that life is a river. It's never the same water that flows in the river. I kind of feel like a lot of things in life you could relate to rivers.
JB: With Wounded Rhymes, what did you want to accomplish differently from your last album?
LL: I think I just wanted to make it more direct, more emotional, more raw…a bigger punch, you know? More honest, more of everything! But less atmosphere and baby fat.
JB: Right, so just more direct. How did you try to accomplish that? Were you working with a producer or how did you get to that point?
LL: No, I think just trying to live life as much as possible. It was a lot of jumping off different bridges and edges. A lot of whiskey and late nights and taking chances. It was more about living to get that weathered feeling.
JB: And did you write in Los Angeles?
LL: I did!
JB: I remember that I heard you were around.
LL: Yeah? You heard I was around? Riding on the bus.
JB: Do you like Los Angeles?
LL: I do, I love it! It's a dream come true for an emo girl like me.