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.

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.

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 realized that even though I had this urge, this longing, to write about other people, in order for it to be emotionally gripping, I needed to be in there somehow.

I think it's because Toronto is the Gothenburg of Canada, with the trends and the music and everything. I feel very at home when I'm there. Everyone has always been so kind to me.

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.

I have a very nice voice.

Goteborg used to be a not very cool place to live. The culture centered around shrimp and bingo. Bands played Copenhagen and Stockholm and skipped Goteborg.

I grew up in the '90s and remember the lyrics back then were so abstract and open to interpretation. That always drove me crazy.

My first single was based around the mishearing of the words 'make believe' - 'I thought she said maple leaves.' That kind of stuff is very central to my music and my life.

Contemporary Swedish artists that chose Swedish as their language tended to sing about certain topics and use words I wanted to avoid.

Making albums is a very lonely process sometimes. Sitting around working on songs, feeling the pressure.

My aim is for every song to have a purpose - for you to be able to say, 'This song is about this.' But love and heartbreak are some of the most abstract subjects.

I think all the best songs do that: they offer some sort of hope and light in the darkness.

I struggled with a lot of doubts around my songwriting and around what I was and what my purpose and mission were.

Every wedding is slightly different from the other. But you always get to meet the funny uncle and the weirdo relatives, and there's always someone trying to beat you up for not playing enough Beatles songs or something.

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.

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 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.

I was in my early 30s, and I longed for real friendships and real relationships, and I started asking myself why I didn't have that. I had a couple of male friends, but every time I would hang out with them, it felt like there was something keeping us apart.

If you come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion, well, that's a conclusion, too.

This is one of the reasons I'm so interested in stories. Because everyone has a story in their life, and when their story doesn't make sense, that's when we get depressed, I think.

I feel like the few times in my life when I really felt like I love my own story is when I've been the happiest.

I find it quite hard to connect with the songs where I portray myself as this clumsy, adorable, love-struck man-child.

You always try different versions of yourself through songwriting. It can get a bit annoying to see them walk around and do their thing when you feel like, 'I'm not that person any more.'

For me, it's sort of like a cultural democracy or musical socialism to take a stand and get out of the major cities if you can.

I would love to hear Marilyn Manson's fans or something, what their stories would be like.

I've never felt at home in Kortedala, or in Gothenburg, so I always felt like I needed to go somewhere and find some kind of perspective on things.

Even if I wrote a song about math or animals or whatever, there would still be the question, 'Why did you write about that? And what does it say about you?'

I've established a certain voice over my albums. It can be an obstacle, but in the end, I think it's a strength, because I can build upon that voice, which is ultimately very much mine.

You carry all these hurts and breakups with you forever. But there is this sort of joyful realization that the things that caused you pain were real. There is something beautiful and invigorating in holding onto that.

I became paranoid for a long time: I thought that people were out to harm me.

A lot of my songs are written prophetically: I write something, and then I make it happen.

I like telling stories with a sense of humor. But humor can also distance you from the subject you're writing about. I'm interested in using humor as a portal to something a bit more serious.

Any band that doesn't have a sense of humor has a little bit of a problem.

I have this part in myself that sometimes gets me into situations that can never end well, just because I want to prove to myself that I'm no good.

The way to write really good songs is to write about the things that happen in your life and where you are in the moment, and writing about stuff that happens in your 30s is not the sexiest song subject.

I think when you get into your 30s, you start to realize all of the patterns you have in your life and all of the stuff that you're avoiding. It's a terribly unsung period in people's lives. I can't think about many artists who have sung about it, because it's so not sexy.

It always feel like people are doing more grown-up things than you are.

I wouldn't write about something that I haven't experienced myself.

I think it's healthy that people that work in a creative field look for inspiration in a different creative field.

There's so much nostalgia for music from the past.

I start writing songs first as an entertainer, and I like funny stories that wrap up with dignity.

I need to write a sitcom, but something with warmth, not one where the dad comes home and he's treated like an idiot.

Australia's beautiful, but I'm not too into Australian culture.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.