Michael Di Iorio chats with Tove Lo about her new album Sunshine Kitty, a deep-dive into the emotional responses we all have when faced with the sweetness and splendour of love and all its illustrious leanings.
What can be said about the progenitor of festival-ready anthems, Tove Lo, that hasn’t already been clearly stated by her discography? Coming onto the scene with the drug-fueled ‘Stay High’, Tove Lo (pronounced as Too-va in her native tongue of Swedish, or the more common Americanised version of just Tove,) cemented her place in the pop world as a force to be reckoned with from the very beginnings of her career.
2016’s Lady Wood saw the beginning of an entirely new era for the artist, with ‘Cool Girl’ bouncing into our lives with a disarming amount of nonchalance. Suddenly everyone and their neighbour’s dog were gliding down the streets at midnight dressed in neon, exchanging heated glances with passersby. Come 2017, and Tove Lo continues the Lady Wood era with Blue Lips (Lady Wood Phase II). In comes ‘Disco Tits’, an earth-shattering moment in the history of pop, which gained incredible traction with the LGBT community for its gaudy display of gusto and sexual prowess.
It’s important to identify the history of Tove Lo, as it all builds up to the glorious moment that is 2019’s Sunshine Kitty. Armed with imagery of the lynx, her spirit animal and visual companion for the new era, Tove dips into raw and emotional evaluations of love, lust and liberation, in ways still unique and unseen in the artist’s discography. Sunshine Kitty revels in sweet-talk and seduction, and reveals a side to the artist that has clearly been dancing with the trappings of that four-letter word we all fear.
I sat down with Tove Lo on her birthday to discuss her brand new album Sunshine Kitty, what the project means for her as an artist, and what it was like working with our very own Kylie Minogue on the project.
So, your new album sunshine kitty came out. What would you say is your favourite song from the album and why?
Tove Lo: Hmm making me pick from my babies! It kind of changes day by day but I think at the moment ‘Are You Gonna Tell Her?’ I’ve just been finishing the lyric video of that, so I have just been like ‘this is a dope song’, so probably that one!
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While your last two albums ‘Blue Lips’ and ‘Ladywood’ kind of continue off each over and share similar themes. This new project feels very much about love and heartbreak. What kind of inspired this new direction?
I think after finishing such a big creative goal that I had with the last album and the short film and everything and the world tour, it just kind of felt like I had a clean slate in a way, so this album, in general, is kind of a bit more playful and I’ve been experiencing with new sounds and different vibes and I think I just write what’s on my mind.
Like lyrically it’s just what’s in mind and in my heart and it’s kind of just me being a romantic, being naive, being happy, being sad, being scared, being hurt. I think it’s all just about love in the end.
It always comes back to love.
Everything in life! It always comes back to love.
This time around the iconic Lady Wood symbol is featured on the yellow Lynx on the album cover. Where did the idea for a lynx image to surround this new era come from?
So, I’ve always wanted to have something that is related to me without having to be me or my name. The Lady Wood symbol obviously did that for Lady Wood and then with Sunshine Kitty – A lynx is kind of like my spirit animal, and Lo means lynx in Swedish. It’s something I’ve talked about a lot. I have a lynx tattooed on my hand.
It’s been my nickname since I was little, and so when I was talking to my film director about what could be the symbol for this, it came quite quickly that it should be the lynx. That kind of visual addition really helps to create the world I want to create when I release a new record.
So, already ‘Glad He’s gone’ has amassed 28 million plays on Spotify alone. Why do you think that so many fans have resonated with this song?
Oh, I didn’t know that! That just made me really happy! It’s good not to look too often because then you’re like… well, you know. Ah, that’s amazing!
People are going to fall in love and break up with idiots every day, I think it’s just a song that friends keep sending each other when someone’s going through it. In the end, it’s a breakup song, but it’s about friendship really; telling your best friend that they can do better and that this person that hurt them doesn’t deserve them. And I think that sometimes that’s what you need to hear when you’re feeling really down. I feel like it’s my first lift-you-up song.
Another song of yours ‘Really Don’t Like You’ features Australian’s own Kylie Minogue. What was it like to work with her on your album?
It was kind of surreal. It was me really playing the long game. She tweeted me when I posted a picture of me in 2016 when Lady Wood came out and I was holding my lyric book. I write everything with pen and paper. And so, she tweeted me ‘oh yep, she’s a pen and paper girl’. I was just like *gasp*, she knows who I am!
That was the first sitting and then I wrote back and was like ‘yay Kylie’ and then we played the same charity event in Hong Kong and so I asked if I could meet her. I was like… ‘she knows who I am, so maybe she wants to meet me’, and she did, and we talked, and she was just amazing. So kind and charismatic and everything cool.
She just said ‘it will be so great to do music together sometime’ and I was like ‘ok, I’m going to remember this’ so when I had a song where I was like ‘I can hear her on this’, I sent it to her and I was like ‘hey would you be down to do a thing to this?’ and she loved it and was like ‘yes, I feel this!’ and just gave it all the Kylie essence and just added some musical melodies and her all of her ideas and it was quite magical. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to be in the studio with her but like whatever.
As long as it’s Kylie, it doesn’t matter.
Yes, exactly! She’s really cool, even doing the lyric video. It’s been such a fun collaboration and it’s cool to feel like, with an icon like that, you never know what they’re like and she was just so awesome.
In 2017 your song ‘disco tits’ became super popular and resonated through the LGBT community, especially with queer women. Did you expect this song to become as popular as it did with the queer community?
I usually don’t think about who it’s going to resonate with. It’s a song about just being free and owning yourself and I think that’s something that, if you’re a part of the LGBT community, that’s what you’re about.
I’m happy that it resonated because that means the song is communicating the feeling that I want it to communicate. I headlined at pride in LA and New York a couple of years ago, or was it last year, and we opened with that song (‘disco tits’) and it was just amazing. It went off!
Today, because it’s your birthday, a lot of fans posted photos of their tattoos and sent you lovely messages. How does it make you feel to see so many people in love with you and the art that you create?
It’s amazing. It’s so powerful. It means so much to me that people all over the world connect with me so much that they brand themselves for life, with art. It comes down to them really connecting with the music. It’s what I dreamt of but never would have thought of having. I would have been happy with so much less. It’s such a cool feeling that people really connect with me.
I really try to read all the messages and respond to make sure they know that I appreciate it. It’s pretty nice to have birthdays.
Last question, what would you say has been your career highlight so far?
Oh wow. A few things pop into my mind. I would say, touring-wise, when I played South America. Brazil was one of the most electric shows that I’ve ever played. Writing-wise, probably when I got to co-write a song with Lorde for her album (‘Homemade Dynamite’). And then the short film. Making the short film was pretty magical.
