INTERVIEW: Tove Lo on her new album 'ESTRUS': "It's okay to not have it all together, and it's okay to just want to be a little bit of a fuck up sometimes...that's the message."
Words: Jett Tattersall
Interview: Shalane Connors
Image: Charlie Denis
**Trigger warning: this article includes references to eating disorders
From the moment our vision clears and our ears adjust to the cacophony of the world, we, modern humans, are taught to examine our bodies through a lens of what we lack. Barred from the playground, the bedroom, and the dance floor before we even understand ourselves, we fall into line: loathing and denying our own flesh, fed by inherited shames and quiet dysphorias.
Thankfully, Swedish pop shero, Tove Lo, has spent much of her delicious career dismantling this exile. She opens her sixth studio album, ESTRUS — inspired by the concept of estrus in cats, symbolising primal energy and vulnerability — with a caveat and an invitation: “There’s no good advice on this album, just a lot of feelings.” Her on-brand, unpolished summary for a body of work rooted in “feline heat”, instinct, and gloriously welcome radical bodily permission.
It means unlocking that vulnerability and allowing it, trusting it to lead not only to self-love, but self-desire and celebration. Tender abandon. It isn’t seamless. It’s a battle fought from the inside out.
(Hot) stepping away — I like to imagine Lo never walks anywhere; she dances — from the collective striving for perfection of L.A., she retreated to the far-flung quiet of a Swedish fishing village to write. There, steeped in the intoxicating sensory overload of viscera, salt and nature, Lo found herself wrestling with the two opposing forces governing her life. “I have these two sides,” she says, detailing a psychological split that required retreating to her formative roots. “One is very perfectionist and mean to me... then there’s the other part of me that’s messy, disruptive, follows her impulses. I actually feel my best when I’m leaning more over into the messy person, because she’s not as hard on me.”
Lo’s own internal war sings out, militant — with an army of high-strung neurons and raw nerve endings — across the album. On ‘If I could, I Would’, a deliciously soft dancer of a track, clothed under the comfort of flannel sheets and recorded like a secret whispered into a dictaphone. She confronts that perfectionist ward, trawling the pages of her history to reexamine her struggles with disordered eating and the toxic pursuit of control. ‘Idiot’, a track seemingly percussed by the popping, cracking and slapping of bones and flesh, drags that same friction into the light, while ‘des fleurs x stromae’ — a stunning collaboration with Stromae, and lead single ‘I’m Your Girl, Right?’ cements (and oils) the magic that happens when Lo surrenders to pure, unscripted play.
For feet that never stop lifting to a beat, Lo’s ESTRUS toes are rooted in balance: an album inspired by the biological feline go-time switch that has evolved into her most fundamentally human statement yet. “It’s my mind and my body wanting different things, wanting everything,” she says.
It's a love letter to bodies, the blowing of your own load, the tender hearts housed within, and the stupendous friction, salt, and chaos of living between.
We recently met with Lo to talk all about the creation of the new album.
Hey Tove, congratulations on your sixth album, ESTRUS!
Thanks! It feels so crazy.
It's an incredible piece of work, I'm absolutely loving it. It's so sexy, but it's dealing with so much vulnerability at the same time. I want to start with the title, where did it come from?
I feel like the universe provided it for me because I was really looking for a word that shared the primal sexual energy that I think sonically the album has and obviously in some of the lyrics, but also the vulnerability, contradiction, and fragility that I also feel is important show in titles. I was like, ‘I know there's a word out there that like embodies all of this, but I don't know what it is’. I was sitting in my studio where I have a bunch of different books about different topics, just as lyrical inspiration, and there's one called Feline. It has this chapter where it talks about when a cat is in estrus - in parentheses ‘on heat’. I was like, wait, what is this word? I've never heard of estrus. Iit described as when the cat is, basically, horny and looking for someone to reproduce with. They're ready to procreate, it's very primal and a primal state to be in. They're also feeling a lot of anxiety and vulnerability, and can be quite confused over this state and restless. I was like, this is exactly how I felt making this album, and where I've emotionally been the last couple years. It kind of fell into my lap, and I'd never heard the word before.
And your last name, Lo, means lynx, doesn't it?
It sure does. So I have a connection to the feline animal family in a way!
Tell me a little bit about the recording process with this album. It's your sixth album, are you at the point now where you're where you just kind of stick with a formula, or have you explored new methods in the recording process for this album?
I started offI trying to write this album in LA, but I just couldn't really find myself opening up. I kept thinking about how do I want to be perceived versus what do I really need to say? So I had to go to Sweden, to this small town where I spent every summer as a kid, teenager, my early 20s. Once I started touring, I would always come back there when I was exhausted or going through something. It was like my escape place. I started writing there for [previous album] Dirt Femme. That was the first time I wrote there, and I realised that I need to start every process, every record in this place. It just has a lot of emotional triggers for me that I think are actually good to bring up all those emotions that are hiding somewhere that I need to get off my chest.
In terms of my process in terms of writing, it has always been the same. I need to have some kind of feeling or a lyric that sets the tone for the song, and then I can start to play around with melodies, or we can start making chords based on the theme that I have, and then I can start writing melodies once I have the subject matter. I have a really hard time hearing if the melody is even good unless there is some kind of lyric to it. It doesn't have to be the whole thing, but I need to have, okay, this is the story, and then I know if the melody is good. And I've always been that way.
Going back to the village, you've said that it was kind of like gaining access to your formative, messy self. Which of the tracks do you think most represent that conversation with the unfinished process of your youth?
It's funny because I still feel so much like the same person, although I'm better at showing up for the people in my life now. There is this thing that I've been told in therapy a lot that I'm battling these two two sides of myself, where one is very perfectionist and hard on me and doesn't ever want to mess up and wants to be the best at everything. Then there's the other part of me that's messy, maybe a bit more disruptive, follows her impulses and is not very good at staying in control and I fall. The older I get, the more balance I find between them. There's still always a battle, and I think this is a very common, common thing. I actually feel my best when I'm leaning more over into the messy person, because she's not as hard on me and less judgmental. The perfectionist is very mean and doesn't make me feel good about myself, ever. So I would say the song, ‘If I Could, I Would’, is really me singing to the perfectionist. When it was at its worst when I was struggling a lot with bulimia, the perfectionists would be anorexics. It sounds really dark, but when you have bulimia your goal is to be anorexic because that means you have the discipline to not ever fall into that kind of destructive eating pattern. So I think that song is where I went back into that tormented teenager who was really struggling with those two sides the strongest.
You've done some incredible collaborations throughout your life and your collaboration with Stromae on this album. ‘Des Fleurs’, is just absolutely incredible. Tell me about how that came about. How do these collaborations kind of come to you, is it a connection that you feel with a certain artist or human, or is it something that's presented to you by the label or the people around you?
It really varies. I've been trying to work with Stromae for so long because I'm a huge fan. I love his work and his whole way of expressing himself as a performer, as an artist. Musically he is just so talented. So I’ve just kind of been putting it out there, like if you ever want to work together, I'm here! I don't know why now, but all of a sudden, he just sent me some instrumentals and was like, ‘hi, if you ever want to write to any of these, go for it.’ And I was like, ‘What? what's happening?’ In that folder of tracks, there was the ‘Des Fleurs’ piano and that beat, and I just thought, this is so beautiful and so different to what I have written to before, it being a three four waltz tempo, not the classic four four on the floor. The intensity of the piano, it’s played in a very classical way, I just thought it was gorgeous. I was actually in New Zealand at the time, and I just locked myself in a room for three days. I had my portable studio with me, and I just wrote and wrote and wrote. I actually did most of the vocal production that's still on the track there and then I sent it to him and was like ‘I don't know but there's something magical about this to me let me know what you think’ and he luckily loved it. Since then we've just been looking for the right time to release it. He wrote his verse and I think it complements my melodies in just the best way and shows his musicality once again. It’s funny, it's been not easy but a seamless collaboration, and I think sometimes you're just lucky and your visions are just completely aligned about a song. It's rare, but I love when that happens. It's been a very light-hearted process with him, and it's like a bucket list song for me, honestly.
It's absolutely stunning, and it's amazing how well it works because it's two completely different languages working seamlessly as a duet. You almost don't even really notice. I listened to it, and I was like, ‘oh, I guess I'm bilingual now!’
Exactly, I love that. I'm actually rehearsing his verse now, because when I'm touring, obviously he's not coming with me on tour - I wish, hopefully for a couple of dates - but I'm learning his verse so that I can sing on top of him live,, and I'm starting to nail it! It's kind of hard, but I'm loving it.
You kickstarted your career off mostly penning songs for other artists. Tell me about that transition into writing for yourself. Was that just a happy happenstance with the right right song at the right time? Was that something that you were hoping to move into, or was it something that just came naturally?
I had always written a little bit, even though my artist dreams weren't like super strong, I just wanted to be able to live off music. I didn't care how that happened. In the beginning, I was just like, if I can pay my rent making music or performing in any type of way, that's my dream. But then all of a sudden, I wrote ‘Love Ballad’ and ‘Habits’, and I remember there was artists were interested in ‘Love Ballad’, and I was like no, I can't give it away. And my publisher was kind of like, ‘well, if you're gonna just sit on these great songs, just put them out.’ And I was like ‘yeah, I might just do a little thing independently, do you guys care?’ Because I just signed to MXM as a songwriter, which was going to be my main career. They were okay with it and then I put out ‘Habits’ independently, and it just blew up. I got a record deal, and all of a sudden I was over in America, and everything was happening. The writing process of that was just me being in the studio, messing around myself, and kind of hitting a nerve within me that I hadn't struck before.
The opening track of the album ‘A Lot Of Feelings, No Solutions’ serves as a little prelude and a taste of the the tone and content of what's to come. You’ve said there's no good advice on this album, but what are you hoping that your listeners are walking away with?
I hope they walk away maybe feeling a bit more understood. I think me and a lot of my fans are very similar in our battle for balance. It's okay to not have it all together, and it's okay to just want to be a little bit of a fuck up sometimes. I think that's the message in a way. Mostly I just want them to leave feeling like their heart is full and just somehow glitter appeared on their face!
You've got obviously the album out, and you are tour through North America, UK, Europe with some Australian shows next year. What's your go to when you're exploring these new geographic locations? Do you have a little thing you like to do when you visit new places? And what's the thing that you must take with you on the road?
I always bring my portable studio so that if I get inspired to write or record, I can do that. My lyric books slash journals are always coming with, and hopefully my husband for most of it at least.
I like to try and go out dancing, finding some kind of underground party in most places. And I go to a restaurant in every place that’s been recommended where it doesn't look like much on the outside, but the food is incredible. One thing that actually me and my band stopped doing it, but we were talking about bringing it back to this tour, is we’ll do sightseeing runs. We'll go for a run around the city to get some sightseeing done. I want to bring that back.
The music video for your song ‘I'm Your Girl, Right?’ is absolutely stunning. Your movement is incredible, it's insanely sexy and vulnerable at the same time. What has changed the most for you as a woman who hit the spotlight in your mid 20s and is now in her late 30s in terms of your feeling in your body publicly, and also how the industry has treated you in that space?
Yeah, good question. Early on [in my career] I would get a lot of comments like ‘why do you have to keep doing this?’ because I would flash my tits on stage, and that was met with love and excitement from the fans in the queer community, but from the more conservative parts, it was like, ‘what is she doing? This nasty girl.’ I don't feel like they feel comfortable to say that as much anymore, which is nice. But I've gotten comments, terrible ones and lovely ones about my body since I started, and I just I feel very comfortable in very little clothes. It's nice that I feel really good in myself, so I want to share that feeling, I guess.
I've never felt that my confidence wavered throughout my career, to be like, ‘I should probably wear more clothes now.’ I think it's funny that I actually haven't haven't gotten any of these comments, but I can imagine they exist where it's like, ‘oh are you still naked, isn’t it time for you to put some real clothes on’, or some shit like that, from some man, obviously. I feel like it's funny that it can annoy someone that I'm a grown woman who is happy, feeling good in my body, and comfortable in my own skin, and and like, but he's okay with someone who is okay for a teenager to be naked. I don't know. It's just that weird attitude around that feels outdated and conservative that I don't really think is as present anymore in the spaces that I exist, at least. Not in the queer spaces and the body positivity spaces. I just feel very good to to do whatever I want.
ESTRUS is out now via Pretty Swede Records/Virgin Music Group. You can buy and stream here.
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TOVE LO - ESTRUS TOUR, AUSTRALIA
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
1 March - Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
3 March - MCA, Melbourne
5 March - Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
7 March - Ice Cream Factory, Perth
