Sarah Klang

Fuegostine (Matt) talks with Swedish folk/country singer-songwriter Sarah Klang about growing up in Sweden, her relationship with music and her daughter as well as finding ways to work through anxiety in the presence of social media.

Sarah Klang’s latest album, Beautiful Woman, is an expansive exploration of womanhood – from childhood to motherhood via teenage years, relationships and beyond. Klang digs deep into her own life on this new album to unpack the very essence of what it means to be a woman today. “This entire album is a celebration of womanhood and girlhood. It’s about the awkwardness of being a child, a teenager and about understanding your relationship with your body and self in a patriarchal world.” Klang explains she wanted to make an “unashamedly bigger and more popsounding” album. Beautiful Woman marks a bold change in direction and approach. She chose to record the album with the Grammy-nominated, US multiinstrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer Eric D. Johnson (Bonny Light Horseman, Fruit Bats, The Shins). The experience also saw Klang switch to a live recording style in the studio with an extraordinary team musicians curated specifically for their roles including; Josh Adams on drums (Cat Power, Beck, Wild Nothing), Josh Mease on bass (The Weeknd, Fruit Bats), mixing by Jarvis Taveniere (Avalanches, Whitney, King Gizzard). The album is mastered by Heba Kabry, the studio mastermind behind Big Thief, Bjork, Future Islands, Mdou Moctar, Cat Le Bon, Animal Collective and many more. Klang is a two-time Swedish Grammis award winner and has extensive press coverage from; Rolling Stone Germany, The Line of Best Fit, NME, Clash, BBC Music, Billboard, DIY, Variety, The Guardian.

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Transcript

Matt (00:00)
Yeah, so absolutely excited to have ⁓ Sarah Klang. Thank you for taking the time again. ⁓ How things been?

Sarah (00:06)
They've been busy, really busy. I'm a busy music monkey.

Matt (00:08)
busy. Yeah, so

So this is kind of like a weird full circle moment for me. So on one of my first podcasts Josiah from Josiah and the Bonnevilles suggested that I listen to your music and that's how I kind of discovered you myself. So I guess for everybody at home, would you mind kind of speaking to like the style of music you make and you know, the genre perhaps?

Sarah (00:33)
Yeah, so I've been, I think the genres I've been put in or labeled is probably sort of alternative pop or Americana. Some people have put me in the country scene, which is probably just because I wear a hat sometimes. I mean, it's...

It's basically pop music, but I've always had elements of like a vintage-y sound on it. So it's never been...

in the mainstream pop I guess.

Matt (01:17)
Yeah, yeah, I find it like genres nowadays are so blended together, right? Like everybody pulls on everything. It's it's funny sometimes to try to group someone into one style. I feel like it takes

Sarah (01:23)
You are right.

Yes,

some people are a bit like... They like that sort of stuff and I don't. I don't want to lie. Some people are, I don't know, offended. If you say like... Sometimes I just say like, well I do hard metal. It's because I know people will be annoyed by me.

Matt (01:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I feel like nowadays it takes more work to be in one genre than it does to like just take elements. ⁓

Sarah (02:01)
Yeah, that's probably why those people get

annoyed because they work really hard.

Matt (02:08)
Right. So

so Born and Raised in Sweden, what like what was the music scene like? I'm always interested in the music scene growing up. Like what what artists did you listen to and what kind of music inspired you to kind of start making your own?

Sarah (02:22)
My own, yeah. Like, I grew up with my parents' CD collection and I think they had like one CD of all the...

greatest so it was like everything from the cardigans to oasis i mean my dad listened a lot to bob marley which you cannot hear in my music thank god i mean i i think i had a very you know regular

music teenage experience when you like you discover Nirvana and smells like Teen Spirit because you you see the the album like you see how the CD looks and you're like What is this? And then you listen to it and then I went on to listen to Hole with currently love so all of those like big people in all of the big genres I listened to when I was young ⁓

Matt (03:12)
right?

Sarah (03:25)
And then when I went into like 1920 there was a huge wave of like the alternative Americana folk thing where I think it was band of horses, Fleetwood Mac, Bon Iver, Beach House came. So all of those.

Matt (03:49)
Yeah.

Sarah (03:52)
that some of them are also a little hard to put in a specific box and yeah, I was very obsessed with all of those all of those bands and I started started with my own music probably in in those years 21 22 I started this project

Matt (03:58)
100%.

Nice. So yeah, I think for me, like I grew up, you know, my parents listened to nineties country a lot here. So I grew up on like, know, George Strait, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, people like that. And then, yeah, you're right. Everybody in their teenage years goes through like this discovery period. Mine was like Lincoln Park. Yeah.

Sarah (04:36)
I love Linkin Park.

Matt (04:37)
Yeah, like Lienborg

was my favorite band growing up, far and away. So yeah, it's funny how you go through like your own formative years afterwards, I guess in terms so at least here in the States too, there's been like recently a pretty big resurgence, it feels like in like this Americana space. Do you see that as well kind of in Sweden, like more and more artists doing that kind of music?

Sarah (04:57)
Yeah, it's a really big thing here now. ⁓ Like one of our biggest band is of course First Aid Kit. ⁓

But yeah, have there. I can introduce you to a lot of fun music from Sweden that definitely are in that universe.

Matt (05:17)
Yeah.

So and you you've recently put out your own album, ⁓ Beautiful Woman. And I'm just kind of interested. I'm like, I know you've told this story probably a hundred times at this point, just the backstory on the inspiration behind it and maybe how you feel now that it's kind of out.

Sarah (05:34)
Yeah, Well Beautiful Woman is my fifth studio album, so... The story behind... I always been writing ⁓ very diary-ish from my own life and when people start listening to my music they can...

They can definitely hear that because the first album is so overdramatic, me being in my twenties, and it's basically just about...

And then the other one was just like me also thinking I was a very mature woman. And then I started to like going into more... I tried to write more about like from my...

Matt (06:05)
you

⁓

Sarah (06:26)
It's not hard to explain, but I wanted to write... I write a lot of love songs, but I thought that maybe I could write them from some more perspectives than just breaking up or being sad. And when I was pregnant with my daughter, I wrote an album called Mercedes. I decided when I got pregnant that I was gonna write an album about it and just...

you know, try to capture all of it. So I had something to focus on really. And during my pregnancy, I started to think a lot about my teenage years and my early twenties. And So Beautiful Woman is kind of like a sequel, how do you say, a sequel to that album where

Matt (07:16)
sequel, yeah.

Sarah (07:19)
Because I realized I really enjoyed writing about my my puberty and just like silly periods like that. ⁓ And I found that a lot of people enjoyed that too. Because...

Matt (07:30)
Right.

Sarah (07:39)
Yeah, because everyone has gone through it. So, Beautiful Woman is a lot just about me in my teenage years and then during my twenties.

Matt (07:41)
Right.

Yeah, think so having listened to it, like I think for me, the songs that resonated the most with me, ⁓ childhood and, ⁓ go to the sun, which are both like, you know, feel very straightforward, ⁓ but yet very meaningful, at least for me, you know, you think back to the trauma in your childhood where they're for whatever reason. And, ⁓ you know, it's starting therapy with intentions of maybe it's just going to be better, like really quickly, right?

Sarah (08:10)
Mmm.

Matt (08:18)
At least that's how I thought it would go. It definitely has not gone that way. So I guess I'm just interested on those songs in general, know, kind of the process behind them and just your thoughts.

Sarah (08:28)
Childhood was actually, so since I've written a lot of music, I have been writing a lot about my upbringing and my childhood.

So childhood is a little bit, like from my perspective it's a bit like I would like to be the last song about that subject mostly because of my poor parents that did their best and were actually great parents like most of us have but of course they like fucked up in their own ways and I feel like now when I'm turning 33 and I have my own child I have so much more.

Matt (08:56)
Yeah.

Sarah (09:08)
perspective of how difficult it is to try to have a family and Yeah, so that song is Maybe telling myself a little bit like Maybe this should be the last jam about this About this mess and I mean go to the Sun is kind of the same like I really when they started going over to

Matt (09:26)
Okay. Yeah.

Sarah (09:36)
Los Angeles to start making the album I was in a really like I guess a really bad place where the thing you mentioned that you go into therapy and you're like let's go how many times do I have to be here and they're like forever forever and then I

Matt (09:54)
Right? Right? Forever, literally. ⁓

Sarah (10:04)
was so frustrated with that and I still am because I think I always search for quick fixes when it comes to my mental health and I always have and I think I always will and sometimes if you I mean most people that are into music or like arts in general are thinkers

Matt (10:17)
Heard, yes, heard.

Sarah (10:31)
And we struggle with our own little heads. And I mean, sometimes that can just be exhausting and you just want to be like a regular chill dude. Yeah.

Matt (10:38)
Yeah.

Right,

Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, therapy will 100 % go on forever. There's no way around it, it feels like at this point. So when you made this album in particular, I read that like you did it recorded differently than you normally would. You did it with the band in like a few takes. How was that process? Did you find yourself enjoying it or was it a little uncomfy at times?

Sarah (11:12)
Both, definitely both. But most I enjoyed it a lot. So Eric D. Johnson is the producer and co-writer and he was very... He's a very chill guy and he was very like, so Sarah, how do want it to sound like? Like, I don't know, I felt very included and...

Matt (11:33)
Yeah.

Sarah (11:39)
I just felt like in charge and that's hard sometimes for me to feel because I don't play the instrument and I'm not a computer guy so it's not like I can tell people to hire the bass there. don't know. But I just felt really included in the whole experience which was...

Matt (11:52)
you

Right.

Sarah (12:07)
really nice and then getting his musicians like he he choose the people who played I brought Theo Stocks who is the guitarist in my band and he played but then Eric choose the drummer and the bass guy and they were ⁓

Matt (12:19)
Nice.

Sarah (12:31)
I mean, I think they took on this project as like some sort of charity case because we didn't have a lot of money and they were really nice to show up and they play with like huge artists. So it was amazing to see them like play my songs.

Matt (12:38)
All right.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I guess, you know, in terms of every album, you you kind of talked about the stories that, you know, you want to get out or talk about, guess, like having made all these albums, do you ever like sit back and think about how much or, you know, how maybe when your daughter is a little bit older, she'll connect with these songs and how they'll kind of resonate with her.

Sarah (13:14)
Yeah, I do. Every time we fight and she's being like terrible to me. I'm like one day you will turn up my music and cry and understand that I'm a great person. No, no, or the opposite probably. No, but yeah, I think about it sometimes and also like the music I've made about my my

Matt (13:18)
Yeah.

Right. Is it? Right.

Sarah (13:43)
my 20s, like I've written a lot about just being like a party girl and sometimes I'm like, she's gonna listen to that. But no, hopefully like she's going to be...

Matt (13:50)
Uh-huh.

you

Sarah (14:01)
proud of me. That's like my dream. would love her to be, because it's all made out of love for her. And it's all like, I make music now, today, a lot because it's like my way of making money, really. Like I don't have any education, so when I had her, I was even more...

Matt (14:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (14:29)
Like some people would have probably been like, okay, well now I have to get a real job, but I was kind of the opposite. Like now I have to make this my real job because this is the only thing, this is the only thing I know how to do. So yeah, it's, I hope she will enjoy it someday.

Matt (14:37)
have to make it work, yeah. ⁓

I'm sure she will with the past couple of years that I've listened to in the past couple days in lead up to this, I'm positive she will be. ⁓

So I guess, you know, in the day and age of social media and artists feel like artists have to do like 10 different things at a time to try to, you know, make ends meet, so to speak. Do you enjoy the social media aspect of things or is it more of like, man, I got to get up and do this. It's like, um, you know, necessary evil type situation.

Sarah (15:24)
also both. mean sometimes it is exhausting and I feel like my head is gonna explode because I mean I feel like 80 % of my work is just working with everything surrounding my shows and like my music.

And that, and sometimes I feel like I wonder how it would be if I had this shot in, I don't know, like the nineties. Like, would I just be in a studio all the time, like jamming out, living my full potential as a singer? And now I'm just like sitting with an iPhone and being like, what option should I? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it could be exhausting and...

Matt (16:02)
Alright.

Alright.

Sarah (16:17)
Combining that with touring is also just like... Jesus Christ. But then, another side of it I really enjoyed. Like, I always loved making... Working on all the visuals and I work really close with one of my best friends, Fredrika Eriksson. and Moa Romanova, make like all the album covers and...

And Fredrikka comes with me on tour and films and shoots. And I mean, I love that part. I think it's just like the part when you get those little suggestions like, could you make a TikTok where you talk about giving birth? And I'm like, no.

Matt (16:54)
Yeah.

right right no yeah

Sarah (17:06)
why?

Matt (17:06)
right yeah

Sarah (17:08)
But it comes and goes in waves. Sometimes I'm just like, I'm calling people up and be like, listen, we're gonna make 500 TikToks today. And we're gonna, okay, if this is what people want, I'm gonna give it to them. And then like the next day I'm just, oh my God, I am a depressed artist. This is not what I'm supposed to be doing. So.

Matt (17:12)
Mmm.

Right.

It's just not about it.

Yeah.

Sarah (17:31)
But

I'm very like... I think you have to play... You always have to play by the rules, like... So this is how it looks like now. Then you do it. And if you don't, well, don't complain if shit doesn't work out, like...

Matt (17:41)
Hmm.

Sarah (17:52)
It's with streaming and everything like, well, this is how the music industry looks like now. I will not change it by, I don't know, sitting in my room and releasing secret little cassettes and leaving them on the tramps. Nobody will fucking care. So if my goal is to, well, become...

Matt (17:52)
Yeah.

Right. Right. Right. That's so funny.

Sarah (18:18)
a famous artist, I have to do it. Yeah.

Matt (18:24)
Yeah, yeah,

I mean, I find that even with myself, like I literally operate inside of social media and like there's times where it ebbs and flows for me where I'm just like, I don't want to do this. And then, like you said, there's days I wake up like, let's make like 40, you know, TikToks today and we'll see what happens kind of

Sarah (18:42)
Because you're manic.

Matt (18:45)
Yes, I

mean, pretty much. know, in especially with all the social media, social media can be very dystopian at times, right? Like, how do you how do you find time to to ground yourself in the midst of all of that?

Sarah (19:00)
I don't, like I don't. I just come up with all of these silly little rules for myself. Like I'm not gonna go into Instagram now for two weeks when I'm at home. And then I do it and I'm like, man, nobody's liking what I'm posting right now and yet I have to be posting. But then like when I'm going on tour and people show up to my gigs, I get a lot of new more followers. So like...

Matt (19:09)
Ugh.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Sarah (19:28)
When I'm on tour, my social media is a fucking party and then when I'm at home and not releasing music, like it's silence and that can freak me out sometimes.

Matt (19:39)
Yeah.

Sarah (19:41)
But it's, mean, isn't that like scientific proof that you get dopamine kicks out of like getting likes and stuff?

Matt (19:41)
I hear you.

Yeah,

yeah, it's, it's a very weird thing. Like I personally, like I've had to like to get away from it. I've literally taken like four or five day trips to like where I don't have service to be able, so I just can't look at it where I have to like actually be a human being. ⁓ So I'm curious too on the, terms of touring, what are like the major differences from maybe touring in the States versus touring, you know, in Europe?

Sarah (20:07)
Yeah.

Well first of all, I haven't toured in the States yet. I only traveled there and made like small... I did my first LA show now. ⁓ That was really fun and I made Nashville at the Blue Room. But now in the summer I'm going on my first little tour but it's just gonna be me and my guitarist. So we're just gonna drive around in a little car. ⁓

Matt (20:23)
Hmm.

couple stuffs.

Hmm. Yeah.

Sarah (20:46)
But I can tell the difference between like in Europe and in Sweden because I started touring a lot in Sweden and then I started going out in Europe and in Sweden it's a small country and we have really nice like venues and the standards are really good for artists when we show up. ⁓ And like you can...

Matt (20:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (21:14)
You can be a big artist in Sweden and nobody in Paris. And I mean, I definitely experienced that still. when I go on tour, I can play in Glasgow for 50 people and then the other next night I can play for 400 people in London. So like it's very up and down. ⁓ But I.

Matt (21:21)
Right.

Sarah (21:39)
I have always enjoyed playing outside of Sweden more than in Sweden and I don't know if that is because I'm just like still a child in my own head where I used to dream about playing outside of Sweden and I also think that I am less nervous and shy when I'm away from home. Yeah, it's strange.

Matt (22:04)
Yeah. Is it like,

do you think people are maybe like ⁓ more critical of your music inside of Sweden because you're homegrown or is it? Yeah.

Sarah (22:14)
Yeah, I think so. Yeah,

I feel like people have more of a picture of me out of what the media has made me into. They haven't made me into any crazy shit or something, but know, outside of Sweden I haven't done really any TV shows or any...

Matt (22:29)
Yeah.

Right.

Sarah (22:41)
really

big magazines. I'm just their friend from Instagram and they love like my music and so it's just more of a

Matt (22:46)
Alright.

Sarah (22:52)
feel like they're so connected and very appreciative of all my Swedish fans are like, what the fuck are you talking about? I love my Swedish listeners too, but it's also...

Matt (22:57)
Yeah.

Sarah (23:10)
I would say outside of Sweden I have a lot of... I have a younger audience in Europe. I have a lot of like gay people and young folks here. I have some grandpas. Yeah.

Matt (23:15)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Little older crowd. Okay. So

in terms of in terms of like just your successes, right? Like I struggle with this a ton. ⁓ Are you able to like look back at like the things you've achieved and ⁓ celebrate them or are you like you achieve it and you kind of push the goal a little further back and keep going?

Sarah (23:50)
Yeah, I'm the second one there. Yeah, I'm... I have like some dream that may be on my deathbed. I will be like, good job. Yeah, but I probably won't. I will be like, you failed. You're a loser. Yeah.

Matt (23:52)
Yeah, we see him. Isn't it a...

A little pat on the back before you go.

right

Right. Yeah,

it's such a it's so funny. The guy I've talked with so many people are just like, yeah, you've done all this stuff. And it's like, yeah, but I could have done this. Right. You know, it's so funny how our minds can work that way at times.

Sarah (24:24)
you

But

it's, I mean, it's kind of, think you have to see the anxiety and like the weird thing of being chased by an invisible hater as like a good thing sometimes because it makes you, because like we do enjoy our work, we wouldn't do it otherwise. ⁓

Matt (24:44)
Hmm. ⁓

Yeah.

Right.

Sarah (24:54)
And it's, I mean, I kind of like being chased by myself.

Matt (25:00)
Yeah, it's a but yeah

chased by like a younger version of yourself, right Yeah, it's it's it's a funny situation for sure I Guess you know switching gears maybe a little bit ⁓ in terms of all the songs you've put out right maybe not Your most popular song by any means or maybe it is I'm not sure what's what's already most proud of when you look back at You know your entire catalog

Sarah (25:07)
Yeah.

I mean, I really like or I love other girls from the new album, but that is because I had such a cool experience with when they recorded it because it was the first time when I had like any form of emotional reaction to my own music because I never do. Like people...

Matt (25:45)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Sarah (25:50)
I know people have emotions for my music, but I'm always like, I write the trauma down and then I'm done. then other girls, think it was just like, there's a bass jam in that song. And when they played that and we listened to it in the studio, I was just like, it sounds so cool. Yeah, I just felt it. I just felt like.

Matt (25:52)
Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Sarah (26:17)
I... This is the music that I always dreamt about doing and it's on the level that I want to be and I feel... Yeah, I feel... It's a really cool song but when I listened to my first album, because I did two shows in Gothenburg this year with the Symphony Orchestra. ⁓

Matt (26:24)
Hmm.

Sarah (26:42)
which was really cool because they wanted to play parts of all of my albums and I haven't heard my music for such a long time like the old songs and...

Matt (26:54)
Yeah.

Sarah (26:57)
So when we did that I was... I got a little emotional and I was proud because I was like, what the fuck is this song? It's great! Like, who made this? Me? But I enjoyed them and I also... It is nice to have captured all of my stages in life with an album. ⁓

Matt (27:23)
Yeah.

Sarah (27:25)
that I'm grateful to have because when I hear it, I go back instantly to who I was because I'm not the same person anymore.

Matt (27:37)
Yeah,

that must have been an amazing experience to have a choir like that. It had to be amazing. Yeah, that's so cool. The next question I always go into, these are kind of how I found your music, is I'll ask you an artist or song that maybe no one knows about or you just can't stop listening to recently.

Sarah (27:40)
It was. It was.

So if I have one of those? I do. I do. I think you should listen to... Do you listen to music when it's not in English? Yeah? Well, I mean, there is a band in Gothenburg where like I'm from and they're called Terra.

Matt (27:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Sarah (28:23)
So it's T-E-R-R-A. And they're like a boy band.

Matt (28:26)
Okay.

Sarah (28:31)
Not like a backed boy band, yeah, pop rock music. you will appreciate it even if it's not in English because it's so melancholic, but at the same time it's a good time. The melodies are so beautiful and he sings so well. And yeah, I'm obsessed with them right now.

Matt (28:31)
Okay. Like, like, like, like pop music. Okay.

Hmm.

Okay. Yeah, absolutely. I can't, I can't wait to listen. Honestly, I love, I probably haven't done it as much as I should in terms of listening to non-English music, but, um, definitely enjoy it nonetheless. So in terms of, know, you kind of alluded to it earlier. What, what's to wrap up a little bit, what's on the horizon for you? You talked about a little bit of a tour. Um, what else is going on?

Sarah (29:19)
Well, on Sunday I'm leaving on the Europe tour. then, well then, New York is in summer, this summer. And I am starting to record an EP, I think. Instead of doing a full album and like making...

Matt (29:39)
Amazing.

Sarah (29:45)
think I'm just gonna release it one day without telling people. ⁓ Because I still have a lot of music, new music already, because I always write and work, so producing music is not a problem for me. It's a problem to... ⁓

Matt (29:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

You

Sarah (30:12)
convince people to make a new album after like six months so I think I'm gonna and also like nobody cares about albums really like you you could release just singles do you know who I'm obsessed with actually Addison Rae I love her

Matt (30:17)
Right. ⁓

Yeah, you're right. Who's that? Yeah, she's amazing.

Sarah (30:33)
And me and my friend Fredrika, who's the photographer, we were like, wait, she only has three songs? Because we've been listening on them on repeat and she released one new song like two days ago or something. And I think she said on Coachella that she was going to release an album. I mean, she's like very big and she only releases some singles here and there. You don't have to make an album.

Matt (30:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, mean, yeah, exactly.

Nowadays it's like you could just put out music whenever you want and pre perfectly fine. Yeah, 100 percent. Yep.

Sarah (31:05)
Yeah, you'll be fine. Kids don't

know what a track means. An album. An album. What do you call it? Like one to ten. No, they won't.

Matt (31:11)
That's right. Right. Yeah.

Right like just listening through an entire one. Yeah, it's it's

it's gotten so far away from that well Yeah, again, I appreciate you the time. I know again. It's late there and Appreciate taking time to talk and can't wait to hear what else you have coming out Yeah

Sarah (31:24)
Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for having me and ⁓

let me know if you want to come to any shows in America.

Matt (31:41)
Yeah, absolutely.