Neu Tove Lo: “Oh, It’s All Happened”

Consult the stories in Tove Lo’s bitterly honest ‘Truth Serum’ EP and it’s a bit like suddenly discovering all the parts of someone’s life that you don’t read about on Facebook. Getting high to push through a tricky relationship; arriving home wrecked with the “munchies”, eating too many midnight snacks, throwing up in the bath. That happens to people, even if they don’t tend to admit it. This songwriter, however (real name Tove Nilsson) has no qualms about putting reality to tape.

“Oh, it’s all happened,” she happily admits, the night after her first ever London show, which gives faith in the fact that people really, really enjoy honest pop music. “I fall asleep in my tub a lot,” she says, continuing the embarrassing bathroom stories. “My flat is very cold and I love taking a bath when I come home. I don’t know why - it’s really weird. But I go to sleep most time and wake up when water goes up my nose.”

There’s no real difference between Tove Lo the popstar and Tove Lo the person. She wears the same stage outfits in everyday life and she gets excited about her next night out. Fair enough she isn’t high as a kite at 1pm on a weekday, but she’s not the kind of individual to shy away from the subject.



“It’s a big difference when you can really sense that the person who wrote it is the person singing the song,” she says, in attempting to explain why the songs she writes resonate with so many. “A lot of people come back to me about ‘Habits’, saying ‘It’s so my life!’ Especially young girls, which worries me a bit!”

Before Tove Lo, Nilsson was penning songs for other artists. She still is, in fact. Previous credits include Icona Pop, who she went to school with. Everything’s collaborative. If she writes on her own, the song ends up as a Tove Lo song, “because the only inspiration I have at that time is me.” If someone else is in the room, she gets into their headspace instead. “You can look at their reaction and you can tell when they’re really loving the song or being nice.”



‘Truth Serum’ specifically concerns itself with the pitfalls of a relationship. A little more unusual is the fact that Nilsson is claiming she’s the one that’s made some of the mistakes. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen for a girl to say ‘I’m the bad guy in this.’ To admit you’re the one that fucked it up. I think that’s why people can relate and say ‘Oh it’s ok, we messed up!’” Everyone makes mistakes - although judging by Tove’s recent surge of attention, she’s yet to experience a musical misstep.



Taken from the May 2014 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.