Name: Synne Sanden
Nationality: Norwegian
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer
Recent release: Synne Sanden's Unfold is out February 17th 2023 via Nordic Records.

If you enjoyed this interview with Synne Sanden and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her on Instagram, and Facebook.



A friend once told me that she really wanted to write a book but could never publish it because she was afraid of what her friends and family would think. Especially when it comes to deeply private topics - are you in favour of brutal honesty in art?

I really understand your friend, and that it was too scary for her to publish her book. It can be hard to know in advance if it's worth it, and if it's constructive or not. I also feel this fear around what my friends and family will think. Then again, many of them already know a lot about my thoughts and experiences. So I'm more scared for the people that just know me a little bit, that don't know my whole personality and story, and who might also judge me.

I believe that honesty about things that are difficult to talk about can come at a price. But it can also be healing both to yourself and others. That's why it feels right and important for me to be honest and personal on Unfold. I feel the fear, but the need and wish to share this is stronger. I find it important and right to be brutally honest because I think we can release and grow when we dare to do so and that to challenge yourself and others can be developing. But it definitely feels scary and uncomfortable for me, too.

I also believe there's a difference between being personal and private, and I always try, when I write, to be personal and not private, even though I was now writing about something private. To me, the way you write reveals a lot. And I want to make it possible for others to relate. A diary is private, but to me, a song and art is usually personal. It's more about a topic that's bigger than yourself, than your story and your experiences.

Releasing this album is more scary and vulnerable than releasing my previous ones. People have such different opinions around sexuality, and there's so much shame around sexuality, and especially bad experiences. To me this was such an important album to create for my own healing. And releasing the album is also an important part of the healing process. So I had no choice but to publish it. To release it feels like letting this go, to move on, both emotionally and musically.

I also know we all have thoughts, feelings and experiences around sexuality. So even though this is a personal album, I also believe this is a universal topic that many can relate to. On my album I write about both damaging sexuality on the one hand and healthy and healing sexuality on the other hand. So this is not just a dark album. It is also an album that contains light, and this makes it less scary.

It's really been helping me to make this album, both the dark and the lighter songs, and now I hope my album can give something to others. This wish, to give something to others through my music and heal myself, is such a deep wish and deeper and greater than my fear.

You consciously want to talk about things we may be ashamed about. But when it comes to sexuality, isn't part of the problem that we're talking - and singing - about it too much already?

In my point of view, the problem is not that we sing and talk about sexuality too much. Actually, I think that we have to talk and sing about it even more - but in another way, on a deeper level. I think we need to sing more about the emotional side, because sexuality is so connected to intimacy, and intimacy and the lack of intimacy are affecting us both as babies and grown ups. We are addicted to physical intimacy, whether it's sexual or not. To me this album is definitely about both sexuality and intimacy and the connection between the two.

There's still very discriminating behaviour around women, and the female body is still very much objectified. I think that a lot of music and music videos are feeding these attitudes. My album is a reaction against this. It's a protest against abuse and discrimination, against mechanical, superficial and manipulative sexuality. It's a protest against pornography and it's an album about what healthy intimacy is, and why it is important. I wanted to write about sex, intimacy and sexuality, because I see this as something very complex that is often portrayed in far too simple terms.

I believe that our sexual experiences, whether they be good or bad, are affecting us on a very deep emotional level, whether we're conscious of this or not. I think that our sexual experiences affect our mental and physical health, our self-esteem, our relationships and view on each other and the world. When we have bad sexual experiences it's normal to feel weak, small, and unsafe for a long time afterwards. But if we make good sexual experiences, we can feel respected and seen, healthy, energized, connected to others and trust others and ourselves more easily.

To me, to write and sing about this is very different than to just sing “making love” or stand in a bikini and objectify myself, which is something I would never do.

So, to me, my album is not at all, in the same category, as albums and songs where people use sensuality and sexuality to make them more tempting. To me the problem is that it's usually just portrayed in a simple way and not nuanced at all. So I wanted to make an emotional album about sexuality and intimacy, where I write about the sides around sexuality and intimacy that I don't hear about so often.

The music industry, it has always seemed to me, has been particularly aggressive in using sexuality to sell their product. How do you see the conflation between art and sexuality?

Art and sexuality are often very connected. But I see more sexuality in very commercial expressions, and this is not the kind of sexuality I want to support. I often find this kind of sexuality suppressive to women and forcing women to be sexy. My music and music videos are not about being sexy at all.

For me, sexuality is a new topic to write about, and it's new for me to focus on sexuality in my music and visual expression. On my album I write about sexuality, and in my videos I'm definitely trying to visualize how different kinds of sexual experiences can affect you.

Unfold is a very feministic album, so I'm very conscious about not objectifying myself, as I think many do, to sell their music. It seems especially many female artists are using their bodies to sell their music, even though their music is not about sexuality. This, to me, is not constructive for women. I think that the man-gaze is still affecting the music industry a lot, and I don't like this.

I think some women think they are free because they wear what makes them feel sexy. While I feel as though, in truth, they make themselves addicted to that kind of attention and confirmation from others and themselves. They are actually just feeding the man-gaze that I think is very damaging to women.

For me as an artist, this is something very important: To sing about sexuality, in an emotional way, but to take distance from the superficial use and portrayals of sexuality and the body. I want to to talk about what nearness is, and show it, and I want to empower women. This doesn't mean that I don't care about how I look and how I dress, and I don't think it’s feministic to feel forced to hide the female body.

So it's important for to me to not hide my body, but not focus on my body or objectify it either. To me, it's important to show that I respect myself in the way I dress, so I don't feel that I use sexuality in a superficial way, to sell something. I just want to share about the emotional side of this, without being sure if helps me to sell my music or not.

It's just a very, very important subject to me, because it was so challenging for me, in the period I wrote Unfold. I think all women have a power to affect other women, and my deep wish is to encourage women, through my music and videos, to feel free and respected.