Name: Tuvaband
Nationality: Norwegian
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer
Current release: Tuvaband's new album Seven Ways of Floating is out via Passions Flames.
Recommendations for Oslo, Norway: When I have friends visiting from abroad, I always suggest going to one of the islands in the Oslo-fjord. The one I've visited the most myself since childhood is Hovedøya, which is just a five-minute boat ride from the city (same ticket as the one you used on the bus/tram/train). There are beaches, rocky cliffs, lonely small beaches and big public ones, old ruins, sheep, forest, old herbals used for medicine in the old times, and of course the fjord and the view.
Topic that I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I have many passions, but next to music they seem smaller. Or too big to only get a few lines. Well, maybe I can try with just writing the title of a book, which has enlightened me so much (why is this not mainstream, public knowledge already?), and made me so provoked about the current situation for mothers in the world: Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood.  

If you enjoyed this Tuvaband interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and bandcamp.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier Tuvaband interview, our interview with her about her creative process, as well as our New Age Doom interview with her collaborators on There is no End. 



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

When I got into music, not just children’s songs, the music was mostly in English. I sung the sound of the words, without knowing what I was singing.

I remember singing Robyn’s ‘Do you really want me’ on a swing on the playground with a friend, and how magical it felt to be singing the sounds of the words - without singing the actual or correct lyrics.



I’ve been singing a lot of songs also as a grown up, without actually noticing what I’m singing/what the song is about. Sometimes it’s still not even real words, but what the word sounds like. Maybe that’s why people say I don’t pronounce the words in my own songs very clearly. Or at least in my earlier works.

Not long after I started learning English, me and a friend tried to write English lyrics.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

I feel the same way. And how it can mentally take me not just to other places, but also back in time; both to my own past life, and to times I can only imagine because I wasn't born.

And it feels the same way with writing, but lasting for longer because I spend more time on writing a song than listening to a song. With writing, it also feels like I get a wider view of the topic or situations that I’m writing about; It’s like I open up doors that were unlocked before writing. And I can imagine things which I can’t when I am only thinking.

It can also change my feelings and mood completely, when writing lyrics.



Writing "Futile Maze" off Seven Ways of Floating helped me look at a situation/a bad habit, and changed the whole dynamic (made me get out of my own head and be realistic about it).

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?

It's really important to me to be writing lyrics because of the effect it has on me. But it's a little bit strange: I don't really hear lyrics when I listen to music. I hear phrases here and there, but no the whole text.

Sometimes when I notice lyrics really well, I sometimes even get the feeling that this is because the text wasn't written well enough. Except from when it's noticeable because it's a political theme or something like that.

Or for an example Jenny Hval's lyrics - I notice them because they are quite different, and therefore I find them interesting.
 


But from my childhood, I still remember the lyrics from “RESPECT” by Aretha Franklin, and “I'm Just a Girl” by No Doubt.

I had the songs on CDs. And they were really good for me to have as an anthem in my daily life, as a self-proclaimed feminist.



I know that might sound strange, as I was a child. But I was really into this - trying to make everyone aware there was no difference between girls and boys. That we were physically as strong, smart and good at playing football, and I wanted the girls in my class to talk louder, as all the boys did all the talking, so I sent in letters to the class mailbox etc.

Of course, I noticed in my teens that there grew a difference between boys' and girls' physically capabilities. I was really disappointed.  

It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

I think it makes sense in many ways. At the moment I’m working on a song where I don’t want to say it all with the lyrics, and then I complete my sentence with music and humming. Because I think the music could "say this" better.

I also released a song in July, “Galloping Chest,” where I had a feeling which didn’t really have a word that could describe it. I feel like the finished song in itself is exhibiting/presenting that feeling more than any word could.



I think that even if I hadn't been singing the lyrics, but just made the same melody with vocal sounds, it would still have been a better description of what I was feeling than what words could describe.  

I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

To me both music and lyrics can feel very poetic, on their own and together.

I guess lyrics have the advantage which poetry doesn't have; the words can be strengthened or emphasized by music. Even though there are countless types of poetry; the lyrics which make me think of poetry the most, are the ones which are more abstract.

I'm actually working on a song at the moment, where the words poem, poetry and poesy appear in almost every second line. But those lyrics actually don't remind me of a poem strangely enough. Except the chorus line, which doesn't mention those words, and maybe the full song in its whole.   

The relationship between words and music has always intrigued me. How do you see it? In how far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?

I'm not sure you mean a physical place or mentally. But mentally, I feel like my mind wanders to a certain point when I've only written the lyrics. And I've processed the theme to a certain point.

When the music comes in, and I've been performing, working and listened to it a lot, it's like I've processed the theme enough to say that I can move on and put it behind me.

It's almost like I'm also taken to a place of a 3D dimension, with colors and details, when the music get together with the lyrics.



What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?

I find myself coming back to the feeling of alienation and group mentality. Maybe because the world and myself, we constantly change. But ever since I was young, I’ve always felt alienated.

Maybe not when I lived in Berlin. But in Norway. I’ve heard Norwegians are one of the most homogeneous groups of people in the world. I also have a feeling it’s one of the most conformative ones. I guess it happens quite easily then, that someone is not feeling that they belong/feeling different.

It might not be like this, but to me it has always felt like the most common way to go, is to go where the majority go - and unconsciously showing and confirming to each other, that they are quite similar. And it's very obvious who's the deviant / different / outcasts.

Maybe it feels comfortable and predictable to know who you're dealing with.

Do you tend to start writing with what will be the first line of the finished lyrics? The chorus? At a random point? What are the words that set the process in motion?

I tend to start with the first line in the first verse and go from there. Sometimes I can move the chorus to the intro at a later stage, but I tend to stay with that first line I wrote, as the first line of the first verse.

Sometimes that’s a sentence that came before I sat down with writing, or it comes after intentionally sitting down to write.

I'd love to know how you think the meaning or effect of an individual song is enhanced, clarified or possibly contradicted by the EPs, or albums it is part of. Does the song, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?

It doesn’t have to. But on my albums, I keep in mind the whole context of the album, when I’m writing most of the songs (except maybe one or two songs). Sometimes a song on the album is an answer to another song, as time has passed in between writing them, and I might have gained some new insights.

Maybe I’m making fun of myself at the end of the new album, because I did gain some new insights during the ride of the album.

I see now that the outro of a song at the end of the album might seem a little cringe for other people, as I shouldn’t take for granted that they will know that this is a response to what I wrote earlier. 



I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

A lot of times I get the sense that my lyrics are misunderstood. Songs I've written about the environment and society are sometimes interpreted as breakup songs. This is ok; maybe someone needed a breakup song.

On my new album I wrote the lyrics with the intention of people to be able to make their own sense of it, even if each song means something very concrete to me.