Congratulations on your new album. How does it feel to have your first major record release?
"It's already out in America and Denmark, but I can't wait to get it out here! My last album was an independent release - I was picked up after a small record company heard me on MySpace a few years ago. I've got used to a major label now, but in the beginning it was quite overwhelming. I was used to my music being a very private thing, but this time there were lots of people trying to get their ideas across."
Were you cautious about signing a deal with Sony?
"I've had to navigate my way quite a lot, but that's one of the challenges when signing to a major label. Having said that, I've had nothing but positive feedback about my ideas. Sony has basically been a big amplifier that has made my ideas louder and got them out to a lot of people. I'm pleased about that - I've never got the indie logic that music is only good if a small amount of people know about it."
So you didn't have to make many compromises?
"Not really. All of the decisions about the music itself have been my choice and I write all of my own songs. For example, the drum beat in 'Wolf and I' is an old Soviet radio station drum pad that I played myself and laid over the song. It was just a lucky coincidence that it fit perfectly!"
You moved to New York to pursue music, were you confident that you would be successful?
"I went to America with my band who are also my friends and we slept on people's floors - we had no money whatsoever. We managed to get something like ten gigs across the country and we got signed from those. I came back to Denmark to pack up my life and flew firstly to England, where I wrote three songs for the album, and then I went to New York to set up my new home."
How does this album compare to your first?
"My first album was about a very specific time in my life. I love it for what it was, and what it did, but it's also very closed and private - it wasn't written for an audience. I needed to get these things out regardless of whether anyone heard it. A certain type of crowd understood that album, but the intention for my new one was to communicate with as many people as possible."
The first international single 'Sun of a Gun' has over 10 million hits on YouTube. How did that happen?
"It's crazy, isn't it?! When I think about it, that's about twice the size of Denmark's population! I made the video and it quickly got embraced by internet blogs which have been a huge help for me. It was the support of influential websites that has lead it to reach this insane number of views. I've got to stop reading YouTube comments, though... it's a dangerous game once you've started."
What's the song about?
"It's about a relationship that I had with a boy who was very manipulative and dominant. He was really interesting and intriguing but also had an intense part to him where everything was over the top and it took over my life. It was like my world was spinning around him. This song portrays him as the sun and how it's beautiful and you revolve around it but can also get burned by it. 'Wolf & I' follows on immediately after it, when the sun goes down and the wolf can have a love affair with the moon - I'll say no more!"
Your music combines your parents' musical influences with your own taste for electronica. How do producers respond to that?
"There's been a few situations where the producers that I've worked with have said, 'That's so odd, but I like it!' I only work with people who don't reject where my musicality has come from - you've got to feel safe and able be able to express yourself freely. Producers are usually a bit mad themselves anyway."
A lot of acclaimed pop acts originate from your homeland, what is it about that area?
"It's weird, isn't it?! I've never considered myself part of the music scene because I started making music later on in my life. It's always been something that's been on a pedestal to me. I'm usually in my own little world, but I have started to realise that I am part of it, and part of a certain wave. I guess it's because we were all born in the '80s, and we had to be independent quite early on in our lives, and that comes through in the music."
What else can we expect from your album?
"Expect to hear a lot of stories and I hope people can connect with them and relate them to their own lives. The album shows two very different sides of me: one very expressionist, mystic and inspired on songs like 'White Nights' and 'Turn it Up', and then there's the melancholic, introverted side with a lot of longing on songs like 'Perfection' and 'Lean'."
Your artwork and videos are very quirky, are they as important as the music to you?
"It is because I think it can make a difference - it can add another dimension that the music never could to the songs. Putting images to the music is like a present for me, because you can add another perspective to your music."
You've spent your whole life performing, will you ever stop?
"I'm announcing a UK tour soon, which is very exciting! I can't see an end to this, because I've been doing it since I was a child. I was dressing up and performing to my parents or setting up a circus in the garden. I seem to have that need to express myself with a whole theatre around me!"
'Sun of a Gun' is released on June 27. The album Oh Land follows this September.
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