“Swedish people are dark, it’s probably something to do with the cold,” says Nordic chanteuse Jonna Lee, explaining why, as a wide-eyed 17 year old, she swapped her sleepy home town for the glitter and grime of London.
“There wasn’t very much to do and I didn’t have a good connection with my parents, I wanted to run away, which is what I basically did.”
Lee’s since kissed and made up with her mother country, living for several months each year in Stockholm. Still, part of her heart will, she says, always belong to England, a sentiment born out on her debut album, a wistful slice of home counties pop called 10 Pieces, 10 Bruises.
“Making the LP was a difficult process because I produced it with my husband [Travis pianist] Claes Bjorklund,” she says. “ We started recording in our flat in Sweden. We argued a lot. Most couples, they have breakfast together and then they go out to work. We stayed in the same house all day.”
On one of the record’s standouts, ‘And Your Love’, Lee duets with British crooner Ed Harcourt. Like so many 21st musical relationships, theirs’ was forged in cyberspace
“I didn’t know Ed,” she says. “I contacted him through MySpace. It turns out we lived near each other in London, at Albert Grove. We went for a beer and decided to do a song together.”
Lee, who headlines this month's Totally Swedish festival in Dublin, says she’s counting down the days to her first trip to Ireland.
“When you say ‘Ireland’ to people in Sweden, we think of whiskey and of Irish bands such as U2 and Westlife. And Ronan Keating, he’s Irish, isn’t he?”
We do our best to deny it, but yes he is.