This interview appeared in the December 2022 issue of GAY TIMES.

Creative Direction and Photographer Steve Harnacke
Words Sam Damshenas
Fashion Director Umar Sarwar
Art Director Jack Rowe
Hair Louis Byrne
Makeup Riona O'Sullivan
Set Designer Luis Gänblen
Production U-DOX
Nails Hayley Evans-Smith
Photography Assistants Michaell Tartaglia and Joseph Clarkson
Fashion Assistants Liv Lawrence and Lily Hobman
Hair Assistants Marc Ramos
Set Design Assistant Ruby Hung
Models Riley Wolf, Alex Bishop, Robert Doyle Kelly, Samuel Agbiji and Jack Beaumont

To any readers out there considering journalism as a career choice: go! for! it! One day, you might spend a balmy Thursday afternoon with a Swedish pop sensation chatting about music, love and her metallic corset and fully-erect golden dildo-assisted trip through the Nevada desert. Get! Into! Journalism! “It’s Wonder Woman with big dick energy,” aforementioned Swedish pop sensation Tove Lo says of the instantly iconic ensemble in the music video for her pulsating club banger '2 Die 4'. (Watch it now). It was the “perfect pop bitch moment” says the singer, who released her fifth studio album Dirt Femme in October to rave reviews with fans hailing the pop assassin as “ahead of her time” in her Whitaker-Malem pegging harness and “space babe” couture. “I always want to do things that have an unexpected twist where people are like, ‘Wait, how do I feel about this?’” Tove says. “I want to lure that side out of people.”

Fronted by synthpop anthem 'How Long', taken from the soundtrack of Euphoria season two, Dirt Femme is one of the boldest and catchiest albums of the year; stacked with experimental pop beats and sing-along hooks accompanied by Tove’s signature mixture of camp and confessional lyricism. Let’s not forget the accompanying visuals in which Tove dons male drag, casually chugs a massive pint of lager, straddles a CGI dinosaur and shatters the heart of a robot in a futuristic world. Speaking with GAY TIMES over Zoom from a “back alleyway in Birmingham” on her 2022 European tour, Tove tells us that Dirt Femme is – bold, but understandable statement incoming – her “favourite album” and era to date. “In my mind I’m like, ‘Do I say that every album?!’ But I don’t think I do,” she laughs. “You have your whole life to write your first album and then there’s the time crunch and expectation of the second one. Even though I’m very proud of all my albums - I really stand for all of them - there’s something about having more time and no pressure and not having to play it for an A&R.” 

Dirt Femme marks Tove’s first album as an independent artist. While she considers her bout in the major label system as “lucky” because she was allowed to release music that was authentically her, she often faced opposition for how “commercially viable” her tracks are. For example: 'Disco Tits' - the definition of pop crack - sees Tove proclaim that she’s “fully charged, nipples are hard and ready to go” (same!) while its seven-minute film features a frisky puppet as her co-star on a raunchy, drug-assisted road trip. “Even if I had to put up a little bit of a fight there was never a, ‘You’re not putting this record out!’ kind of thing,” she says, “and they have the power to do that if they wanted to.” But after eight years, it was time for Tove to possess full creative control, “work with whoever I want to and decide where the money should be spent.” Now, she continues, “I can be creatively free.” 

This newfound freedom is evident on Dirt Femme. Although Tove has always been painstakingly honest with her songwriting and visuals – the Fairy Dust film memorably featured masturbation, sex, drug use and suicide – album five explores issues that she hasn’t yet touched upon such as her rejection of a heteronormative life. On track two, the fan-favourite 'Suburbia', Tove tells her lover that she “never wanted babies” or a Stepford Wife kind of “marriage” over a slinky, trippy beat. Having grown up in a ‘protected, pretty safe’ environment in Scania County, Sweden, the star tells us that she “felt a bit out of place” and continuously sought a life that wasn’t predestined for her. “I feel very spoiled saying that because that is a very beautiful dream,” she admits. “Why would you not want that life? I just don’t want that. I’ve had all these feelings awakened but, also, me and my husband live in a collective with three people. My community is a very mixed bag of everything and I realised it’s up to me if I want to fall back into this sort of traditional life or not. I don’t have to just because I’m married.”