FRIDA TALKS AIRPORTS

Behind the Coastline

You are reading an independently published interview-series published and carefully curated by Swedish pop-culture journalist Daniel John. Ever since its start in 2015, the core curiosity remains the same, surfing the creative currents of music, film, fashion and everything else on the pop-radar, catching the waves of

Culture Coast TalksDaniel John

'Airports' is your debut solo single, when did you write it?

I wrote my song 'Airports' in the start of 2025 as I had just moved back to Sweden from Italy. I had been living in Italy for about six years all together, with some times in between spent in Sweden as well. This song became an outlet for me in order to cope with and accept the fact that I had decided to leave my “Italy chapter” behind and focus on staying in Sweden. Leaving all my friends and life as I knew it behind was not easy, and it really took some time for me to accept it and realize that what I was doing would be better not only for me personally but also for my music career. So for me this song is very close to my heart and at the same time its quite painful to listen to because it brings me back to that time and how I was feeling. At the same time this is my debut single and therefore has even more meaning since this is something I have been working towards for many years.

Before this you’ve done lots of collaborations together with other producers. In fact one of those, 'Piece of my Heart' with Marc Suarez and Anntoine also came out this summer. After working on so many collabs, what is different with your own music now?

I have always been looking at these collaborations as just a way of getting my music out there. And they have never really felt like my own songs even if I have written them from my own stories and own experiences. There has always been a disconnect somehow since its not the style I would make for my own songs that I write from scratch. But I do think it has taught me a lot, it has taught me how to write songs not only based on myself but also on people around me. It has taught me to write even when I don’t feel inspired and to appreciate other genres in another way. It has however always made me more and more focused on getting my own music out there and wanting to move away from collaborations. For the moment I keep doing them and as long as I find it enjoyable I will probably keep doing them. But my main focus is definitely on getting my own music out there, the way I want it to sound and with the message I want to give.

There was an early YouTube channel, was it around then you started to explore your voice in music or did it start earlier?

I think I’ve always been a creative person, I have always loved singing, listening to music, writing and painting and everything that you can think of. I haven’t always been good at all of it. But I learnt from an early age that its more important that you enjoy doing it, not that you are good at it. But with the music I learnt quite early that people liked what I did and that it seemed to be something I was actually good at. I started writing songs from around the age of eleven thanks to my friends dad. We used to listen to Dolly Parton and write songs and it was all so much fun. That’s when I started writing by myself, I only knew four chords on the guitar but I made it work. And eventually it became a really good outlet for me where I could write down everything I was feeling since I have never really been good at saying those things out loud. From then I started playing at different events, went on the radio, I really started to focus on songwriting and it was something I did basically every day at that point. I already had written about a hundred songs when I was twelve. So it was definitely an important part of my life. A bit later on I got a YouTube channel, I did videos on there and at one point started earning money from it on the side. I did a mix of those classic YouTube videos and posted covers and even my own songs on there. But when I graduated from high school I stopped and that’s when I started doing collaborations. My first one being my song 'Open Water' that I did together with Bonalt & Hadi. This was a song I had intended to do in my own style, more singer-songwriter-type closer to my song 'Airports'. But they liked it and turned it into what it is today, a more EDM-type of song. And that’s when I realized collaborations is a great way of reaching out to people and that I could use this to my advantage.

With how far your music has since travelled, what does it mean to you knowing your words have reached so many?

For me this is still a bit surreal and I think that will always be a thing. The other day my brother wrote me that he was in a bar in Stockholm and they were playing one of my songs, and that was the second time he has been out and heard my song randomly. That is still hard for me to grasp, that people actually play my music in places. I do see all the Shazam statistics and so on but I usually just see that as a number on a screen, but when I actually hear that people stumble upon my songs out and about, it becomes more real. And of course its an honor, and I am really grateful for each and every person that listens and plays my music.

Do you tend to write in the moment you're in, looking back, or perhaps even imagining stories that aren’t necessarily your own. You said earlier you are not only writing songs based on yourself. How does a song usually come together for you?

For me this can happen in so many ways, but most of the time I start playing the guitar or piano and a sentence or word will come to my mind based on the melody and maybe based on what I am going through at the moment, and then the rest comes quite easily. As soon as I know what the song will be about, it usually is automatic. If I like a melody I can write a song in five minutes. If I don’t like it as much I will go back to it several times and try to build it. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But I would say ninety-nine point nine percent of the time I write from my own experiences. Lately for some of my collaborations I have been inspired by stories from my friends that I can’t really relate to all that much and sometimes it has even been a mix in the same song, that I sing about my friends experiences and mine even if they were very different. But for my own songs that will not be collaborations and not EDM or house music, it’s always based on my own experiences and stories.

Are you ready to announce your next departure. Or are things still up in the air, as to where the next flight is going?

I cannot share that much at the moment, but I promise if you follow along there are very exciting things coming in the world of my own music.