Helen Sjöholm is like “the Ghost Who Walks”; she can walk like an ordinary person
on the streets. There are few who notice that a bright star just passed.
Expressen 110327
By: CECILIA HAGEN
Photo: CORNELIA NORDSTRÖM
Helen Sjöholm, the rumor has it that you intend to take a year off. Surely it cannot be true?
– I’ll be off for a while and it will be very beneficial. Last year was crazy, even though it was fun. Afterwards you feel that it has taken its toll, and that you have not been at home enough. Now I want to be there for a long time, at home.
– But first I will tour, from April 1, for two weeks with my solo album “Euforia”. And in the summer there will be a dance band tour with BAO (Benny Andersson’s Orchestra). Eight performances. We are building an entire dance floor every time with colored lanterns and everything, and that’s when I´m a chorus singer. It is a musical feast.
But you are used to continuous work-related kicks. How will you cope with that?
– That’s of course why it’s extra useful for me to detox. In the beginning you climb on the walls, become completely unbearable. I usually manage the transition by doing something tangible, clean the whole house or redecorate. There is always something to do at home. But that need has decreased over the years.
You worked most intensly during “Kristina from Duvemala”. For five years there were six performances a week, no private life and all the friends disappeared?
– No, I managed to keep them.
Although the circle of friends shrinks on its own with the years. But it´s right, those years it was nothing but than work. Fatigue made one not bother with anything beyond that.
The same show every day, didn’t it become a routine in the end?
– Every day is different. And I have experienced days when you are about to vomit before going on stage because the body knows in advance how much will be demanded of it, those days I often do my best performances.
Have you vomited on stage at some point?
– No, but definitely offstage.
But tell me, how do you do to have credibility when you sing the same song for the thousandth time?
– The hardest thing I know is to talk about what I do and how I think. I don´t have the right words, I can’t talk about how I´m doing it as clearly as I would like. I don´t know how I do it.
– It might be some small detail; that I do a phrasing differently in my throat and then suddenly I can make that note feel more natural. It´s such little things that make it never completely done.
Where are you most comfortable, on stage or in real life?
– On stage I think. And to be who I am at home. I’ve never liked very much to be that Helen Sjöholm.
I guess your David was already in your life when you played Kristina? Or did you really manage to find him in a gap between the performances?
– I did, in a very nice gap. We met at a fifty’s birthday party of a mutual friend. He is a sound engineer, but we have never worked together.
Now you have a three year old son. Has it been stressful to reconcile motherhood with your very immersive job?
– Since we are both working evening shifts we wondered how that would go, but it has been over our expectations. We have no stressful mornings, we see each other a lot during the day. And Ruben is used to have somebody else coming at bedtime three nights a week, it hasn´t been any problems. But I find it difficult when I am traveling for a long time.
What do you sing to Ruben?
– “Do not sing, Mama!” he says. Instead he sings to me. He is loud and expressive and has a strong temperament. He has acting ancestry, his grandfather’s name was Palle Granditsky and his grandmother is Anita Blom.
When you are off for a long time, what happens to your voice? Do you have to keep it going so it won’t wither away?
– I was at home with Ruben for one year and then I didn´t sing. Then the rehearsals for “My Fair Lady” started, and it went fine. I have a pretty straight forward relation to my voice, I´m not good at nurturing it. This uneducated, disrespectful way to use your voice, which can’t be heard outwards, that I just do it, it has worked pretty well, so I will probably keep that up. I have strong vocal cords.
You got the Expressen Music Prize the Fiddler recently. In connection with that Gunilla Brodrej called your most popular hit songs; “You have to be there”, “You are my man” and “Gabriella’s Song”, existential feminist music. Do you agree?
– That was nice, I think. I have met an incredible number of women in more or less dramatic situations in life who have told me that they have received so much from these songs. To get that response is amazing.
Benny Andersson has supported the Feminist Initiative. Do you agree with him?
– Of course I´m a feminist, although I don´t give my vote to FI (Feminist Initiative). I wish that equality would be something completely natural.
– My grandmothers have meant a lot to me, I often visited them when I was a child. Both grandfathers had died early, so they were alone for many years. Strong and creative both of them and from them I learned that women deal with their situations themselves. And from them and from my mother I’ve inherited my energy, my impatience.
– If I get an idea I don´t go around pondering it, I carry it out immediately and on my own. If it works, it works. I try and re-do, all the time.
Björn Ulvaeus wrote the lyrics to “You have to be there”. But he is an active atheist, one of the leaders of “The Humanists”. Have you ever thought about that?
– There are few songwriters who use religious images as frequently as he does. In almost every text there is some kind of religious feeling or hub. I find that very interesting.
And yourself? Do you believe in God?
– I don´t have a strong believe in God but I try to believe in a good vitality, that there is something that is right and something that is wrong. It´s a kind of searching for positive solutions, a belief in love instead of God.
You have done so much; drama and musical theater and film – for Christmas, we will see you in “Simon and the oaks” in which you are the mother of Bill Skarsgård – but you have never tried doing the Eurovision Song Contest, which was was ABBA’s breakthrough. Is it time?
– No, I wouldn´t fit in there, it wouldn’t work for me mentally to cope with that hysterical circus. I admire those who can do it. I can’t show up on a stage and try to make an imprint in three and a half minutes, I’m more of a long-distance runner. I need a longer run to be safe and happy.
If you could wish freely, what would the rest of your life look like? Private and professional?
– Then I wish to continue like this. With many fun and varied tasks. That would be the dream. And privately? That things remain like now, that we feel comfortable where we are and together.
THIS IS HELEN SJÖHOLM:
Age: 40 years.
Family: Husband David Granditsky, sound engineer, son Ruben, 3 years.
Lives in: Nacka.
Born and raised in: Sundsvall.
Mom has been: Primary school teacher.
My father has been: Engineer, he had a sheet metal workshop.
Career: Singing group “Just for fun” in Sundsvall, “Elvira Madigan” in Malmö, “Kristina from Duvemåla” for five years 1995-99, “Rhapsody in Rock”, “Les Miserables”, “Chess”, the movie “As it is in Heaven”, “Tovlskillingsoperan” at the Stockholm City Theatre “, solo album “Visor” (Songs), “My Fair Lady” at Oscars, “Aniara” at the Stockholm City Theatre, solo album” Euforia” last fall and in December is the premiere of the film “Simon and the oaks.”
Awards and honors: Thalia statuette and Ulla Billquist sholarship in 1997, Grammy for This year’s ballad and the Golden mask for her role in Chess 2003, Grammy for this year’s pop / dance band in 2004, Thore Ehrling scholarship and Grammy of the Children album of the year in 2005, Golden mask for the role of Eliza in My Fair Lady, and Lund’s Student-association soloist prize in 2009, Expressen’s Music Prize Fiddler of the year 2010.
Good characteristics: Stubborn, sensitive.
Worse characteristics: Stubborn, pedantic.
Likes: The power of music and the power in people’s meetings.
Doesn´t like: The entire nuclear arrangement. And the word growth.
Motto: It must work!
P.S!
Just as we are about to leave Dieselverkstaden in Sickla, where we’ve had a cup of tea, a young girl appears, who says she sings and she wants to be like Helen. Can she have a hug? She can.