Helen Sjöholm is looking forward to the upcoming tour. Photo & ©: Ricky Tillblad
Smålandsposten 210928
By: MARIE MAGNUSSON
Singer Helen Sjöholm is going on a big autumn tour. The visit in Växjö Concert Hall was planned in October, but then it was decided to postpone it until November 13. It was only a few days before the news of the release of the restrictions from September 29.
– We canceled the whole of October and three days later the decision was made to release the restrictions. It’s unfortunate, but too late to change again for us. We can only hope that it will happen now, Helen Sjöholm says in an interview with Smålandsposten.
Now she is in the starting pits to rehearse. The tour is called En ny tid (A New Time) as her the latest album.
– I dare not take anything for granted, but I´m happy. Now we go on this and it will be an extensive tour, even if there will not be as many gigs as was planned from the beginning.
Helen Sjöholm with band will come to Växjö Concert Hall on November 13.
What will you offer?
– There will be new songs from the latest album. It was completed when everything shut down last year. Then files had to be sent to the studio. Now we can be more together, that’s how you want to work. It’s fun to rehearse, you can get the idea and want to try something new. Then things can happen. On the tour, I work with musicians I have not worked with before, it will be exciting!
– Then it´s the case that you always play certain songs that you know the audience wants to hear. These are songs I’ve been living with for a while. The musicians are fantastic, so it will be great.
Helen Sjöholm hasn´t written the songs herself, but she thinks it’s fun to be a part of when they grow up.
– I write very little, I´m not a songwriter. But when I´m involved in the arrangements and arrangements, I make the songs mine.
In 2020, Helen Sjöholm performed at Uppsala City Theater in the musical Next to Normal. The premiere was ten days before everything was shut down.
– We thought we would play again in May, then it was planned for January. During the pandemic, there have been some new collaborations that have blossomed. I have reconnected with my old friend Anna Stadling. We have been singing together for 40 years, ever since we were ten and sang in a choir. Maybe there will be a tour with Christmas music before next Christmas. It’s lying around a bit. Since then, I have done some small things, such as filming and roles in two different TV series. There may be other things later on that apply to the musical scene, Helen Sjöholm reveals .
Helen Sjöholm has also been in the TV series Thunder in my heart and will be current in the second season of Bäckström, which was filmed this spring.
– I really shouldn´t complain, I have had a job. But touring and singing live, that bit has been dead.
How does it feel then, to go on a big tour now?
– Scary! You lose the sense of what you are capable of. You long, rehearse to meet the audience. Will it work? This is a fresh product and I have never felt completely safe when I meet the audience.
Are you nervous?
– Yes, I’m absolutely nervous. How should it be received? Will anyone listen? You try to live up to something and it´s not always that easy. Then once you are on stage, all that disappears, you go into a different mood. The senses are opened to something else. Fortunately.
Which is more fun, to sing or to act?
– I ask that question to myself sometimes. It’s fun to get the music into other media, like on stage with an ensemble. Then you enter another world. But I love to sing. I have my base in making music. If you have a dramatic story to tell, you go into a character, that’s a different thing. It will be exciting to tighten the bow now!
What has Kristina from Duvemåla meant to you?
– So much! I had some on my feet then, but I learned so much. That was when I broke through and it has affected a lot. It was an important period. I still sing some of the songs, and since then I have continued, mostly with Benny Andersson. It has been a long journey and it has given me a lot.
Do you have any dreams to realize?
– No clear dream role. Kristina was exciting. Something innovative, something new with a new form where you can put your own stamp and be creative. A newly written musical theater performance perhaps? A dream is to have a monologue performance with a musical line on a female portrait. There are many exciting historical women you know who should be allowed to sing out.
What was it like recording the TV show Så mycket bättre (So Much Better)?
– It was incredibly fun and nervous! I don´t regret it, it was special. Then it was a little too short a time, it became a little fast.
Autumn is coming, what do you think about that?
– I love autumn! But it gets a little tougher with age, this transition from summer to autumn is getting heavier. But then it gets easier again. I´m a mountain hiker, there will be a lot of hiking in the autumn.
What are your memories of Växjö?
– Oh, I have several. We did a fantastic concert version of Kristina twenty years ago. 1995 I borrowed a cabin outside Växjö for a few days and recharged at Utvandrarnas hus before the rehearsals of Kristina. I usually trudge around Växjö Lake when I’m in town! I have to walk, it’s my therapy, next to the song, Helen Sjöholm says.