Quotes

"When I met Nathan, I told my tour manager he was too good-looking for me. I don't have a history of dating good-looking men. I've always complained that girls don't get male groupies, and now I've married the first groupie I've ever had." (on her first impression of husband, Nathan Larson)

I can [be funny in English] after a while.

We [she and husband Nathan] were going door to door asking people to vote for Obama. I'd tell them all about the good work he was doing, but that because I was Swedish I wasn't able to vote myself. However, they were, and I insisted that they should. I encountered a lot of enthusiasm.

It [Jönköping, where her atheist family stood out among the many born-again Christians] was very, very religious. Suffocatingly so. [At 14, to her parents' bafflement, Persson was baptised.] I still don't really believe in God, but I like the aesthetics of religion a lot. Do I pray? Only when I want something.

I'm not saying I was a slave [when my request to go off and do something else for a while was rejected by my fellow Cardigans bandmates], but I was being restricted. It upset me.

We [The Cardigans] were a machine. [because the world tour accompanying Gran Turismo took almost three years, she was able to spend little time with Nathan Larson who she recently hooked up with] And that, when you consider it, is crazy. When you are 18 to 25, fine, you can spend all your time with your band, as that's all you have. But when you get older, you want to spend time with the people who matter.

I was very fucked-up throughout the entire recording [of Gran Turismo]. I remember finding a dead bat in the woods near the studio one day. I took it back, nailed it to the wall, and sang every word to the bat, and to nobody else.

[on A Camp's album Colonia] I was inspired by the history of savagery. The human urge to rape, conquer and pillage has always fascinated me, and lyrically it makes for some terrific metaphors that can work in all sorts of ways, both personal and political.

I was called ridiculous things, like the Ice Queen. And if I smoked a cigarette or wore leather pants, the media went wild. It was crazy, stupid. Suddenly I represented this group that, creatively, I had little to do with. I never felt as if I deserved the fame - which was probably very Swedish of me. People were saying I was hot-looking, cute, but I never was. I never had groupies, unlike the rest of the band. Men were scared to approach me, which bummed me out because I would have loved some more, you know... When I finally did bag myself a boyfriend, it was pretty much a catastrophe. He was with me only because I was famous, but he was terribly jealous of me, and always insecure. We lasted a year somehow; a horrible time. I was successful, making a lot of money, and I enjoyed none of it.

[on The Cardigans rejecting the request to submit the theme song for the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies due to exhaustion that would be exacerbated by the potential added workload] One of my biggest mistakes.