How to Grow New Organs: Fever Ray on Making Music for Mutation

This interview was originally published for WUSSY Vol. 13 — order a copy!

Interview with Fever Ray (@feverray) by Kerosene Jones (@kerosenejones_)
Creative Direction by Martin Falck (@neuemartin)
Photography by Nina Andersson (@ninaanderssonvoigt)

The phrase “Fever Ray” seems to suggest an epiphany that occurs at the height of sickness: a shaft of light shot across a soiled hospital bed that inspires a febrile revelation, a moment of lucidity in the midst of a sweat-drenched delirium. For Karin Dreijer—who rose to international acclaim as one half of the Swedish anarcho-electro pop band The Knife alongside their brother Olof, before releasing three celebrated solo albums as Fever Ray—the malleability of both bodies and identities, especially when subjected to extreme states of pleasure, duress, and modification, has long been a primary point of interest in their work. In 2010, Dreijer accepted an award on Swedish television in a red ceremonial veil, which they raised to reveal an alien visage slathered in special FX makeup that resembled multiple layers of melted, gooey skin tags. Dreijer proceeded to gutturally croak into the microphone for a few seconds before exiting the stage. More recently, in the music video for “Shiver,” off Fever Ray’s latest album Radical Romantics (2023), Dreijer, in a tattered and ghostly businessman persona known as “Main,” is subjected to a series of grotesque surgical experiments in a defunct medical facility by a muscle-bound nurse-cum-dominatrix played by Swedish professional bodybuilder Irene Andersen. “Shiver,” like much of Dreijer’s music, celebrates the liberatory potential of kink, of erotic subcultures and alternative frameworks of intimacy that exist outside of mainstream heteronormative society: music equally suited for group piss play, relationship anarchy, and renegade body hacking.

Dreijer is known to treat voice as prosthesis, deploying a variety of singing techniques and electronic processing effects to create what could be referred to as multiple sonic drag personas, encompassing spectral ingenues, doomed pirate kings, malfunctioning sex cyborgs, murderous matriarchs, and militant gender outlaws. The “Mona Lisa” character in their video for “Even It Out,” a song from Radical Romantics about a parent’s violent retribution against the bully of their child, is a hyperbolic psychotic femme directly inspired by John Waters. Much of Fever Ray’s output toys with the otherworldly terrain that may exist between these archetypes, conjuring imagery of obscure tentacle porn, ectoplasm as lube, or of wandering down the wrong tunnel at Berghain only to be inseminated with bioluminescent eggs by some extraterrestrial dungeon master. This impulse towards the fabular is often grounded in tangible political ideology and action, as The Knife has been outspoken about anti-trans legislation across their oeuvre, and has publically supported the cultural boycott of Israel since 2017.

I first saw Fever Ray live at the Sonar music festival in Barcelona in the summer of 2023, where I promptly found another fan to make out with. Dreijer’s choreography, gray businessman attire, and white painted face reminded me of what it might look like if a Butoh dance ensemble staged a production of the cult comedy Weekend At Bernies (1989) about two hapless employees attempting to manipulate the corpse of their boss into appearing alive for a holiday weekend. The minimal set design evoked a fog-laden harbor in the afterlife, where lost souls wander around looking for rough trade and illicit encounters. Speaking from their studio space in Stockholm, which is custom built in a warehouse space and shared with their brother Olof, I spoke with Dreijer about cruising culture, body horror, Swedish political theater, and whether or not they believe in ghosts.

KEROSENE JONES: I was curious to talk to you about how the world of your latest album Radical Romantics has extended into the tour, and if you've discovered anything new about the album through performing it live?

KARIN DREIJER: It is strange when you make the album. Some of the songs I've only sung a few times. Then when you start the rehearsals, and you start touring with the new tracks, it's then you really get to know them and you definitely notice which songs connect well with the audience or are easier than others to perform. I remember Sonar. There was quite a bit of chaotic atmosphere in the audience. I would say it is typically like that at festivals. It's a very big difference to being in a venue where it's more focused. With festivals you really have to work with big gestures and maybe more uptempo.

JONES: The stage design and the choreography reminded me of cruising grounds, but in some sort of haunted shipyard: Sniffies for undead sailors. Is cruising something that comes up for you when you're thinking about stage direction?

DREIJER: Yeah, I mean, I work very close to my friend Martin Falck, and we started to talk about the visuals for the album a year before it was released. I think the lamppost appeared in the many different settings that we talked about. I can't remember the name of the director of these films, but I can send it afterwards. It's rooms where there is definitely a cruising scene and the colors are very pink. Oh, it's Pink Narcissus (1971). That was a very clear reference for us. But we also talked about having people on stage coming out of a back alley, or like an after-work situation, and just stumbling into each other. We only have one prop on stage, which is the lamppost. I think for me, it was important to have a guiding light on stage. Like a lighthouse like out at sea that was lit all the time, something safe to navigate towards. But I also read the The Chronicles of Narnia series thoroughly as a kid, where the lamppost is also very prominent. It's a light where the two different worlds meet, and you can enter new worlds towards that light.

JONES: That makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of your work deals with thresholds between the metaphysical and the body. Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever had a paranormal experience?

DREIJER: I'm very boring in that sense…I don't. I was brought up atheist, but I'm very interested in different spiritual movements. [Touring band member] Helena Gutarra is very into astrology, so we talk about that a lot while we're on tour. I like to hear about the different suggestions of how to understand something, and I'm very curious about different ideas on seeing things and how they can help one to understand things but, no, I don't believe in anything else than what's here and now.

JONES: What is your sign astrologically?

DREIJER: Aries, that's my sun, and Helena will get mad at me now, but then I'm also Taurus and...(laughs).

JONES: We can let the readers figure it out for themselves.

DREIJER: I'm really bad at this. But I'm very intrigued when I'm being told about the different aspects of it.

JONES: There's multiple personas throughout all of your work but there are very distinct entities manifested in the visual world of Radical Romantics. I wanted to ask how they're all doing currently in this world historical moment, and how they would each be responding to current events?

DREIJER: I think the Mona Lisa, that's what we call her in the “Even It Out” video, she was actually at the Swedish National Radio award ceremony a little while ago, and I think she's probably the most fierce of all of the characters, so we were talking about continuing some stories with her. I think it could be important and interesting in these times because she's very mean, and she has no shame.

JONES: From what I gathered she is a vengeful spirit.

DREIJER: Yeah, some of the others would probably just walk away and hide somewhere, but she would never do that.

JONES: You've spoken in past interviews about the resurgence of the neofascist movement happening in Sweden currently, which makes me wonder about the queer scene in Stockholm and what that's been like for you both historically and from a contemporary perspective?

DREIJER: Stockholm is a very strange city. First, Sweden is so small. It's only about 11 million people, and then Stockholm is like a 1 million people city. It's very capitalist, and there are no suburbs with cheaper venues. I've talked to a lot of people and we try to do things, but it's difficult because you have to have a lot of money to arrange anything. For the last year and a half I have been away or working, and I know there are great people who arrange queer clubs and bars and I try to go to a lot of them when I'm in town, but it's quite difficult. I think culture in general has become much more difficult, because we used to have a government that gave a lot of money and support to culture and festivals, but it's quite a big difference now.

JONES: Am I correct in understanding that a lot of play parties or queer sex spaces would be organized privately in Stockholm because of the lack of public resources for them?

DREIJER: The play parties are still very private and within the small communities. It's going on and it's happening, but it's not like going to Berlin.

JONES: I wanted to ask how your collaboration with Irene Andersen came about for your recent video for "Shiver"?

DREIJER: I have been very fascinated by muscles for a long time. What is this book? I have it here. One second (reaches towards a bookshelf).

This was one of the first art books that I got when I was young. It's Robert Mapplethorpe's photos of [first ever World Women's Bodybuilding Champion] Lisa Lyon. Then I started reading [experimental novelist] Kathy Acker, who was also into weightlifting. I have always been too lazy to create any muscles myself, but maybe one day I will. We'd been talking about how to portray women, me and Martin, and then the Mona Lisa character came out of that. Then when we were going to do the "Shiver" video, Martin said, “We need to do this now because it's our last video for this album.” We searched everywhere, and then there we found this one professional female bodybuilder in Sweden, and that was Irene. She had actually been doing smaller roles in some kids movies and stuff in Sweden before and I think she's amazing. She's a really good actor as well.

JONES: She has a very captivating wink. Are there any legacies of Swedish avant-garde music or cultural production that you identify with?

DREIJER: There's one man called Kjell Hoglund. He was an early synthesizer musician. This was in the ‘80s. There was also Bo Hannson, but I think I was drawn to music that felt queer, that used instrumentations and lyrics and vocals that were something else than the mainstream. But I don't think they would call themselves queer.

I listened to a lot of music that was made for theater, because political theater was a big movement in Sweden in the ‘70s and ‘80s, very left wing theater that also had a lot of music.

JONES: I recall that you composed music for a stage adaptation of Hour of the Wolf (1968) the horror film by Ingmar Bergman. Would you consider that an extension of your upbringing around political theater?

DREIJER: I don't think so. Bergman was quite established early on working for the Royal Dramatic Theater. Hour of the Wolf is a very strange play. I've been thinking of mixing it in stereo one day to release it, but I haven't had time yet.

JONES: I imagine that the films of David Cronenberg were a big influence on Radical Romantics, especially in terms of surgery as a metaphor for radical vulnerability. If you could grow any new organs this year, what would they be?

DREIJER: Oh I think I would like to fix things that are a bit broken. I'm getting old. I think repairing would be great so that I could last for another 50 years. That would be fun.

JONES: I also want to ask you about the intersection between chosen family and biological family, because they seem to intertwine for you in a really interesting way, be it through collaborating with your brother or raising a family, and how that relates to your queer family.

DREIJER: First, it's such different cultures. Swedish culture is quite different from American culture in that sense, because most of my friends who have kids, even in heterosexual relationships, they are not married. People don't marry first in Sweden. I have two children. One has moved out and one is still living with me, but every second week, because the other time she's living with her other parents.

I think I have always had friends who also have kids, so we're always trying to take care of all the kids together. The more parents the better, I think, for children. I consider my close friends as family, definitely. I do have blood family, but I have much closer relationships with my chosen family. We travel together, we take care of each other, when we need to be taken care of. I'm very grateful to have landed in this place that I am in now. But it has taken quite some time.

JONES: I'm really fascinated with your singular trajectory through using voice, and I'm wondering how you would characterize your personal relationship to voice, and which vocalists have inspired you the most?

DREIJER: I think I use so many different voices. When I was a kid, I listened to Cyndi Lauper and Kate Bush. That very high-pitched, girly screaming voice is an interesting place to tell stories from, but I also have stories that need to be told from another perspective or from another place in my body. Sometimes I think I have a very dark voice, and then it does not sound like that at all when I open my mouth, and then I have to use all the plugins.

JONES: So does the voice find itself, or do you typically have a narrative in mind that you need to convey? Do voices pop out and surprise you? Do characters emerge without a narrative in mind?

DREIJER: I can be surprised, yes. I can do things that I haven't thought of. I think it's mostly an emotion or a feeling that I want to tell in the best way, and then I try to find the right vocal to do it.

JONES: Do you feel like there's a distinct connection between queer community and remix culture?

DREIJER: I haven't thought about that. Regarding remixes of this album, its people that I like and admire, and those are often queer artists. That also goes for picking support acts for the tour. I think that's an important responsibility to have but no, I haven't thought about it in that way.

JONES: That segues into my final question which is about the artists' responsibility, especially in the midst of multiple ongoing genocides and transphobic legislation across the globe. How do artists continue to use queer community as a tool for resistance?

DREIJER: That's a huge question. I think you should definitely use your platform and be intentional with the decisions you make, who you choose to work with how you do things. At the same time, you can't be everywhere. It's important to choose your battles, and it's important to focus on what is most important to you. I just got a question from Uroish, who was supporting me on the last tour leg, an Iranian-Swedish artist, who keeps on getting invited to different protest gigs, and she does a lot of them, but she's also super tired. We need to remember to take care of ourselves so that we can continue.

See more in WUSSY vol.13 with Fever Ray on the cover — order a copy!

How to Grow New Organs: Fever Ray on Making Music for Mutation

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