The Year That Changed My Writing: Musikmakarna

Before Sweden I wrote purely on instinct. I could usually reach a good idea. Finishing it was the problem. I just didn't have the tools to take a feeling and shape it into something that held together as a song.

Then I got a spot in the international program at Musikmakarna, the songwriting academy up in northern Sweden. Its alumni are all over modern Nordic pop, which was intimidating before I even arrived. For a year I was in rooms with topliners and producers who do this for a living, every day. It humbled me pretty fast, and it was exactly what I'd been missing.

What I carried home wasn't some clever trick. It was a habit: serve the song. If a line you love doesn't earn its spot, you cut it anyway. Say the true thing plainly rather than dressing it up in something fancier. The writers who impressed me most weren't the flashy ones. They were merciless editors of their own material.

So I came back with the Swiss habit of precision and a Swedish feel for craft, and I finally started building the record I'd been circling for years. «5 to 9» is the first thing I've made that feels actually finished, not just felt.