The Songs That Came Before «5 to 9»
People sometimes find me through «5 to 9» and assume it is the first thing I've put out. It isn't. There's a trail of songs on Spotify going back to 2021, and the album only really makes sense next to them. Each release taught me something I didn't know I was missing. So here's a walk through what came before, and what each one left behind.
Start with the «Hoping That the Sun Comes Up» EP from 2021. That was me working out what my songs sounded like once they left the bedroom. Rough in places, too eager in others, but I still hear things on it I'm proud of. It taught me that a demo feeling isn't automatically a flaw. Sometimes the first take is holding the thing you then spend weeks trying to win back.
Then «Get Me Now» the same year, and «Been Waitin' for It» in 2022. Those two were me leaning hard into hooks, chasing something that grabs you inside ten seconds. «Et puis après?» also came in 2022, a feature with Skyler Wind, and switching into French changed how I wrote. You can't hide behind clever phrasing in a language when you want the plain thing said plainly. That one made me braver about writing simply. We did «Don't Let Me Down» together in 2023 and it stretched the same muscle.
2023 was busy. «Danse» and «Lendemain» both landed, and both care more about mood than a big chorus. I learned a song can just sit inside a feeling and not rush off anywhere. «Broken Promise» in 2024 was harder to write. It's the most honest one of that stretch, and it taught me that the songs I nearly bin are usually the ones people hold onto.
«I Need a Friend» arrived in 2025, closest to the album in spirit. By then I'd quit trying to sound like anyone. Just me, a guitar tone I actually like, and a line I meant. That thread runs straight into «5 to 9». Ten years of live shows, a year at a songwriting academy in northern Sweden, a lot of takes deleted, and it all pours into the record I'm putting out now.
So if you're curious where this came from, the map is already up. Play them roughly in order and you can more or less hear me finding the voice the album is built on. None of them are throwaways. They're the reason it exists.