Peter : After First Band On The Moon, we’ve been touring for a whole year and when we came back to record, we had a meeting with Tore and we agreed : what we wanted to do was exactly the way he wanted to go.

Nina : When we came back, we were talking about the sound we wanted to get, because we were all convinced that we had to evolve, and maybe we’d had to change our producer.

Peter : Country Hell, where we recorded, is part of Tambourine but it’s not the same place. Tore bought a new house and he put a part of his material in a more modern sound environment, by adding computers, among other things. But the change in the sound doesn’t come from the use of a new studio with a lot of equipments but rather from the symbolical change of place. The place really had something to do with it. It’s beautiful, but far away from everything, it’s easier to concentrate here.

Nina : When we were recording at Tambourine, which is right in Malmö, we could always come back home to take five or go to bars, hoping to meet some friends. This time, being in the country, in a way we just had to work all day… Then we could come back home knowing we did our duty !

Nina : If he keeps evolving like we do, yes, absolutely.

Peter : In fact, we talked about this with him after we recorded this album, and we feel that with Gran Turismo we have many new things we can do : we opened new doors without necessarily having time to explore each one of them. So it’s very exciting for the future, we still have some substance for the next album.

Nina : No, no, we all agreed.

Peter : On the contrary, we never recorded an album in which every member was satisfied, and with this one, that was the case for the first time.

Nina : Not directly. I’m more confident and I really wanted to do that. We were going to play in front of an audience everywhere in the world, and it’s better to really feel what you sing, to use your own words in songs you’ll have to try to explain to journalists (She smiles) Seriously, it’s true that before I just laid my voice rather than singing, as I didn’t feel I was a part of a creative work.

Nina : The two words together sound good, and it means we have grown. It also sums up well the whole album, as it’s the result of travelling all around the world in luxury, with a jet-set life rhythm which… makes my tendency to peep even bigger.

Peter : Gran Turismo is a good definition of our music, very good to hear during travelling. We make tourist music (Laughs). And these are words which clearly show what we’re aiming at : it’s an ambitious album (Smiles).

Peter : Paradoxically, the running order on our previous albums had always been decided before, but for this one we just knew which track would open the album and which one would end it, this instrumental composed by Lasse, the keyboard player.

Nina : In fact, we planned this record a bit like we would have planned a vinyl, because after having recorded everything, we knew exactly how the tracks from the second side of the record would run.

Peter : You know, I don’t need to hear country when I’m writing this to sound this way. My influences come from everything I’ve heard, not only the last record I’ve bought. I love the Red House Painters but the band I had in mind while recording Gran Turismo was Depeche Mode. You see, sometimes I like other things than Black Sabbath ! (Laughs) By the way, I’ve released a solo album, in May, under the name of Pau, and this record is mainly acoustic and sad, let’s say…austere. It has been released here only as I sing in Swedish.

Nina : I’ve recorded an album with a friend which should be released right after the Cardigans’ one. But I don’t want to talk to much about it for the time being. And I sang backing vocals on a French artist’s album, Mathieu Boogaerts, who came to Tambourine to record.

Nina : Like any reputation, this one came because of a misunderstanding. Just because I’m blonde and sing in a pop band, everybody thinks that our songs about happiness, but our lyrics have always been bitter or at least sad.

Peter : It’s true, our first album, Emmerdale, was as pop as it could be. To carry on this way would have led us to caricature. In our minds we always had songs which didn’t sound the same, but the general audience only knew our singles played on the radio. With Gran Turismo, we chose to put in light another side of the band, which had remained in the shadow before.

Nina : Since our last album, we really did a lot to become as famous as we wanted to be. We don’t want success at any price. You can always do more, especially about promotion, you can go to every TV show on earth, and have bad surprises and find yourself in embarrassing situations.

Peter : Rather than cash in on our success and bore people, we have chosen to go forward and to propose something that’s not a replica of our previous albums. We’re strong enough to do it as we grew in public since we started. When we recorded Emmerdale, we were eighteen or nineteen years old and we didn’t have experience. It’s a miracle we’re still here, in a rather comfortable position. We’ve learned so much, I know now exactly where I want to go and how to get there.

Nina : It must be told that we’ve managed to get respect from our label, medias and especially the other bands we toured with. It’s a reason to be proud, beyond the fact that we did as few compromises as we could.

Peter : I don’t think that directors are responsible for soundtracks, it’s the producers… Maybe they think they need a Swedish group and the only one they know are the Cardigans. (Smiles) No, seriously, I think it’s because of Lovefool’s success on the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack.

Peter : That was really fun, just because we met the actors of the show. We played ourselves in an episode which was a kind of Back to the future parody.

Peter : We knew his work and we’d rather work with someone who speaks our language, it’s easier to exchange points of view. He was very well-known here even before he worked for Prodigy or Madonna, he did a lot of commercials and he has always used provocation in his work. You’ll see, our video isn’t machist at all and it’s perfect for My Favourite Game.

Peter : Sweden seems exotical to Neil Hannon the same way it is for our Japanese fans, and it’s one of the reasons why we’re successful there.

Nina : He told me about this song last year. To answer your question, if we still live in Malmö, that means that exoticism doesn’t attract us really. Otherwise, even if we wouldn’t do like our best tennismen, we could move somewhere else, but that’s not what we want. We’re already in the country here, it’s all quiet. Yesterday night, it was three in the morning, I was going back home walking, and I was telling myself nothing could happen to me. I didn’t meet anybody during my walk.

Peter : In London suburbs, you wouldn’t meet anyone at three in the morning neither !

Nina : Don’t play with words, you know exactly what I mean !

Peter : Yes, even though this paradoxical situation isn’t so hard to live, really. We can walk in the streets without any problem, unlike Kent members, who are much more known than us here, partly because they started singing in Swedish.

Peter : Certainly. We have grown, we became better musicians and discovered new territories with Gran Turismo. And now we’re ready to rock !

Later, in a Japanese restaurant, (´ we owe this to them, but fortunately we already like sushi before we came there ª) Magnus, the big and friendly bass player, is talking about the hockey game Malmö vs. Jonkoping, his native city ; he’s talking about his love for the French football (soccer) team since 1982 World Cup (´ at that time, the team who played was the most beautiful, better than the one who won this year ª). You can’t stop him and then he asks he we’d like to go to his favourite record shop, whose name could be ´ Box Set Paradise ª. On the way, he points at a cafe/restaurant and explains : ´ Until First Band On The Moon, I’ve worked here as an all-duties man, sweeping in the morning, washing dishes at night, when our two first albums were in every record shop in Malmö ª. Even if Malmö is as full of life as many little towns in our country, in spite of being the third biggest town in Sweden, it rather looks like, because of its Protestant origins, many towns in Danemark or Germany, on the other side of the strait separating the North Sea and the Baltic sea. A few hundred miles away, another port, Hamburg, had received years ago beginning Beatles. For the Cardigans, it may be just the beginning of the odysseus.