I saw that you received a medal for the Bram Stoker Award. I looked for so long but I couldn’t find any information about it.

Yeah! It’s called the Bram Stoker Excellence Award. [Laughs] It’s some crazy shit. When they sent the email we thought it was a joke because they were like, “Oh Al Pacino has been here. The Pixies have been here. Edward Norton.” It was all these big names. There was the girl who wrote Harry Potter. The guy who wrote Game of Thrones. So, I kind of thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t.

So they sent you to Dublin to accept it?

Yeah, I brought my sister along. I told her to book a hotel room as well. It was her first time in Ireland. It was nice, travelling just us. We went to this big ceremony. It’s very… um… old rich kind of prestigious school. I didn’t know about it before, but apparently everyone went to it. Oscar Wilde went there?

What a trip.

It’s stranger than fiction. Always.

Are you in Stockholm right now?

Yeah! I’m at home. My manager and friend Emilio just woke me up. I always have a lot of trouble sleeping, so I always sleep in late.

What time do you go to bed?

I try not to go too late… I’ve always had trouble sleeping since I was a kid. Maybe when it’s like around 5 or 6 I’ll fall asleep. But I’ll be in bed for a while. Sometimes I’ll stay up all night. I’m a morning person, so I like being up in the morning. 

How many hours a night would you get?

I hope it’s more than five… Sometimes I just don’t count. My mother always counts before she goes to sleep like—one, two, three, four. And it always stressed me out, like, you’re not supposed to do that, just kinda leave it up to fate. But now I feel like… oh. I really have sleep issues.

What are your parents like?

They’re good people. Good, honest people. What are your parents like?

My parents are the same. They’re farmers.

That’s nice! That’s very nice. Everyone on my dad’s side, if you look up, his parents were teachers and his grandparents worked for the Salvation Army. Farming. So he comes from that church background kind of thing.

Yeah, me too.

Are your parents Salvation Army as well?

Nah, Irish Catholic.

Irish Catholic! Okay! That’s kind of what I was dealing with in Dublin. [Laughs] I like that culture a lot. Maybe it’s because I like films from there. I don’t know. It’s very dramatic, you know? Like, all the Boston films and Irish Catholic culture. It’s got a lot of heart to it.

Do you consider yourself religious?

Yeah. Definitely. I had a friend who once said, “Jonatan, you are religious without religion.” And that kinda fits me. I’m interested in all types of religions. My dad used to read Christian small things from the Children’s Bible and that. Then he kind of got into Buddhism and I was into Buddhism for a while as well. After a while, your mind just opens up to a lot of things. I’m interested in mysticism—in all types of religions. Anything really. I don’t believe that you have to believe in one thing. It’s our generation as well. It might sound like we’re really spoiled, but we’ve had all these options. We’ve seen what religion can do. We can just take the best parts of religion—there are a lot of good parts. You can kind of believe in what you wish.

For sure. I feel like our generation is super experimental and creatively switched on.

I think so too. Unless you’re brought up in a super religious home—I would not say that my home was super religious at all. If you come from that then maybe it’s more in your head to do that whole thing. But I don’t know. I’ve never been to a religious school, I’ve been to regular public schools in Sweden. I never had anything forced down my throat religious-wise. So I wanted to seek out things for myself. I just find stories from Hinduism and Islam and Judaism interesting. Everything is interesting in some way. Like, Nordic mythology, Greek mythology. These big, big stories that have so much moral. It’s still the same people that walked around on Earth. Just different bodies. You know?

Totally. What was the last thing that you read or watched that really shifted your understanding of the world in some way?

I saw this really good documentary called Diego Maradona. It was bigger than life, you know? When he played in Napoli, he was basically considered God. When they did blood samples of him, they took the blood samples and put them in church because he was holy. When Argentina beat Italy in the World Cup, he became the most hated man. His whole story is very interesting. Diego Maradona, you should check that out.

If you could write a score to a film, what would it be?

I really liked… maybe… Alice In Wonderland. Or The Departed. Or Wild At Heart. Or Lolita. A romantic movie. Something with Ben Stiller, maybe? I think it would be fun. Like, kind of karaoke songs. With the reverb type songs. I think I could do a good job at that. People just need to pitch me for films! I don’t know why they’re not doing that.

Do you ever listen to your old albums?

Mmm… not like albums. But, sometimes you go down a trip in your memory lane. Like, certain nights and it has to be the right vibe and you can listen to your own music. But I just listen to old songs on YouTube. I wouldn’t listen to all of Unknown Death or all of Unknown Memory. We had a night the other night, like me and Bladee and some of the guys and we were listening to the music we made when I was like 16–17, they were like 18–19, like early sad boys, early gravity boys and we were surprisingly happy that it still kind of works. Like, technically it’s bad, but that was the charm of it. I don’t know. We have a good discography and we were just listening to all the music. And we were all sitting there, like the same people that made the music seven–eight years ago. That made me more happy than anything, you know? It’s still us making music in a basement in my parent’s apartment and from Yung Gud’s room. It’s the same. We’ve just moved up in the world. 

When you can look back and see the same muscle coming through in your art.

I think it’s important because, especially when it comes to rap, or any music genre, the second someone just switches between people, you don’t really grow together. It’s hard to collaborate if you’re already two established artists. But if you grow together, like a band almost, it can turn into some heavy stuff.

How do you know if you like someone?

You don’t know. That’s the funny thing. People are like flowers. They can look really good when you first meet them and they grow and they might get rotten and fucked up. I don’t know. [Laughs] You gotta be careful. I give a lot of chances. I’m loyal—it’s in my bloodline. I like to stay around people that I’ve known for twenty years, ten years. It’s hard for me to get new friends. Once I do, then… you know… are they friends with Yung Lean or are they friends with Jonatan? So, I stay quite reserved. You can basically tell, after a while, what a person wants from you. If it’s genuine, then go for it. There’s something about getting to know people when you’re younger, then they’ll stick by you and you’ll stick by them. It’s unconditional. It’s not really about status or who you are or whatever. It’s deeper.

Do you think you’re a good judge of character?

No. [Laughs] I’ve made too many bad decisions in my life. I’m not a good judge of character. Everything is from my perspective as well. I’m not objective, that’s the thing. I don’t try to judge people on their worst deeds. If someone has done something fucked up, a lot of people are quick to judge them, because they’re scared of what other people are going to say. But you can’t judge a person on the worst thing they’ve done in their life. That’s horrible. You can’t be like that. You gotta see past that. I don’t know. I have met a lot of people and I’ve lived a long, long life so I think I can see some things at least.