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On the Rise
Brother Leo

20 April 2020, 13:00

Taking inspiration from Robyn and a childhood imaginary twin, Swedish singer/songwriter and creative force Ola Svensson has unleashed his fearless side as Brother Leo.

“She's the founder and CEO of Konichiwa Records, the most decorated professional field operative in the industry and in the streets.” The opening track on Robyn’s 2005 self-titled album is “Curriculum Vitae”, an introduction of accolades that sets her up as her own boss in the music industry, a narrative which played strong through the record’s release and had a significant impact on nineteen-year-old Ola Svensson.

At the time, Svensson was about to enter Swedish Idol, a moment that would change his life. Talking to him from his Stockholm apartment today, he’s come full circle with the release of “Hallelujah”, a definitive track that’s taken over half a decade to complete, charting the singer from his lowest ebb to the self-assured and engaging artist who’s talking me through his life history via a mid-global pandemic Zoom call.

Svensson’s musical journey started at the age of five with piano lessons. Growing up in Lund in the South of Sweden, his grandfather was his foremost inspiration. He would gather the family around to sing old Swedish folk songs, “It was like we became an Italian family for two hours, if that makes sense?” jokes Svensson.

When his grandfather passed away, nine-year-old Svensson channelled his grief and joined the church choir, something his grandfather had always pushed him to do. He was spotted singing a solo in church and picked as one of the main characters to perform in a stage version of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. While it was his first real moment on stage, shortly afterwards football took over. Svensson has a deep love for the game and whilehe doesn’t support any one team, he spent his childhood watching Premier League matches with his dad and brothers. Football became his focus.

The turning point came just before he graduated school when he landed a part in that year’s closing play, a gathering of all the local colleges. “Everybody was like, oh shit the football guy with Adidas pants who always talks about Zlatan and Messi, he’s on stage singing this ballad,” Svensson laughs. “So everybody was like, oh shit you can sing, you have to do something with this, it’s the Idol audition on Wednesday next week.”

Svensson says he entered naively, and everything thereafter was a whirlwind. “In a month, it was just like - what happened?” he says. “I was on magazine covers, I didn’t even know what I went into. And then the circus just went on and then three years later I woke up and was like, what happened? Is this what I want to do? Who am I? I was nineteen at the time and obviously I hadn’t found out who I was as a person, and even less as an artist. So I was finding that out, singing covers on Swedish TV. It’s just mental when I’m looking back now.”

Svensson released two albums via Universal before he started to find himself and the confidence to follow his own path. He bought himself out of his contract and took inspiration from Robyn, setting up Oliniho Records. “I put in all the money I had,” he says. “Everybody was like, you’re stupid, what are you doing? But I just had to do it. I love Robyn, and I worked a lot with the same people she worked with. I worked with Klaus Åhlund and I worked with Kleerup.”

Robyn founded Konichiwa Records after failing to find a label to release her music, including “With Every Heartbeat”. The single was a UK number one in 2007. “It’s always like that,” sighs Svensson. “My biggest hit in Sweden (“Natalie”), nobody wanted to release it, and it was number one for three months. Kleerup played me the demo version of “With Every Heartbeat” and I will never forget that moment. It was the first or second time I was in the studio with him and every fucking hair on my body was like - pshhht. It was insane. It was like jumping into pop history.”

"I thought that Robyn did everything herself. So I started to direct videos, I started to send out press releases, I did the whole thing.."

Svensson went on to self-release two albums, licensing them around Europe and finding success in other countries. However, the process left him burnt out. “I looked at Robyn and I was like, I can do that. But what I didn’t understand was that she still had a team around her, she had a team. I thought that she did everything herself. So I started to direct videos, I started to send out press releases, I did the whole thing. So after those two albums I was absolutely drained. I had no energy left, my inspiration was gone, and I remember I came back from the last show we had in Milan and I was depressed and I had totally no energy.”

Taking some time out, he began slowly writing again but with other artists in mind. “I found some inspiration in working with other acts and not being focused on me at all” he says. However, three of the tracks, “Strangers On An Island”, “Shine” and “Hallelujah” stood out to Svensson’s publisher, Julius. “He was like, Ola, I think we have three songs we can’t pitch - they’re too personal to you. And that’s when the idea of creating something new for me came up. Because I couldn’t do what I’d done before because I couldn’t find inspiration. It was like, that’s one chapter, I need to find something else now.”

The inspiration for Brother Leo came from his imaginary childhood twin. “I had this twin brother who was more fearless than me,” he explains. “He was more confident, he had the answers to all the questions I was going around in my little hometown wondering about. And I called him Leo. He was a comfort for me in a way. He was fearless, that was the main thing. And I thought, that’s how I want to approach my music. If I’m gonna do this I want to jump into this with as little fear as possible. And then I thought that name would be good and I’ll always be reminded of Leo during this journey that I’m on.”

Svensson’s publisher shared the new material and within weeks labels began reaching out to the pair with one label exec standing out from the crowd, Ferdy Unger-Hamilton, former president of Polydor and recently appointed president of Columbia Records in the UK. He co-owns Promised Land Recordings with Sony, where Brother Leo signed. “He came to Stockholm two or three times and we just talked music and I just felt like, ok, this is actually a music man,” smiles Svensson. “His passion is in music. So after a while I was like, ok let’s go. Let’s do this.”

“I think all humans, we have all different colours in us...I want to be able to express all those emotions, and for me, that is honesty."

His first single was “Strangers On An Island”. A bouncing, neon-bright melody with sardonically dark lyrics, the track was produced by Norman Cook. “I had a demo version, I don’t know if you know Peter Björn and John?” he asks. “I love them so much. I’ve been writing a lot with Björn Yttling. First he heard that song and he made some rough production on it and I sent that version to Ferdy and he loved that song, and then I think he played it to Norman and then Norman wanted to do it. Obviously he’s a legend in so many ways and it’s just so sad because he put in a sample from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”, which was quite a big reference when I wrote the song. So he put in that guitar. But one or two weeks away from release we got declined so we couldn’t use it. That took months to get over for me.”

Three more singles followed including the rising “Barcelona” and party rush of “Push Up”. While the production across his singles varies greatly, the one constant is Svensson’s thick tone, full of character and rich with emotion. The visual side is extremely important to Svensson too. Videos like “Strangers On An Island” and “Barcelona” are impeccably done, arresting and entertaining in equal measure.

Svensson’s newest track, “Hallelujah” is his darkest to date. A striking ballad that’s packed with raw sentiment. Uplifting and damning, it’s a beautiful piece of work and one that’s taken him over five years to complete. “I’d been celebrating Christmas with my family in Lund, and I was about to jump on the bus and it was a really hard time for me on many levels” he explains. “A lot of close relationships were troubled. A lot of things in my life were not good. I tried a lot of stuff, I went to a psychiatrist, I tried their magic pills and I couldn’t find a solution. The last resort for me was to turn up to some kind of higher power, even though I’m not religious the song came out like some kind of prayer, a cry for help. So when I jumped on that bus, most of the song came to me. I just put down the lyrics and sang into my phone and the week after I did a demo. I sat on that bus, I saw Sweden passing by, it was a very hard bus drive but it was also beautiful. I got it out. I found some comfort in making that song, definitely. There’s a before and after to that bus ride.”

Having worked through five different producers over half a decade, and enlisted the voices of the London Community Gospel Choir, it’s certainly been an odyssey. “It’s such a big thing for me that it’s out. There is a god! I have goosebumps now by the way” he laughs with relief. “I feel like I won the biggest prize by getting it out there and I closed the book.”

For now, Svensson will continue to release music from the party tunes to the dark croons, looking towards a bigger body of work in the near future. “I think all humans, we have all different colours in us,” he explains. “I want to be able to express all those emotions, and for me, that is honesty.”

Honesty can be a pretty scary thing sometimes, but luckily for Brother Leo, he is fearless.

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