5 minutes with Swedish songstress GERD

Some artists are meant for a sunny day. Some are destined for your rainy drive home. Then, some artists crawl into the dustier ends of your psyche, clearing cobwebs off the painful parts, and unearthing that which must be healed. Enter: Elin Lundgren. Known onstage as GERD, indie-pop’s newest darling urges you to look inward. Fresh off the heels of a three-year hiatus, the EMI Sweden signee promises she’s going “darker than ever” amid the drop of her newest track, ‘Truth to be Told’. 

As heard in this latest release, GERD’s lyrics cut into deep wounds that refuse to mend, translating trauma for the catharsis of her audience. Delicate, folksy strains — à la Florence Welch — are the soundtrack to GERD’s otherworldly realm of mud-caked lace. A dreamscape unfurls in her melodies, touring listeners through a labyrinthine shared consciousness. With authentic visuals created entirely by herself and her boyfriend, GERD offers fans permission to escape into ethereal melancholy. To baptize themselves in soft-spoken hysterics

This resonance was evidently much-needed, as GERD’s skyrocket to the global stage sets 2026 as her biggest year yet. While the Karlstad native bemoans, “I used to sparkle in a room”, in ‘Truth to be Told’, we’ve only just begun to witness her shine.

Your talent seems so innate, almost primal. What are your earliest memories of exploring your musicality?

My parents signed me up for a rhythmics class when I was one. We hit things and made sounds. Eventually, I aged out of rhythmics and into opera. Since I’m from a small Swedish town famous for opera training, that was the only musical option. 

How did you bridge an opera education with your style today?

I turned 15, and opera was no longer cool. I wanted to play the guitar and hang out with boys. Opera wasn’t working any longer, so my parents were insistent in saying, “You should find your own voice.”

Which early inspirations were integral to this self-discovery?

I love Kate Bush and attempted to imitate her sound, but it wasn’t right for me. When I applied to music school in London, the admission requirement was a written song. That was one of the first pieces that I wrote. I realised it’s so much more fun to sing lyrics that you wrote yourself, that actually mean something.

What did your process look like when creating these newest tracks you’re releasing?

More Water Than Anything [GERD’s album dropping in June] started in my hometown. We have a small cabin on its own island, so you have to go by boat. It’s in the deep forest. We have swimming moose, which is such a cool thing. It’s super scary if you’re going swimming, but never mind that… At this cabin, I’d have a glass of wine and sit at the piano in solitude. That peace becomes very inspirational. Everything these days is so curated. It feels pathetic. When you’re out in the forest, on an island with moose, you realise you’re just a person. The environment helped me to create songs that are raw.

You’ve mentioned in the past how interested you are in building a world around your music. What does that universe look like? 

It’s a safe space for my listeners. Go to a GERD concert and cry with other people, or listen to it at home with a glass of wine. I hope my music feels inviting and human, with a bit of magic. Today, we invite everyone into what we had for lunch, or exactly what we did last night. Sometimes I think we’ve lost a little bit of that magic. I’ve set out to find it.

While your work is so personal, you consider your fans in every step of creating. Is a shared experience of your lyrics the ultimate goal?

I love the idea of everyone having their own version of the song. It connects them to me and to each other. I want us all to feel something that’s real.

This humanity has also been said of your live performances. You create a palpable magic onstage. How do you bring that to life?

I try to do the concert like a story. This relates back to my musical days. The set design, costuming, ambient sound; everything points to, ‘How can we feel like this whole room is not just strangers?’ The goal is to build a community that gathers to feel something together. 

There’s a water-based throughline in your discography, between its roots at your lake house, your debut album Meet Me In The Blue (2024) and the June release of More Water Than Anything. Is that intentional?

I welcome the ugliness of human nature. In that regard, I named the album More Water Than Anything because of a nature documentary I watched. It’s strange to think that I’m mostly made out of water, as is this whole planet around us. We are over-complicating things. This needs to be acknowledged for our sanity and to empower us.  

Your Instagram feed begins in January 2026. Was that to herald this new era of music? 

This is such a new era. I had a huge gap, which involved connecting with myself again, trying to figure out why I’m doing this, and finding inspiration for the new songs. I’m evolving, and fully embracing that.

Does that process ever feel too heavy? It’s therapeutic, but can it bog you down mentally?

I do this so I can be a happier person outside of music. I love doing live performances because of the community, but I wonder, ‘Why did I write this?’ Now I have to relive it 20 times this summer. It is a blessing and a curse, because it does bandage the wounds when people connect with the songs. We are trying to do something with intention. 

Where did the moniker GERD come from? 

It’s my middle name from my grandmother. At school in London, people couldn’t pronounce my first name [Elin]. If you translate Gerd to Swedish, it means a woman who takes care of her own. It is a Viking woman’s name. That became the foundation of the kind of artist I want to be and who I see myself writing the music for. 

Tell us about your hauntingly addictive new single, ‘Truth Be Told’.

‘Truth Be Told’ is about the feeling that I was losing my light. In making the song, we played around with key changes to evoke that journey. The lyrics discuss losing a part of myself without really noticing that it happened. I needed a song that could take me from a dark place to a lighter one. I used the key changes to push myself forward. 

In the past several months, you have been named a Spotify Equal ambassador and been featured on numerous billboards and playlists across the world. This is only the beginning of a record year for you, but what has been the greatest pinch-me moment so far?

It’s the DMs from the people that mean the most. It’s making a listener realise, ‘Someone else gets it’. It is still so insane when people come forward and say my song made them feel less alone. That is my greatest takeaway.