El Perro Del Mar sits backstage at the Mod Club in Toronto, strewn gracefully across a black leather couch. Her fingers with orange-painted nails tuck her bright blonde hair behind her ear.

She has just finished her sound check for a show that evening. And while she may be tired from all the hubbub of touring, the alternative pop singer is always ready to get back on stage.

“There is one moment when I think that I am very at ease and very happy – very uncomplicated-happy – and that is when I am singing,” El Perro Del Mar, real name Sarah Assbring, tells andPOP. “I love the way that [music] can totally just change your mind; that it can feel like you’re in a mood that you’re totally sure about and totally just over taken by and then you can listen to music … that can totally turn you around and change your mood or change your idea, or give you ideas.”

In regards to her own music, she describes it as “something very personal. It always starts with something very personal that I need to pick out from my soul or from my heart, and then I turn into something.”

For her latest album, the Swedish singer took a different approach to love.

“Love Is Not Pop,” released in October 2009, is her third full-length album. Featuring the song “Change Of Heart” which was recently remixed by fellow Swedish singer Robyn, El Perro Del Mar said the album is about “the darker side of love, and what drives you to be in a relationship and then to end it.

“But it is also about the grandiose, the beautiful, the eternal thing in love that it’s so much greater than just pop,” she added. “I see it as a riddle in that though … the actual relationship can end, the love that was once there will never go away.”

For this seasoned artist, music is not just music. It is a deep form of personal expression that results in powerful and mystical melodies that sweep into her heaven-like voice.

“It is so important [to write based on personal experience] that I feel like I kind of limit myself when I try to just write something,” says El Perro Del Mar. “I have a real difficult time writing words; even words I cannot really feel are my own words. It always has to, to me, feel like it is straight from the heart in every kind of way.”

And in her case, even her outfit name came from a deeply personal experience.

“El Perro Del Mar,” which translates from Spanish to “the dog from the sea,” came from a time about seven years ago when she was going through a difficult personal revelation.

“Before that I had been involved in different kinds of projects and different kinds of bands, always working together with people and always feeling like I never really did what I really felt I wanted to do,” she says. “In the end it seemed like I compromised too much and the music had to be sacrificed because of that compromise, and I was always really unsatisfied with that.”

She was in Spain during that time, trying to decide whether to really go for a career in music and pursue it the way she wanted, or step back and do something else.

“I spent most of my time on the beach, and this stray dog that seemed to be living by the beach as well came up to me and stopped and looked at me,” she recalls. “And because of the state I was in I felt like the most simple thing could speak to me; I needed a simple thing, like a simple creature, to come and tell me what I should do. It felt like it was speaking to me, and it just ended up being a name that I called the dog and a name that I wrote down in my notebook. And when I started really making music again and getting it out there, I felt like, ‘This is the start for me to be honest, to be in control of what I do, and to stand up for myself.’ And it felt like there could be no other – no better name – than El Perro Del Mar.”

On tour in support of “Love Is Not Pop,” El Perro Del Mar is joined by another brilliant Swedish artist and friend, Victoria Bergsman, also known as Taken By Trees. The two have been friends for years, and El Perro Del Mar calls it a “beautiful coincidence” that they were able to finish their latest albums around the same time and hit the road together.

And while El Perro Del Mar modestly fills the Mod Club, she has no plans to book the Air Canada Centre anytime soon.

“I feel I’m extremely privileged,” she says. “I don’t really think of “hitting” or anything like that. I just think I’m very happy and feel very privileged to be able to come play my music here.”

Her refreshing take on success and uninhibited musical style highlight the honesty of her art, proving that this Swede can feel at home anywhere – just hand her the mic.






Related Stories: