Swedish duo lennixx sat down with GUAP to discuss their debut project hapap, and the creative process behind it as well as some of their journey so far.

How do you guys feel, having released your first project together as lennixx a couple of days ago?

It feels amazing! We’ve worked really hard for this moment, and all the hard work we’ve put in to hapap has paid off, we’re really happy with it and excited for this new chapter. We hope this release takes us places we can grow, learn and then go on to release more music. hapap set a perfect start for us, 6 tracks that present our musical diversity.

You guys were formerly known as Hanna & Andrea, but now chose the name lennixx why did you change the name and how did you choose it?

We’ve always wanted to share a group name, something more than just our first names, something that defines us as a duo. We brainstormed a lot of different names over the last few years, but nothing stuck and it felt meaningless to go by a name that we didn’t connect with.

For years, we’ve both had alter-egos; Andrea’s is “Lennox”, let’s not get into Hanna’s… One day, we were reflecting on “Lennox” and felt an immediate connection with the name. Given that it was only Andrea’s name, we chose to twist it a bit – “lennixx” was the result, it was our own and felt perfect for our sound too. The ‘xx’ at the end represents the sex chromosomes for a woman.

You are often presented as Scandi-pop in the media but how would you describe your sound?

On the whole, we would argue we’re not presented that way, but with no new released music since ‘Always On My Mind’ 2 and a half years ago, and being two young Swedish girls, people might put us in that category; this is something we’ve intentionally escaped as lennixx. It’s always hard to pigeon-hole your own music, but if we had to it’d be soulful contemporary r&b.

Hapap seems like it has a mix of influences in it, what made you take this direction?

We didn’t think of it as taking a different direction as such, but more us going to create a style of music we love and would listen to ourselves. We wanted to be unpredictable and fresh, create our own immediately recognisable sound, something that we find is rare to find – especially in Sweden.

It sounds like you tried to break the trends of what is considered Scandi-pop, what made you choose to bring in more urban elements?

We feel it’s more just us going our own way, not breaking any trends, it’s more just making the sort of thing we love listening to, we’ve never really considered ourselves a ‘Scandi-pop’ duo, but we love our new writing-style and experimenting with melodies and lyrics; something we’d still like to achieve is to develop and brand our own distinct sound. We’re constantly inspired by other artists and genres, and incorporating something of our own from these influences.

What was the creation process like for you guys working on this one? As a duo how much input did each of you have in terms of the projects direction and overall sound?

We put equal amounts into hapap; we’re lucky to be extremely alike in the way we think which makes the process a lot easier – we’re constantly bouncing off each other.

We prefer to write lyrics ourselves making it sometimes unnecessary to have a co-writer involved, however we’re always open to outside contribution. We’re heavily involved in the project as a whole both musically and visually, we always make the executive decisions on the general creative direction.

Who were your biggest influences musically for this project?

Our biggest musical inspirations for hapap were SZA, Jorja Smith, Amy Winehouse and Kali Uchis, just to name a few. They’ve all got such a distinctive sound, something we also aim to achieve.

What has been your favourite part of your musical journey so far?

The amount of time we’ve invested in writing each song – every lyric is personal and connected to us 100%. We’ve learned a lot writing this mixtape; what works for us and what doesn’t, and have become a lot more conscious of how we’re presented through our music. We’ve also evolved as individuals through writing, it’s been like therapy for our thoughts and brought us even closer in our friendship, sharing absolutely everything with each other.

If you could work with anybody dead or alive on a song who would you choose and why?

We would very very much like to work with SZA and Frank Ocean, something we see as a huge goal of ours. But, it’s always been a dream to have had the chance to work with one of our biggest inspirations musically, the iconic and incredible Amy Winehouse.

Will you be going on tour anytime soon, and if yes where will you be performing?

For the moment we are still planning out our next move, excited for all sorts of opportunities. We really want to go on tour and explore the live-performing scene more.

What can we expect next from you guys?

Hopefully touring and getting to perform our songs live, maybe in countries other than Sweden too. But also you can expect more music we’ve been working on, maybe even a new single pretty soon…

Where can everybody find you and your music?

Our music is released on all platforms: Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Youtube etc. And you can find us on social media, instagram: @lennixxduo , twitter: @lennixxduo , facebook: lennixxduo.