Sometimes Adam, the singer with shout out louds, wishes he had a normal job, but, he tells Tony Clayton-Lea, the key to being happy in the music business is to keep control of your own destiny

LAST year, it was Canadian acts whichgrabbed the attention and the headlines, hogged the charts, and had their music used as the intro to U2 shows. This year, those thigh-slapping Swedes have their time in the limelight. From Abba to The Cardigans, right up to The Concretes and now Shout Out Louds, the Swedish have proved there is life after Eurovision.

If The Cardigans started the post-Abba process of reinventing pop, and The Concretes picked up the gauntlet thrown down by The Magic Numbers, then Stockholm's Shout Out Louds have looked towards the likes of Arcade Fire for their template of highly serviceable, indie-oriented music.

Shout Out Louds' lead singer Adam agrees that it's all about quality. "There are a lot of great bands from Scandinavia right now, but for the past five years or so the music scene has been especially good."

Shout Out Louds have been around for over five years; Adam (vocals), Ted (bass), Carl (guitar), Eric (drummer) and Bebban (keyboards) are childhood friends who forged their collective relationship via a singularly Swedish mindset of, says Adam, "wanting to find out different ways to do things." He reckons that if you want to do something that will endear you to the Swedish people, then you have to find your own sound.

Being obsessive is the key, posits Adam, to a lifetime of success, albeit one that is inevitably speckled with recurring bouts of misery. Like many bands before them, Shout Out Louds write and sing about love-induced states of anxiety. Adam doesn't have a clue why this is so. "It's good to be obsessive, though," he sidetracks, "and writing about emotions like that is par for the course for many creative people. It makes life more interesting to go all the way with what you do, I think. In fact, I wish I were more obsessed with the music, to be honest. It takes up a lot of my time - which is fair enough - but there are times when I miss what some people term an ordinary job. I have friends who have nine-to-five jobs, and part of me envies that. Sometimes I would like to work in a grocery store or the post office, do ordinary things, become once again an ordinary person."

Adam is clearly becoming wistful about the way life was lived before modest fame kicked in his door. There is a part of him, he continues, that struggles with all the touring and recording. What keeps his life together, he says, is being in control of various band activities. "It's great that we do everything - particularly CD cover artwork and posters - by ourselves."

Another thing that keeps the black dog from barking is the band's forthcoming Irish show. Ireland, comments Adam with what sounds suspiciously like a sigh, was one of the first places the band wanted to visit.

"I see it as a romantic place, very beautiful, almost like a fairy tale," he waxes. "I saw a programme on TV a few years ago, where people travelled around Ireland on a horse and caravan. We had an idea that we should do that with the band, having horses driving us around. But then we thought it could turn out quite messy, for obvious reasons.

"So, maybe it's a bus for us this time, eh?"