Back in her cold homeland of Norway Marit Larsen always enjoys a warm reception, thanks to her impressive catalogue—she released two albums with M2M and four solo ones and toured with Jason Mraz. Her recent solo effort, When The Morning Comes, finally hit USA in January. The album was recorded in Nashville, but Marit’s already back home and working on the new EP to be released in April. And while one of her latest hits is titled "I Don’t Want To Talk About It," we certainly wanted to talk to Marit about her intricate career path. Below are 10 things you should know about the Norwegian pop star.

You May Remember Her as ½ of M2M

That’s right: back in the late '90s, Marit was living a bubblegum pop teen dream as part of the duo M2M with her best pal Marion Raven. The sugar rush lasted for four years, before all the big label’s shenanigans took their toll on the young singers and they parted ways to launch solo careers.

“I’m so freaking thankful for it!”, Marit tells us about the whole experience. “It was the best school of pop music I could’ve ever attended. And then I had a mid-life crisis when I was 19 [laughs]. And then I got to start over. I feel like I was so young when I got that record deal. I was 15! So I don’t think I’d even really put into words what my dreams were or if I’d wanted a huge record label contract. We were on for four years non-stop: we only went home for Christmas, I finished my education on the road, etc. If somebody had told me what it was going to be like, I wouldn’t have dared to do it. But since I was swooped into it and all of a sudden ended up in this big amazing adventure, I learned so much that I benefited now in the second part of my career. I got to make a lot of mistakes back then that I don’t have to make now. I was so young, so I was able to take things in with the less jaded and cynical brain that I sometimes do now. I could be very purely excited about things.”

Music Is In Her Blood

“Both my parents are classical musicians," she divulges. "My father played the cello in the Oslo Philharmonic and we have beautiful concert hall here and I used to hang out during his rehearsals with the big orchestra. I heard them rehearse and at home I’d sit beneath my mother’s piano when she was having her students over. And I think my melodic sense comes from that time in my life. It was the time when I developed this want and need to become a composer and a songwriter.”

The First Ever Song She Wrote Was a Bitter Breakup Anthem

Marit laughs and hesitates to reveal the title of the first ever song she wrote. “It wasn’t any good! The bitter 13-year-old title was ‘Look Who’s Crying Now,' and it had really poor English, but you have to start somewhere, right? And most of the music I was listening to then had English lyrics, so that’s why I started writing in English.”

She Set Up Her Own Label to Release Her New Album in the USA

Evidently Marit really cares for her fans. “I’ve saw on social media that I have quite a big audience in America. And some of them are importing my records for a lot of money and it makes me feel really bad. I really wanted to be available. So I made my own label and I got the owner of my roster, who is Warner Music, to license my music to my little label. It was about time for my American audience. They might remember M2M, they might remember “If A Song Could Get Me You” from a few years back. But there’s been such a huge gap of time between the releases”.

So at the end of January When The Morning Comes was released in the States. “I’m so proud of these songs. This is my fourth solo album and with every record I feel closer to the core of what I want to be as a storyteller and an artist. And I also feel like I’m getting closer to my audience”.

The Album was Recorded in Nashville

For the recording of When The Morning Comes Marit had to physically leave her comfort zone—Norway—and head to the center of all the things she likes: music and coffee. That’s how she ended up in Nashville, TN.

“I had noticed that in the recent years all the music that I heard and that really affected me and really hit me in my heart and in my gut came from Nashville. Not just country! I went there to investigate what’s there in the water. I found a different city than I was expecting. Great music scene: even outside of the country genre. Lots of amazing really hip coffee places (I’m a total coffee geek!). Made a bunch of great new friends, too. It was fun for me to record somewhere where English is the spoken language. It was good to be surrounded by the language for my writing and everything”.

Does she ever plan to record a mature country-inspired M2M record, maybe? “You never know. But there are no plans at the moment,” she says with a laugh.

She’s Already Working on New Music

In fact, we talked with Marit after her rehearsal. “I just came home from a 9-hour rehearsal with my band. I’m very happy and very exhausted. We usually like to do intense days like this. It allows for a more focused process. Right now we’re rehearsing songs from my catalogue: there are about 50 songs that I’ve done as a solo artist. I’m also releasing new music in April, so we’re rehearsing new songs as well.”

Yes, She’s Coming to the USA Soon

“I’m planning a small tour in the fall. It’s all getting worked out. But now that I can make my own decisions, I can make progress faster, because I can decide on everything with my tiny little team,” she explains.

She’s a Self-Proclaimed Over-Thinker

The question to describe her music using a single word turns to be quite a challenge for Marit. “One word? That’s impossible!”, she exclaims before finally coming up with an answer, “If I can cheat a little bit, I’ll say that as a composer I’m an over-thinker. I’m very particular about my writing, I go back and change things a million times. I’m trying to get better at trusting my instincts and releasing music sooner. That is a project I have for 2016: to try to not go over things thousand times. By now I’ve written songs for a really long time and most interesting things happen when I have to make decisions based on my instinct. I think when music gets too deep into your brain, you sometimes make decisions that make your music less dangerous to yourself and your listeners.”

So maybe next year the word she’ll be using is going to be a risk-taker? “Exactly. I feel like one already: I’m heading into the studio in one week to record something that comes out in April. Although now things can move faster. You don’t have to sit around and wait for anything. And it’s so much more exciting for me, too!”

She Has Her Own Theory About Lips

"I Don’t Want To Talk About This," the lead single from When The Morning Comes, opens with the line "This is not a song about his lips." So are lips her favorite male feature? “Lips are one of the most personal spots on your body. So when you’re talking about somebody’s lips, you’re almost talking about who they are. You don’t know somebody’s lips unless you’ve been there.”

She Knows the Secret of Immortality

“I’ve written songs about a lot of people. And some people have written songs about me, too. I feel like it’s an honor even with the mean songs. It kinda makes you immortal in a way," she says. "You will live in that song forever, no matter what happens. And I’ve never been deliberately mean. It’s just that sometimes I digest in my songs”.