For a number of years, the DJ and producer has wanted to tell his story:
About going from being a cautious boy who was bullied – to an international world star who has created an atmosphere at some of the world’s biggest festivals. He just had to grow up enough first to realize the way it was going to happen.
– It was to use the book to help inspire the younger generation to gain perspective. Give them an image that they are not alone. And that you can also read other people’s stories and perhaps find a hint of hope and inspiration to pave your own path.
Tom Stræte Lagergren, which is his real name, hopes the stories can help give young readers some basic tools.
– That they learn to go into themselves and not necessarily be too afraid of their own fear and fear of doing things.
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Ten turning point
The 32-year-old selected ten stories that have been turning points in his life. It was tough to go back and relive his childhood and youth while working on the book, he admits.
– It was… strong. It has cost a bit, to be honest. But I feel I stand well in it, that I have weight. Everyone experiences their everyday life as unique, and I cannot put myself in the situation of a 13-year-old today. But I myself have been a child. I myself have experienced the feeling of being different – that you don’t fit in. When you have periods in your life where you feel useless, helpless, alone, I want to tell you that there are tools that can help.
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Became active
Young Tom himself sought refuge in music. But he didn’t just sit in the boys’ room and listen to music. He also got involved in the cultural sector where he grew up in a small settlement in Solør.
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– I made myself active. I didn’t allow my head to just sit at home and think about all these things. Rather, I vented it through the music. Not only the happy thoughts, but also the sad ones that came. But if you look at the statistics today, those numbers are not in favor of children and young people’s mental health. Neither is the development of society, as it moves towards more and more individualism – and fewer and fewer offers on the cultural and sports front.
Matoma on stage when in 2022 he remembered the victims of the mass shooting in Oslo by coloring the entire stage in Pride colors at the Fredvika Festival in Gjøvik. Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB
Shows emotions
In the book, penned by Stian Hjelvin Andersen, Matoma is very direct about how he experiences artist life and the music industry after ten years of speed. He wanted to go deeper, where he feels that what is most talked about is the superficial.
– I wanted to try to let everyone understand what this life is like: At times absolutely fantastic, at times tough. But that’s life, full of contrasts. It can’t just be “up”, says Matoma – known for showing emotions across the spectrum. He was easily tearful in “Hver gang vi møde”, while his strong expression of joy is referred to in a Karpe song as “how happy are you on a scale from zero to Matoma”.
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– That’s how I am. I guess I’ve never really hidden it, but it’s only now that I’ve had the opportunity to show it.
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In the book, he describes how a dice-one from a reviewer after a concert led him straight back to the bad feelings of his childhood. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB
Not dice
In the book, he describes how a dice-one from a reviewer after a concert led him straight back to the bad feelings of his childhood.
– I guess I’ve mostly only received negative criticism in the Norwegian media. It’s a bit like the country we live in, he says seriously and talks about the Jante law and a need to throw dice “at everything”. He stops there, becomes cheerful again, and would rather talk about how individual music is – “in the same way as a life”.
– If you are going to start rolling the dice and give people a rating on things that are not based on competition, then you are creating the wrong image. I make a small settlement in the book with how I have been treated. But the book, by and large, is a book of love, not just a “now I’m going to write about all these crazy experiences of mine” kind of book. But it is important to illuminate both sides. Because we have become a society where we look to everyone else’s confirmations, and then we forget to reflect a little inward.
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About the title
– The book title is “Matoma – Never good enough”. Why?
– It’s after the voice in the head, the scream that everyone really feels. We do it anyway, hears this inner critic. And why do we have it? That’s the question. I wrote the book because it is damn important to get these things said, says Matoma – who swears for the first and only time during the interview.