In a long line of minuscule, platinum blonde bubble-gum pop princesses, there is just one that has managed to successfully take both the dance world and commercial world by storm of late. Now that the Australian release of her long-awaited debut is nigh, the ever-chirpy Nordic beauty managed to spare a few minutes for ITM’s Semone Maksimovic. To talk about her first impressions of Australia, finishing the album that has been so long coming and the difficult task of going on after the loss of a loved one.

Most of us would have had our first taste of the pop-tastic classic ‘Chewing Gum’, which has been steadily soaring up the charts since it was featured on Bang Gang’s 2005 ‘Mashed #2’ release. But what a lot of you wouldn’t know, is that Annie has been around contemplating her next move for a great deal longer than that. It was of course 6 years ago now that she took her first step to the dancefloor with her then producer/partner Tore ‘Erot’ Kroknes and released ‘The Greatest Hit’. A track based on a looped sample of Madonna’s ‘Everybody’, which had won her fans and accolades the world over, just with that one vinyl release. Now with all eyes on the seemingly unstoppable twosome, they decided to follow it up while the vibe was still hot, and with that they came up with ‘I Will Go On’. It was soon after this that Annie was truly tested as both an artist and a human being, as Tore was hospitalised and later died as a result of a life-long heart defect.

But amidst the tears and memories, came a strong urgency to get back out there and finish up the album they’d planned to release together. “I think that it made me very clear about where I was going and much stronger focussed. I think when that sort of thing happens, it’s really important to have some kind of goal for yourself and my goal was to finish the album. Which was good, cause when I started it, I wasn’t sure of anything, I didn’t even know if I could complete it” shares Annie in a moment of touching-honesty. “Of course it was always going to be difficult. Cause the plan was going to be, me and him doing it together, so that was of course strange to deal with. But after overcoming some of the sadness, I knew that I just had to get it out there and keep going, for both me and him.”

So when putting together the tracklist for ‘Anniemal’ it was difficult to ignore that first single, the first honorary chapter in her catalogue “At first, I really wasn’t sure if I was going to include it on the album. But when I listened to the songs, it didn’t sound too old or too different and I know there were so many people that had heard the song and couldn’t get hold of it. So I decided to include it, cause it was such a big part of my past in many different ways,” she confides.

‘Anniemal’ has already enjoyed the release excitement in the UK and US and has had fans of all ages flocking to their nearest clubs to catch a live glimpse of Annie and her band. An older couple were so intrigued by her sassy pop sounds, that they flew from their US home all the way to Norway just to take in a special live show in Bergen. “I’m well-versed with the whole touring thing now, after spending the past year on the road in the US and throughout the UK and Europe. I’ve started to really enjoy playing live now,” she offers, before continuing, “I guess I was enjoying it before, but it’s just very difficult with an album that is very much studio based. You have to try to think of ways to make it sound interesting and not just exactly like the record, so we’re now happy to be where we wanted to be in that sense.”

With the live show evolving on a daily basis, she’s hoping that by the end of the year, she’ll be able to indulge in a much larger live band, to add just that extra spectacular something to her already sublime shows. “I’ve always been fascinated by those old stereotyped ‘disco’ bands, that have many people playing, even the smallest of percussion instruments,” she admits, “so hopefully it won’t be too long before I can work together something like that” she laughs.

Annie also had her first taste of Australia, earlier this year as she popped in for two very special DJ gigs in Melbourne and Sydney. Her first impressions of Australia, are hard to beat and have her excited about coming back in July for her first live shows. “I really loved it out there! It was really funny, cause I didn’t know too much about Australia beforehand” she freely embarrassingly admits “I’d just heard about the beautiful nature and animals. So I really liked it, everything was gorgeous and the people were all so friendly.”

The laidback attitude affected her so much that she managed to get some much-needed new material finished while enjoying her extended break up in Byron Bay. “Yeah, I got to do some writing done while I was out there too, so the setting clearly got me inspired, Australia gave me back my inspiration!” laughs the sweet voiced Annie.

‘Anniemal’ is out now locally on Ministry of Sound/EMI, be sure to keep an eye out for some local live action come July!