MTV Iggy's Artist of the Week on the Adele comparisons, and the young woman behind the disaffected glance

Miriam Bryant appeared as if from nowhere with wizened, dramatic, soul-grit voice you would never guess stems from a 21-year-old Gothenburg girl. (Well, Sweden is always the second guess. But not the first.)

Miriam has dropped her gorgeous, tense single “Finders, Keepers” upon the earth, and — with barely online information to her name — garnered our Artist of the Week crown this week. We decided to eke out some information from this fresh star who might be the world’s next Adele.

Were you surprised by how many people are willing to stay up all night clicking for you?

I thought it was only my mom! [laughs] Until I got loads of emails from people telling me they’d voted, which made me happy, and maybe a bit surprised…Mostly grateful to be honest.

How annoying are the Adele comparisons?

Comparisons can be annoying sometimes but in this case people are comparing me to one of the world’s most talented singers, and it takes talent to be compared to someone who is so talented, so I take it as a compliment. Adele has an absolutely stunning voice. But at the end of the day we do have quite different sounds.

Tell us about where you came from and what made Miriam Miriam.

My mum is Finnish and my dad is English. They met in Sweden, fell in love, got married, and there I was. Later on they got divorced, I was a teenager, things happened, good things and bad, life happened… And here I am now, a result of all those things.

How did you get into making music?

Thanks to my good friend Victor who had this school project, he asked me if I wanted to help him out and before I knew it we were writing cool songs and getting record deals… Crazy.

Where did you get that voice?

I don’t know… Simon Cowell gave it to me. [laughs] I don’t know…

Is it true that your house burned down? Tell the story, and about revisiting it.

Yeah, my little brother was playing Dexter’s Lab, he had found some matches and stuff and must’ve dropped one on the floor, he was only five. I got a phone call from someone in my family and came home to see our house on fire. Revisiting it was cool and scary and smelly, I used to sit on the roof watching the sky. And before they removed all the burned-down furniture I used to go in the house and try to figure out what was what.

Name three things that frighten you.

Planes, space and penalty shoot outs.

What does the future hold?

Hopefully great things! Who knows really. I’ll be around though.

Watch Miriam Bryant’s video for “Finders Keepers”