Aftonbladet: Roxette to conquer the world again

In the Friday’s paper and online editions of Aftonbladet – the great feature about Roxette’s forthcoming tour and album was published by Jens Peterson. He was Roxette’s guest during several concerts in 2011 – in Poland and Sweden – and last week he also visited Roxette in the Stockholm Atlantis Studio, where the last recording session for T2 album took place. Here are the most interesting quotes from Marie, Per and pieces of information they revealed.

Big thanks to Evgeny Perekopskiy for all his help.

Marie Fredriksson

I like doing concerts. Everything is fantastic. I’m so damn happy – you have no idea how. Being able to tour at all and then to continue for another year – it is absolutely superb.

It’s not so difficult to rehearse new songs. We take it slowly. No stress. The best part is that we know each other so well. Per doesn’t need to sit and watch when I’m doing vocals or other things. We help each other.

There are at least two singles on the new album. I really like all the songs on the new album – it’s hard to pick just one.

It’s exciting to come back to Australia. It was there when Mike (Marie’s husband) and I met. It was 20 years ago. My voice gets better and better. More you sing, the stronger voice gets. The best thing is to play and sing as much as possible. What you get tired of are travels, planes and dry air. The actual concert is the best there is.

Per Gessle

There is a lot of positive energy in the band when you tour so much. It’s fun to try to catch this feeling. We observed that with the previous “Tourism” album that it is a different thing [to record on tour] than when you record everything in a studio. We have recorded songs at the hotel in Sun City, South Africa, at the soundcheck in Dubai, live stuff from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

There will be more new songs than we used to plan. Out of 15 songs – 10 are new ones. The attitude was spontaneous.

We are recording a documentary – something that we have began last year and a concert film. We will record a concert in South America.

Most of new songs have been written last year. Then there are some that are a couple-year-old. As usual, we make the cover for the LP and it will be reduced later to CD booklet format. It will be a fine LP in each case. We are so old that you just think in LP-categories.

It is difficult to imagine what radio stations will play. But that what we thought last time too and “She’s got nothing on (But the Radio)” received extremely high radio ratings. It was no. four in the world list two weeks in a row. It was played a lot in South America and England.

T2 has a different sound than “Charm School”. This is more like “My Sweet Lord” record. We won’t probably play new songs in Australia and New Zealand as it’s more of the World Tour 2011 continuation. But when the album comes out in the late March, then we will rehearse couple of new songs for South America.

US/Canada shows seem to be happening too, but how and when – it is too early to tell. There will be a European swing in the summer. The only negative thing about touring is that you are so tired. You are not 50 anymore.

It is incredible. It is a super-revival. A huge comeback. This tour will be the largest we’ve done. Totally bizarre.

Clarence Öfwerman

Per usually presents guitar version of his songs to us directly in the studio. Which is nice. It’s more fun to work on them from the beginning.