Per Gessle and Sven Lindström celebrated the 500th episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM last Sunday, 5th December.
The guys are chatting in Stockholm, talking about the beginnings 15 years ago. Per tells it was before Sven’s time. He started doing the show with Viktor Petrovski after he got a request from Sirius XM to do a show where they would play Scandinavian and Nordic music. Mr. G found it a cool idea. He wouldn’t have been able to do it on his own, so he needed someone to collaborate with. Viktor, a Swedish music journalist came up. It was fun and then Sven came along. Sven inserts „to make things worse”. The guys are laughing. Mr. G tells Sven is also a music journalist and author and his knowledge about Scandinavian music is pretty big. „Together we were unbeatable”, Per says. Sven tells it was a fun story when Scott Greenstein at Sirius – who came up with the idea, because he loves Scandinavian music – persuaded PG. He really came off as a fan when he discussed his idea with Per. Mr. G tells the first time they met, Scott quoted one of Per’s Swedish songs in Swedish for him. PG says it was pretty impressive that he took it seriously and learned Swedish for that. Per feels very honoured to have been part of this during the past 15 years. It’s pretty crazy.
Mr. G tells 15 years in the music industry is a very long time. Lots of things happened music-wise, the style of pop and rock music has changed. Per adds they are both – Sven and he – 15 years older, but their hearts still beat for the old stuff, they still prefer the old production styles and the old sounds. Even though Per is listening to a lot of new music as well to see what’s going on. The problem is that you’ve heard so much music throughout your life that you always compare things. The knowledge you have is incredible, because you’re getting old. Haha. Per has been a music fan since he was 5 years old, Sven tells. PG adds he had an older borther, a young teenager in the mid 60’s who bought all the records of The Beatles, The Kinks, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Byrds, so ever since he was very young, pop music has been his entire life. „My wife doesn’t like that, but that’s the truth”, Per says. Haha.
The guys dig deep into some Scandinavian classics and they kick off with one of their favourite bands’ song, Sister Surround by The Soundtrack of Our Lives from Gothenburg. Sven tells they had quite surrealistic album titles, e.g. Welcome to the Infant Freebase. Per thinks it’s a good title. Their second album’s title is Extended Revelation for the Psychic Weaklings of Western Civilization. „It’s no wonder they broke up”, Per laughs. Mr. G thinks they were an amazing band and it’s sad that they didn’t break through even bigger than they had. They had it all. A great front person, Ebbot Lundberg, the band was really cool with really good players and they also had great songs. They had success, but they didn’t become massive. For Per they are still one of the best bands that ever came out of Sweden.
The next track is Adiam Dymott’s Miss You. Then they play Hate To Say I Told You So by The Hives, another amazing band. They are the best when you see them live, PG thinks. HTSITYS, their breakthrough hit sounds a bit like MC5 on steroids to Mr. G. He loves it, it’s a great great track. Sven tells they also had some surrealistic titles, e.g. Some People Know All Too Well How Bad Liquorice, or Any Candy for That Matter, Can Taste When Having Laid Out in the Sun Too Long – And I Think I Just Ate Too Much. The guys are laughing. „Hard to beat!”, Per says.
The next one is Cardiac Arrest by Teddybears feat. Robyn. Per thinks it’s a great song, full of energy. Sven asks Per when he wrote a song about a deadly disease. Mr. G says it hasn’t happened yet. For PG the Teddybears is a band you should digest in small doses. They are a perfect singles band, he thinks. Sven says he can actually indulge in the Teddybears, he likes them a lot. They started out as punks and then they switched, but you can still hear this punkish, new wavish style in their DNA. Per loves all the synthesizer sounds they use, these toy or computer sounds. It’s fun, young and fresh. When they get a proper song made, it’s sensational. And Robyn is an amazing singer. On the Swedish edition of the song Teddybears are featuring Maipei, but Per prefers the Robyn version (released on the international edition of the album).
The guys go back to Gothenburg, the second biggest city in Sweden on the West Coast. Mr. G says ever since the 60’s they had lots of great music coming out of Gothenburg. Broder Daniel’s Work is what they play and Pale Honey’s Lonesome is next, also from Gothenburg.
After these two tracks, Sven asks Per what he is busy with right now. Mr. G tells he is happy that things have opened up a bit and you are allowed to perform again in these corona times, so he is on tour now. It’s an unplugged tour with 15 shows. It’s something he has never really done before, so he is stepping out of his comfort zone a bit, talking a lot between the songs, telling some anecdotes from e.g. Roxette’s history. Per tells he has a beach hotel on the Swedish West Coast. When the regulations were still on, you could only have a certain amount of people attending and he was to do 2 acoustic shows at the hotel. But it felt so cool that it became 10 in the end. After those 10 gigs he felt he should do a tour, because it was much fun. It’s so different from everything else he has done. He digged into his files and vaults from the past and played songs he hasn’t played before. Per tells when he started out at the age of 18, he was unemployed in the late 70’s and he got a government supported job, being a troubadour playing for elderly people in elderly homes for 6 months with another guy. That’s how he actually started out performing in front of people, playing Swedish folk music at elderly homes and sneaking in 1-2 of his own songs that he started writing those days. „I’ve come full circle now, I’m playing for elderly people again, because I’m old now”, Per says and the guys are laughing. „It’s good fun, it’s a sold-out tour, I’m really pleased, the response has been amazing, so I’m just having a blast doing this”, Per adds. He is just happy that things are opening up a bit and he can speak for every artist, musician and technician on the planet. „We’ve been missing our work so much!” Sven tells the audience has been missing it as well. He heard that the hard thing now is to book the venues. Per says as son as the regulations are opening up, everyone wants to tour, so it’s really hard to get the venues. People are really starved for music and entertainment and socializing, so it goes very well for everyone.
Next song is Jerk It Out by Caesars Palace, then Nicole Sabouné’s Unseen Footage From A Forthcoming Funeral is played.
Sven and Per then talk a bit about the Joyride 30th anniversary release, and Sven asks Per how it is to zoom back 30 years, checking all Mr. G’s home videos and stuff like that. Per says it’s crazy how time passes by. He is getting used to it, but this year also his Swedish band celebrates the 40th anniversary of their Moderna Tider album. It was a big album in Scandinavia. It feels like every year there is a new anniversary. „If we stick around long enough, it’s gonna be a 50th anniversary coming up”, Sven says. From a fan point of view, Per as a Tom Petty fan says, you’re really into the things that you haven’t heard before, so he thinks a lot of people appreciate these anniversary releases with outtakes, alternative versions or demos. Sven agrees and says he has just seen the Tom Petty movie about recording Wildflowers and it was really heartwarming to see, you really miss him.
Regarding the Metallica cover Per did for Nothing Else Matters he says The Black Album also has its 30th anniversary this year and he was invited to be part of that. It’s cool that all those big albums have big anniversaries.
Reeperbahn, a Swedish band with German name is next. Per thinks their best song is Inget, so they play it on Nordic Rox. Then it’s Atomic Swing’s turn with Soul Free.
The guys get back to the Metallica cover topic and Sven says it’s unexpected to hear a Roxette cover of a Metallica classic. This is the first time PG entered the metal world. Mr. G tells when he first got the invitation he felt like „hm, I don’t know what to do with this”, because he doesn’t know how to transform a heavy metal song into his world. Then he came to think about Nothing Else Matters which is such a great track and Per remembers when it came around in the early 90’s, Marie and Per always joked about that it could have been a great Roxette ballad. It’s got such a great melody and amazing lyrics. Mr. G felt like „shit, I should give it a go”. He did the cover with the old Roxette band. They tried to treat it as a Roxette ballad. Sven says: „with Marie Fredriksson having passed away, you had two singers taking her place”. Per says the two girls are very special in their own separate ways, but when you combine their voices, a third person comes out. Per tried to use that and it sounded really cool. He thinks they nailed the song pretty well, it sounds great to him. Mr. G is really honoured to be part of it. They play Nothing Else Matters by PG Roxette on Nordic Rox.
With this the guys are wrapping up the show and just like any other time, Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the 500th episode too.
Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.
Thanks for the technical support to János Tóth!