You might remember that in the June episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM, at the end of the Joyride 30th anniversary chat, Per Gessle and Sven Lindström mentioned they would celebrate the 20th anniversary of Room Service in the next episode. That episode was broadcast in September, but it took a bit more time than usually to get access to that part. Thanx a lot for Sven’s support!
Just like the Joyride 30 episode, Room Service 20 was also recorded in Per’s kitchen in Stockholm, so the guys probably had a full day anniversary recording. Per says it’s a great little kitchen, they have a lot of meetings there and exquisite lunches. Sven introduces the show: „another day, another anniversary, they say in the pop business”. Per laughs and says „that’s what happens when you’re getting old”.
Per tells Room Service is one of his favourite Roxette albums, maybe because they recorded it in the old ABBA studio in Stockholm. It’s closed now, most studios are closed these days. Mr. G says they worked with a new engineer, Ronny Lahti, a guy that Per is still working with. It was a fun album to make.
The guys play an ABBA song, Voulez-Vous that was recorded in Florida instead of that Stockholm studio. Then comes Broder Daniel’s Army Of Dreamers. The next one is Titiyo’s probably biggest hit, Come Along from 2001 to check the atmosphere of the year when Room Service was released.
Sven asks Per how he remembers 2001 and if there is anything that sticks out. Mr. G says he was touring, they did a big European tour with Roxette. Apart from that, he probably had a big hangover. The guys are laughing and Per asks Sven how he remembers that year. Sven says he wasn’t touring, but he was probably stuck with a hangover.
Here they play I’m Alive by The Hives, one of Per’s favourite bands. Then comes Get Some by Lykke Li and Hopeless Case Of A Kid In Denial by The Hellacopters. Regarding The Hives, Sven tells it was their first single in 7 years when they released it two years ago. Mr. G says they play fast, but are pretty slow in releasing records. Sven says they just don’t do it like Per, working 24/7. PG says he doesn’t do that either, it just looks like that. The guys are laughing. Per says he just keeps himself busy, he likes it like that, he likes to work a lot. If you have a project going on or a record or a career for that matter, you have to work, Per adds. You have to maximize everything and at the same time you have to challenge yourself and try to expand your possibilities and explore new things all the time. When it comes to writing or when it comes to producing and performing as well. It’s hard to do. Sven asks Per if he is the kind of person who can work endlessly as long as he doesn’t feel like it’s work, when he is driving it himself. Mr. G says he is a very lucky guy, because he winded up with a profession that doesn’t feel like a profession. When he looks back on his life, it has always been about pop and rock music. Eventually, he could make a living out of playing pop music and writing music and it’s just a blessing. So for him it doesn’t feel like he is going to work. Of course there are days, especially in the old days when you did endless months of promoting, then it becomes a work. You deal with journalits, you are doing photo sessions and in-stores and it becomes tedious after a while. But at the end of the day it’s a tiny price to pay for being able to do what you love the most, which is being part of this crazy industry.
Sven says one piece of that crazy industry is The Centre Of The Heart (Is A Suburb To The Brain). Per tells he wrote this track for Have A Nice Day. They even recorded it for HAND, but there was something missing, it just didn’t feel right. They just left it, forgot about it and later when Per was in France he came to think of it. He heard some other music which reminded him of TCOTH, but it was much faster. He called Clarence and told him they should go back to TCOTH and speed it up, to make it a little bit more uptempo, because it had all the great ingredients, it’s catchy and has a great chorus. It became the first single of Room Service. Sven tells Roxette pemiered it on Melodifestivalen (ESC) on Swedish TV. Sven asks Per about the lyric, mainly this part „a suburb to the brain”. Per laughs and says „it just makes sense, doesn’t it?” The guys are playing the song.
Sven asks Per about the international release of Room Service. Mr. G says of course it has tough competition when you compare it to Look Sharp! or Joyride, but it went very well and they had lots of success with the three singles from it.
Regarding the tour PG says they hadn’t been touring since 1995, so in 2001 they had a slightly different band and they started working with Jonas Åkerlund who designed the stage set with lots of clips. It was different vs. what they had done before.
Sven tells the album sleeve was shot at The Madonna Inn, San Luis Obispo, California. Per tells they went there for almost a week to shoot the TCOTH video. Jonas is not only an awesome music video director, but an amazing photographer as well. They spent a whole day taking pictures in different locations of that amazing place. Madonna Inn is just the craziest place Per has ever seen. Mr. G tells it was fun and the video became great as well.
The next track is My World, MY Love, My Life which is one of Per’s favourites and Sven asks PG what makes it so special for him. Per tells some songs just turn out great soundwise. He has always loved the sound of this track. He loves Jonas Isacsson’s guitar playing, the melody, Marie’s voice and the key she sings in. It sums up that era of Roxette very well for Per. It’s the closing track of the album.
After the song is played, Per says it’s 20 years… Sven asks „it’s 20 years of…?” PG replies „wisdom!” Sven is curious if Per got wiser. Mr. G laughs and replies „of course, by the minute!” Sven says Room Service is an interesting album in many ways. He adds it could have been the last Roxette album, because in 2002 Marie got ill and the future for Roxette looked really dark. Per says in a way it became the last album, the last of that main, classic Roxette era. Marie’s illness affected her so much. When she came back in 2010 it was a different thing. Sven tells that against all odds Marie recovered from this really severe illness and made a comeback with Roxette. They enjoyed many years of incredible touring then. Per says Marie was an amazon for sure. She came back in 2009. They did 55 shows with Night of the Proms, they headlined that in Europe and it was a great start for Marie to come back, because even though they were the headliners, they only did 5 songs. She wanted to see how it felt and it felt actually good for her. She got better and better and she loved being on stage. She felt at home there. After that they decided to go back on the road as Roxette, so they continued working for another 5.5 years. Those 20 years since Room Service contained some amazing drama.
Sven asks Per what his thoughts were back then, in 2000-2001, where Roxette was going. Per always says they had amazing success all over the world during those 8 years between 1988 and 1995, they worked constantly and did all those world tours. In 1995 Marie wanted to have a second child, she wanted to take a break for a couple of years, so Per did a lot of other things with Gyllene Tider and solo stuff, as well as doing compilation albums with Roxette. This meant he had to write three or four songs for Roxette. Then they did a comback in 1999 with Have A Nice Day, but decided not to tour, mainly because Per had become a father and Marie wanted to stay home with her kids. They waited for another album, Room Service to tour with. The journey went on. Who knows what would have happened if Marie wouldn’t have become ill in 2002.
The guys play one of the main ballads of the album, Milk And Toast And Honey. Sven asks Per if he remembers writing this one. Mr. G tells he had this song in his head for many months before he even bothered to write it down. It’s a natural song for him, it came natural with its baselines and everything. Per heard the melodies, all the chords and modulations, he was just waiting for a good idea for a lyric. He got the title and created something around the title. It went very smooth. Mr. G loves this song and the video a lot. The clip was shot in the Stockholm archipelago and Marie is just amazing. She is singing so well and makes it a really beautiful song.
Towards the end of the episode Sven says they had Joyride 30th anniversary, Room Service 20th anniversary, but they all pale in comparison to Gyllene Tider celebrating the 40th anniversary of Moderna Tider. Per tells it was released in 1981 and it became a megahit in Sweden. Mr. G says it was crazy days, Sven adds GT were insane teenage idols, having Beatlesque popularity. PG adds they toured a whole year in Scandinavia and especially the summer was really amazing. Sven tells GT was heavily influenced by the new wave, punk and power pop era, as well as the 60’s. The guys play (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet from the album. Per is thinking how to translate it into English. Sven says „Come on and let’s live life!”, Per says „C’mon, join the joyride!” Haha. PG tells it was a big song for them. He wrote it on his 21st birthday. Per: „Why didn’t I have a party? Maybe I had a party afterwards.” Sven: „You were working!” Per: „Ah, I was working, of course, even in the 80’s.” They are laughing.
Before saying thanks to the listeners, Sven tells it was a teaser for an upcoming show featuring the power pop sounds of Gyllene Tider.
The show ends with Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes as usual.
