STIM Music Room – a collaborative workspace at STIM’s Stockholm office, available to all STIM affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers – has been donated a new guitar. During the ’90s it travelled the world and now it has finally found a home at STIM.
STIM: – Hello Per Gessle! Tell us about the guitar, what has it experienced?
Per Gessle: – It’s a guitar that’s been around in the dressing rooms since the ’90s when we were warming up for Roxette gigs. We used to get the whole band together and sing, play and goof around a bit. It often was “Church Of Your Heart” and “Dangerous”. A lot of warm-up singing.
STIM: – During your long and successful career, how do you think you’ve developed as a songwriter over the years?
PG: – You develop (or become more complicated) without knowing it. My style as a songwriter is probably the same as before, I have the same musical ideals. But… I’ve learned a thing or two over the years which has probably made me more sophisticated and professional. For better or worse. There’s a quality you have when you’re young that slowly but surely disappears when you start to understand what you’re doing.
STIM: – You are writing songs in both Swedish and English. Is the process different?
PG: – There is no major difference. I always try to find a symbiosis between text and music so they pull in the same direction. I often start with a title that sets the tone or color of the song. Sometimes a single word can be enough. The hardest thing for me is writing lyrics to a “finished” melody. I like it most when all the fireworks happen at once.
STIM: – What’s next?
PG: – It’s a lot going on as always. I released my continuation of the PG Roxette adventure now at the end of October. Then there will also be two PG Roxette Christmas songs at the end of November and more singles will be released in spring 2023. Spring 2023 will also see a brand new Gyllene Tider album called “Hux Flux”. And next summer Gyllene Tider will play 20 concerts around Scandinavia. In parallel with this, work is underway on a Gyllene Tider movie and an international Roxette musical. Both of these projects should be ready for viewing in 2024. No rest for the wicked. Just as it should be.
Thanx for the hint, Sandra Knospe!