Though we don’t understand a word from this interview (thanks for dubbing by the way!), we still recommend our Brazilian friends to watch it and share their thoughts on this “not so typical” interview with Mr Gessle.
Archive for category Interview
The German Abendzeitung München interviewed Per Gessle about “Travelling” – not the album, but indeed travelling. The questions are quite interesting (and so are his answers) so we decided to give you a short translation.
Per Gessle, you are in sunny Stockholm right now. How long?
Per: Not very long. Very soon I leave to my other house on the west coast of Sweden and meet my mother and my brother. We will be together during Easter. Then I am off to South America. For five weeks.
And where have you been the first three months of 2012?
Per: It was an exciting year until now. We have been to Australia. In Southeast Asia. In China. We have never played in Shanghai before. Now I also look forward to South America, although we have been there last year already. But this time we are going to different places. Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, Brasil.
How do you cope with a jetlag?
Per: Good question! You never really get used to the different time zones. It’s not a problem to perform, that’s not exhausting. It’s the opposite. It gives me a lot of energy. It’s travelling, that’s exhausting. The airports, waiting all the time, the long flights and that your inner clock is confused all the time. Australia is 10 hours ahead, in Southeast Asia it’s still seven. That’s much. You need several weeks to get used to that. And now it’s the opposite direction. But hey – that’s life. And it’s fantastic. I can’t really complain.
So you don’t know any tricks to cope with tiredness?
Per: You have to listen to your body. You need your sleep. Especially, when you have to go on stage. Then you really have to be in good shape. I hate medicine. That’s why I never take any sleeping pills on long flights. During the last tour I just slept and ignored all those tips, that you have to stay awake until a certain moment.
What’s happening with you when you’re travelling? How does it change you as a human being?
Per: The world ist damn huge and there’s a variety out there which is just unbelievable. If you come from Shanghai to Stockholm you wonder where all the people are. But if you come from a small town like Halmstad, where I was born, to Stockholm, this town feels too big. Travelling changes your perspective. People around the world have different attitudes and opinions. In China and Scandinavia the politics are completely different. Or compare Lima in Peru with Hongkong? You have to learn how big the world is. And when I travel a lot I really appreciate Sweden a lot more. It’s very clean here, the air isn’t polluted. And then there’s the climate. Well, yes. Not really. Only from May to October. These months are really wonderful. Then there’s a west wind in my hometown, you feel the salt of the sea. Winter is big joke here. So I don’t really care when I am travelling in January.
You like the weather in Sweden?
Per: Not really. Only from May to October. These months are really wonderful. Then there’s a west wind in my hometown, you feel the salt of the sea. Winter is big joke here. So I don’t really care when I am travelling in January.
Where do you sleep best?
Per: At home, of course. We always sleep in great hotels. But they are never as good as the bed at home. In hotels you sometimes wake up and ask yourself where you are, where the bathroom is. I can’t sleep in planes. I don’t really like flying. It’s not that I am afraid, but I don’t feel very well being up in the air.
What do you do in the plane when you can’t sleep?
Per: The plane is a good place to read. At home I barely have time for that. But in the plane I always have books with me. At the moment I read the biography of Bernie Ecclestone. I am a huge fan of Formula 1. On flights I also hear a lot of music. It’s cool that you can take so much of your favourite music with you on an iPod.
Is there anything you always have to have with you?
Per: Nowadays it’s of course a computer that you always carry around. And I actually always have an instrument with me. Mostly a guitar. But I am guy who always starts packing very late. A few hours before I have to go. Even when I am away for a month. My wife always does that one month in advance. I don’t. I have my favourite jeans, my favourite shoes..
You are kind of a hotel expert and own a hotel on your own in Tylösand. When is a hotel a good hotel?
Per: It depends on what you want. For me the first impression is important. The people who work there have to be very friendly. You should feel welcome from the beginning. If you like Spas, that’s important. If you like good food, then the restaurant is important.
And you?
Per: My wife likes Spas. I prefer the studio to work out. I think the staff is important. And a non-smoking room. It’s horrible to come into a room where people have smoked. If that happens I always change the room. I don’t need a big suite. I hate it, when they upgrade me to the “Präsidentensuite” (I really don’t know the English word right since I am in a hurry, it’s the biggest suite in a hotel). I don’t want to play tennis in my hotel room. I always close all the doors and stay in my bedroom. If you’re alone you really don’t need more than one room.
Per Gessle was interviewed today in the Swedish Radio P4 show “P4 extra med Lotta Bromé”.
In the approximately 20 minute long interview Per explained about live on tour, about him being quite picky about certain things, playing with Barbies, “Travelling” and much more. You can listen to the interview – in Swedish of course – on SR’s website here.
Roxette Café has uploaded it on mp3. And Roxette.RO has done a short translation to English of the interview.
Marie Fredriksson gave a touching interview for programme about cancer done for a Russian NTV channel. Here are the quotes from Marie translated by Evgeny Perekopskiy and proofread by Celestte. This exclusive interview was shot during one-hour session at Marie’s house in Stockholm in December 2011.
WATCH THE WHOLE PROGRAMME (Marie’s part starts at 39:48)
Narrator:
A slim woman singing about changes in the microphone can actually grab the audience in venues with the capacity of 100 000 people. But when she tries to say the word “cancer”, she still feels insecure.
Marie Fredriksson
I couldn’t learn how to talk about it without worrying. I just sang the song “The Change”. Few people know that this song is about cancer. For some unknown reason I needed this meeting with cancer. It changed me totally. I started to listen to my inner voice, talk to my body. And the main thing is that I started to draw. (Marie laughs)
All that I feel and experience is in these drawings. By the way, this is Madonna (Marie points at her drawing). Not the singer, no. This is the Madonna that I imagine for myself. Who saved me from illness. Who rescued me.
The first drawings I created because of fear. I just wanted to understand what was happening to me. What the cancer was all about.
Narrator:
Looking like an alien, drawing alien subjects, for a while wonderfully Marie Fredriksson created her personal, alien theory of the origin of cancer.
Marie Fredriksson:
I started to think that cancer is somehow a new form of life inside of us. That people having those cells that then will become cancerous are born and live and then those cells wake up. And perhaps in the future people will be able to live with those cells.
Narrator:
In spite of the incredible story, from the scientific point of view, the singer of Roxette is right in many things. To transform cancer in chronic illness that won’t break off life is one of the directions of the modern scientific thought
In the series of interviews, Swedish stars talk about what turns their creativity. Who are their idols? Which albums, books, movies or events are the most important in their lives? What song has made them cry? Few days after the Tel-Aviv concert, one of the leading Swedish daily papers Aftonbladet‘s journalist Jens Peterson interviewed one and only Roxette’s singer – Marie Fredriksson. It’s a very rare occasion in the last years to see any interview with Marie – so we strongly recommend you to read it through.
How do you relax?
Sleeping. Sleep is absolutely essential. It is also important to do nothing. Take it easy. Eat well. Spend time with the closest ones. I’m so happy when Micke visits me during the tour. Not to mention when my children are with me. It means a lot. Now and then they travel along and then everything becomes more fun. This gives me strength.
Do you listen to music?
Now and then, but mostly I like when it’s quiet. Once you go on stage, it is such damn loud. It is such intense that when I leave the stage – I just want all to be quiet. For a long time. The whole next day. This is how I relax.
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.
Last week Swedish public radio P3 broadcasted programme “Livet är en fest” (Life is a party) with episode called “Halmstads pärlor, del 1” (Halmstad’s Pearls, part 1). Yesterday it was time for the second part with such pearls as “Svarte Rudolf” (accoustic song sang by Per Gessle) or “Farlig Terräng” (early Flickorna… demo by Gyllene Tider). The first 20 minutes of episode are dedicated to Roxette’s career including songs like “Neverending love”, “Listen to your hear” and extracts from interviews with Marie and Per in Swedish.
As The Daily Roxette informs on its Facebook page Swedish public radio P3 broadcasted the 25th episode of “Livet är en fest” (Life is a party) programme called “Halmstads pärlor, del 1″ (Halmstad’s Pearls, part 1). This radio programme included some of early Gyllene Tider and Marie Fredriksson’s gems like “Parkens paviljong” recorded in 1977 and songs from Strul and MaMas Barn record in good quality. Old interviews with both Marie and Per were used, but nothing new – except great music cuts – were revealed.
Next Thursday at 9 pm CET – second part will be aired. The second part will be on the Roxette’s career.
Per Gessle has recently done two interviews for Swedish papers – one for Expressen in early November and the second one for his hometown magazine Hallandposten by well-known Jan-Owe Wikstrom. As we cannot really translate the whole piece due to copyright issue, so we picked up only those parts that we found extremly (or less extremly) interesting.
We have 70 concert scheduled for the next year so far, so as we finish this tour we will have done over 150 concerts and be seen of more than 1.5 million people. But you cannot be sure as the tour is constantly growing.
Well, I’m going to celebrate Christmas in Halmstad. But before and after we will working in the studio to complete the new album.
The tour will continue in the same great pace until October 2012! Guess it is 50-60 more gigs after Perth. Though these are not official yet. Logistics should be resolved, hairdos should be done etcetera.
Last years have made me a little calmer and I do not take my work so seriously anymore. For example I have hardly any great ambition to top the lists anymore, which was obvious to me 20 years ago. I just want to follow my gut feeling and have fun. Furthermore, the music industry is not as magical and exciting as it was when we started.
Should I mention a specific country, so it is probably Germany. We’ve been playing 15-16 gigs there this year and there seems to be an almost inexhaustible love between Roxette and Germany. Amazing response everywhere. But of course, nothing beats playing in South America! It is always noisy – 500-600 crazy Rox fans who meets us at the airport, TV crews everywhere and police who are trying to control everything. Feels like we were in a The Monkees episode. Lovely.
Without our fans all this would not be possible. They stand outside hotels everywhere and they are absolutely wonderful. Flowers, gifts, photographs and poems are given with love. And exchanged for autographs and quick snapshots with their mobile phones. There is never a problem.
After the tour’s end in October 2012 we certainly take a break. I think Marie would like to make her own album and I’m always busy with a thousand things at once. It would be fun, however, to keep the band. This is the best band I’ve ever played in, I long to every show!
Thanks to Evgeny Perekopskiy for finding this out.
Livestage TV has had a chance to talk with the Man from Roxette just before yesterday’s Stockholm concert in Globen. Here is what Per said during the interview:
- hopefully 1.5 mil tickets will be sold once the tour ends
- this tour should last till September-October 2012
- there will be Gyllene Tider reunion in future
- the new album is called “Tourism II” and it will be released in March; this album will be finally mixed in January
So it came as a surprise to many — even tour organisers themselves — when early ’90s hitmakers Roxette’s lone, toe-in-the-water Australian concert date sold out in half an hour earlier this year.
It’s surprising, but it’s been happening all over the world, so we’re on this neverending tour, Gessle told the Star Observer from his Stockholm home.
I’m so proud of the Roxette catalogue. We play to people of different ethnicities, different languages, different religions, in cities whose names I can’t even pronounce. And all of them are there because they love Listen To My Heart or Spending My Time or It Must Have Been Love. It’s just incredible, the power of music.
It’s the nature of the business that you have to die, commercially speaking, to let the next generation of artists come up. And of course the bigger you get, the harder the fall. We had almost four years where we always had a song in the hot 100 in the US.
More at starobserver.com.au
In the very recent English interview for World Radio Switzerland’s Alex Helmick – promoting 2 forthcoming Swiss shows – Per Gessle has admitted that Roxette is planning to come back to South America (it has been circulating for few months now here and there), South Africa and North America (Canada).
Thanks to Arnaldo Mariano Suarez for sending this through.
Simon Collins of The West Australian has written a very positive article about Roxette’s current tour and success the band has been experiencing in the last months. Have a look at the full interview and here below you find the most interesting quotes from the Man.
About Marie’s illness and her recovery
“I would compare it to when you have some trouble with your computer, you have to restart the computer from scratch, and that is exactly what she had to do with her life.”
About China concert back in 1995
“It was all students and it was just a fantastic feeling to be part of it, I remember, everyone was just crying afterwards because there were two guys in the audience and they had this banner for the last song, and it said ‘One world, one unity’. I’ll never forget that.”
About grunge wave
“I was a big Nirvana fan, I really loved that band but it sort of destroyed that whole thing that we were part of – Bryan Adams, Roxette, Phil Collins . . . all that kind of stuff. That’s the nature of the game. Trends come and go and, if you’re lucky, you have your years.”
