When I saw there is a documentary about John Holm, I wanted to watch it right away. Det finns så många vägar – en film om John Holm was recorded between 1980 and 2017. I was interested in it to get to know more about the artist who was a great inspiration to both Marie and Per.
I expected Mr. G to appear in the docu, but never thought Marie would be there talking too. Oh my God! 1:24 into the program and the first artist who is talking about John Holm is Marie Fredriksson. My heart skipped a beat. So amazing to see her! She tells John meant so much to her and to so many people in Sweden. Marie says he was kind of divine. Right after Ms. Effe, Per tells John wrote terribly good songs and he thinks there is no one else in Sweden who wrote so many good songs for one album as John for Sordin.
At 16:20 Per tells in a 1999 SVT archive report that John’s first 2 albums are the best 2 Swedish albums of all time. They meant a lot to Per. Those and Lundell’s early albums made him start writing songs.
At 44:38 you can hear Marie singing backing vocals for John on Verklighetens afton (1988). She says John Holm was an icon for her and she always loved his lyrics. Then meeting him in real life and singing with him was enormously awesome.
At 1:04:42 you can see Per attending his first ever John Holm gig in 2016. And we all know the story didn’t end there. Per and John recorded a duet, Det är vi tillsammans in 2017 for Per’s En vacker dag album.
In the documentary there are other artists, old friends, John’s son, journalists and producers, as well as John Holm himself talking. It’s a docu that is worth watching not only for his fans. A piece of music history about one of Sweden’s biggest artists, his ups and downs, his life, his music.
At the end there is written: In memory of Marie Fredriksson and Arne Arvidsson. So nice, yet so heartbreaking.
Stills are from the documentary. Unfortunately, it can only be watched in Sweden.
Carl-Magnus Eriksson and Jakob Olsson from Grunden Media Podcast interviewed Per Gessle the other day. You can listen to the podcast in Swedish HERE.
The guys ask Per to introduce himself to the listeners. He says he is a guy from Halmstad and is making music since he was a teen, so he has been making music for over 40 years now with Gyllene Tider, Roxette and as a solo artist.
To the question how his working week looks like he replies it’s a bit different now. There are no concerts, so he is writing a lot and there is a studio where he is trying out different ideas. He explains he usually tours in blocks, so when he is on tour, then he is free for a half year or a year maybe until there is a next tour and then he is writing a lot.
Carl-Magnus and Jakob ask Per about his latest single, Mamma / Pappa. Per says he was dealing with another project, he was writing in English, but then suddenly he realized that it’s Mother’s Day soon, so maybe he should write a song about a mom. It started a bit with his own mom, but it’s also about someone else. Most of his songs are starting with his own feelings, then his imagination soars and it becomes something different in the end. Anyway, he finished the song and recorded it with Helena Josefsson. He thought it became a good song and he also thought he would write one about a dad to have a balance. He thinks it became even better. Others also thought they were damn good songs, so he released them in 2 weeks digitally, then also on vinyl.
The guys ask Per if his parents were role models to him when he was young, in the heydays of Gyllene Tider. Mr. G says his father died in 1978 before Gyllene Tider broke through. His mother always supported and encouraged him. She was the one who bought Per’s first guitar. He tells they had a piano at home and both his sister and brother played the piano. His mom passed away in 2013.
Talking about his first guitar, the guys mention that they know it from Niklas Strömstedt’s Gessle enligt Gessle documentary that it was a Bjärton nylon-string guitar. Per confirms it and says it was nice and very expensive. There was another guitar at home, but it was hard to tune it properly and press down the strings. So he thinks his mom thought she should buy something which can be played properly. He still has that guitar in Halmstad and also plays it once in a while. It still sounds fantastic. Per tells he has guitars on display at Hotel Tylösand, but he also has some at home in Halmstad and in Stockholm. There are guitars in a warehouse too and those are used when he is on tour. His guitar technician takes care of them. He doesn’t like to sell guitars, he rather keeps them and buys new ones too.
They guys ask Per if he misses playing with Gyllene Tider. Per says last year they recorded an album in France and went on a big tour. It was nice. He likes playing with Gyllene Tider and anyway he likes playing in a band. In a gang that plays the same song at the same time. Haha. They guys say Anders Herrlin and Micke Syd are among the best musicians in Swedish pop history. Per says Micke is a super-duper drummer and Anders is a fantastic bassist, but when they play together, 1+1 makes 3 or even 4. They are super tight. Anders was there in the heydays of Roxette and also toured with them in the ’90s. He played the bass in a different style vs. when he plays with Micke.
Per says one of the rewards of his job – both writing and playing music – is that you touch so many people. Many say that they feel like the song is about them, they recognize themsleves in a lyric maybe. Mr. G thinks it’s fantastic. He remembers when he got his first fan mail in the ’70s, in 1976 or 1977. There was a radio program called Bandet går where you could send in recordings and Per sent in a song, Ser du alla människor, which was 6 minutes long. It was quite horrible he thinks, but they played it on the radio. Then he got a mail from a girl who thought the song was fantastic, she recognized herself in the text. Per was totally shocked that something he did himself could touch another person so much. After all these years, one could easily say and think that you can take it for granted, but it’s not like that. He thinks he stilll has that fan mail. He lived at his mom back then and he has boxes with a lot of stuff from those times.
Carl-Magnus says he was born in 1975. He asks Per what he was doing before 1975. Per says in his childhood he spent a lot of time on his own. His family moved several times, so probably that was a reason for that. Already at an early age he was intrested in pop music. He was collecting records and listened to all chart shows on the radio. He learned English via English music magazines he bought, e.g. Melody Maker, Record Mirror. He was handing out newspapers at the weekends and was selling Christmas magazines, he earned his money with that to be able to buy the records. He tried to buy a single each week. The guys ask him which was his first record. Per says his first LP was a The Kinks album, The Kink Kontroversy. He bought it from his brother who needed money for cigarette.
The guys ask how the idea of Flickorna på TV2 came to him. Mr. G says he wrote the song together with Mats Persson. He can’t really remember. There was TV2 and there were those nice girls. He wrote it for GT’s first LP on which all the lyrics are a bit odd, e.g. (Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän, Fån telefon, Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly. Flickorna på TV2 was a song they changed the whole composition to in the studio, so they got a kind of groove in the song that wasn’t there in the beginning. There are rehearsal studio demos of it before they found the real sound to it. The guys ask about this part of the intro: “Master 17223, take 8”. Per says it’s from a recording that went wrong. They were at EMI Studios in Stockholm where they were also working with English stuff, so this snippet was from another record. They found it cool and kept it.
About Hotel Tylösand Per says he had no experience in the hotel business, except for living in hotels, but he thought it would be stupid not to buy it since it was so close to his hometown. It’s very unique with its nice beach. They bought it in 1995, rebuilt it, but it’s not him who is managing the hotel. It’s 100 years old this year and there is a nice video about it on YouTube.
To the question what he thinks when he sees old videos of himself he replies it’s fun. His generation got to be part of a wonderful era in pop music. ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, ‘00s was a golden era before everything became digitalized. The music industry became so big it also became a big business. It wasn’t like that when Per started. Back then, young people established record companies and dealt with exciting music, e.g. Stiff Records, Atlantic Records. When he thinks about the old video of himself in Måndagsbörsen in the ’80s, it was fun to be there.
The guys ask what he would be if not a musician. Per says he doesn’t really know. He ended up being a musician already at the age of 19-20. At high school he was at an architect office. He always liked architecture, so that could have been fun. Now he is just doodling in his notebooks when working in the studio. He is bad at constructing things.
The guys ask Per about The Beatles. He says The Beatles created everything they are doing now in different ways. Everything they did was new, how they were writing songs, producing and playing them, how they looked, their album covers. He never saw them perform live. They toured Sweden in the beginning of the ‘60s. But he saw Paul McCartney live of course.
About Ramones Per says the awesome thing about them is their lovely hybrid of punk and surf music. There is The Beach Boys style surf music that they played much faster in a way. It’s very simple pop music with a fantastic attitude and Per loves the whole Ramones concept including how they looked with the same hairdo and outfit. He also loves that era in pop music, the ‘70s. Before punk and new wave happened, everything felt so important in pop music and professional, then with the punk there was a revolution and anyone could start a band or play the bass or the guitar or sing. When they started with GT, they learned everything on the way. Progressive music in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Genesis had long songs, they were advanced and professional. The Ramones represented the opposite which Per liked a lot.
To the question how it was singing in Måndagsbörsen in 1981 Per replies he can barely remember, but it was fun. He remembers that Dag Vag had a hit song then, Pop opp i topp and they performed it together with Gyllene Tider. Thore Skogman joined them too. He then invited GT to his home somewhere near the Norwegian border and they had lunch there. Per says he was a very nice person.
The guys are talking about how it was working together with Nisse Hellberg. Mr. G says it was fun, he is a highly talented, great guy. It was an exciting cooperation. They did a soundtrack to Mats Olsson’s book, De ensamma pojkarna. They pretended to be a ‘60s band, The Lonely Boys.
Carl-Magnus and Jakob ask who Mr. G would work together with. He says it’s fun to work with other voices, because he often feels limited with his own voice. That’s how Roxette started. Marie could sing his songs much better than Per himself. He also works a lot with Helena Josefsson. If he can dream away, it would be cool to work together with Sia or Pink for example.
The guys ask if he misses Marie Fredriksson. Of course he misses her, she was one of his best friends for so many years. It’s terrible that she is not there anymore. It’s hard to accept and understand it. He thinks of her almost every day.
The guys are talking about the song Per released in February, Around The Corner and Carl-Magnus and Jakob are curious how it was to sing those lyrics. Per says when he wrote it, it wasn’t about Marie, however, when he finished it, he understood that it was in a way about Marie and about the feeling that you have to move on. He recorded a simple demo of it that felt so strong that he thought they should work on it a bit more. Helena came to the studio and was singing and then Per sent what they had done to Clarence and he added his keyboards to it. Then the song was produced and he released it. Per says he finished writing the song before he went to the studio. He is working quite fast so it took maybe an afternoon to write it. He always tries to catch the same temperature in the music and the text. When he writes the text, he likes it when it’s lying around for maybe a day or two before he gets back to it. Then he corrects it or changes things in it. When he is writing, things are just flowing out. When he is working on a song for too long, it means it’s not good.
Carl-Magnus and Jakob ask what Per’s favourite Marie Fredriksson song is. There are many, he says. She didn’t write so many songs, but they are very good ones. From her Swedish songs Per likes Den ständiga resan the most. It’s a fantastic song. From the Roxette songs she wrote, Watercolours In The Rain is fantastic. Per wrote the text to it, but Marie wrote the music.
Mr. G says it would be fun to make more soundtrack music. Making music to Small Apartments, a Jonas Åkerlund movie some years ago was an exciting project. It’s instrumental music, which is totally different to making songs with lyrics. Here the guys are talking about Uno Svenningsson and his son who makes ambient music. Per says he grew up in an era where real instruments were played, while today’s generation is different. But ambient music can also fit movies.
Regarding which song he is the most proud of, Mr. G says when he hears a song on the radio or in the department store, he thinks “shit, it’s a good song. Oh shit, it’s a Roxette song”. He thinks The Look became damn good, something you never heard before. Tycker om när du tar på mej has a very nice text. He likes the whole Mazarin album a lot, because that was the first time he worked together with Christoffer Lundquist in his studio and also the first time he worked with Helena Josefsson. The album became different vs. what he was doing before. He likes all the songs on it.
To the question which hairdo he thinks was his best over the times he replied he hopes the best is yet to come. Haha.
The guys ask Per what he is listening to on Spotify right now. He checks it while he is sitting in front of his computer. He is listening to songs people recommended to him, so now it’s old jazz, e.g. Art Pepper and old Van Morrison albums. He also likes The Chainsmokers as modern music, but he is listening to everything possible. He makes playlists. The more new music he listens to the more he feels eager to listen to old music. He usually finds something in new music he likes, but he thinks it was made more for him several years ago. If he is listening to Blinding Lights from The Weeknd for example, he thinks it sounds cool, but it also sounds like the ’80s, so he is eager to listen to some ’80s music after hearing it.
Regarding F1 and racing Per says he likes watching the race. Occasionally he is out on a racing track to drive and for that you need a standard driving license. He explains there is a bunch of technicians who tell you how to drive and what to do there. Every year he travels to see at least one F1 race live. It’s much fun. The guys tell they saw Per has many Ferraris. Per confirms and says it’s like with the guitars and laughs. He adds he likes the design of them. He doesn’t know the maximum speed of his cars, he never drives too fast.
To the question if he has ever thought about making a movie from his songs like Elton John or Queen did, he replied he thinks something like that is coming in the future. Maybe some kind of musical. It feels like a natural development of the hit catalogue he has. It would be fun and exciting, but it has to be good. It’s easier said than done. He thinks Bohemian Rhapsody is super good.
Carl-Magnus and Jakob ask what’s next. Per tells he plans to record more songs in autumn, so he is writing during summer. There is no tour booked. Of course he wants to tour, but he doesn’t know how and in what context.
The guys ask Per about Spännande ostar. It was Marie, Lasse Lindbom, Mats Persson and Per in 1983 or 1984 and they played acoustic songs.
Carl-Magnus and Jakob shoot some quick questions at the end of the interview.
Vinyl or Spotify? Vinyl, because it smells good.
Tour or studio? He loves both, so he can’t choose.
Gyllene Tider or Sommartider? Gyllene Tider.
Yellow Submarine or Come Together? Come Together.
Min tjej och jag or Låt denna trumslagarpojke sjunga!? Min tjej och jag.
Ferrari or black McLaren Senna? Ferrari.
He can’t reply to the question what he would ask from Helena Josefsson, but tells he is to meet her next day.
Gry Forssell was the speaker on Swedish Radio’s Sommar & Vinter i P1 program today. Gry is one of Sweden’s most popular program leaders. Among many other things, she talked about her great experience related to Marie Fredriksson. LISTEN to the program from 34:28 to 36:40 to hear it.
Marie was on a Club tour when her Efter stormen album came out in 1987 and she also visited Luleå where Gry grew up. There was a program called Himalaya on Swedish Radio. Gry’s mom worked there and her friend was the producer. Gry was there in the radio a lot of times with her mom. She was 13 when one day the producer asked if she wanted to interview Marie Fredriksson. Of course she wanted!
After Gry welcomed Marie to Luleå and she thanked for it and said it was nice to be there, Gry asked her how old she was when she decided to be a singer, an artist. Marie replied:
I was 6 years old. I already knew it at 6 or 7 that I wanted to be a singer or an actress. And I’ve been fighting for that since then actually.
Gry also asked how one can become a famous singer and whether it has to do anything with luck or you also have to be good. Marie told:
Of course you have to be able to sing, but you also have to have self confidence. The best you can do is that you sing as much as possible. Sing in front of your friends. When I was a child, I was singing a lot in front of the mirror. I was miming and acted as if I was on a popular TV program or in a big movie. I was fantasizing a lot about that.
Gry smiles and says Marie replied so patiently to her silly questions. Lovely!
There was a conversation with Per Gessle on Swedish Radio’s P4 Musik program yesterday. It starts at 33:32 HERE.
The program leader, Carolina Norén introduces Per as Sweden’s answer to Bob Dylan [they played Bob Dylan’s I Contain Multitudes before that /PP], a real Swedish songwriter and pop icon. She says Mr. G released 2 new songs recently and the radio plays Mamma first. Then Per joins in via phone and it turns out he is still in Halmstad since Easter. He says it’s a strange time we live in, but it’s nice living in Halmstad.
Carolina asks Per where he got the inspiration from for writing Mamma for Mother’s Day. Per says he was writing songs in English for an English project and the idea just came up that shit, it’s soon Mother’s Day, so why not writing a song for that occasion. So he sat down and wrote a text. It turned out to be nice and he recorded it with Helena Josefsson. Then he thought shit, he should write a father song too and he wrote Pappa, which was a bit harder to write. He locked himself in the studio and then played the songs to a few people and they thought they were damn fine. They recorded them quickly and the single was out before Mother’s Day, which is lovely.
Carolina notes that if she compares the 2 songs, in Mamma’s lyrics you can’t find the word ”mamma”. Per says he didn’t want to write the songs in a way or paint them at all costs as if they are about his own mother and father. He actually wrote a story about a mom. He thought of a person, a mom, a woman in the beginning of a relationship and that life goes on and life ends. Of course, he used his own relationship to his mother, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a true story about her. It’s the same with the lyrics of Pappa. It’s a bit dark and has an exciting drama in it. The 2 songs are very different. Mamma is tender while Pappa is a bit darker.
Carolina asks Per who he is more similar to, his mother or his father. Per thinks he is rather like his mother was. He didn’t have a long realtionship with his father since he died when Per was still a teenager. He always heard it in his life that he is like his mom, so it’s probably true.
Carolina also brings up Mono Mind and tells Per there is so much creativity in him. She is curious if the new English project is related to Mono Mind or what it is at all. Per says a lot is going on. He always had several projects going on at the same time. There was his solo career, Gyllene Tider and Roxette and they are all different. It fits his personality very well that he can jump from one project to another. He is working on Mono Mind, on English songs and Swedish acoustic songs. During the past years he started working with other musicians too and it’s very different now, because he had always been a lone wolf before. When you are working in a team, there are a lot of compromises and he is not sure what comes out of it, but we will see.
Mr. G says holidays are overrated when Carolina asks him about vacation. Haha.
Titti Schultz did an interview with Per Gessle today on P4 Extra on Swedish Radio. It starts at 1:42:42. After Titti welcomes Per, he says it’s an adorable weekend and the weather is fantastic on the Best Coast (West Coast). He is in Halmstad during corona time, because he lives there. He laughs. He has been home since Easter. Titti asks Per if he is thinking about corona or if everything is as usual. Mr. G says his life hasn’t changed a lot, because he most of the time works alone or only with a very few people. So it’s rather business as usual for him, but he has been very productive during this period. He wrote a lot of English songs and in between, Mamma and Pappa poppud up on a sunny Tuesday morning. He was dealing with a totally different type of music and then suddenly an idea came to his mind that shit, it’s mother’s day soon, so why not writing a song about a mom. It went quite easily and then he thought he should write a song about a dad, too. It was much harder. He laughs. He booked the studio, he worked there for 2 afternoons and then came Helena Josefsson to sing and then it was ready. It happened only in 2 weeks and it never went this fast before.
Titti says she knows Per’s mom is not among us anymore and asked Per if he celebrates her mom on a day like this. He said it doesn’t happen like this directly. Now there is another mom in his family, his wife, so it became rather her day. Per says when you are young, you don’t care too much about Mother’s Day, but by getting older, you think more about how it is to be parents and that kids are growing up. He thinks it’s a nice day. Tradition in their family is to give flowers and cake.
Titti asks Per if he thinks Mother’s Day has more meaning now for other families during corona time. Per thinks it could be. He thinks it’s a very special period we are going through now. It’s something we haven’t experienced before. When there is uncertainty, family and friends are more in focus and you realize that you can’t take any basic things for granted.
Per says he read that there were a lot of weddings cancelled. During this time people either still get married after the social distancing period or they get divorced. Titti says there can be a baby boom too.
Titti gets back to the songs and asks Per about the English songs he has been writing when Mamma and Pappa popped up. Mr. G tells he has Mono Mind, an electronic pop music project, but he was also writing guitar-based classic pop music. He doesn’t know yet what the future brings, but he wants to continue touring and play and make himself heard in a way. What he is writing now is based on the music he grew up with, the 60’s and 70’s (as usual) mixed with modern music. He can’t say anything about when this music will be out, but maybe next Mother’s Day. He laughs.
Titti asks if Per wants to say anything before she pushes the play button for Mamma. Per says just sit calmly and listen to the lovely lyrics and
