Interview

Interview with Per Gessle about songwriting by Sound & Recording

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Frank Mischkowski from Sound & Recording (Germany) did an interview with Per Gessle about songwriting. Per gave some insights into the way he writes songs.

Frank informs that at the age of 10, Per Gessle’s record collection is said to have already included 100 vinyls, so his passion for music has been with him since he was a child. He learned English primarily by studying the lyrics of The Beatles, Leonard Cohen and David Bowie. He earned his first record deal with Gyllene Tider at the end of the 1970s.

When he founded Roxette in 1986 with Marie Fredriksson, who unfortunately died in 2019, he had no idea how successful the duo would become: “We joked: ‘Today Sweden, tomorrow the world.’ But what we meant was small performances in Amsterdam or Germany on TV. We were probably in the right place at the right time.”

Sound & Recording: What makes a really good song for you?

Per Gessle: This changes from generation to generation. I always say the point of pop music is to reflect its times. The music of the ’60s and ’70s was much more melody driven. Today you don’t start with the melody anymore. Listen to songs like Dedicated Follower Of Fashion or SOS, they are based on melodies. That’s where I come from.

S&R: You have written so many great songs. How do you come up with these strong, memorable lines?

PG: I’m interested in words and stories. And I’m always looking for phrases – “Hello, you fool, I love you”, “Come on, join the joyride”. The first impression you get of a song is often the title. You read the title and if it sounds good, your interest is awaken.

S&R: You write in both English and Swedish. Are there ideas that you can express more easily in one language than in the other?

PG: I write very personally. Of course not something like How Do You Do!, but songs like Queen Of Rain, Perfect Day or What’s She Like? are as personal as possible. It’s easier for me to dive deep into myself in Swedish, simply because it’s my native language. On the other hand, English is a very singable language. Swedish is a pretty difficult language to sing.

S&R: Do you find it easier to write for yourself or for other artists?

PG: I prefer writing songs for my own projects. In the early ’80s, when Gyllene Tider broke up and I had a few years before Roxette started, a lot of people wanted songs from me. Especially lyrics, but also music. I never felt comfortable with it. Someone always talks you into it. I prefer to write for my own projects where I’m the boss.

S&R: But then you wrote for Marie.

PG: When I started working with Marie, I was looking for a voice that could sing my songs much better than myself. We recently listened to a live Roxette thing from the ’90s that we’re working on. Marie’s singing skills were incredible. My main talent has always been finding these people. Clarence [Öfwerman, Roxette’s longtime producer] is also a good example for that. His influence on production and arrangements changed my worldview.

S&R: Can you give us some insight into the way you write a song?

PG: Let’s say I’m sitting at the piano and I come across something special. I then record it with my phone. I date it and put a note on it; “Piano Intro” for example. Then, six months or six years later, I might be looking for something like that. I go through my archive, hundreds of fragments that have been collected over the years. So maybe I have a great chorus, but I need something interesting for a verse or intro, then I go through these files and maybe something fits. It’s like a big puzzle.

S&R – a question to mixing engineer Stefan Boman

Stefan Boman is a mixing engineer at Atlantis Studios in Stockholm and counts artists from Ghost to Avicii among his references. In a complex process, Boman transferred Roxette’s work into the immersive audio format Dolby Atmos. To do this, the original tapes were digitized and the mixes were created from scratch in Dolby Atmos.

SB: The quick and easy solution would be an upmix, but if you want to create something that lasts and leaves an impression, you have to mix from scratch. And that’s what we did. We partially baked the tapes and then carefully digitized them, divided the tracks and then, in the first step, recreated the stereo mixes. I then spent a lot of time recreating the reverb chambers and effects – not exactly, but as close as possible and in an immersive format. The Roxette tracks were recorded excellently, it was a lot of fun translating them into a new format.

Photo by Fredrik Etoall

Read the original interview in German HERE!

“You’re always 25 in your head” – Per Gessle 65 interview by TT News Agency

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Anna Hedlund from TT News Agency did an interview with Per Gessle now that he turns 65 on Friday. It was already published in Göteborgs-Posten yesterday.

From stage fright to stage intoxication. Hitmaker Per Gessle’s pop journey is not just music history. It has also been a journey of development for him personally. Now he turns 65.

Nothing is as cool as having 10,000 people sing along to your own song. That’s why Mick Jagger & Co. never stop. You can’t get that energy in any other way, says Per Gessle.

His own desires don’t seem to be diminishing either. In the summer of 2023, he again toured the country with Gyllene Tider – even though the band actually had their farewell tour in 2019. Last year he released Roxette material in a new costume, under the name PG Roxette.

Although it has been 45 years since his career took off, it is still unbelievable that he turns 65.

You’re always 25 in your head. But I certainly notice that I am getting older, physically. This energy you used to have all the time now you have it for shorter periods.

It all started when, as a little boy, he fell for pop music through his older brother. From The Beatles to David Bowie’s music, Per absorbed everything: the style, the hair, the chords, the English language. But it was a pop journey that began rather introspectively.

In my teens, I was very closed in on myself and music, and didn’t have many friends. Music opened a completely new door.

When Gyllene Tider was formed in 1978, Per Gessle already had the habit of putting together pop songs – but not of being on stage.

When we started with Gyllene Tider, we were rookies. Then it was all about daring to stand on stage and survive. To do it and do it well.

To understand how great Gyllene Tider was in those years between the ’70s and ’80s, you can say this, for example: when Per Gessle turned 21, he received three mailbags with 3,000 congratulatory postcards delivered to his home.

And it often happened – much to his mother’s disappointment – that fans would come to his parents’ home and steal small souvenirs, such as clothes from the clothesline or license plates and antennas from the car.

In the years 1979-1982 I lived in a constant state of shock that it became so big.

After that, nothing would be as usual again. After the golden years with Gyllene Tider, followed the international success with Roxette, that took him and bandmate Marie Fredriksson on world tour after world tour during the ’90s.

A reality quite far from the small-town life Per Gessle grew up in. Apart from when he weighed mushrooms at Fammarp’s mushroom farm or packed boxes at Ica as a teenager, he has never had a “regular job”. But he loves to work.

During the noughties, he released several solo albums, both in Swedish and in English.

I never thought I had time to party and have girlfriends. And my life probably still revolves around work. Åsa, my wife, says that I “give birth” when I lock myself in my room for 14 days and work. But that’s in my personality, I can’t do anything if I don’t do it one hundred percent.

Per and Åsa met in 1985. They married in 1993 and have a son, Gabriel, who is now 26. Combining a family life with life as a touring rock star took some planning, but it worked. The family often accompanied them on tours, and Gabriel spent more than a semester travelling with a teacher with him.

But he has not followed in his father’s footsteps.

He works as a computer programmer. He’s been given free rein and we have supported what he has wanted to do. For a year he was a professional e-sports player too, but it wasn’t for him and now he’s got it out of his system.

Being Per Gessle is also being the brand “Per Gessle”. Posing for selfies with fans at the petrol station and in the grocery store happens everyday and is part of the package when you are recognized by everyone. Or, maybe not exactly everyone.

I know that when I leave my door I’m public property, which I have lived with most of my life. But when I was walking in town once, a girl came and wanted to take a selfie, and afterwards a little guy came and asked: “Are you a celebrity?”. “I’m Foppa!”, I replied then. Haha.

[Peter “Foppa” Forsberg is a Swedish ice hockey player. /PP]

There is no sign that “reaching the retirement age” means a quieter life for Per Gessle. This year he will release a new solo album in Swedish and in the summer there will be a premiere for a film about Gyllene Tider. Next autumn will also offer a musical at Malmö Opera which builds on Roxette’s song catalogue. Are there any other dreams still?

No. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I slipped into this and sometimes I have to pinch myself when I see that it has worked all my life.

Facts about Per Gessle

Turns: 65 on 12th January.

Profession: musician, songwriter. Owns Hotel Tylösand.

Family: wife Åsa Gessle and son Gabriel, 26 years old.

Lives: in Halmstad where he grew up.

On turning 65: “I don’t think about it too much, it’s just a number.”

This is how he celebrates: “Very carefully with very few people, only the nearest and dearest to me.”

Staying in shape: “I try to walk at least an hour every day and work out, because I got a frozen shoulder last year. I also do 15-20 minutes of exercises every day.”

Our most diligent world star – Per Gessle portrait interview by Senioren magazine

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Per Gessle is one of Sweden’s most successful artists and songwriters. He always has something going on. This summer he was on tour with Gyllene Tider, now he is working on a new solo album. Roxette’s music is to become a musical and a movie is being shot about Gyllene Tider. Deep inside, he hopes for some more world tour as well.

Ulrika Palmcrantz from Senioren magazine meets Per at home in their large apartment in Stockholm. Upstairs, the one that counts as the “office”. When you go up here with the elevator, Per has to push the button. If you press the button in the elevator yourself, nothing happens.

We had to put up a lattice gate in the stairwell, because Roxette fans used to come here and sleep on the stairs.

he says, smiling.

He is kindness itself. If someone wants to take a selfie with him when he’s out in town or just express their love for his music, he almost always stops for a moment. Now he has set the table with coffee mugs, cookies and a box of After Eight.

I thought it might be suitable when Senioren comes to visit, he laughs. I was going to buy Bridge Blanding too, it’s actually my favourite sweets!

Actually, he has not moved to Stockholm from Halmstad, where he lives most of the time.

No, I’m only here for a couple of days, we haven’t really moved yet.

Halmstad is still what he counts as his primary residence. He and Åsa have their house there, there is the car collection with a large number of Ferraris – the largest part of it can now be admired in a side building to Hotel Tylösand of which Per is the largest owner.

And old friend Mats MP Persson has the studio where Gyllene Tider sometimes comes together and plays. Like before the Hux Flux tour this summer. Actually, they had been out on a farewell tour and 40th anniversary already in 2019. But then the pandemic came and everything became so sad and boring, Per thought. He got a new guitar and so “there were some new songs”.

That’s how it often happens. Rarely has a year or even a few months gone by without something happening with his music. First it was Gyllene Tider, which had its heydays in the early ’80s, then Roxette with Marie Fredriksson from the mid-80s right up until 2016. A huge success with 75 million records sold, world tours and four No. 1 songs on the US Billboard – to compare with ABBA that actually only had one. And in between a successful solo career. Plus he wrote loads of songs for other artists. It seems that both the words and the melodies just flow out of him.

Usually it just comes to me. It can be a word or maybe a piece of melody that pops into my head and then I spin on it.

Sometimes it happens when he’s sitting here on the sofa with the guitar. Sometimes when he’s out walking. It can be anytime and anywhere. But rarely before a set deadline.

No, I can’t have deadlines or a lot of times to fit in, it doesn’t work.

Creativity must be allowed to live its own life, which it does to the highest degree. Should things ever go slower, he has tricks to use. Like getting a new guitar. Or sit down at the piano for a while.

He cannot imagine to stop writing music and being on stage. Music is his life and always has been and when the inspiration is there he is extremely productive. For example, he wrote Joyride and Spending My Time on the same day. Joyride began with his wife Åsa leaving a note on the grand piano where she wrote: “Hello, you fool, I love you!” He had read an interview with Paul McCartney who described songwriting with Lennon as a long “joyride”. Together it became the chorus: “Hello, you fool, I love you, c’mon join the joyride”.

I work well together with those I have worked with for a long time too, like the Gyllene Tider gang. We have so much fun and creativity when we beam together. Nowadays it becomes like a “project” when we do it because it’s not ongoing all the time. But we’ve known each other since we were barely twenty and know exactly how each works. We are five completely different people, yet it works so well.

He says he wishes all young people could experience the feeling of being in a band and playing music together. How magically fun it is, both with the music and with the community that arises.

But I think that those of us who grew up with ’60s-’90s music had a golden window. Then there was room for personal music. Now everything is more similar. It’s just like cars, they all look the same now. Pop music reflects its time to a great extent. Today you can’t release a Sgt. Pepper and the whole world is listening. Hey Jude, it’s seven minutes long. Nobody listens to a seven-minute-long song anymore.

Much has been written about Per’s enormous music career both as a solo artist and with Gyllene Tider and Roxette. But he has managed to keep his private life pretty well under wraps.

I keep myself quite private, that’s how it is. I’m not the type who appears on TV shows like Stjärnorna på slottet or Så mycket bättre. Above all, because I can’t imagine living with people I don’t know for six weeks on Gotland. There is no value in that. It just doesn’t suit me.

I’m actually not super social. At least not when I compare myself to some others. Like my wife, for example. She always talks to everyone when we meet new people while I sit in a corner.

As a child, he was a loner, “fat and with ugly glasses” as he himself describes it. Early on, it was music that dominated his existence. Every penny he came across he spent on records. As a ten-year-old, he already had about a hundred. He wrote his first song as a 7-year-old and became really musically active in his teens. The Beatles and Hep Stars were his big favourites. Father Kurt, mother Elisabeth and sister Gunilla, who was 14 years older, did not directly share his interest in music. But his seven years older brother Bengt liked to listen to music and had many good records in his room. He became a bit of a gateway into the magical world of music for Per.

Sometimes I had to buy a few records from him if he wanted money for cigarettes. He also had an acoustic guitar, but it was out of tune. But in 1976, my mother bought me a nylon-string guitar. It cost SEK 1,800, which was a lot of money back then.

I sat in my room and practiced and practiced. I learned chords but I couldn’t read sheet music. I still can’t.

When he turned 15, he had to choose between getting a used moped or a used stereo. An easy choice for a guy who mostly sat at home with his records and headphones, listening to music and writing lists. Lists of songs, but it could also be about sports. Who scored in the TV puck, for example.

But the world of pop attracted him the most.

In the pop world there was everything that was not in the real world. It was probably inside my head that I lived most of my life during this time.

Weeks before Per was to graduate, his father Kurt died. He was the one who was most skeptical about Per’s music.

Ironically, dad died on the same day that Mats Olsson wrote about Gyllene Tider in Expressen, the first article about us. Mom said she didn’t think he’d let me do music full-time if he lived, but I don’t know. Dad was a plumber, grandfather too. They came from a completely different world.

That you could make a living from music was not something dad Kurt believed in. Per and Åsa were almost as questioning at first when their son Gabriel, now 26 and a computer scientist, said he was going to move to Spain and compete in e-sports.

We were against it at first. Play video games? But then it hit us that we were just like our parents had been and then it was just: Let him go!

Although Per describes himself as “not super social”, he still loves when things happen. Standing in front of an audience of between 60-80,000, as it could be during Roxette’s world tours in the ’90s, gives him a kick.

When we broke through and it started to get big, I felt a big “wow!”, while I think Marie felt more a “help!” I was triggered by the success and just wanted to write more and more songs. But both Marie and I agreed that we did not want to move to the United States. The record company tried to get us to move there or at least to London, but we didn’t want to. We wanted to work with those we had always worked with here at home.

Just when Roxette was planning a major European tour in 2002, Marie Fredriksson learned that she had suffered from a malignant brain tumor. It was a long break for Roxette, where Per instead released his fourth solo record and went on tour with Gyllene Tider. In 2009, Marie was back and they set off on a world tour. Roxette’s comeback tour lasted until 2016.

The whole trip we did with Roxette was fantastic. What Marie and I got to experience was completely unique and I’m so happy about it. Nothing has affected me like the time with Roxette. In a way, that was my destiny.

When he stands on stage today as a 60-plus years old and sings songs he wrote as a 20-year-old, he realizes that the lyrics are about exactly the same feelings he has today.

Although you choose a different language when you are younger. But a lot of the early songs are awesome and I couldn’t have written them today. But I’m a better composer and musician today. I was nervous throughout the ’80s on stage. It’s not the same today.

The constant battle for him when he performs, not least with Gyllene Tider, is that he likes to play new songs while the crowd wants all the old hits.

I think all slightly older artists recognize that. But there is of course something nice in the fact that you realize that the songs meant something to others.

He doesn’t feel any anxiety about getting older.

No, I think things will be as they are. I’ve always liked achieving goals, I’m a Capricorn! But often I have been surprised and frustrated when you reach the goal and realize that after that comes only a kind of emptiness. It won’t be any different, life is just as usual. I was quite old before I realized that this was the way it was.

He takes care of his health reasonably well, even if exercise is not very high on the list of interests.

I go for walks and since I got a frozen shoulder a while ago, I do a 15-minute exercise every day, some kind of Pilates stretching.

Otherwise, it’s music that counts, still and always.

I think it’s actually the most fun now. Gyllene Tider has never been as good as this summer.

He would actually think it would be fun to do another world tour as well. At the same time, he will start drawing a pension from next year when he turns 65.

Yes, I have to do that, isn’t it time for it?

he says, flashing one of his many smiles again.

Facts about Per Gessle

Age: 64

Family: Wwife Åsa and son Gabriel, 26 years old.

Lives: House in Halmstad and apartment in Stockholm.

What he is doing: Artist and songwriter. Has three legs in his huge career: Gyllene Tider, Roxette and a solo career.

Currently reading: Niklas Strömstedt’s biography. “It’s brand new.” A biography of Michael Caine. “I like biographies.”

Listening to: American singer Weyes Blood, the bands Cigarettes After Sex and Goldfrapp. “Then I always go back to my old favourites. Tom Petty is my house god! I have made a playlist on Spotify called Easy listening according to Per Gessle. It is growing all the time…”

Lennon or McCartney: Both! They are best when they are together.

Dreaming of: A little sense and common sense on this planet. And maybe another world tour!

Other: Has a large Ferrari collection in Tylösand, owns 17 cars. Is No. 1 on Ferrari’s Nordic list of customers.

Actualities: In 2024 there will be both a Roxette musical based on the book Got You Back by Jane Fallon (premiere in the fall of 2024 at Malmö Opera) and a movie about Gyllene Tider. In addition, a new solo album is coming…

Per’s 5 favourites from his own songs

* Vid hennes sida
* Tycker om när du tar på mej
* Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
* Spending My Time
* The Look

Per’s 5 favourites from other artists’ songs

* God Only Knows – The Beach Boys (which I always tried to play on the guitar at home in my room)
* Here, There and Everywhere – The Beatles
* American Girl – Tom Petty (My house god!)
* Waterloo Sunset – The Kinks (Damn, how old I am!)
* Bird On The Wire – Leonard Cohen (The world’s most amazing artist!)
* But now I forgot Burt Bacharach, what a songwriter!

Manager Marie Dimberg

I first met Per in 1984. I worked at his record company then and we were introduced to each other at Café Opera. I remember that I said that I came from Jönköping and he replied that “we hillbillies must stick together”. He is a very positive person, cheerful and extremely professional. Great at writing, not just lyrics, a real language equilibrist. And dedicated in everything he does!

Mats MP Persson, guitarist in Gyllene Tider

Per and I have known each other since we were 16-17 years old. We both had a bit of a crazy sense of humor, then I played drums in a band and Per thought it sounded exciting. We started to skip school and spend more and more time on music. Even then he was a bit of an entrepreneurial guy, setting up plans and goals in a way that I didn’t. We know each other inside out and don’t always need to talk to understand what the other wants.

All text is written by Ulrika Palmcrantz for Senioren magazine in Swedish. Here it is a translation by RoxBlog.

Per Gessle on “Halv tre med Lotta Bromé” on Mix Megapol

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Per Gessle was Lotta Bromé’s guest on radio Mix Megapol on 18th October. You can listen to the interview HERE.

Lotta welcomes Per in the studio and mentions that it was exactly a year ago when Per was on this show, October 2022. She finds it fun that PG always releases new music in October. Per laughs and says it’s a coincidence of course. He releases music all the time. Lotta knows it and says she was sitting here in the studio all Easter waiting for Per to come, because he promised to come back then when he was on the show last time. She had eggs and stuff, but PG didn’t come. Per laughs and says something came in the way. Lotta says it was Gyllene Tider. She asks how the tour was.

Per says it was fantastic. The GT tour was magical and Gyllene Tider is a wonderful little pop band. They have always been touring regularly with odd intervals. These days, it feels like there is almost no one left who makes that kind of music anymore. So all of a sudden, they kind of represent a bygone era. They felt it for the first time this year. It didn’t feel like that at all when they toured in 2019. Lotta asks if it was a farewell tour again this summer. PG says it wasn’t. He doesn’t think you should paint yourself into a corner. Only Micke thinks so. Per laughs. So Lotta is curious if another GT tour is coming. Per doesn’t know, but it’s always fun to play together with the guys.

Lotta thinks GT has a very mixed audience. PG confirms it. It’s mostly those who have been there before, but it’s a fantastic mix of all sorts and they have been lucky enough to have managed to build up a song catalogue that is still attractive to a lot of people.

Lotta says it must be fun to get to a younger audience as well and that there are people who only now discover the music that has been around for so long for us. Per confirms it’s cool. The case is that the majority of those who listen to almost all music he makes, it’s music that they have gotten married to, they have divorced, they have graduated and stuff like that. There is so much going on in their lives and the music represents so many life events. It becomes a kind of soundtrack to everything that people have been through. It’s cool to be a part of it.

Lotta asks Per if he himself should pick one GT song that meant the most to him, what song would that be. PG finds it difficult to pick one and Lotta says he can’t cheat and say a Roxette or PG Roxette or Per solo song. It has to be a GT song. So after thinking, Per says a song that was some sort of a stepping stone to something new is Det är över nu. It was the first time that they really sounded the way they always wanted to sound. They got a new producer and it was recorded in 1995. Per had been out for 7 years with Roxette and got more routine through Roxette, so that all of a sudden when GT got back together in 1995, they sounded damn good.

After they play Det är över nu on the radio, Lotta mentions that Per will be on stage tonight. PG explains that there will be a tribute concert to Pugh Rogefeldt at Cirkus. It’s Per, Tomas Ledin, First Aid Kit and other artists on stage. Lotta asks Per why Pugh meant so much to him. Mr. G says Pugh has been with him his whole life. Pugh’s first concert Per saw was when he was 14, in Halmstad’s folk park. Pugh played there with his band Rainrock. Per remembers that Pugh had a bandana on his head and a long ponytail and after a few songs he took off this scarf and then they saw he was completely bald. He looked like Kojak. The Halmstad audience had never seen anything like that before, so they were shocked. Afterwards PG and his friends went to the Esso Motor Hotel where the band lived. They waited for the band there at the reception. Lotta asks if they dared to say hi to the band. PG says they didn’t dare to talk to them. Lotta asks if Per had the chance to tell Pugh about this when they met. PG says he did.

The first time Per and Pugh met was when Gyllene Tider recorded their second LP. It came out in 1981 and Pugh came to the studio to read the stanza “mina damer och herrar, det är gyllene tider för rock’n’roll”, the intro to the song Gyllene Tider för rock’n’roll. It’s unbelievably big for the guys in GT that he did it. Then he went on tour with Gyllene Tider in 2004, on the biggest GT tour. Pugh was a special guest.

Lotta says people always talk about Pugh as the father of Swedish rock. His first album was Ja, dä ä dä! and he wrote lyrics in Swedish. PG says not only that he wrote in Swedish, but he actually created his own language. The second record was called Pughish and there he sings in his own language. Per has always been interested in lyrics and he thinks there are similarities between Pugh’s lyrics and John Lennon’s lyrics. There are these nonsense, odd lyrics, e.g. I Am The Walrus. That’s very attractive to Per. Especially Pugh’s early records, which are a little more fuzzy and a little more unstructured are incredibly attractive to PG.

He chose to cover Vandrar i ett regn. It came out on a live record called Ett steg till in 1975. That was recorded at Halmstad Theatre – among other places – where Per saw Pugh and Rainrock and Janne Lucas and Ola Magnell.

Lotta says Pugh was truly an idol. Per says he had great vibes and he looked cool. Mr. G says he made a video for Vandrar i ett regn and Ebba, who directed this video, has managed to find a lot of cool pictures of Pugh from the past. He looked damn cool.

Lotta says Per doesn’t wear a bandana. Per laughs and says he doesn’t have any. Too much hair to put under, Lotta says. Per laughs and then they play Vandrar i ett regn.

Lotta asks when was the last time Per met Pugh. Mr. G says he met Pugh in person at his last concert. He performed at Cirkus in Stockholm in 2019. Per was there with Clarence Öfwerman, Roxette’s producer. They were sitting in the first row of the gallery and at one song Pugh went out into the audience and sang the song. He caught sight of Per, walked up to him and then he hugged Mr. G. It made Per so happy, because they never had that kind of a relationship, but he just hugged PG. He was happy to see Per.

When Mr. G had recorded Vandrar i ett regn, it ended up with Pugh, so he listened to it and thought it was great that Per recorded it. It was only a couple of days before he passed away, so it also feels great that he got to hear it and Per got a response to it.

Lotta is curious how often Per makes covers. It’s not that often. However, PG likes covers as an artist, because you can use them to tell a little about where you are coming from. They did that with Gyllene Tider early on. They played, for example, ABBA’s S.O.S., Mott The Hoople, The Beatles, a bit of everything by Tom Petty. Roxette played a bit of Blondie and a bit of The Birds. One of Per’s favourite records is David Bowie’s Pin-Ups album, which is a fantastic collection of Bowie’s ’60s favourites. Lotta adds that Bryan Ferry has done some great covers too. Per agrees.

So, Per thinks covers are fun, but he doesn’t make covers that often. You have to prioritize your own songs.

Lotta wants to know how many times Per was asked to be on Så mycket bättre. [It’s a Swedish TV reality show in which participating musicians perform their own version of well-known songs by other artists. /PP] Many times, Per replies. Lotta is curious why Per doesn’t take part in it. Per says from what he understands, you have to go away for 6 weeks and live with other artists. It sounds like a nightmare. They are laughing. Lotta says that Per is touring a lot and asks if it is OK to live with the guys in GT then. PG says it’s true he is away on tour a lot, but there are no cameras all the time.

Lotta says the last time they also talked about getting older and people passing away. Then Per also talked about the importance of nurturing relationships. PG says you have to make the most of what you have. He says you start to become like your parents, throwing out clichés like this about how you should behave when you get old. Per laughs. Lotta says she is very happy that Per came here today and nurtures their relationship. Haha.

Last time Per was on the show he had many things coming up. There was the PG Roxette album, the Gyllene Tider record, then a tour. PG says there will be a lot of stuff happening next year as well that he can’t really reveal yet, but he thinks he will have to do it before Easter. Haha.

What he can tell is that a Gyllene Tider movie will premiere next summer. The shootings end this week. Then next autumn the Roxette musical will premiere in Malmö.

Lotta asks Per about contemporary music. She is curious if Per heard anything lately that he liked. There aren’t too many new songs that Per gets hooked on, but there are occasional artists who are exciting. Weyes Blood, for example. He says now he is like his parents again and laughs. Mr. G says when he really needs to listen to music, he often goes back to the music he grew up with. He doesn’t need a new Joni Mitchell, because he has Joni Mitchell and he doesn’t need a new Tom Petty, because he has Tom Petty. He knows so much music and he has such a huge music collection that it’s enough for him. So it’s not that easy to knock on his door and get in with a new song.

Lotta asks Per to pick an old song they should play then. PG chooses American Girl by Tom Petty.

Lotta says it’s always a pleasure to see Per and a warm welcome back at Easter or even earlier. Per thanks for it and says he’ll be glad to come back.

Stills are from THIS video.

Per Gessle on Nyhetsmorgon on TV4 talking about Pugh Rogefeldt

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Per Gessle was a guest on TV4’s morning show, Nyhetsmorgon on 13th October, release day of his new single, a cover of Pugh Rogefeldt’s Vandrar i ett regn. Program leaders Sofia Geite and Steffo Törnquist interviewed him.

The interview starts with premiering the song’s video and after they play a short part of it, Steffo says it’s such a good song choice, because one could think it could have been written by Per. It fits Per very well. PG agrees that it’s a fantastic song. Steffo says Pugh was great and Per discovered him early. Mr. G says the first time he saw Pugh must have been 1974 in Halmstad’s folk park. He played there with his band, Rainrock. He had a scarf on his head and a long ponytail and after a few songs he took off the bandana and everyone saw he had shaved his hair and was bald, just had the ponytail left. The whole audience was shocked. Per says you had never seen anything like that before. Pugh took a bet with his brother, but when his brother saw how Pugh looked, he withdrew himself from the bet. Haha.

The following year Pugh was on tour and played at Halmstad Theatre. There they played, among other songs, Vandrar i ett regn, Per says. Steffo says it’s a song that makes you happy and it’s lovely. PG thinks it has fantastic lyrics and it’s a wonderful song. Pugh was a great songwriter. Steffo mentions a word Pugh uses, “gamman” for happy. “Glad och gamman” in the lyrics, Per thinks it’s a nice expression. He had to check what that meant.

Steffo says Pugh was purely musical too and very innovative. Per agrees. He says Pugh actually created his own language, Pughish. That was even the title of his second album, Pughish. He simply wrote lyrics in his own language. It’s very unique. So there was a musical madness in all this fantastic melodic work he did. Per likes his songs a lot. He thinks there are similarities between Pugh’s lyrics and for example John Lennon’s lyrics. Sometimes there are these kind of nonsense lyrics that you can make your own and you can interpret them as you want. A bit like how Per tried to write The Look. That song isn’t about anything, but you can make it your own. That’s the cool thing about pop music and PG thinks Pugh was a master of it.

Sofia mentions that there will be a tribute concert for Pugh at Cirkus in Stockholm. That place has been chosen for a reason, also because it was where Pugh had his last concert. Per was there in the audience then. He says it was a great concert, but it was a bit strange, because Pugh behaved a bit odd. Per doesn’t know why. He says he was there with his producer, sitting in the first row of the gallery and at one song Pugh went out into the audience and sang the song. He caught sight of Per, walked up to him and then he hugged Per. PG doesn’t really understand why. It was a long hug and a bit magical in a way. In retrospect now it feels super wonderful.

Steffo says Gyllene Tider and Pugh toured together. Per smiles and says Pugh wasn’t a support act, because he was too good for that, he was a special guest for Gyllene Tider in 2004. It was a huge tour. They of course met during the tour, but they didn’t travel together. On a tour it’s when they play, you are in the dressing room, changing clothes, you are getting ready for your part, putting on your make-up and stuff, Per says, so you often miss out on each other.

Sofia says that the big hug Pugh gave Per must have been a surprise for PG, because he and Pugh didn’t have a very tight relationship. Per confirms he was surprised. Pugh was 5-6 metres away from him when he caught sight of PG, so he doesn’t know why he got the feeling. Sofia says probably this relationship meant a lot to Pugh.

Per tells Sofia and Steffo that Pugh asked him to help put together the setlist of what he would play as the special guest on the GT tour. He knew Per was a big fan. Mr. G made a list based on the early records that he loved, Pughish and Hollywood. Pugh always wondered why Per chose these weird songs that he had basically forgotten about. But those songs were so good.

Sofia aks Per what it was like to meet his idol when he was young. Because she knows PG had the chance to meet Pugh in some hotel foyer. Per says when Pugh played the folk park in Halmstad, he and his friends knew that they would be staying at a hotel in Vallås, outside Halmstad. They went there to the hotel and waited for the band to come. The band came and then they walked half a metre past. The guys sat there and were too shy to say anything at the age of 14. They just wanted to be close to the pop gods. Haha.

Regarding the Gyllene Tider movie, Per says the shooting lasts until next week and the movie is out next summer. Steffo asks how it feels. Per says it’s scary, but it’s cool. He has seen a bit of it and it’s amazing. The script is awesome, so he hopes the film will be as good as the script is. It’s a movie about 5 crazy guys in a small town who start a band. But in the end, it’s not like a documentary about Gyllene Tider. It ends with Sommartider released in 1982, so it’s kind of about how the band got there. Sofia asks Per if he recognizes himself or he sees new sides of him in the movie. [Here they show the group picture of Gyllene Tider and the cast.] Per points at the picture and says he recognizes himself there. Haha. PG says the actors interpreted the film well and they are incredibly talented. The director is also wonderful. The program leaders say it’s fun and they look forward to it. They also wish Per to have a good time at the Pugh gala.

Stills are from the morning show.