Radio

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – 500th episode

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström celebrated the 500th episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM last Sunday, 5th December.

The guys are chatting in Stockholm, talking about the beginnings 15 years ago. Per tells it was before Sven’s time. He started doing the show with Viktor Petrovski after he got a request from Sirius XM to do a show where they would play Scandinavian and Nordic music. Mr. G found it a cool idea. He wouldn’t have been able to do it on his own, so he needed someone to collaborate with. Viktor, a Swedish music journalist came up. It was fun and then Sven came along. Sven inserts „to make things worse”. The guys are laughing. Mr. G tells Sven is also a music journalist and author and his knowledge about Scandinavian music is pretty big. „Together we were unbeatable”, Per says. Sven tells it was a fun story when Scott Greenstein at Sirius – who came up with the idea, because he loves Scandinavian music – persuaded PG. He really came off as a fan when he discussed his idea with Per. Mr. G tells the first time they met, Scott quoted one of Per’s Swedish songs in Swedish for him. PG says it was pretty impressive that he took it seriously and learned Swedish for that. Per feels very honoured to have been part of this during the past 15 years. It’s pretty crazy.

Mr. G tells 15 years in the music industry is a very long time. Lots of things happened music-wise, the style of pop and rock music has changed. Per adds they are both – Sven and he – 15 years older, but their hearts still beat for the old stuff, they still prefer the old production styles and the old sounds. Even though Per is listening to a lot of new music as well to see what’s going on. The problem is that you’ve heard so much music throughout your life that you always compare things. The knowledge you have is incredible, because you’re getting old. Haha. Per has been a music fan since he was 5 years old, Sven tells. PG adds he had an older borther, a young teenager in the mid 60’s who bought all the records of The Beatles, The Kinks, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Byrds, so ever since he was very young, pop music has been his entire life. „My wife doesn’t like that, but that’s the truth”, Per says. Haha.

The guys dig deep into some Scandinavian classics and they kick off with one of their favourite bands’ song, Sister Surround by The Soundtrack of Our Lives from Gothenburg. Sven tells they had quite surrealistic album titles, e.g. Welcome to the Infant Freebase. Per thinks it’s a good title. Their second album’s title is Extended Revelation for the Psychic Weaklings of Western Civilization. „It’s no wonder they broke up”, Per laughs. Mr. G thinks they were an amazing band and it’s sad that they didn’t break through even bigger than they had. They had it all. A great front person, Ebbot Lundberg, the band was really cool with really good players and they also had great songs. They had success, but they didn’t become massive. For Per they are still one of the best bands that ever came out of Sweden.

The next track is Adiam Dymott’s Miss You. Then they play Hate To Say I Told You So by The Hives, another amazing band. They are the best when you see them live, PG thinks. HTSITYS, their breakthrough hit sounds a bit like MC5 on steroids to Mr. G. He loves it, it’s a great great track. Sven tells they also had some surrealistic titles, e.g. Some People Know All Too Well How Bad Liquorice, or Any Candy for That Matter, Can Taste When Having Laid Out in the Sun Too Long – And I Think I Just Ate Too Much. The guys are laughing. „Hard to beat!”, Per says.

The next one is Cardiac Arrest by Teddybears feat. Robyn. Per thinks it’s a great song, full of energy. Sven asks Per when he wrote a song about a deadly disease. Mr. G says it hasn’t happened yet. For PG the Teddybears is a band you should digest in small doses. They are a perfect singles band, he thinks. Sven says he can actually indulge in the Teddybears, he likes them a lot. They started out as punks and then they switched, but you can still hear this punkish, new wavish style in their DNA. Per loves all the synthesizer sounds they use, these toy or computer sounds. It’s fun, young and fresh. When they get a proper song made, it’s sensational. And Robyn is an amazing singer. On the Swedish edition of the song Teddybears are featuring Maipei, but Per prefers the Robyn version (released on the international edition of the album).

The guys go back to Gothenburg, the second biggest city in Sweden on the West Coast. Mr. G says ever since the 60’s they had lots of great music coming out of Gothenburg. Broder Daniel’s Work is what they play and Pale Honey’s Lonesome is next, also from Gothenburg.

After these two tracks, Sven asks Per what he is busy with right now. Mr. G tells he is happy that things have opened up a bit and you are allowed to perform again in these corona times, so he is on tour now. It’s an unplugged tour with 15 shows. It’s something he has never really done before, so he is stepping out of his comfort zone a bit, talking a lot between the songs, telling some anecdotes from e.g. Roxette’s history. Per tells he has a beach hotel on the Swedish West Coast. When the regulations were still on, you could only have a certain amount of people attending and he was to do 2 acoustic shows at the hotel. But it felt so cool that it became 10 in the end. After those 10 gigs he felt he should do a tour, because it was much fun. It’s so different from everything else he has done. He digged into his files and vaults from the past and played songs he hasn’t played before. Per tells when he started out at the age of 18, he was unemployed in the late 70’s and he got a government supported job, being a troubadour playing for elderly people in elderly homes for 6 months with another guy. That’s how he actually started out performing in front of people, playing Swedish folk music at elderly homes and sneaking in 1-2 of his own songs that he started writing those days. „I’ve come full circle now, I’m playing for elderly people again, because I’m old now”, Per says and the guys are laughing. „It’s good fun, it’s a sold-out tour, I’m really pleased, the response has been amazing, so I’m just having a blast doing this”, Per adds. He is just happy that things are opening up a bit and he can speak for every artist, musician and technician on the planet. „We’ve been missing our work so much!” Sven tells the audience has been missing it as well. He heard that the hard thing now is to book the venues. Per says as son as the regulations are opening up, everyone wants to tour, so it’s really hard to get the venues. People are really starved for music and entertainment and socializing, so it goes very well for everyone.

Next song is Jerk It Out by Caesars Palace, then Nicole Sabouné’s Unseen Footage From A Forthcoming Funeral is played.

Sven and Per then talk a bit about the Joyride 30th anniversary release, and Sven asks Per how it is to zoom back 30 years, checking all Mr. G’s home videos and stuff like that. Per says it’s crazy how time passes by. He is getting used to it, but this year also his Swedish band celebrates the 40th anniversary of their Moderna Tider album. It was a big album in Scandinavia. It feels like every year there is a new anniversary. „If we stick around long enough, it’s gonna be a 50th anniversary coming up”, Sven says. From a fan point of view, Per as a Tom Petty fan says, you’re really into the things that you haven’t heard before, so he thinks a lot of people appreciate these anniversary releases with outtakes, alternative versions or demos. Sven agrees and says he has just seen the Tom Petty movie about recording Wildflowers and it was really heartwarming to see, you really miss him.

Regarding the Metallica cover Per did for Nothing Else Matters he says The Black Album also has its 30th anniversary this year and he was invited to be part of that. It’s cool that all those big albums have big anniversaries.

Reeperbahn, a Swedish band with German name is next. Per thinks their best song is Inget, so they play it on Nordic Rox. Then it’s Atomic Swing’s turn with Soul Free.

The guys get back to the Metallica cover topic and Sven says it’s unexpected to hear a Roxette cover of a Metallica classic. This is the first time PG entered the metal world. Mr. G tells when he first got the invitation he felt like „hm, I don’t know what to do with this”, because he doesn’t know how to transform a heavy metal song into his world. Then he came to think about Nothing Else Matters which is such a great track and Per remembers when it came around in the early 90’s, Marie and Per always joked about that it could have been a great Roxette ballad. It’s got such a great melody and amazing lyrics. Mr. G felt like „shit, I should give it a go”. He did the cover with the old Roxette band. They tried to treat it as a Roxette ballad. Sven says: „with Marie Fredriksson having passed away, you had two singers taking her place”. Per says the two girls are very special in their own separate ways, but when you combine their voices, a third person comes out. Per tried to use that and it sounded really cool. He thinks they nailed the song pretty well, it sounds great to him. Mr. G is really honoured to be part of it. They play Nothing Else Matters by PG Roxette on Nordic Rox.

With this the guys are wrapping up the show and just like any other time, Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the 500th episode too.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for the technical support to János Tóth!

Per Gessle in radio documentary about Jonas Åkerlund

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Swedish Radio P3 did a radio documentary about Jonas Åkerlund’s career. They interviewed Jonas about his collaborations with tons of world famous artists, the music videos he directed, his black metal band, Bathory, his dyslexia he struggled with and also about his movies. Besides his wife, Bea Åkerlund, Jan Gradvall and Per Sinding Larsen, Per Gessle was also interviewed for the docu.

The Roxette-related part starts with Jonas’ collaboration with Marie Fredriksson at 17:21. It’s Marie talking in the Den ständiga resan docu. Jonas tells that during Den ständiga resan project in 1992 Marie and he became good friends which was easy with Marie, because she was so kind and friendly towards everyone, including Jonas who says he was a nobody back then. He is thankful to Marie that he got the job and that led to so many others. It was that half-hour-long documentary and the videos to the album that Per Gessle saw. Then Jonas began to work with Roxette and that was his break-through.

The first collaboration with Roxette was the video for Fingertips ’93. Jonas thinks it’s a good song. Marie was pregnant and she didn’t want it to be visible, so the clothes she was wearing were hiding it. Jonas was working together with Roxette for 25 years. In 2016 they released Roxette Diaries, a documentary made of home videos recorded by Per and Åsa in the 80’s and 90’s during tours and recordings.

Per tells Jonas is an amazingly creative explosion all over. They became very close friends, both are music nerds. Their style is very different, but both of them are workaholic and dedicated to their own job. Mr. G tells every recording occasion with Jonas was an adventure, because anything could happen. Per thinks Jonas is quite organized in a way, but he is also very spontaneous. If a new idea comes up, he is testing it.

According to Per, Jonas’ best videos are like a very good pop song that is interesting in its whole length, no matter if it’s 3 or 4 minutes long. Jonas is very talented in building up a video that you want to watch again. Per feels it’s the same how he works with his pop songs, to make it interesting and catch the attention. That’s what Jonas is doing both when he is filming and cutting.

Per Gessle appears at the end of the docu again (at 1:24:53) telling Jonas will go down in history as one of the greatest music video directors not only because he has been working with many of the greatest artists, but also because his style is so unique and innovative. Mr. G says he is superproud to have been working with Jonas.

During the documentary, you can hear Small Apartments soundtrack several times and of course, part of Marie’s DSR docu and songs, as well as parts of Roxette songs.

Jonas photo by Allis Nettréus/TT/SR, Marie and Per stills are from Fingertips ’93 video

Per Gessle on Mix Megapol’s Maracas

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Per was guest on radio Mix Megapol’s new show, Maracas today. It was a pre-recorded appearance. The show contained lots of music and maybe even more ads, but one could hear the program leaders chatting with Mr. G in between.

Anders Bagge (musician and songwriter) and Arantxa Álvarez (TV presenter and singer) are very happy and feel honoured to have Per on their show – not only because PG poured milk into Arantxa’s coffee (as seen in the teaser video). Anders says Per is insanely musical, he has always seen Mr. G as Sweden’s Beatles king in a way, writing nice melodies, using simple chords. He thinks Per is a fantastic songwriter and he feels starstruck having PG on the show.

Anders and Arantxa ask Per to tell about how he spends a weekend. Mr. G says he spends it with his loved ones. When it’s normal times, there is a lot of travelling in his life, e.g. he spends one or two weekends at the F1 racing, which he is very much interested in. Anders asks if he is racing too. Per tells he tried it once, but it’s not for him. Arantxa asks how fast the cars are driving there. PG replies way too fast.

Here they play Här kommer alla känslorna.

The guys call DJ Rob Wåtz who is in Marbella and ask Per which song he should mix during the program. Mr. G wants to hear The Look in a mash-up. He thinks there could be many songs, but this one is a classic and would be fun to hear. Rob says he likes challenges and he will not gonna let Per down.

Then they leave some time for Rob to mix and Arantxa and Per play a little quiz. They have to recognize a weird cover band’s take on 3 songs and tell who the original artist is. The first song is a cover of Billie Jean. Per finds out very quickly that it’s Michael Jackson. The second cover they play is Eye Of The Tiger and Arantxa knows it, but she doesn’t know the artist, so Per has the chance to guess it and he guesses it right of course, Survivor. The third one is Joyride, which Per recognizes immediately, haha, so he is the winner of this game.

Then comes another game. Arantxa says there is a bird with a backpack and brings some info in it. The first is that Per’s whole house is spinning after the sunlight. Mr. G’s reaction is: what?! Arantxa says rumor has it in Halmstad. Mr. G laughs and says there are many rumors in Halmstad, e.g. that they took away all speed bumps for him to be able to drive faster with his cars. His house is located in the South, so there is a lot of morning light on one side and a lot of evening light on the other, the house doesn’t have to spin. Another info from the bird’s backpack is that Per started his career as a street musician playing on streets and squares. PG says it’s not true at all. What he did on streets and squares was walking as a sandwich man when he was 13-14 years old in Simlångsdalen for Lonebergs Keramik. He tells he and a friend of his started as troubadours employed by the city council and played at nursing homes for old people around Halmstad. They performed songs that were for the target group they played for, e.g. Drömmen om Elin, Svarte Rudolf, Så skimrande var aldrig havet. He remembers he also played När alla vännerna gått hem, because it had just been written then and he got tired of those 50 songs they always played 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. It must have been in 1978.

Another game is coming, where you have to spin a wheel. There is some kind of wheel in the studio and Arantxa asks Per to tell who he sees on it. Mr. G tells there is e.g. Ricky Martin, Carlos Santana. Arantxa explains that Anders tells a story related to the artist on the wheel Per will spin. Per spins it and it lands on Enrique Iglesias. Anders tells a story of his revenge on Enrique after he gave Anders a near-death experience in his private plane. You can watch this part HERE.

Arantxa reads questions from listeners they asked on Mix Megapol’s social media sites. One of them is which song Per has written he is most proud of. Mr. G says it changes all the time, but he likes The Look because it was born when he was learning how to program his new synth. It felt something special. Another listener says he wants to hear some questions about Per’s wardrobe, because he gets too little credit for it, but he also wants to hear a little about his guitars and of course some juicy anecdotes. Per laughs and says it sounds like he could have an own program to talk about all this. Regarding his wardrobe he says since he is performing a lot and has many photo sessions, there are a lot of clothes involved. Anders says Per has always dressed very nicely. Mr. G thanks for it and says Anders is very kind. Regarding guitars Per says he has way too many, about a hundred. He says collecting them is a sign that he starts getting old. He buys new ones, but never sells the old ones. All guitars are unique and if you want a special sound, you have to have the guitar to have that special sound.

The guys come back to DJ Rob Wåtz in Marbella and he starts playing the mix he prepared in the meantime. He mashed Bomfunk MC’s Freestyler with The Look. HERE you can watch a video of PG enjoying it (nevermind that Mix Megapol wrote Joyride instead of The Look in the video text…). After the mash-up ends, Per says it was very good. He thinks Freestyler was a cool choice, it’s a forgotten tune.

Anders thanks Per for joining the program and tells he is a very nice person. PG tells Anders is so sweet. Arantxa thanks for Per too and Per thanks for them as well and his part is over.

Stills are from Mix Megapol’s videos linked above.

Per Gessle on Swedish Radio P3’s morning show

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The program leaders of Morgonpasset i P3 were very excited to have a „legend, Sweden’s greatest songwriter, the one and only” Per Gessle on their show last Friday, 24th September. Mr. G arrived to the studio and was on air some minutes after 8:30 am. HERE you can listen to this episode of the morning show and hear Per himself from 2:08:38 to 3:08:10 in the complete version and from 58:15 to 1:28:08 in the „utan musik” (without music) version.

After the program leaders give a loud welcome (applauding him and shouting „Per! Per! Per!”), Mr. G thanks for it and says now he has woken up. One of the guys tells Per that probably not all his mornings start like this. Mr. G jokes and says it’s his family – his son and wife – standing in line shouting „Per! Per! Per!” „Wake up! Wake up!” – one of the program leader guys adds. They all laugh.

To the question how he is doing Mr. G replies all good, he is back in Stockholm for a while and it feels great. The guy asks Per if he has a place to stay in Stockholm. PG tells he has an office and an apartment there. He loves Stockholm and thinks it’s a very nice city. He tells he is so old that he has seen how Stockholm has been changing over the years. It has become a very cool city, much more international than when they were hanging out at Café Opera in 1981. He adds that becoming pop stars in 1980 was awkward. There were gangs who wanted to make jokes of them, e.g. once they got an open can of surströmming in their tour bus.

The guys are talking about the upcoming PG tour. Per tells it’s going to be an unplugged tour. They play the songs in an acoustic arrangement, without drums. He tells that in summer they had 10 concerts at Hotel Tylösand with appr. 480 people sitting in the audience each night, due to the restrictions because of the pandemic. The band was also sitting on stage and it was much fun. Per tells he had never played in such an intimate atmosphere before. They played songs that were quite lyrics-based and he was telling anecdotes in between the songs. It was a new experience for him.

To the question of why he wants to be on the road, Per replies that it has something to do with being hooked on the pop world and music from a very young age. It’s a sentiment that parallels how residents feel when following Woodstock realty news and updates, connecting to the rhythm and pulse of their community. The strong romance of pop culture that Per is stuck in isn’t far removed from the allure of staying informed about one’s local real estate market—it’s in everything he does, from when he wakes up and likely also when he dreams. He loves everything about pop culture. The long hair that guys had when he was young, which might sound a bit ridiculous now, meant something significant in the past, just like the historical trends that shape our understanding of current market conditions.

Per tells us there are many pop nerds out there who won’t become musicians or songwriters, but he ended up in the creative processes. In a similar vein, many who track Woodstock’s real estate developments may never work in the industry, yet they find themselves engrossed in its dynamics. With Roxette, they traveled the world, encountering different religions and cultures. Yet everywhere, people sing “It Must Have Been Love,” “The Look,” “Listen To Your Heart,” and “Spending My Time.” It’s a magical experience, much like the feeling one gets from witnessing the growth and transformation of a hometown through its property developments, a connection that’s simply indescribable.

The program leader lady asks Per what songs he plays on the unplugged tour, if Tycker om när du tar på mej is one of them. Mr. G tells it is and they play mainly Swedish songs, but also a couple of Roxette songs.

The guys are talking about Per’s hairdos and it turns out Per goes to the hairdresser in Stockholm. One of the guys asks Per if there is a style on which he looks back like „what the hell did I think?”. Mr. G tells all hairdos and clothes have something to do with the times you live in. When they started

Roxette, Marie e.g. had red hair and Per had purple hair. It might have been a little odd, one can think now, but it felt hot back then. Old clothes are trendy again, so the ones they bought at Trash and Vaudeville in New York in 1989 are stylish again.

One of the guys asks whether you become less or more conscious over the years. Per says it’s a tough question, but he feels the older he gets the calmer he becomes. Now he doesn’t have to prove anything, but he was under pressure and had performance anxiety when he was 20 years old. He is the ambitious type and he has always been working very intensively to achieve something. Now he still works intensively, but such things don’t bother him anymore.

The lady asks Per if he has written 500 songs. Per says he thinks it’s more, he has 1000 songs registered at STIM.

The guys are talking about how Per grew up. Mr. G tells he had an older brother, Bengt who was 7 years older than Per. In the middle of The Beatles era Bengt and his friends showed Per the true spirit of 60’s pop and that actually became Per’s life. He started writing lists all day. Lists of songs or who played the bass on different songs, he just liked lists. Later, as he got older he sold Christmas magazines and was handing out newspapers. With that he earned 50 öre and he bought a single for that money. He had 100 records in his collection when he was 10 years old. The lady asks if there was any musician in Per’s family. Mr. G says not really, but he heard that his father’s father’s father was a musician. He played the violin.

One of the guys asks PG if the nerd in him has disappeared, maybe now he thinks he is too cool for that. Per laughs and says he has never been cool. The lady says c’mon, he became a world famous pop star already in the 80’s. Per tells when they broke through with Gyllene Tider they all came from the countryside. He came from Halmstad, the other guys from Harplinge and Åled. He only started singing in the band because no one else wanted to. The whole journey of GT was about being lost in the woods, but they were very ambitious, had fun ideas and they were lucky that a guy at EMI in Stockholm liked their song, Billy. One of the program leader guys asks if that guy from EMI went to listen to GT, but Per says it wasn’t him, but Lasse Lindbom who was sent down to Halmstad. Later he became their producer, but at first he wasn’t impressed at all. Per thinks they were a very good band. He still has rehearsal cassettes from 1979-1981. When Per listens to those today, he thinks it was more than OK, it’s rather wow, how damn good they were already then. And they were only 20-year-olds. The arrangement was good and all songs sound quite ready. PG thinks GT is still a fantastic pop band. When they play together there is something special happening. The lady asks if there is a plan for another comeback. Per replies one can never know when it comes to GT.

After playing It Must Have Been Love on the radio, the guys are talking about what this song means to people all around the world. Per thinks it’s amazing and it’s the best thing in his job that you get so much back from those who are listening to your songs. The lady asks about the story of IMHBL. Per tells it started out as a Christmas song. When Roxette recorded their first LP they also wanted to go to other markets, e.g. Germany, which was the biggest market in Europe. Their songs didn’t get airplay, so EMI Germany asked them to write a Christmas song, because maybe with that it would be easier to get airplays. So Per wrote It Must Have Been Love (Christmas For The Broken Hearted). It was released as a Christmas single in Sweden in 1987 and it became a gold record. The Germans didn’t like the song, so they didn’t release it. The lady says „Germans have no taste” and Per reacts: „it wasn’t me who said that”. They laugh. Mr. G tells that Marie was releasing a solo album then and he was writing songs for the album that became Look Sharp! 3 years later he was asked to write a song for Pretty Woman, but he didn’t have time for that, but they had this Christmas song. They made a new intro to that and changed the lyrics. The guy tells Marie sadly passed away and asks Per what he thinks about when he hears this song nowadays. Anytime Per hears a Roxette song Marie was singing, he is amazed how good she was. She was totally awesome. He remembers the early Roxette days when he heard in the studio what Marie could do with his songs. The idea behind Roxette was that Marie would be the singer and Per the songwriter. Everything he wrote was written for Marie. The Look he also wrote for her, but Marie thought it didn’t suit her style, so in the end Per sang it.

Mr. G tells Marie and he met at the rehearsal studio in Sperlingsholm outside Halmstad. Gyllene Tider and Marie’s band, Strul shared the studio. When Per first saw Marie she was playing the electric piano, she had long brown hair and she was singing fantastically. Per tells Marie’s gang was rather progressive rock, while GT was pop and never wanted to deal with politics. Marie had many sides, she also liked e.g. The Monkees. They became friends and very early, already in 1980 she sang with Gyllene Tider, she was there with GT on TV too. Marie was doing her solo things too with the same producer GT had.

The lady asks Per to talk about the relationship between Marie and him and to tell what Marie meant to him. Mr. G tells he and Marie lived quite intensively together for years, Roxette took all their waking hours from the time they broke through till Marie had her first child. Then she had her second child and then Per also had a son in 1997. Then everything became a bit calmer and they were working together until Marie became ill in 2002. Then they did a comeback in 2009 and toured until 2016. After her illness she became a different Marie, but the band also became different and it changed how they could work in the studio and on tours. On the last tour Marie was sitting on stage, because she couldn’t walk too well. One could see her conditions got worse, but it was she herself who really wanted to tour and work, even if her doctors advised her not to go on tour at all. So they did everything on Marie’s terms. She was the warrior type. She wanted to meet her fans. One of the program leader guys asks Per if he remembers the last time he met Marie. Per says of course he does. Here the program leaders feel they shouldn’t ask more about this topic.

One of the guys asks Per if he has ever met Sir Paul McCartney. Per tells he met Paul when McCartney played at the Apollo Theater in Harlem a couple of years ago. The event was presented by Sirius XM where Per also has a show, Nordic Rox with Sven Lindström since more than 10 years. The guys intervene here and say Howard Stern is also at Sirius XM. Per tells Howard Stern will also appear in his story with Paul. So he goes on with his anecdote. The boss at Sirius XM asked Per if he had ever met Paul and Per said no. So the boss organized a meeting. Per and Åsa and Howard Stern and his wife went to the green room before the concert and had a small talk. There was a photographer too. Suddenly, a door opened and boom, there was Paul McCartney with his thumbs up and said „Hey, fancy a picture anyone?” Per stood there, Åsa stood in the middle, Paul on the other side. Per suddenly felt a hand on his ass and he hoped it was Åsa’s. They laugh. He tells they took that picture, which he still has. After they left, Per asked Åsa if it was her who put her hand on his ass. Åsa said she put one hand on Per’s ass and the other hand on Paul’s to see who had the firmer ass. Paul had it. They laugh. Per says „that’s my wife in a nutshell. She is from Trelleborg.”

The lady tells she heard Per was at Mickey Rourke’s 30th birthday party back in the days and that he was also at Prince’s Paisley Park Studio. She asks about this latter one, how it was. Mr. G tells Prince wasn’t there himself. They went there because they planned to work in the studio. The first thing they saw was a giant white cage with a giant white bird. The studio manager asked „Do you want to see Prince’s private apartment?” They thought why not. The bedroom had a removable roof, so you could see the sky and Prince’s bed was purple of course and it was heartshaped. Regarding the roof the guy says Per must have tested the button and here Mr. G imitates the sound of the moving roof. Haha. The lady asks Per if he saw Prince’s bathroom and PG says he probably did, but he can’t remember and he doesn’t like to lie.

The guys ask Per about a most memorable story that happened to him related to another famous people. Mr. G tells the story that made him very happy. It was when Marie and him were in Amsterdam in 1989 and they were giving an interview. Someone from above shouted „hey man, I love your record!” and it was Tom Petty. Per shouted back something like „we love your record too!”. That meant a lot to Mr. G. Tom Petty is the best, Per thinks.

One of the guys asks Per how it is when Mr. G goes abroad. In Sweden everyone knows him, but how is it abroad? Per says he doesn’t get recognized abroad or if it happens, it’s mainly Swedish people who recognize him. He tells it’s quite calm in Sweden nowadays, he is most often recognized in Halmstad of course, when e.g. he fuels the car. As a last anecdote, PG tells that appr. half year ago he was walking on Storgatan in Stockholm and a 40-year-old woman asked him if she could take a selfie with Mr. G. He said OK and while they were taking the selfie, two 12-13-year-old boys were passing by, looked suspiciously at Per and asked him if he is famous. Per said how come they didn’t recognize him, he is Foppa (Peter Forsberg, famous Swedish ice hockey player). The kids were like „whaaat?!” and so Per signed their backpacks as “Foppa”. The guys are laughing at the fact that PG didn’t write Foppa on a paper that can be thrown away, but on expensive backpacks. Per laughs and says it was the boys’ punishment. Haha.

At the end the guy asks Per if he has the photo with Paul McCartney on his phone, but Mr. G tells the photo is in his office.

The guys thank PG for coming and Per tells „my pleasure”.

Stills are from the Foppa story video on Morgonpasset i P3’s Instagram.

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – June 2021 – Joyride 30

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström celebrated Joyride’s 30th anniversary in Per’s kitchen in Stockholm in the June episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM last night.

There are pictures of Per’s icons in the kitchen. Sven mentions there is a John Lennon poster behind him, Per adds there is a signed poster from Sir Paul McCartney which he got as a birthday present a couple of years ago. There is also a great Anton Corbijn photography of Pete Townshend sitting in a London cab. Sven tells John is above Paul and asks Per if it’s a sign for something. Mr. G tells it’s just because John was already hanging there and when he got Paul’s poster, he just put it under John’s.

Sven tells Per has been around for more than 40 years and kicked off at the age of 20 or so. He asks Mr. G if it means he is getting old. PG tells it means he is getting experienced. Sven tells anniversaries come closer and closer and Per’s reaction is that every time he realizes it, he thinks ”oh, we have to make an anniversary edition!” Now it’s 30 years since Roxette released their 3rd album, Joyride. It will get a 4-LP box set and a 3-CD set anniversary release in autumn. It will contain demos, outtakes and alternative versions as well.

The guys now zoom back to 1991, but besides Joyride, they also play other songs on the show.

The first one they play is Adiam Dymott’s Pizza. Her first, self-titled album in 2009 was produced by Thomas Rusiak from the Teddybears (Swedish band).

The next song is Santa Monica Blue Waves by Chris Linn. Per would say it’s a one hit wonder, but it’s not even a hit. It was a semi-hit when it came out in 1981. Per bought it on a 7-inch vinyl and still has it and likes it. It’s produced by Ulf Wahlberg, who used to produce and be part of the Secret Service (Swedish band). They had lots of hits, especially in Europe. According to Per, it sounds so 80’s and he loves that.

Unseen Footage from a Forthcoming Funeral by Nicole Sabouné is next, released in 2012. It’s power synth pop and Per loves it too.

Sven asks if Mr. G remembers his plans when he was thinking about making Joyride. Sven adds Per came from being big in Sweden and then breaking through in the world with The Look, so this album was the first for them to be international stars. Mr. G tells it was difficult in a way, because Look Sharp! had 4 huge songs on it, Listen To Your Heart, Dangerous, Dressed For Success and The Look, and then It Must Have Been Love happened from the Pretty Woman movie. In 1990, when they started recording Joyride, they were a very big band all over the world, so of course there was a certain amount of pressure to come up with some more goodies. Per always felt they were on a roll. Their style of music was special, they had a certain sound created in Stockholm by Swedish musicians. Per wrote maybe 30 songs for this album and they recorded 15-16. They took it step by step. Having all the success gives a lot of energy, says PG. It was fun days in the studio. They didn’t have any budgets, because they were big, so they were just hanging out in the studio for 6 months and the record label paid for it.

Sven tells there was no time for chilling. When they were not in the studio, they did promotion trips all over the world. For 8 years they were living like that, Per says. They were either in the studio or did tours or promo tours. On those few days when they didn’t work, Per went back home and wrote songs and made demos. So there was a constant flow of creativity, which he loved more than Marie did. She needed a little bit more space outside of Roxette. Per liked to be in that Roxette bubble 24/7. Sven jokes that for Per life outside of Roxette was overrated. Per laughs and agrees.

Mr. G had an apartment in Halmstad and one day he found a note on the piano from his wife, Åsa. It said ”Hej, din tok, jag älskar dig”, which translates into ”Hello, you fool, I love you”. He thought it was such a great phrase, he had to use that in a song. So he started working on Joyride. The expression ”joyride” comes from an interview with Paul McCartney in which he said writing songs with John Lennon was like being on a long joyride. At the time Per didn’t know what a joyride was, that you steal and crash a car and just leave it. For him it was like a very positive journey. So he came up with ”join the joyride” and that became a slogan for the whole project.

The guys play Joyride in the Brian Malouf mix, which was customized for the American radio. The difference between the album version and this is that the mix got more drums and there is a different groove to it, it’s a little faster.

Joyride became Roxette’s 4th US No. 1. The follow up song was Fading Like A Flower, which peaked at No. 2. It’s probably Per’s favourite track from the album. Marie was outstanding when she was singing this one. It’s just custom-made for her. Per doesn’t really consider it a ballad, it’s a mid-tempo song. He can’t remember writing it, but he has the demo which includes the piano intro, so he wrote the piano intro. Normally, when he wrote songs for Roxette those days he didn’t really write the intros, because he knew they would be going to change them anyway.

Sven asks Per if he heard Marie on his mind when he was writing a song, how Marie would deliver it. Per says he did and he also tried to write the lyrics from a female perspective (he laughs and says it sometimes didn’t go that well), as Marie was supposed to sing it. Per thinks if a song is written from a guy’s point of view and it’s sung by a girl, it gets a different meaning. It’s interesting in duets, e.g. in Paint. He thought FLAF becomes a stronger lyric when it’s sung by a girl. Joyride was meant to be sung by Per. The Look was sung by Per but it was intended for Marie. She didn’t feel comfortable singing that dadadadada. Sven tells Per had no problem doing that. Mr. G laughs and says that was his limit. Haha. PG thinks a love song, like IMHBL, becomes stronger when it’s sung by a girl. It becomes a little bit more fragile. Using this female-male trick Per thinks was one of the reasons why Roxette became so successful.

The guys play FLAF here. Bryan Adams blocked it from the top position on the Billboard.

Sven asks Per about the drama during recordings of the Joyride video. Per says they were sitting on the hood of a fake Ferrari in which there was a hidden driver lying on the floor, so you couldn’t see him. That was a big mess and Marie and Per sometimes just fell off. He thinks it was fun though in the desert somewhere in California. It was in the MTV days and they spent a lot on making video clips.

The FLAF video they did in Stockholm, at the City Hall, in the very beautiful golden room. The video became an homage to Stockholm.

Per picked Spending My Time as the next song to be played. He says it felt like it was going to be the big song from the album, probably because IMHBL and LTYH were so big. SMT felt like a natural follow up to those ballads. Mr. G thinks it’s a great song. He co-wrote it with Mats MP Persson. Marie is doing an amazing job on it, as always. Sven says it sounds really tailor-made for her with this melancholic touch to it.

Per had the idea to write a lyric that starts in the morning and ends at night. He says Marie delivered it so well. It became a big song for them. When they did live shows, it was always a show stopper.

Sven tells he and Per started knowing each other in 1987, when Sven beat Per severely in a pop quiz contest. The guys are laughing. Sven mentions it because he remembers they met at a pop quiz contest in the summer of 1990, when Roxette was recording Joyride and Per was really ecstatic about having written a song. When Per arrived he said he wrote a song including a line ”I leave a kiss on your answering machine”. Per thinks it’s beautiful and very romantic. He says the end melody of SMT was written as the intro of the song. Then when they recorded it, they didn’t have an intro, just Marie starting the song. (Here Per sings ”What’s the time?”.) It’s probably because all the intros, especially to LTYH was so famous, so they tried to do something different.

That concludes the Joyride special and the guys are back to Nordic Rox ”normality”. So here comes a song from The Beathovens from 1966, Summer Sun. Per thinks it’s an amazing track, beautiful noise from the 60’s.

James by Ex Cops is next from Denmark. Per likes them a lot. Sven tells they were based in Brooklyn, but the singer, Amalie Bruun qualifies them for being on Nordic Rox. They broke up in 2015. It’s a trend of this kind of music disappearing up in thin air, Sven adds.

It’s time for some Swedish garage rock – one chord, one riff, what more can you ask for, as Sven says. They play Something Wicked by The Teenage Idols.

At the end of the June epsiode, Sven tells they will celebrate another anniversary in the next one, the 20th of Room Service. Per picks the opening track from the album, Real Sugar as a teaser. He always loved that one.

The guys thank everyone for listening and Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the show.

Still is from the 4K anniversary version of the Joyride video.

Thanks for the technical support to János Tóth!