CONTEST – Win a signed copy of Staffan Öfwerman’s biography!

by

Your Backstage Pass to My Life in Music by Staffan Öfwerman is a truly remarkable biography. Written by Staffan himself, the book chronicles his life as a musician behind several Swedish artists, with a significant focus on his time with Roxette, where he worked as a musician during their peak years. The book is not presented in chronological order; instead, Staffan weaves captivating stories that revolve around similar themes, blending various anecdotes from different periods of his life in an entertaining manner.

Opening with a fantastic experience of performing at a retirement home, the first chapter sets the tone for the book. Your Backstage Pass to My Life in Music also includes a selection of both black-and-white and color photographs. Moreover, readers gain access to a private website where they can explore a treasure trove of Staffan’s photographs taken during his numerous tours. These images are truly unique, never seen before by the public.
Furthermore, the website features a treasure trove of video and audio clips, including demos and unreleased songs. These elements complement the reading experience, offering a multi-dimensional glimpse into Staffan’s extraordinary musical career.

As Staffan shares his journey, the personal touch of the author and his direct involvement in these events make the reading experience even more captivating. The narratives are authentic, coming from someone who was an insider throughout these experiences.
In conclusion, Your Backstage Pass to My Life in Music is an excellent and entertaining book that takes readers on an enthralling journey. Staffan’s firsthand accounts and musical prowess make this biography a must-read for anyone seeking an insider’s perspective.

A great advantage is that the book is written in English. The 286-page biography was published in June 2023 and contains photos as well. It can be ordered HERE!

Everyone who has purchased the book gets access to an online backstage area with exclusive content.

Listen to Staffan’s solo music HERE!

Staffan kindly offered one signed copy for a RoxBlog contest. In order to participate, answer the following questions correctly:

  1. Name at least 3 songs on Roxette’s Joyride album where you can hear Staffan singing backing vocals! – Hotblooded, Fading Like A Flower, I Remember You, The Big L., (Do You Get) Excited?, Church Of Your Heart, Small Talk
  2. What’s the title of the latest single released by Staffan as a solo artist? – Let Us Take You Higher
  3. What’s the title of Ofwerman’s 1987 debut single written by Per Gessle? – Young

Send an e-mail with your name, address and the correct answers to the questions to roxblog.contest@gmail.com until 23:59 CET, 5th November 2023. The lucky winner will be announced on 6th November 2023. Good luck!

UPDATE on 6th November: the winner has been picked and informed via email about his winning. Thanx, everyone, for taking part! The winner is Michael Haskamp from Germany! Congrats!

Contest terms and conditions:
– In order to participate, you have to send an e-mail to roxblog.contest@gmail.com with name, address and correct answers to the 3 questions. We will consider all e-mails we receive until 23:59 CET on 5th November 2023.
– 1 winner will be picked randomly among those who have participated and sent the correct answers.
– You can only participate once. Any attempt to participate twice or more times will lead to your disqualification.
– Prizes won’t be paid out in cash. Prizes will be sent by registered mail only once.
– The winner will be announced on this website, on our Facebook page and will also be notified per e-mail. You’ll be required to answer the e-mail confirming your address.
– RoxetteBlog will not enter into any correspondence regarding the result of the contest and is not liable for any damages, loss or expenses that may result in connection to the prizes.
– By taking part in the contest, personal data (first name, surname, e-mail address and address) will be collected. These data are needed in order to run the contest, particularly in order to match participation applications to their entries as well as to identify and notify the winners. This method of processing data is therefore required pursuant to Article 6 Paragraph 1 lit b of the GDPR to fulfil contractual obligations. The personal data collected will be processed and used by RoxetteBlog only to the extent that is required in order to run the contest. The personal data will be stored for the duration of the contest and – in order to process any claims relating to winnings and damages – for a maximum of 6 months afterwards and they will then be deleted. By participating, you agree to all above mentioned and your name being published on this website, as well as on our social media channels in case you win.

True or false game with Per Gessle on Mix Megapol

by

Per was a guest on Gry Forssell med vänner on Mix Megapol on 24th October. The program is available as podcast HERE (last 3 minutes), but only a short version of the conversation is online. The program leaders played a „true or false” game with PG. They also shared a short video HERE.

One of the questions was if it’s true that Per has a house (here Per replies immediately that it’s true, haha), a house that moves with the sun. Mr. G thinks it’s a brilliant idea, but it’s unfortunately false. Rumor has it that Per called the municipality of Halmstad and asked them to remove all speed bumps in the surroundings, so that his Ferrari wouldn’t hit them. Per says he has also heard about it and he thinks it’s also a good idea, but that is not true either. He heard this story from his neighbours. Gry asks Per how it feels that there are made up stuff like this about him. PG thinks it’s quite fun. It makes everything a little more confused about him and he likes that.

One of the guys asks Per if it’s true that he picked songs for their Spanish album in which he doesn’t sing, so that he didn’t have to sing in Spanish. PG smiles and says it’s true. He says he sang only one song, Vulnerable (Tímida in Spanish). Mr. G thinks it was a miserable project. Marie was perfect though. She even sang Spending My Time live in Spanish when they played in South America.

Gry says they talked about this with PG before, but maybe things have changed since then. They are curious if it’s true or false that has never bathed in Tylösand. One of the guys asks if there was no swimming this summer. Per replies he was on tour this summer, so no. He has never swam in Tylösand. He tells the story that his father and grandfather were plumbers and they built the whole water system in Tylösand, Frösakull and Ringenäs. It was in the ’50s and ’60s and when Per was a kid, he went with his father to Frösakull a lot. They had a little shed there and Per spent a lot of time in Frösakull. That’s the beach next to Tylösand. So he swam there. The program leaders say that now Per doesn’t bathe in Tylösand, because that’s a story that should live on. Per says he can still bathe there and lie afterwards. Haha.

Stills are from the video.

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – October 2023

by

Per Gessle and Sven Lindström offer a Lisa Miskovsky special on the October episode of Nordic Rox. PG thinks she is a great singer with a wonderful voice and she is a wonderful artist. She released her first album in 2001. Still going strong. Sven adds she is a great songwriter too.

Before the special starts, the guys talk about The Cardigans, a Swedish band that wasn’t from Malmö, but they moved to Malmö. Love Fool was a big hit in the States, but now the guys play a song from the Life album called Carnival. Swedish indie from 1995.

Ooh I Like It! by The Creeps is the next song. It’s produced by Clarence Öfwerman, who produced Roxette. Sven says it sounds really good. The band is from Älmhult, the town that made IKEA famous. Marit Bergman is next with her beautiful This Is The Year from 2002.

The guys are moving in the direction of Per Gessle and play the latest single, Vandrar i ett regn. It’s to celebrate the Swedish legend, Pugh Rogefeldt. Sven mentions they did a Nordic Rox special with Pugh. Per says he passed away unfortunately in May this year. Per says he was part of a tribute concert, an homage to him, and he released a single with one of Pugh’s songs from 1975. Sven says it’s from a live album and he doesn’t think there was a studio version. It was only released live and it was sort of a ’50s pastiche. Per adds he always loved that song. He was actually there at the show where it was recorded when he was 16 years old. The double album became a big hit for Pugh. When Per recorded the song himself, he removed all these ’50s influences. He made it into a little bit more like his style instead. Sven thinks it’s a great move. It became something else, a wonderful pop track with Per’s guitarist Ola’s slide guitar there as well. Per is sure a lot of people of course don’t understand the song, because it’s in Swedish, but it’s got all those typical elements of Pugh’s wonderful lyrics. He had his own style. Sven says he is called the founding father of Swedish rock music, and not only because of the music, but also the lyrics. PG says he was the first one to do rock music in Swedish. In a credible way, Sven adds. Per is very happy to be able to participate and to pay some tribute to him.

Electric by the fabulous band Melody Club is next. They are from Sven’s hometown, Växjö. Great stuff coming out of that town, Sven says. The guys are laughing.

Sven and Per move on to the Lisa Miskovsky special. Per says she is a great singer and she is from the North. Her father was from the old Czechoslovakia and her mother was from Finland. She had made a debut album in 2001, which was an instant success. Sven adds she started writing songs at an early age, but she was super talented in many other ways. She was really close to become a member of the Swedish national team in snowboard. And she played hockey, Per adds. But the songwriting and the singing eventually got the upper hand. In 2001 she made her first single Driving One Of Your Cars. Mr. G says it’s very special. It sounds exactly like how pop music sounded in 2001. Sven agrees.

Cool track coming up next, Lady Stardust from Lisa’s second album Fallingwater. Sven doesn’t know how it did internationally. He is not really sure about Lisa’s international career actually. Per thinks it went so-so. This was a really big album in Sweden. She started working with Joakim Berg from the band Kent who co-wrote songs with her and also co-produced. That made a big difference style-wise. This is a really cool album and Lady Stardust was a big, big song on the radio. Sven remembers you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. Big radio track.

Sven says it’s starting to heat up now, because they are moving out to the international big hit scene. Per says, what was interesting was that Lisa Miskovsky had this song called Another Shape Of My Heart, which eventually turned out to be Shape Of My Heart by the Backstreet Boys. Sven explains that Lisa made a demo of this song and it got in the hands of Max Martin. PG says Max Martin was producing and writing for Backstreet Boys at the time. In the Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sven adds. Sven doesn’t know if you can say that he kept half of Lisa’s ideas. Per says he doesn’t know, he wasn’t there. Haha. Sven says he wasn’t there either. Max Martin added some magic to it and just to let you know what the difference is, the guys play Another Shape Of My Heart, the Lisa Miskovsky version, and then the Shape Of My Heart version by Backstreet Boys.

Sven asks Per if he has ever written something similar to a boy band tune. Per says not that he knows of. Sven is curious about how it is for Per as a songwriter what started in the boy band era that there were multiple songwriters working together. Sometimes you can see up to 5 or even 10 songwriters. PG says it’s a different thing, he comes from a different generation. He is used to working alone or with one partner. But nowadays you do everything on the computer and you send your files to each other and people add things all the time. So it’s a different ball game. New times, new methods.

One more track is played by Lisa Miskovsky, also from the Fallingwater album. It was Lisa’s second album. A Brand New Day is Per’s favorite Lisa Miskovsky track. He thinks she sings beautifully on this one. It’s co-written by Lisa herself and Joakim Berg from Kent. A wonderful track from 2003. This wraps up the Lisa Miskovsky special. The guys mention once again that she is a great songwriter, performer, singer, hockey player and snowboarder.

The guys have an ace up their sleeves in the shape of Bob Hund. A wonderful band, according to Per. They play Tralala lilla molntuss. PG can’t translate it. Sven says if you think it’s a bit difficult to understand Thomas Öberg, the singer’s lyrics, don’t feel too depressed, because he is coming from Helsingborg in the South of Sweden, and a lot of Swedes have actually a bit trouble hearing what he says.

Mando Diao’s The Band is next and Toys And Flavors by The Hellacopters is the last song, from the album High Visibility released in 2000.

Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

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

Thanks for your support, Sven!

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

by

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

by

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.