Åsa Gessle

Part of Per Gessle’s unique collection of Ferraris to go on display at Hotel Tylösand

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On Monday, 1st May, The Front House opens at Hotel Tylösand, Halmstad, Sweden. The new hotel building is a real gem with 39 new rooms designed by Åsa Gessle, an exhibition hall with Per and Åsa Gessle’s unique collection of Ferrari cars and the top-equipped Ronnie Peterson conference room.

It is the architect firm Fredblad in Halmstad that has designed The Front House, whose whitewashed five-storey facade becomes a natural extension of the existing hotel building. All rooms and the conference room have been designed by Åsa Gessle with MTA Bygg & Anläggning as main contractor.

WARM BEACH COLORS

The 39 new double rooms in The Front House are in the warm and gentle colours you can see out among Tylösand’s beach, sand and dunes during the summer months.

GESSLE’S FERRARI COLLECTION

On the ground floor of The Front House, unique experiences are offered to anyone with the slightest interest in exclusive cars. Here there will be a permanent exhibition with parts of Per and Åsa Gessle’s unique car collection, in most cases Ferrari cars that are produced in extremely limited numbers.

Per says:

My interest in cars started when I was little and saw the pictures of John Lennon’s psychedelic painted Rolls-Royce. Talk about inspiration – you wanted one like that. But right then I had to settle for collecting Corgi Toys cars and building the Scalextric car track with my big brother Bengt.

It was the Ferrari Dino that got me sold on Ferrari cars. Tony Curtis drove a red Dino in “The Persuaders” and on the inner sleeve of George Harrison’s “Living In The Material World” album you see all the musicians having a picnic in his garden and in the background there is a brown Dino. It was something to fantasize about for a teenager in Vilshärad.

RONNIE PETERSON LOUNGE

The 60 square meter conference room in The Front House has been named the Ronnie Peterson Lounge and is decorated as a tribute to the legendary Swedish racing star. The venue is technically top-equipped and intended for groups of up to 20 people.

Hotel Tylösand CEO Elisabeth Haglund says:

Hotel Tylösand has long been one of Sweden’s most booked conference hotels and The Front House reinforces our offer in a very inspiring way. It gives us further opportunities to continue developing and offer our guests an even more distinctive and rewarding stay with us.

Press release in Swedish HERE.

Per Gessle – En vacker natt – interview in Expressen

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Anders Nunstedt posted a pic of himself and Per Gessle on Instagram yesterday and wrote he did an interview with Mr. G. Despite the title (”Per Gessle about life with his love, Åsa”), the article is more about Per’s new album, En vacker natt and the recording process. The interview was done at BMG’s office in Stockholm.

As Anders writes, Per Gessle travelled to Nashville and came home with 2 pop albums colored by sentimental American country and Swedish romance. The first album, En vacker natt is out on Friday (28 April), then comes a summer tour, En vacker kväll and in September the 2nd album, En vacker dag is released. Per describes it enthusiastically as a gigantic comeback, spiced with an extensive signing tour in the next few weeks.

About the project Per says:

There’s no need to stop just because you get older. These songs have taken 58 years to mature.

Regarding songwriting Mr. G tells Anders he tries to write fast when he gets started. The songs have been recorded in a studio in Nashville, the country metropolis, where Per and his gang rocked together with American studio musicians. This musical meeting gave the Swedish material a different touch and Per, at least partly, a new sound. Mr. G thinks it was much fun, because he had never met those people before and he noticed that they thought it was very strange music they did. But Per thought there was a sound in this project that those Nashville musicians have never played before. And then he became a little proud.

As Anders expresses himself, En vacker natt is not about a jet-set life. It’s down to earth from start to finish. Gessle has collected children’s laughter, birdsong, ocean waves and the sound of a train station. He sings about tussilagos on the single, Småstadsprat, the Winnerbäck duet and about daisies in the opening track Min plats.

Per says:

It’s my style when I’m writing texts. If I succeed, the lyrics mean something for the listener. To do that, I have to use symbols. If I write “ny tussilago vid den väg jag går, kommer varje vår” (new tussilago on the way I go, comes every spring), I say at the same time, “there will be new chances”, “next year comes a new journey”, “life goes on”. You can interpret this in so many different ways.

Anders asks Per if it often becomes sentimental. Per replies it does. Even if he always writes the same thing, he has tried to write from another angle now. For example, Några glas rosé is a pretty classic love text, but the angle is that he being older looks back on a young love. This way there is automatically a certain form of sentimentality. Mr. G says it’s a bit sad that time goes by. It might be scary and insanely strange, but you can also use it as an ingredient and an inspiration.

Anders asks Per if the lyrics of his love songs are about his wife, Åsa. Per is laughing and tells Mr. Nunstedt that if it’s love texts, Åsa thinks he wrote them about her, but if she doesn’t like the lyrics, she doesn’t take the song personal. Haha.

Anders says Per and Åsa have been married since almost 25 years and asks how they kept their love alive. Per says:

We’ve been together since 1984. It’s a long time. But Åsa and I have always belonged to each other in a certain way, ever since we first met. I can’t see my life without her at all.

We are very similar and very different. Åsa is a superstrong person, but at the same time she has chosen to be in a supporting role to me.

Per tells Åsa is from the travel industry and started working early with Roxette and their travels, and got a position in the whole organization. So it has never been the case that Per had been away for eight months and came home, but they basically shared everything. Mr. G says his wife has been amazing.

Thanks for the interview, Expressen! An album review by Anders Nunstedt (as usual) is probably out later this week. Let’s see how many Expressen bees Per’s new album gets!

Interview with Åsa Gessle in Hallandsposten

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asa_gessle_in_hallandspostenThere is a long and very nice interview with Åsa Gessle in Hallandsposten today, both in printed format and on their website. You will also find some cool pics of Fru Nordin in there. Interview is done by Christian Albinsson, pics by Anders Andersson.

Åsa talks mainly about Hotel Tylösand, her role in the hotel’s life, her designer career, her relationship to Per, as well as her love towards Halmstad, life around Roxette and her filming on tours.

The article mentions Åsa and Per acquired Hotel Tylösand relatively cheaply in 1995 together with businessman Björn Nordstrand. Åsa says they re-invest a lot into the hotel each year. She finds it fun that the hotel is constantly growing and renewed, because she always had a dream to run a hotel, although she thought that it would rather be a small boutique hotel in the countryside than a large conference center.

Regarding Per, Åsa says he is more interested in the art hanging on the hotel’s walls and what kind of wines are served at the restaurants, design ideas, appearance etc. are more Åsa’s thing.

In the Hallandsposten interview she mentions there are plans to create a sun terrace on the roof top of the spa building. Mrs. Gessle says many of her favorite hotels abroad have such a sun terrace with a bar. She is very proud of her babies, Leif’s Bar & Grill and Bettans Bar and says she feels herself at home there.

She talks about how she ended up in Halmstad 33 years ago, in 1982, when she moved to there to open a clothes shop with her then-boyfriend. Their relationship came to an end and she was introduced to Per by a common friend of theirs, Lars Nordin.

I already knew who Per was, but Gyllene Tider were not exactly my idols, so to speak. I had also lived a few years abroad and had not really kept track of Per’s career.

As Åsa tells Hallandsposten, love came approximately a month later, when Per sent her a letter written in tongue-in-cheek style, which truly characterizes Per. He wrote about her dog and if she could kindly leave the dog at home if he had a chance to invite Åsa for dinner. Since then they are a couple. By the way, Fru Nordin says Per still likes writing handwritten letters.

As written in the Hallandsposten article, Åsa planned everything around the Roxette trips. She and Per were travelling together since 1989, stayed at many hotels and in the beginning they could see less of the cities they stayed in, but nowadays it’s quieter and they have time to stop and collect impressions.

Besides organizing the travelling and gathering inspiration from different hotels, Åsa has always had a camera with herself. The Jonas Åkerlund film (Roxette Diaries) we already wrote about will soon be completed, however, it’s still not decided where to broadcast it.

Hallandsposten writes about Halmstad life being perfect for Åsa, she loves living there, while Stockholm suits Per more. He has more social life in the Swedish capital.

I also like to go out and dance to dance bands, last time about a week ago in Västerhagen. I still have sore muscles. Dancing to dance bands is not something I do with Per. 🙂

We’re going home to Halmstad to gather strength. I love to go to Prince Bertil’s path, which I do almost every day. It’s awesome that new things are happening there all the time and the landscape changes along the way. My favorite spot is Tylöbäck where there is a kind of magical atmosphere, although I think one should clean up a little of all the old trees…

Another favorite spot is the garden where Åsa and Per like just to sit and enjoy peace, and to have breakfast in the special breakfast corner.

It’s nice to have a little routine. Per always drinks filter coffee at certain times, like an old lady, ha ha.

In the interview Åsa talks about her designer career. It started in 2007 when there was a housing exhibition in Halmstad and Lars Nordin asked her if she would decorate one of the apartments. First she said no, because they were in the middle of a tour, but she now mentions the real reason was that she thought it was a little scary. She accepted the challenge in the end and she used By Rydéns lamps in that apartment, so she got in good contact with them. Now she is designing lamps for them. The theme is love and peace and the peace mark is a central element of the design. There are 1 or 2 lamps each season designed by Åsa, who has learned it step by step that it is important to believe in and challenge yourself.

For Åsa, it is obvious that love makes us better people, and her message is that we should be kinder to each other and be happy for each other’s success.

Per Gessle in the Autoropa Racing Days video

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You might remember Per sharing pictures of himself at a Racing Day at Ring Knutstorp, Sweden last September (pic 1, pic 2). Mr G mentioned back then:

Racing yesterday at Ring Knutstorp. Well, I actually didn’t race. Just a few laps on the track. I’m a coward.

So, the car was driven by someone else on the track and we were also joking a lot about him wearing that helmet or not in the end. I bet many would have been happy to be there and check Per’s LALALA LaFerrari from the inside. It seems some were lucky enough to sit in it for a little time.

Besides providing the visitors with the possibility to see tons of posh cars, there was a charity race for Childhood Cancer Foundation and 300000 SEK was collected for them. On a side note, Hugh Grant was also present and he was racing.

6 months after the event, Autoropa, the organizer of the racing days shared a short VIDEO summary of what happened at Ring Knutstorp that September day. They talked to Per, so he also appears in the video. Check him at 0:36 and 4:40. As you can see, the mystery is solved. Mr G did wear that helmet, even if it was maybe only for some seconds or minutes. Per says in the video that Åsa (who was btw driving the LaFerrari to and from Ring Knutstorp) drives a little faster on the roads than Per. Who would have thought? 😉

PG_racing_day_02        PG_racing_day_01

Stills are from the Autoropa Racing Days video

 

Photos from the event:

Autoropa FB page (photos)
Autoropa website (photos)
rignellskansljuvahem.blogspot.se (photos)
flickr.com (isakhuynh) photos 1; 2;
Aftonbladet (article and photos)

 

Per Gessle in a documentary about Henry Diltz

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Henry Diltz‘s name surely rings a bell. He is a legendary rock photographer and has taken many famous photos of e.g. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, etc. He even took photos for Roxette’s Tourism album and Per has some of his pics on display at Hotel Tylösand.

Now a documentary is in progress about Henry Diltz’s story and Per will also talk about him in it. As Janolof Fritze, director of the documentary informs:

A few days ago we got Per Gessle from Roxette in front of the camera. In the documentary “Rock Photographer Henry Diltz – famous among the famous” Per is talking about Henry as a good friend and a great photographer. Per Gessle is one of 30 iconic music artists featured in the 90 minutes documentary that we hope to release in the beginning of 2015.

There is already a trailer to the docu, in which you can see Mr G for 6 seconds! Click HERE or on the screenshot to watch it! Per appears at about 00:50. He says:

A good photographer like Henry, he knows what he is doing. I don’t, you know. I just take snapshots.

PG_in_the_Henry_Diltz_docu

 

As Per informed on Roxette Official, there was a Tres Hombres Art exhibition opening for Terry O’Neill‘s photos on 7th October at Hotel Diplomat. It seems that after the event they went on to Uppsala to meet Henry, since he has an exhibition of his photos during the Uppsala Guitar Festival. There they showed how to shoot a proper selfie of 4. 😉

 

PG_selfie
Henry Diltz, Terry O’Neill, Åsa Gessle, Per Gessle