Nordic Rox

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – January 2023

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Sven Lindström and Per Gessle had their first chat of the year on Nordic Rox. They wish a happy new year to each other. They ask each other how they are doing. Both feel good and Per adds he survived Christmas and New Year’s Eve… in style, he thinks. Sven had a moment of silence. He thought that would say everything about whether he survived or not. Per says „we weren’t at the same party”. They are laughing.

They think it’s good to be back on the show. This time they plan to turn up the amplifiers till 12, sometimes up to 13.5. The featured band on this episode is The Nomads. Per thinks they are a great, wonderful band. This tradition in punk pop music is just the best there is. Sven says they are kicking some serious ass and they have done that since the early ’80s and still do.

The guys kick off with a wee warm-up here in the shape of Troglodyte by Viagra Boys. They remember The Troggs [English garage rock band] and think they were a great band. Per’s favourite Troggs singles were I Can’t Control Myself and Love Is All Around. „I go for the ballads, you know me, Sven.” PG starts singing Anyway That You Want Me here and Sven says, „OK. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Reg Presley [singer in The Troggs] says hello.” They are laughing.

Holiday Inn by Adiam Dymott is next from her debut album. Mr. G thinks that’s a great album and they played quite a few songs from there over the years. I Miss You, John Denver, Pizza, almost every track. Then comes Sugar, the new single of Tribe Friday.

Sven says they have a kick in the ass section waiting for you out there in the shape of The Nomads and they will play four of their highlights from their illustrious career. But before that, some more songs from the Nordic countries. Smile by Atomic Swing comes next. It’s a great ’90s track, one of their biggest hits.

Headphones On by PG Roxette is next, then Between The Lines by Sambassadeur. Per likes this one, he has never heard that before. It’s a great track. Mr. G thinks she has a great voice and he likes their style and the arrangement. Sven says Per mentioned another track while listening to this one, it was like an indie version of Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer. But that’s a little bit more sophisticated and this one is more indie style. Charming, they think. Speaking of charming, the guys get back to Headphones On. It’s the new single of PG Roxette. Per asks Sven if he likes it. Sven thinks it’s cool. PG thinks it’s nice. He is honoured to have the old Roxette lead guitar player, Jonas Isacsson around. He is playing a guitar solo on this one. It’s so rare to record guitar solos these days, he adds. Sven thinks it’s desperately needed. Per thinks so too. Sven asks Per if Jonas was happy for getting the chance to let loose. Mr. G says he is always happy when he gets a chance to play guitar solo. Every guitarist is. „Did you try it, Sven?” Sven says as soon as they are ready, he is going to pick up his guitar and fire away. Haha.

Mando Diao has a new single, Fire In The Hall. Sven asks Per what he thinks about that. PG thinks it’s OK. He thinks Mando Diao has its ups and downs and this is somewhere in the middle for him. But it’s always interesting to hear what they are going through. This song is from the EP Primal Call, Vol. 2.

The excellent new single from Stella Explorer, House Arrest is the next song. The guys think it’s a very, very cool track. They like it a lot. Per thinks this one is also from an EP. It’s very popular to do EPs these days, a shorter version of albums. Sven asks Per if he knows what EP stands for. Mr. G knows it of course, Extended Play. Those things were important to learn back in the days. Per thinks it’s actually good nowadays when you have the streaming services that you can release 4 songs instead of 12. He will always go for releasing albums, but a lot of people are complaining and you can tell by the streaming numbers as well that people are getting bored after four or five songs. He is laughing. Sven says that was a challenge that The Soundtrack Of Our Lives always took up, releasing double albums in the streaming area.

Sven and Per get down to an amazing band that they both like a lot, The Nomads. Sven says they are taking the elevator down to the garage now, the Swedish garage scene. The Nomads kicked off in 1981 and they went ahead of any band in Sweden, against the stream. They kicked off almost alone the Swedish garage rock scene. Per thinks without The Nomads there wouldn’t have been The Hives, for instance. The Nomads were never really a mainstream band. They toured a lot and toured and toured and toured. They are actually still around and it’s amazing. They always kept that garage rock spirit and never really lost their drive or energy. It’s really cool. The guys kick off with Rat Fink A Boo-Boo, showing the listeners a bit what they are all about.

Continuing The Nomads homage, Per says in 2013 they released an EP called Loaded Deluxe and he thinks we should listen to Get Out Of My Mind. This is one of his favourite Nomads tracks.

Then it’s time to slow the tempo down and play not a ballad, but as close to a ballad as what you can find in The Nomads catalogue. The Way You Let Me Down, also taken from the Loaded Deluxe EP is next. It is produced and co-written by a guy called Chips Kiesbye. He is like a household name in Swedish circuit since he produced so many artists for many, many years. And he also started out himself in heavy influence by the new wave era in the late ’70s, in the band called Sator. He tried to polish The Nomads up and the guys think he succeeded.

Sven mentions he wrote a book that came out a couple of weeks ago. It’s about a very narrow subject, the Ramones in Sweden. They played 2263 shows, 18 of them in Sweden. The whole book is about those 18 shows and what the Ramones meant for the Swedish scene. Sven also interviewed Per, for example and he interviewed The Nomads as well. They were heavily influenced by the Ramones. They were actually supporting the Ramones on some shows in 1990 and 1991. They told Sven that once upon a time in a show there Joey Ramone was wearing a Nomads T-shirt, which they of course were incredibly proud of and sometimes he also dedicated the track Pet Sematary to The Nomads while they were playing. During one of the tours in 1990 in Sweden, during the soundcheck, The Nomads went out and played Chinese Rock. Immediately, both Johnny and Joey Ramone were by the stage with a look like you can’t play that track, it’s ours. Written by Dee Dee Ramone. Haha. The guys wrap up this Nomads special with Miles Away from their Solna album.

Get The Moon Up by Daniel Norgren is next. Leaves by Children Of The Sün comes next. Per thinks this is an amazing song. This amazing band is quite new, PG has never heard of them before. When Sven heard them, he immediately thought about Jefferson Airplane around 1969, crossing over to Led Zeppelin between their first and second album. Mr. G says he thought it was reminding him a little bit of the early Heart, which was sort of very influenced by Led Zeppelin, but at the same time when he heard this girl singing, he thought they sound a little bit like ABBA. The guys couldn’t stop talking, they drew in all influences they could hear. It’s fun and it’s very special, they think. Children Of The Sün, they have to remember that name. Great band.

With this, Sven and Per wrap up the first episode of 2023 and promise to be back with more good-looking music. Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the show, as usual.

Selfie from Per’s archives (2014)

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – December 2022

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Sven Lindström and Per Gessle sat together in Halmstad to record the December episode of Nordic Rox. Sven says it’s soon Christmas time and Per has got his Santa outfit on himself because he is ready to present his brand new Christmas single coming up later on the show.

This time it’s The Soundtrack Of Our Lives special, taking a closer look at this Gothenburg band’s songs. Per says they played them quite a lot here on Nordic Rox, because they like them a lot. The band is not around anymore, unfortunately, but they were killer in their heydays.

Before the special, the guys present some weird sounds from the north of Sweden and the first track is Boogie Woogie/Rock ‘n’ Roll by Komeda. Per says it’s pretty famous, because it was part of an ad on Swedish television many years ago. Mr. G thinks it’s a great track and it sounds amazing. Sven adds they just picked out this bababababa from the song for the ad and it was incredibly irritating. Not many people knew what the track was.

The next song is Happyland by Amanda Jenssen. She is from Lund, Sweden. Then comes Different Sound by the amazing Teddybears. Sahara Hotnights is next with Gemini.

Bald Headed Woman from The Hep Stars is the next track. This song was No. 1 on the charts in Sweden in 1965. Sven says it tells you everything you need to know about Sweden in 1965. Per remembers it was on the first Kinks album and Sven adds he thinks The Who as well did it. PG shares the info that the keyboard player in The Hep Stars is Benny Andersson, who eventually became one of the key players and writers of ABBA. Sven says he doesn’t know if you could hear any sort of traces of ABBA here, but he went berserk on that organ at the end of the song. He is a fantastic player. Per says they were a good live band as well. Sven saw them at the end of their career in 1966. Per says he was too young back then. Haha. Sven says Bald Headed Woman was like an old blues track, but he never really figured out the lyrics. He asks Per what he thinks the lyric means. Mr. G laughs and says „well, he preferred women with hair”. Sven adds he didn’t like sugar in his coffee either („I don’t want no sugar in my coffee”). PG says it was tough in those days. Haha. Sven says it was like listening to an old Ramones record. Per agrees.

Sarah Klang’s latest single, Belly Shots is next. Per thinks she is a great singer and it’s a great song. Sven agrees she is a terrific singer.

It’s time for the guys to zoom up to Gothenburg and relive some of the greatest moments of The Soundtrack Of Our Lives history. Per thinks it’s a great band. They started out in 1995 and went on until 2012 when they disbanded. Sven adds they released a final album then. Per always liked them. They had a great sound and were very guitar-driven and very melodic all the time, even though their songs are pretty long. Lots of instrumental passages, but they always had really good melodies and good songwriting as a basic thing. Sven says the first track they play, Instant Repeater ’99 is from their debut album, Welcome To The Infant Freebase (1996). It sets the tone for The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. Some elements of Stones, some elements of psych rock, some elements of punk. A little bit of everything. Mr. G thinks they were great live as well and Ebbot Lundberg is a very prolific singer.

Sven says the band had wonderfully psychedelic titles for their albums. The next album they released in 1998 was called Extended Revelation For The Psychic Weaklings Of Western Civilization. They also made very long records. In the vinyl era these would have been double albums. The first one was 70 minutes long and the second was 62 minutes. PG says they didn’t believe in kill your darlings. Sven says he doesn’t think they were ever aware of either darlings or killing. Haha. According to Mr. G, it’s good anyway, they have their own identity and he really likes the style of the guitarist. They have these guitars all the time that are really melodic and they sort of create all these patterns in the music, which is really interesting. It’s very special and he likes it a lot.

Sven thinks there is some sort of Stones element to it and it also adds some psychedelic thing to the melodies or the whole attitude. That becomes very clear in the next song, Bigtime from their fourth album, Origin Vol. 1. Per says this is probably his favourite track from them. He thinks it’s really cool, it has a great groove to it and it’s just so exciting to listen to all the time.

Per says every time he hears this band he is getting more and more impressed. They are a whole great package of wonderful musicians and great melodies, great songwriting. And Ebbot, the lead singer has got a great voice. Sven also thinks that most of the things they did was fantastic. Just take a look at the cover of the album they made in 2008, Communion. Sven can never stop being fascinated about that cover. It looks like a middle-aged couple in a spa, drinking some greenish smoothie. Per thinks it’s a great sleeve. They are talking about it, so it must be good.

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives made it quite big with the third album in the US and also other countries. The guys plan to play 2 songs from Behind The Music. Per says the first one they play is Nevermore. It’s got a little more acoustic touch to it, but it’s a great track and also it’s a beautiful melody line. PG always goes for the melodies, as we know. The album is from 2001 and this is the one that sort of cracked the US market open for the band and especially the next track Sven and Per play, the Sister Surround single. Per adds they toured the States as well, in 2002 they were supporting Oasis. Sister Surround is a terrific track, a classic rock and roll kind of rock music that became rarer and rarer until it almost became extinct, Sven says. PG thinks it’s a great way to end this homage on the show with the highlights of their career.

A song spinning heavily on Swedish radio right now is Stockholmsvy by Hannes & Waterbaby. The title translates to View of Stockholm. Per says the song is in English except for the title, which is in Swedish. He thinks it’s a good song. When he heard it for the first time, it felt like it was like a Leonard Cohen track from his late era. Really smooth and mellow and beautiful and sparse. Mr. G also thinks that it’s nice that they are getting some really good airplay here.

Next song is Waterlily Love by Per’s partner in crime, Helena Josefsson. This is from her debut album in 2007. Mr. G thinks it’s a beautiful song and Helena is a great singer.

Ifrån mej själv by Dundertåget comes next. The title translates roughly to Beside Myself and the band name translates to thunder train. The guys think it’s a good name and a good track as well.

Here comes a Christmas celebration from Per Gessle and PG Roxette, Wish You The Best For Xmas. Per says it’s time for another Christmas song. He wrote one in 1987, which was called It Must Have Been Love. Sven says he doesn’t think Per has to introduce that song, but maybe he has to introduce it as a Christmas song, because probably nobody remembers that it started out as a Christmas song. Per says the reason for writing it was that Roxette tried to get airplay in Europe and it was impossible. Their German record label suggested that Per should write a Christmas song, because then it could be easier to get on the radio for Christmas. And so he did it and wrote It Must Have Been Love (Christmas For The Broken Hearted) and presented to them. They didn’t like it, so they never released it. However, Roxette released it in Sweden and it became a big hit for them as a Christmas song in 1987. And then of course, three years later it popped up in the Pretty Woman movie. Without the Christmas reference in the lyrics, that went out the window. Now it was time again, so this summer PG decided to write an uptempo Christmas song. It’s a great tradition in pop music generally when it comes to Christmas songs. Per has his favourites, e.g. I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Roy Wood’s Wizzard, Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade or all those songs that were big in Sweden when he was a kid. Once in a while, you have to make a Christmas record, Mr. G thinks.

At the end of the show, the guys wish merry Christmas and happy new year to all listeners. They promise to be back early January.

Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is the closing song, of course.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – November 2022 – PG Roxette special

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Sven Lindström renamed Nordic Rox to Nordic PG Rox for the November episode. Haha.

The guys sit together to provide a taster of the brand new PG Roxette album on a great day in Stockholm. Per is excited to talk a little bit about the new PG Roxette songs. Sven is holding the vinyl record in his hands and he thinks it looks great. PG says he loves this format, because he loves the album sleeves. It’s so much part of the record, he thinks. Mr. G really misses the sleeves these days. The whole digital world we live in, the streaming services, it lacks something for him because he’s probably getting old. Sven assures Per he is not alone with this. He thinks their generation is the one that’s going to sit in retirement homes, pestering the young guys and girls about vinyl covers. Per agrees and they are laughing.

Sven says they are going through a great list of Scandinavian music at its best and also have a look into the new PG Roxette album, which is titled Pop-Up Dynamo! The first song on the show is Answer by Pauline Kamusewu. To Per it sounds like a hit. He thinks it’s a very good song and can’t understand why it hasn’t become a hit. Then comes Phantom Punch by Sondre Lerche, a Norwegian guy. Sven and Per try to pronounce his name correctly with a Norwegian twist. Per likes this song a lot. Sven thinks it’s a bit quirky. It’s the title track from Sondre’s fourth album. The third song is Worry Sick by the amazing Edith Backlund from the north of Sweden. The album is called Death By Honey and came out in 2008 as her second album.

The guys move on and play Magnetic City by Silverbullit from Gothenburg. Sven says they make you think a bit about the crazy guys from Manchester in the early ’90s. Great vibe to this song.

Here Comes The Night by Agnes is next. It’s one of Per’s favourites. He thinks Agnes is an amazing singer, one of the biggest artists they have in Sweden at the moment and she has been around for a couple of years now. She is making great singles and and she is really an astonishing singer. She had some international success with the song called Release Me a couple of years ago and she is still around and doing great.

Chris Craft No. 9 by The Shanes from the north of Sweden is played next. It’s from 1967 and Per thinks it’s a great song. He loved it when he was a kid. The band is fantastic and this song sounds terrific to Mr. G’s ears. It was recorded at the Abbey Road Studio in London. Sven adds that not many Swedish bands made that trip, but they did. PG says there was a producer, Anders Henriksson, Henkan who produced Tages, another Swedish band and some of The Shanes songs as well. Since he was part of the EMI organization, he had allowance to the Abbey Road Studio and he used it a lot. Tages recorded there as well. Per thinks Chris Craft No. 9 is really one of the best Swedish tracks from the ’60s. Sven agrees that it’s a great track, written by Kit Sundqvist in The Shanes. He played the organ. Sven says it was produced by the George Martin of the Swedish ’60s, Henkan.

Now it’s time to look at the Pop-Up Dynamo! album, which is a new Roxette album, a PG Roxette album. Per says he decided to continue the Roxette journey. It actually started out that he wanted to play the old Roxette songs live. All those songs that he wrote for Roxette are still with him and they are still popular around the world. But then the pandemic thing happened, so everything got postponed and he started writing new songs in the Roxette style instead and made an album with the old Roxette players. Jonas Isacsson on lead guitar and Clarence Öfwerman playing the keyboards. The two backing vocalists, the girls who toured with Roxette the last 6-7 years or so, Dea Norberg and Helena Josefsson. They stepped up a bit to do the female vocals and they did a great job on this record, so he is really proud of the whole package. Sven thinks it’s cool and he asks Per what he aimed for when he was writing these songs for this version of Roxette. PG says he decided early on that it’s not about replacing Marie, getting in another girl to take her place. It’s more about the songs. So basically, he just felt like going back to the style that he had in the late ’80s and early ’90s when he wrote Look Sharp!, Joyride, Tourism and Crash! Boom! Bang! So it’s basically an extension of that. It’s a little bit nostalgic for him. Even though you don’t really realize it yourself, you change with the years, your style is changing and developing all the time, so the evolution is going on. This was like going back to thinking in the same way that he was thinking in the ’80s. He hopes that we can hear that. Productionwise they picked sounds that were used in the ’80s as well, the old synthesizers and they also used the guitars. But at the same time, he thinks and hopes it sounds fresh and modern, because it shouldn’t be like a retro thing. He thinks one can recognize the Roxette gimmicks. According to Sven it sounds like a fun experience. PG says ot was fun and excellent to work with these people again. They had a blast in the studio and he had a good time writing. Sven tells they should listen to one of the tracks and asks Per which one to start with. Mr. G suggests Walking On Air, which is the first song of the album and it’s the current single as well. It’s a good example of how the album sounds.

Sven thinks it sounds really interesting, especially with the mix between Per’s voice and the female singers’ voices. Mr. G says it’s Dea Norberg and Helena Josefsson who are singing with him. They used to be the backing vocalists with Roxette when they were touring. Now they have stepped up a bit. What’s interesting with them, Per thinks, is that they have such different styles when they sing. So he tried to combine those two styles to create like a third person. It’s a little bit like ABBA. If you listen to the old ABBA records, for instance, it’s really hard to tell who is Frida, who is Agnetha because they are overdubbing themselves and doing harmonies, so it’s really hard to say. It creates like a third persona and Per likes that a lot. When people hear the new PG Roxette album it’s hard to pinpoint „that’s Helena and that’s Dea”, because when you combine them, they sound very, very different. Per thinks that’s really cool. Sven thinks it’s very interesting because both Helena and Dea have very characteristic voices. PG says it’s fun to work with them in the studio. When you tell them to add a little a bit of wailing or do something soulful, they just approach that sort of challenge totally differently and the outcome is so many different things. It’s really fun to work with them and to edit everything down together and take the best pieces of both of them and use it. It has been really exciting to do this.

The next song Per picks is the single that he released this summer, The Loneliest Girl In The World, which is a classic guitar-driven pop song. There are songs that are really timeless in his book. These type of songs are the hardest to write because he has written so many of them over the years. It’s like a classic 3-chord pop song basically. Sven laughs and tells that Per always complains about having trouble writing these kind of songs, but still he comes up with them time and time again. Per laughs too and says he is so happy when that happens, because it’s so hard to do. If he sits down by the piano or with a guitar, he starts to play something and it’s always like mid tempo and he has his favourite chord progressions and everything. But when he has to write a classic immediate pop song, it just happens and you can feel it immediately. „Hey, this is really cool. This is a really great melody line.” Per’s whole music, everything he does is based on melodies much more than the rhythms. So it has to have this really strong and very catchy melody to make it, to go to the next step in the writing process.

Sven remembers there is one trick Per uses and it’s that he buys a new guitar. Whenever he bought a new guitar and tried it, he wrote a new song. Per confirms. That’s because every guitar has got its own personality. And you put it into the amplifier and it sounds so cool. And if it’s something that you like, out pops this new song. Sven laughs and says it’s easier to store a song than the guitar. Per agrees and says you have to have a big wardrobe. They are laughing.

Sven is curious if the title, The Loneliest Girl In The World was something that’s been buzzing around in Per’s head for a while. Mr. G says he likes that title because it’s a little bit romantic and it sort of makes a vision in your mind. When he writes songs, if he finds a good title to begin with, it helps his stupid brain a lot. So he actually collects ideas, titles and phrases that he can use. It’s just a part of how he works. Sven likes the title, he likes pop titles. He can imagine that in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, Per had a notebook, but he wants to know what he is using now. Per laughs and says he has a laptop. But Sven says a title could come when Per is out walking, when he is not carrying his laptop around. PG says it could come in a dream or it could come from a TV show, you can pick up something a taxi driver says and you just keep it. Per usually texts himself with ideas all the time. It’s the same thing with music. He can go in a department store or whatever and come up with a melody thing that he hears and he calls himself to tell himself [he laughs] about the chords he is hearing and then how the melody works. As soon as he gets back home, he tries to record it on a guitar or piano or whatever. You collect things, you have your antennas out all the time. That’s how Per works anyway. His iPhone is filled with short snippets of ideas. 10 seconds ideas. Sven laughs and says grocery stores must be filled with people saying „don’t look now, but I think it’s Per Gessle, humming into his telephone”. Per laughs too and says that has happened, actually. He is getting this weird look, „Jesus!”.

The third and final track in this sneak preview of the new album is Headphones On. Sven thinks this title sounds like a pop nerd title. You put your headphones on and just dive into some music. Per tells Sven it’s pretty interesting, because he wrote this lyric to another piece of music and he didn’t use it. For some reason he didn’t like the music that much, but he kept the lyric. He rearranged the lyrics a bit and he wrote something new to it. He loves this, because it’s got a great energy and a great sound. When they combine the voices of Helena, Dea and Per, it’s just really cool. Per is singing the falsetto parts here. Also of course, Per has this wonderful privilege to have Jonas Isacsson playing this amazing guitar solo. There is no guitar solos anymore in pop music, he says. This was actually the last song they recorded for the album and he told his co-producers that he has to write a song where they can put a guitar solo and so Jonas can show that he’s still got what it takes. He is just doing this magnificent guitar solo in the end of the song. It’s really cool. Per loves this track. Sven adds that Jonas Isacsson is the guy playing the fabulous guitar on Roxette’s breakthrough single, The Look. Per says he is the mastermind behind all those guitar licks in Roxette history, Dressed For Success, Listen To Your Heart. He is a great guy and it was so much fun recording this album. Per hopes it shines through when you listen to it.

After Headphones On, the guys play Not Too Young by Sabina Ddumba. Next track is Shimmy Shimmy Style by the Teddybears and then comes Poetic by Seinabo Sey.

Sven and Per thank you for listening and play Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes as the closing song, as usual.

Still is from a 2017 teaser video for Swedish Radio.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – October 2022

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The October episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM was a special one with three guys on The Spectrum. Anton Corbijn joined Per and Sven for a nice chat. He was in Stockholm to open a new exhibition at Sotheby’s. Sven introduces Anton as a world famous photographer, visual designer and director of legendary music videos, as well as award-winning feature films that have captivated millions of fans for decades.

Before the three guys start talking, we can listen to Good Samaritan by The Hives first. Here Sven has some issues with pronouncing the word Samaritan and they laugh, because Sven says Samatarian. Per tells Sven is from Malmö in the South, so he is a little bit off. Sven agrees and says it’s a handicap, but he is trying to get over it. Haha. Then comes Poetic by Seinabo Sey, which Per thinks is a beautiful track. It’s taken from the album Pretend. Mono Mind’s All Over Your Body is next. Sven asks Per what kind of group that is, Mono Mind. PG replies it’s a very good group and it’s Helena Josefsson who is singing and Per is writing. Sven tells this is another one of Per Gessle’s many projects. Per finds it quite cool.

Here Anton joins the guys and he comes with a list of 5 songs that can easily change tomorrow. He says he put it together after he woke up with a bit of a hangover, which is very rare for him to have a hangover. Per says „welcome to the club!” The guys are laughing. Anton says it was actually nice to concentrate on and make a list of five songs for Nordic Rox.

Sven asks Anton about when he got to know Per. Anton tells it was in the ’90s when they made a video in Positano, Italy in 1999. Per tells they did a Roxette video for Stars, then for Salvation. Anton tells Per can’t really remember the Stars video because he was hardly in it. Per says he felt overweight, so he did a kind of cameo appearance in the beginning and then he ran off. He was the bum lying in the doorway. Per says that was his fat Elvis days. The guys are laughing. Anton says he thought Per didn’t want to be on HIS video, so he took it personal. Per says „yeah, we’ve been fighting ever since, Anton”. The guys are laughing again. Per and Anton worked together later too. Anton says it was Per’s 3-4 solo albums. Per tells they started off in Rome with the Mazarin album in 2003. Anton took some amazing pictures of him. Then they went on to do Son Of A Plumber in London and Skåne in Sweden. The cover was taken in a record store in London. Then they went to Lisbon to do En händig man in 2007. Per asks Sven what else he wants to know. Sven tells he wants to know why Anton chose Buffalo Stance by Neneh Cherry as the first track on his list. Anton says since they are talking about Nordic songs and Neneh is from here, he recalls the song as being so innovative in terms of sound and Neneh has such a presence on TV. Anton has great memories of her. He photographed her and actually everybody on the list he put together.

After the song Per tells they have a great guest from Holland, this mighty photographer and personality that we all love and cherish, Anton Corbijn. The next song is Jojo by Winona Oak and Sven has to admit he has never heard anything from her. Anton says it’s a wild card, but he became familiar with her music and really loved it. It’s very open, minimal and Winona’s voice carries it. Anton got into contact with Winona through a magazine in LA for which he shot a lot of pictures of young talents. Winona was one of them. Per tells the song was written by Joakim Berg from Kent and Gustav Nyström who is the producer as well. Per thinks Winona’s got an amazing voice and she’s got a great personality.

The Anton Corbijn special goes on with a track from Iceland. The song picked is from Björk’s first album, Debut. It’s Human Behaviour. It was such an alien appearance of Björk with her voice and visuals and it’s mindblowing, Anton thinks. She’s a beautiful force to be reckoned with. Sven is curious if Anton has a certain style of music he likes when he is listening to music. AC: „Yeah, I have style, man! I put the record on a player and I press play!” The guys are laughing. Anton says he is quite eclectic. He likes Nina Simone, Miles Davis and of course he sometimes also plays the bands he works with. He loves the Bee Gees, for instance. There is a lot of music that he maybe doesn’t work on, although he shot the Bee Gees a few times, but it’s hard to find an act that he hasn’t shot. Sven asks Anton if there is anyone on his list who he hasn’t shot yet, but he really wanted to. Anton says Pharoah Sanders just passed and he would have always liked to photograph him. But age catches up and when he has exhibitions, now there are a lot of people he puts on the wall who are no longer with us. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. Sven is curious what Anton thinks is so special about Björk. Her voice is amazing, that’s an instrument. Human Behaviour is a great title because we are all dealing with human behaviour these days in a negative way. Anton loves the cover, the visuals were always strong and Björk is an inventive person.

Sophie Zelmani’s Going Home is next. Per personally thinks it’s a brilliant choice, he loves Sophie Zelmani. Anton takes photos of her many times, he did three albums with her. He first met Sophie in the late ’90s and he kind of fell in love with her after seeing her video and thought he had to photograph this girl. He somehow persuaded the record company to introduce Anton to her. Anton is very happy they did, because it’s a privilege to know her and to listen to her music. It’s kind of velvety, it makes you feel warm. She has a very beautiful voice and is a real talent. Per thinks all her early albums are amazing and so is the production by Lars Halapi. It’s very sparse with lots of air and it makes a lot of space for this amazing voice Sophie has. Sven agrees that it’s indeed atmospheric.

Sven quotes Monty Python. „Now for something completely different” comes Anton’s last song he picked. Anton says he thought that after all these female voices we need some Viagra Boys. He thinks it’s a very funny name, it gets your attention straight away. It’s a kind of punky band, but quite melodic. They are Swedish, but the singer is American. Anton photographed them too. The song he picked is Sports and he thinks both the song and the video to it are so funny. It’s very dry kind of humor they have. They mention all the sports and that’s the song. Per likes it too and thinks they have never played them on the show, but Sven corrects him that they did. He can’t blame Per for not remembering, because they played zillions of songs.

The guys thank Anton for coming to the show and play three more songs, Bad Life by Sigrid & Bring Me The Horizon, Got To Go by Damn! and Get Jealous by ShitKid.

Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the episode, as usual.

Stills of Per and Sven are from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Anton Corbijn still is from this interview.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – September 2022

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The August episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM was a new wave special and here comes the second part of it in September. Sven and Per recorded the show on a sunny day in Halmstad. Per says he was born and bred in Halmstad, which was a tiny city, but nowadays 100,000 people live there. He was born there and still lives there a couple of months a year, especially in the summer season. It’s really beautiful, it’s on the waterside, just by Kattegat. The finest beach in Sweden is just around the corner, Per adds. Sven jokes and says Per is going to get a donation from Halmstad tourist office. Per laughs and says he hopes so. Sven asks PG „if you swim straight out here, where do you end up?” Mr. G tells you end up in Båstad, which is another tiny town. Sven adds it’s the Swedish Tennis Metropol. PG says it’s a 45-minute drive, but it’s 20 km on the water, so if you have a boat and the interest and you don’t have a hairdo that needs polishing, you can take the boat. The guys are laughing.

Sven and Per kick off the show with Crystal Ball by The Nomads. Mr. G thinks the song is beautiful and The Nomads is a great band. Swedish garage rock at its best, Sven thinks. The next one is Drifting Out by Little Dragon and then comes June by Shout Out Louds from their latest album, House.

The guys then take a trip to Norway for some night train music by the Cocktail Sippers. PG thinks Norway is a great country, „if you haven’t been to Norway, you should go to Norway”. Sven adds, if you can’t go to Norway, listen to Night Train. The next track is Endless Sleeper by The Raveonettes from Denmark. Per tells Denmark is a great country if you haven’t been to Denmark, you should go to Denmark. Haha. Sven says he thinks Per Gessle is here on the take from the Danish tourist agency, as well as the Norwegian tourist agency. Mr. G thinks The Raveonettes is amazing. Sven thinks the intro of Endless Sleeper sounds vaguely like the first track on the first The Doors LP, Break On Through. According to Per, it could be influenced by it. Slightly psychedelic track, Sven thinks. PG finds it very cool.

The next band is Sahara Hotnights, a Swedish band. Sven asks Per if he knows anything about them. Mr. G says they have been around for many many years and then they sort of broke up, but then they came back again last year with a new album. The guys are playing something little bit older on the show, Who Do You Dance For? from the Kiss & Tell album, which came out in 2004. It’s a cool gril band. They always had cool songs and great musicians. Per worked with the drummer, she did some TV things with Mr. G many years ago.

Here comes the new wave stuff from Sweden. Sven says he doesn’t know if you can call it new wave after 42 years, but this is the era from 1979. Per tells it WAS the new wave when it happened, so it’s new wave forever. PG is very pleased that he found the band called Sydkraft (= South Power) finally on Spotify. He likes this band because they are from Halmstad. They signed with EMI Records in 1978, so Per’s band a year later sent their demos to all the labels in Sweden except EMI, because they already had a band from Halmstad. Sven laughs and asks, „so you thought that door was closed?” Per says eventually, they wound up with the same record label, EMI. Sven asks how they ended up there, if it was because all other labels turned Gyllene Tider down. Per says EMI phoned him up one morning and said they were interested. He doesn’t know how they heard their songs. Sydkraft made only one album in 1979 and it was produced by the same guy who produced Gyllene Tider’s first album as well. Per thinks it’s a great record they did, but it didn’t go anywhere. It’s definitely the first time they are played on American radio. Sven tells „and if someone picks it up and puts it on the soundtrack of Stranger Things or whatever, these guys are gonna get a call that OK guys, finally you got a hit in the US”. The guys are laughing. The song played is Snack, which means talk or bullshit or rubbish or whatever, the Per and Sven say.

The next one is a track that was a big hit in Sweden in 1981 by one of the foremost punk bands in Sweden, Ebba Grön. Per thinks it’s a great band and he thinks it’s the second or third album they made and this was their breakthrough album and it has a couple of really great tracks. They became a little bit more commercial on this album, a little bit more song-oriented, which of course the mainstream audience loved. Sven says they listened to an interview by Mike Chapman. He was taking Blondie to the studio to make their third album and he forced them to get their act together. Sven thinks you can also hear on Ebba Grön’s album that they got their act together, the bass playing is fantastic. They are really tight as a unit. Per tells if you came from the new wave era, you started to play just because it was fun. Most bands didn’t sound that good, but that wasn’t important in those days. But eventually, if you had to have a career, you had to get your act together, the bass player had to play together with the drummer and the band had to sound great. That’s exactly what happened to Blondie and Ebba Grön here. The guys play one of the biggest hits of Ebba Grön, 800 grader. It sounds a lot like The Clash, Per thinks. Sven thinks it’s not a coincidence, they were really influenced by The Clash, you can hear it. It’s a very good song and still sounds amazing. The singer and guitarist, Joakim Thåström moved on with a second group called Imperiet and they were equally successful. Nowadays he is a solo artist and also very successful. Sven says when The Rolling Stones are gonna play Stockholm in a couple of weeks, he will be the support act. [So this episode was recorded a couple of weeks before 31st July 2022. /PP]

Japop is the next band, also from EMI Records. Sven asks Per what he knows about them. PG says it’s a short for Jan Andersson Pop. Jan Andersson is the lead guitar player. He used to be the lead guitar player for another Swedish act, Ulf Lundell, who is like a Bruce Springsteen figure. The song the guys play is from Japop’s second album, Rysk pop, which means Russian pop. Sven says it wouldn’t be a popular title nowadays. Jan’s got a great voice, PG thinks and he is an amazing guitar player. Per was surprised that this album didn’t do better than it did. Sven says it’s got some cool tracks on it. The song the guys picked is Blodspengar which means blood money. It’s got a cool vibe to it. It’s a great band, a trio, Per adds and they sounded really cool.

Next one is Magnus Lindberg, who wasn’t really a new wave-ish guy, but he was influenced by it. He started out being more like a singer-songwriter playing in a band called Landslaget. It was a sort of Swedish version of The Eagles. They had a girl playing the violin, Maybritte Nicklasson, who added little special things. Magnus left the band and started a solo career from a singer-songwriter point of view, but when the new wave happened, he got a new attitude and a new band together and it sounded really cool according to Mr. G. His album, Röda läppar, which means red lips, was pretty big. The title track is really wonderful. Unfortunately, Magnus isn’t with us anymore, but he still has a big following in Sweden and you can hear his music here and there all the time. Sven tells Kjell Andersson got together a bunch of artists to make a tribute album to Magnus, which came out earlier this year. Magnus is at his most energetic on this album, Sven thinks. Sven asks Per if he saw Magnus live. PG says of course, they toured and played with him. PG tells he was a great, enigmatic artist.

After the new wave section is over, Something Wicked by The Teenage Idols is played. Then it’s Safe And Sound by The Sounds and then comes Golden Age by Union Carbide Productions featuring Ebbot Lundberg on vocals.

Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the episode, as usual.

Still is from a 2017 teaser video for Swedish Radio.

Thanks for your support, Sven!