Nordic Rox

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!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – August 2022

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Sven Lindström starts the August episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM by telling they have pulled their brains together to maximize their IQ to pull up today’s list of goodies. It’s an exciting list, Per adds. They went back to 1979 with focus on Sweden. Sven tells Per was a major part of that era, the late ’70s is when PG started playing professionally. Mr. G tells they got signed by EMI Records in 1979 when his band, Gyllene Tider was really fresh and really young with lots of pimples. The guys are laughing.

First they kick off with Sonic Surf City’s Let There Be Surf. Next song is Sugar Town by ShitKid and then comes Rock ‘N’ Roll Highschool by Teddybears.

The next track is a song Roxette recorded in 1995, She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. It was actually Gyllene Tider playing the drums, the bass and the guitars. Per explains that in 1995 they just came off this huge Crash! Boom! Bang! world tour that lasted over a year and they were supposed to release their first compilation album, Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus! Sven laughs and says he knows it was a saying by Roxette’s American manager, Herbie Herbert. Per says he was supposed to do a solo album after the CBB tour, mainly because Marie wanted a second child, so she wanted to take a break. PG also started writing songs for his Swedish band, but then this compilation idea came up with Roxette. So he took a couple of songs, e.g. June Afternoon, She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore from his solo thing and made them into Roxette records. Then they did two additional tracks, so it was 4 new songs on that compilation album. Sven adds Per also wrote a song for Belinda Carlisle during that era. Mr. G tells that was actually a song he wrote for Roxette, but nobody liked it in the Roxette camp except him, so he presented it to Belinda and her English record label. It was Always Breaking My Heart. Belinda recorded that and another song Per wrote, Love Doesn’t Live Here.

After they play SDLHA, Sven asks Per how does it sound now. Mr. G says it sounds great. He remembers recording that motorcycle in the beginning of the intro. It was his old Harley Davidson bike. That was fun. He thinks it’s a good track and they did a great video and had a good time doing that.

The guys play A Passanger from Johnossi’s new album, Mad Gone Wild.

Here comes the new wave part of the show. They pick some songs from Sweden from the new wave era, 1978-81. This is actually when Per got off the ground. He tells it’s a very important era in pop music. You came off the progressive music and everyone was supposed to be a very good player, but then suddenly when the punk and new wave thing happened, it was OK not to be very good. That fit Per perfectly, he laughs. Everyone started bands and got together. Here come tracks by Swedish bands singing in Swedish and it sounds amazing and really good according to Mr. G, a lot of enthusiasm and adrenaline going on. Seldom heard – for good reasons – on American radio.

Sven introduces the first band, Docent Död, which translates to „Doctor Death”. Good punk name, the guys think. The picked track is Solglasögon (Sunglasses) is from 1980. Sven asks Per if he remembers hearing it for the first time. PG tells he thought this was so good. He especially liked it because it sounded really cool, so much better than most Swedish recordings at the time. In those days, in the analogue days there was a big difference in how it sounded in the UK or in Los Angeles or New York compared to Stockholm. Things changed of course when everything became digital, then everything started to sound the same. Per was blown off by this band and their attitude was really cool. It still sounds like a hit record for Mr. G. Sven agrees.

The next group is Reeperbahn. It’s a notorious street in Hamburg, Germany, where The Beatles arrived in the autumn of 1960. Sven doesn’t know if the band took the name from this sort of Beatles connection. Per thinks they just took the name because they thought it was hardcore. The song they play is Lycklig (Happy). Sven remembers Per once said he was impressed back in the days by the sound of this group. Per thinks they were a very good band. Dan Sundquist played bass and he became a really good producer as well. He knew what he was doing even in those days. The one who wrote the song was probably Olle Ljungström, the guitar player who was also singing. They did many good songs, something to look up to, Per says. The guys are laughing.

The next song slows the tempo down a bit. Tant Strul – roughly translates to Auntie Hassle – was one of Per’s favourite groups. An all female band from the new wave scene in the late ’70s. PG liked them a lot. He thinks Vild blomning (Wild blooming) is their best song. It doesn’t really make sense if you don’t understand Swedish, but the lyrics are really beautiful and Kajsa Grytt, who wrote the lyrics for this band is a great lyricist. Per always loved this song. You can hear this era, the band is almost tight, everyone is almost in tune, and it sounds real. Sometimes you just need to listen to music like this instead of all this autotuned stuff that goes on at the moment. Sven tells that this recording is not that far away from the first rehearsal. It’s organic and charming. Sven remembers Per mentioned he always wanted to cover this song. PG says he just liked the song a lot. He thinks it has a great melody and lyrics. He always finds it interesting to read lyrics by female artists, because it’s a different perspective of things. He is not going to do a cover of it, but if there was a Top10 list of Swedish songs that he might do a cover of, then this is definitely on the list.

The next one is Jag kysste henne våldsamt (I kissed her violently) by Anders F. Rönnblom from 1980. This guy made his debut album in the early ’70s and then he got a kick out of the new wave era and started doing shorter and more energetic songs. Per thinks this is like a reggae track. This was Anders’ biggest song. It wasn’t a major hit, but it was a hit record you heard once in a while. It didn’t top the charts, it was on the B roads, as Per says. Mr. G likes the sound of it, he likes the bass and he thinks it sounds really cool. PG listens to it once in a while. Sven shares the info that die hard Anders F. Rönnblom fans are called F-heads.

This song wraps up the new wave section of this episode of Nordic Rox. The guys play three more songs. One of them is Buffalo Stance by Robyn & Neneh Cherry feat. Mapei and another is Hello It’s Me by Todd Rundgren. He is American, but Sven tells they sometimes open the door to Swedish heritage. He once read Todd’s father is from Swedish and German descent. Per jokes and says „so that’s why his first name is Todd”. Sven says he thinks so and his last name is Rundgren which is a very Swedish name and translates to „round branch”. „Important information you can’t live without”, the guys are laughing.

The usual show closer is Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019).

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – July 2022

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The July episode, the 507th show of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM was dedicated to a dynamic band from the ’90s, Brainpool. They are one of the best bands ever to come out of Sweden, Per thinks.

Sven and PG kick the tracklist off with ShitKid’s Baby Roulette. Then comes Beguiled by The Hellacopters and it’s followed by Effortless by Sabina Ddumba from her Homeward Bound album.

Pay The Price by Roxette comes next and Sven says the songwriter happens to be sitting here. PG laughs. Mr. G tells the song is from their Have A Nice Day album from 1999. He remembers they spent much time in Marbella, Spain recording the album. They had a new co-producer, Michael Ilbert who was also the engineer. He made a big mark on this production. It sounds cool and quite different from the previous albums. Pay The Price has always been one of Sven’s favourites from this period. It sounds energetic and poppy and still you can hear it’s a Roxette track. Per likes it too, he thinks it’s great. HAND was like a comeback album for Roxette. They took four years off after the Crash! Boom! Bang! album Marie got her second child, Per did some solo stuff and worked with his Swedish band as well. They recorded loads of songs for HAND and PG thinks it’s a pretty strong album. They had some great singles on there as well, but Pay The Price is what we call an album track.

Troglodyte by Viagra Boys is the next song, a teaser from their upcoming album that will be released this summer. They were on a soldout US tour right now. Per thinks they are cool, hasn’t heard them before.

It’s time for the Brainpool section in the program. They are a band from the south of Sweden. They were supporting Roxette on the Crash! Boom! Bang! tour. Sven tells they sent demos to different music publishers and record companies, also to Jimmy Fun, Per’s label and PG picked them up. Per laughs and says that’s why they were support act for Roxette. They were signed to Per’s publishing company and they helped them to get a recording deal with Sony. The debut album was called Soda and it’s a terrific album according to Per. It was produced by Michael Ilbert. Per just loves this band. They have a great drummer, Jens, a great guitar player, David and a great bass player, Christoffer who eventually became a member of Roxette. Per has been working together with Christoffer since 1997 or so. Janne, who was the lead singer has got a hig-pitched voice. They have such tremendous energy and great songwriting, as well as amazing arrangements, very much due to Christoffer’s abilities. He is a great arranger. His favourite musician of all time is Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys and you can hear that in the way they do their arrangements. Per tells he could go on talking about Brainpool all day. Every Day was the first song Per has ever heard of them, so the guys play this one. Sven says it’s such an explosion. Per adds it’s got its punk and new wave attitude, but it’s still a pop song. It’s pretty soft, but it’s heavy at the same time. After the song Sven asks Per if he would be able to play this fast. Per asks „on what instrument? Citar?” The guys are laughing. It sounds fast, but it’s not that fast, PG says. Sven is curious how the demo sounded to this song. Mr. G tells it sounded like this. Not as polished though, but it had the same attitude and energy. It’s such a great song, he thinks. Sometimes you hear all these artists and bands having this attitude and energy, but the song is not there. But Brainpool had great songs as well. Sven adds it’s so much ’90s, the melody, the ’60s style and the sort of grunge punk thing.

The second album of the band was Painkiller. That was the big breakthrough for them in Sweden, especially with their song Bandstarter. It was a big hit on the radio. Sven is curious if they made any mark outside Sweden. Per tells not really. They were the support act for Roxette on the European tour leg, but unfortunately, nothing really happened. Painkiller is also a great album according to PG. It’s a little bit more mainstream, but still very cool. According to Sven, there is more of the classic rock tempo on this album. Per tells they were one year older then vs. the first album, so a little more mature. They were 23 instead of 22, they grew up. The guys are laughing.

Sven and Per play another song from the same album, Invisible To Her. It’s one of Per’s favourites, he thinks it’s wonderful. This is the closest thing to a ballad that you can get from Brainpool. It has a beautiful melody. Per was really sad when Janne, the lead singer left the group. He was also one of the main songwriters and it wasn’t the same after. His voice had that characteristic Brainpool touch to it. He became a doctor, by the way.

After the Brainpool session, the guys pick Andreas Johnson’s Glorious. A great track according to PG. Carnival by The Cardigans is next, from their second album, Life. They are a great band with beautiful sound. It was an interesting period for them. They broke through in Sweden first, then in Japan before they became big elsewhere in the world with Lovefool.

Next comes a Swedish song and then Lies by Peter Bjorn and John.

Daniel Norgren’s I Waited For You is the last song. He is an artist Per have missed, so he asks Sven to tell him a bit about Daniel. He debuted with an album in 2008. Sven missed that one too and the second as well, but he caught on in 2010 with the album Horrifying Deatheating Bloodspider. Because of the title Sven thought he must listen to this one. He is laughing. Per thinks Daniel has got an amazing voice. Sven tells he is a singer songwriter, rooted in ancient, pre-war blues. He is really convincing. He is mixing that old influence with a new attitude. Per thinks IWFY is beautiful and he’s got a new Swedish favourite here.

Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the show as usual.

Stills are from a 2017 interview.

Thanks for your support, Sven!