Per Gessle

The April episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM was recorded in sunny, but rather chilly Halmstad. Per is just back from his solid vacation, which he needed very much. He went away to the sun. „You have to get away a bit in the winter season. It’s really terrible”, he says. Sven says he thought Per’s swimming pool was preheated, but PG explains it’s not, it’s under a cover in winter.

Sven introduces the show as a celebration of Per’s dear friend, Marie Fredriksson, the iconic voice of Roxette. Per adds: „Yeah, my partner in crime”. The guys tell they would play some of Marie’s Swedish stuff, because she had several Swedish solo records in between Roxette albums. The songs „Marie basically wrote herself together with her producer and they are pretty good. Actually, they are very good”, Mr. G adds.

For starting the show they go back in time some 30 years to Rio de Janeiro and play a Roxette song, Fingertips ’93, a single released in 1993. Per tells the original version of the song is on the album Tourism. They had the idea to record all over the world when they were touring with the Joyride album. They recorded Fingertips in Rio de Janeiro and then added some stuff to it in the studio in Stockholm.

Sven asks how was it to hear this old track again. Per’s simple reply is: „scary” and he laughs. He tells it was a fun album to make. He had the idea to use the energy that happens to a band when you are touring for 18 months or so. The band hated him for this, because they wanted days off and Per dragged them into studios all over the world. They recorded e.g. in hotel rooms in Buenos Aires and also in Rio de Janeiro. Sven says, „so instead of being on the beach Ipanema and drinking beer and swimming in the sea, you recorded in the studio”. They are laughing. In LA they were at the Ocean Way Recording Studios to make some songs there. It turned out to be an interesting album. „When you are touring as much as we did in those days, you lose so much time. It was a very creative period for me as a writer, so I just wanted to record the songs I wrote instead of just waiting for another two years before you’re gonna go into the studio. So that was the main reason.”

The next song played is Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn. Then Done, Done, Done by Eagle-Eye Cherry is next. PG thinks Eagle-Eye’s got a great voice, he always loved it. His big hit, Save Tonight is still played on classic radio stations. According to Sven, there is a lot of good songs on his album, even the non-singles. Lot of great stuff hidden there. Per agrees.

Then the brand new single of Sophie Zelmani, The World Ain’t Pretty is on. There is a great picture of Sophie at Hotel Tylösand, taken by Anton Corbijn. Mr. G tells Sophie sounds the same as she always did, she’s got her own style. When she started out, it felt very fresh and she was very interesting, Per thinks. She is still doing great work.

The guys are talking about Marie that Per originally met her in his hometown, Halmstad. Sven tells Per was already an established pop star with his band, Gyllene Tider and Marie came on the scene a couple of years later. Per pushed her in the direction of EMI and so they shared the same record company. Per explains Marie started out being with another label, but nothing happened for her. She had some really great stuff, writing raw material. Per introduced her to his producer and his record label and she eventually got a record deal with those guys and made her first album. It was a big success. Already the first single was a big success in 1984. Sven tells Marie became engaged with producer Lasse Lindbom, who had produced Gyllene Tider as well. According to Sven, one of the biggest hits from her debut album was Ännu doftar kärlek. Per translates the title as „There’s still a scent of love in the air”. He thinks it’s a beautiful song.

Sven informs that Marie became one of the most popular Swedish female artists in the 80’s. Per tells this part of Marie came from the singer songwriter tradition. She was a great piano player and her voice was outstanding. ÄDK is very typical of her style.

Sven tells Marie’s biggest hits were ballads, but she also was a super rocker. She never really wrote rocking material, though. Per thinks this was one of the main reasons why she wanted to join him in Roxette, because he wrote that kind of material. PG never heard any rock or power pop song written by Marie. It wasn’t really her style. She liked to sit by the piano and just do these mid tempo ballads. She was very much into the lyrics and especially in her own material in Swedish it’s a lot about nature and emotions. It was important for her and Mr. G thinks it’s easier to go to the ballad side with this. Also, it fit Marie’s voice very well. She was singing with jazz bands, she sang RnB, she sang everything. She could sing anything, basically.

Sven adds that Marie touched something deep inside among the Swedish audience with another one of her highlights, Sparvöga. He translates the title as „Sparrow’s eye”. Per tells Sparvöga is a book from the 70’s which became a TV series and Marie wrote the theme song to it. It became a big hit for her. The TV series started in early February of 1989, around the same time when The Look happened in the US. So Marie recorded this song prior to Roxette’s breakthrough. The song is co-produced by Anders Herrlin, who eventually became an engineer and programmer for Roxette. It’s different style and different sound to Marie’s previous stuff.

The next hymn-like Marie classic is Tro from 1996. Per translates the title as „Believe”, but he tells it can also mean „Faith”. Sven tells Swedish language opens a lot of backdoors for interpretation. Per adds it’s a very complicated language and laughs. Mr. G thinks it’s a great song and it was also a big hit for Marie. She had a second child at the time and they had a break from Roxette for about three years. 1996 was the first year when they had a time off. Per was working with his Swedish band in the meantime, toured in Scandinavia and Marie did her own stuff as well. Sven tells they both seem to have needed that break. However, it wasn’t really a break, because it lasted for like 25 seconds, then both of them kicked off separate things. Per explains they needed a break from each other. They had been working very intense with Roxette, touring, recording and having that enormous amount of success for almost 8 years. Marie had a family, but Per didn’t have any children at the time. They just needed to do something else with other poeple. Even though they continued making music, it was in a different environment. „How can we miss you when you won’t go away”, as Herbie Herbert, Roxette’s Amercian manager said. Sven says Tro is a very typical Marie song. Per agrees and says it has a very beautiful melody and a very strong lyric. It’s pretty different also from Roxette. It’s a very long song, appr. 5 minutes. Per thinks Marie wanted to show another side of her art. Mr. G tells the song is from the album I en tid som vår, which translates into „In a time like ours”. He thinks it could also be translated into „In a time like spring”. As he said, Swedish is a very complicated language. It’s a bit like Japanese. They are laughing. The song wraps up the guys’ tribute to this fabulous singer’s Swedish career.

Sven and Per then dive deep into some Swedish rock ’n’ roll. The next song is The No No Song by The Sounds. Per thinks Maja Ivarsson is an amazing singer. The band had lots of hits in Sweden. Living In America was their breakthrough song. After they play The No No Song, to which both Sven and Per say „yes, yes”, Sven informs that Per was up on the kitchen floor dancing spontaneously. Per laughs and says „can’t help myself”.

The next one is a song by Magnus Carlson feat. Trummor & Orgel. Per tells Trummor & Orgel is a duo of two brothers who have this amazing jazzy combo. They have been doing this since 2003. PG thinks they are really amazing. Magnus Carlson is the lead singer of Weeping Willows. They teamed up and the result is quite amazing, the guys think. Magnus’ vocals are really captivating according to Sven. Per loves the Hammond organ and drums. It reminds him of a Swedish duo from the late 60’s, Hansson & Karlsson, who even worked with Jimi Hendrix a bit. Jimi covered one of their songs, Tax Free.

The guys play Black Hole by Edith Backlund. Per thinks she is amazing and it’s a great track. Then an irreplaceable, unchallenged band, the marvellous masters of Swedish garage rock, The Hives are played. Per thinks they are irresistible. A killer track, Die, All Right! from 2002 from their Veni Vidi Vicious album comes next. Good album title according to both Sven and Per.

Mr. Lindström and Mr. Gessle thank everyone for listening and say they will be back with more good-looking music from the Nordic countries.

Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the show.

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

Thanks for your support, Sven!