Episode No. 501 of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM was broadcast on 2nd January. Per Gessle and Sven Lindström are still in party mood after celebrating the 500th episode. They go through the songs they played the most during the past 15 years.
The guys start talking about The Cardigans and Sven is curious if Per remembers anything about them when they popped up in Mr. G’s life in the 90’s. PG says they did some great songs, Peter Svensson was the main writer and Nina Persson was the lead singer. It was a breath of fresh air when they came out. Their songs stood the test of time pretty well when you hear them on the radio, Per thinks. They are obviously one of the guys’ favourites on Nordic Rox. Sven and PG play My Favourite Game from their fourth album, Gran Turismo.
Next song is The Band from the debut album of Mando Diao. Bring ‘Em In was released in 2002. When singer Björn Dixgård met Gustaf Norén, the other singer in the band on a party, they ended up sitting there all night, discussing The Beatles. That’s a good start. Per tells Sven „it could have been us!” The guys are laughing.
Sven asks Per what he remembers most from the 90’s music scene. Mr. G says the early 90’s for them was very hectic with Roxette. They toured a lot, the MTV thing was very big, then the grunge thing came, the British stuff with Oasis and Blur happened in the mid 90’s. Productionwise and musically things changed, you had influences by bands like e.g. Massive Attack. Per likes the 80’s and 90’s sound a lot, probably because he was working so much in those decades and so he was very much part of it. Today when he works in the studio programming stuff, he tends to go back to the 90’s a bit and listen to what he was doing. He likes those drum loops from the 90’s. Sven thinks there is a great variety of hits from the 90’s which is quite fun and interesting. It’s like the second wave of the 60’s in different clothes. Per thinks it’s also a bit more melody-driven than pop music is today. Back then it was more pop, nowadays it’s more hip hop. Per says Sven and he are getting older, their roots are in the 60’s and 70’s, so of course the 90’s are much closer to where they come from.
Sven adds there was also a creative wave of pop stuff in Sweden inspired by Roxette’s success. They kicked the door open in 1989 showing – as the second band after ABBA – that it was possible to break through internationally. Sven thinks that inspired a lot of Swedish bands. PG says he is sure it did, because it’s a small country and if someone makes it as big as they did, all the other artists think „if they can do it, we certainly can do it too”. The competition is always there. PG thinks that’s a good thing. If you inspire your friends and fellow musicians and artists in your own native country, it’s just amazing. The 90’s were big, so many Swedish acts happened, e.g. Ace of Base, Robyn, Popsicle. Here Not Forever is played by Popsicle. Next one is the beautiful Julian by Say Lou Lou.
Sven tells he is sitting there with Per while he is taking a rare break in songwriting. He asks PG when he started writing songs. Per says he started writing lyrics when he was 13-14 years old. He was really into lyrics for some reason. He was pretty influenced by the singer-songwriter movement in the 70’s. Then the new wave happened which inspired people like PG who couldn’t play anything to be able to form a band. Then he started writing pop tunes. That’s his style and that’s where he comes from. He comes from the melodic songwriting tradition, based in the 60’s. Sven is curious if Per has any idea of how many songs he has written. Per doesn’t know. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. Sven mentions that a couple of years ago PG released a 10-CD box of demos. The Per Gessle Archives Vol. 1, Per laughs. He says there are so many songs. He bought the Pete Townshend demo albums and from a fan point of view he thought that it was really interesting to hear what it sounds like when a songwriter starts off, the ideas before the band or an additional singer comes in. So he just felt like there are lots of people interested in his work or interested in how the songs started out. Normally, he tends to make demos of every song he makes. Not all the time though. Sometimes it’s just fascinating to go into the studio with a bunch of people without demos, just present them verbally and see what happens. The thing with the demo can be that if it turns out really cool, it’s sort of blocking you in the next phase. Because you always go back to the demo and prefer it sometimes, which is a nightmare if you collaborate with other people. So there are pros and cons. Generally speaking, Per thinks if you are interested in an artist, it’s great to hear the demos as well. The raw idea, where the song comes from. And sometimes you have a different intro, different tempo, different key, so… maybe it’s just Per, but he is a little bit of a nerd, he says. The guys are laughing.
Sven says the 10-CD box called volume 1 is signaling that there is plenty more fish in that sea. PG says he has so many songs and demos on cassettes and DAT tapes, as well as on mini discs, so he stumble into new demos all the time. Some of them he forgot about, some were recorded by Roxette or other people. There might be another box. Sven says they will dig deep into it when it arrives. Per says „good luck”.
Next song is She Owns The Streets by The Raveonettes from Denmark. It’s one of Per’s favourite tracks from the band. Another song they play is Do You Know by The Lollipops, also from Denmark from 1964. This is probably the first ever Danish music Per ever heard in his life, he remembers this song from when he was a kid. PG says there was a guy, Svend Asmussen (Danish jazz violinist) who was on Swedish TV all the time, but he wasn’t in the pop field. Sven thinks Do You Know was a knockout. It was on the Swedish Top10 chart, Tio i topp. The guitarist and bassist in the band were brothers, Sven tells. They were 13-14 years old which adds a great vibe to it. Per says Denmark rulez.
The guys go back to Sweden and play a slightly obscure artist, Paola. Above The Candy Store is next. All Per knows about Paola is that she was produced by Klas Åhlund from the band Teddybears. Per thinks they were a couple in the early years of this century. Klas wrote and produced the song Hang With Me which Robyn made into a massive hit. Mr. G thinks that’s a good song.
After that comes Bandstarter by Brainpool. PG says he loves Brainpool. His publishing company signed them when they were really young and worked with them for 2-3 albums. Bandstarter is from the second album and it was their big breakthrough song in Sweden. Sven says it was massive in the mid 90’s. They were supporting Roxette on the European leg of their Crash! Boom! Bang! world tour in 1995. It’s a great band and Per still works with the bass player, Christoffer Lundquist, who is one of Per’s key players in his band producing and playing everything with strings on. Sven tells Chris is a multitalented genius. Per says he wouldn’t call Christoffer a genius, but he is good. Sven says Chris doesn’t listen to this show so he won’t go to Per’s head. The guys are laughing. PG goes on with telling the lead singer of Brainpool, Janne left the band, but they continued as a trio and every third year they are doing gigs. They just pop up making a gig somewhere or a rock opera.
The next song is Istället för musik förvirring (Instead of music confusion) by the magnificent Swedish band Bob Hund (Bob the dog, if you translate it). Per says you have to practice your Swedish once in a while and the track has a great title and it’s a great song. Before they play it, Sven says „fasten your seatbelts”. The band didn’t sound like anything else when they came out in the 90’s. Per says it’s vacuum cleaner music. He thinks you have to see them live to understand what they are about. The lyrics are really cool, Thomas Öberg is just a great lyric writer. He makes you think a lot when you listen to his stuff.
While sitting in sunny Stockholm, the guys pick Manchild by Neneh Cherry. PG thinks it’s such a great song and Neneh Cherry is such an amazing singer. She is not really working too much these days and Per misses her a lot. The song is from the album Raw Like Sushi. Per says now it sounds old-fashioned, but it was a long time ago and he thinks it’s really cool.
The guys are wrapping up the show, ending it with a bang in the shape of Roxette. Sven picks Opportunity Nox. He is curious what Per remembers about writing that one. PG says they were supposed to release two compilation albums, one with uptempo songs and one with ballads, so they needed a couple of new tracks. He wrote 8-10 new songs and picked two uptempo and two ballads. Opportunity Nox was one of them. They worked with slightly new people in the production team. Per plays the lead guitar solo which is why it sounds like it does. The guys are lauging and say they like it. Per says it’s got a great energy to it. This side of Roxette is something that he cherishes, the power pop side of Roxette. Sven is curious if the remaining songs that didn’t make the compilation albums will pop up on The Per Gessle Archives Vol. 14. The guys are laughing and Per says if he can find them, then probably yes. That’s the only way to do it, to get one great song you have to write 3 or 4, Mr. G adds.
After Roxette is speeding up the pop tempo, the guys say goodbye and Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes closes the episode.
Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.
Thanks for the technical support to János Tóth!
Disc 1 (Original album)
Min plats (T&A Demo – Sep 29, 2016)