Per Gessle

Per Gessle is back on Framgångspodden

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You might remember that Alexander Pärleros did a podcast interview with Per Gessle appr. 4 years ago and shared it in February 2018 on Framgångspodden. Now it was time for another round with Mr. G to ask him about success, creativity and the loss of Marie Fredriksson. You can listen to the podcast HERE (no. 540 is the interview with Per).

Alexander is very happy that Per is back on his podcast. He introduces PG as a living legend. Together with Roxette, he put Sweden on the map and as a front figure in Gyllene Tider he also created immortal hits. He is undeniably one of Sweden’s most successful artists and greatest music exports of all time. He is currently on an unplugged tour.

Per remembers that the first Framgångspodden episode with him came out in 2018. Alexander asks PG if he is good at remembering the years – what happened when. Per tells he is not really good at that, but when he thinks about a year, he thinks about what he was doing then. When he thinks about Gyllene Tider’s Dags att tänka på refrängen album, it was 2013, Roxette’s Have A Nice Day came out in 1999. Per also tells that if you ask his wife or his friends if he is good at remembering dates, they will for sure reply he isn’t.

Alexander tells that last time he asked Per about what he eats for breakfast and PG replied he always eats the same thing: coffee with milk and 2 sandwiches. One with apricot marmalade & cheese and one with ham & mustard & chives. Alexander is curious if anything has changed since then. Per laughs and tells he still eats the same, he only added tomato. He says there is a clash in the mouth between tomato and apricot marmalade if you eat them at the same time, but it’s fine if you have a little break between the two. Alexander laughs and says it’s nice to hear that even PG can develop his eating habits. Per tells it’s the same with lunch. If he is on tour or out in town, he won’t eat the same, but at home he likes it like that.

Alexander asks Per if there is any routine PG was doing during this year, anything he is doing for feeling good. Mr. G tells he thinks he is fine, he tries to walk 1 hour each day if the weather outside is not so scary, like in Stockholm today, drizzling all day. While walking, he is either on the phone or listening to music or just contemplating. It has become more than a routine, it’s rather a way to exist, which is important for him. But he likes routines – to eat dinner at a set time or watch TV almost always at the same time.

Alexander is doing the interview via Zoom and since he sees Per’s office, he asks what that picture of a cow is on the wall. Mr. G tells it’s an Andy Warhol painting that he has since the end of the 80’s.

Alexander tells Per goes on an unplugged tour and it seems to be quite sold out, he couldn’t really find tickets for that. Mr. G tells there are a few tickets left for Karlstad and Halmstad’s second gig and maybe a few for Linköping and Norrköping. [So the interview was done before 5th November 2021. /PP] The biggest venue they play is Filadelfia in Stockholm, for 1,400 people. The whole idea came from the pandemic, because there were very strict rules. He has a hotel in Tylösand and decided to play there 2 acoustic gigs for a smaller amount of people, 475 in the crowd. It went so fine that in the end they did 10 shows. It was much fun and intimate. Per has never played gigs like these and he says that you become naked in a way at such a concert. It’s very different to when you play a big production e.g. at Stockholm Globe Arena or in big soccer stadiums. Here it’s more silent, acoustic and there are anecdotes he tells in between the songs. It’s a very exciting concept for Per. Doing the same concept at theatres around Sweden is going to be much fun.

Alexander says it sounds like something Sweden needs at this time after the restrictions. Per thinks everyone in Sweden needs a party most of all. He says that’s why he will also play Gyllene Tider hits. The guys are laughing. Per says it’s gonna be nice and calm. The band will be sitting, the audience will be sitting. It fits the season and it’s going to be a lovely autumn for everyone.

Alexander asks Per about Marie, telling that PG lost his mother, sister and brother in a short period and then Marie in 2019. Mr. G says it was of course a difficult period. Marie was ill for a long time and mentally you were prepared in a way that one day she will no longer be with us. It was the same with his mother, who died at the age of 88. His sister had cancer and his brother had lung cancer. His brother was only 62 when he died. It happened very suddenly, so it was tough. But life goes on, however, there is no day you don’t think of them. He is reminded of Marie all the time. He learned to live with that. The older you get, the more people disappear from your life. Also your idols. E.g. Charlie Watts from The Rolling Stones passed away a couple of weeks ago. All Per’s super favourite artists, e.g. David Bowie or Tom Petty have left us. You get older, so it will go on like this.

Alexander tells Per grew up in Furet district of Halmstad and he is curious if Per remembers when he got his first guitar. Mr. G tells they had an unplayable guitar at home, which had only two strings. So all you could do with that was striking tough poses. He also remembers that at school they had to do some woodwork and he sawed out an electric guitar. It had no strings though, it just looked like a guitar. He thinks his brother had a guitar, but that was crap too. The first real guitar that could also be played was bought by Per’s mother. Per got it quite late, in 1975 if he remembers right, when he was 16. It was a nylon-string guitar, a Bjärton Estrella made in Sweden. He learned fingerpicking on it, playing Leonard Cohen songs. It wasn’t too rocky, he says. Per bought his first real electric guitar when they started with Gyllene Tider. Some of them travelled to London to buy guitars and amplifiers. He had a summer job at Fammarps mushrooms and weighed mushrooms. All the money he earned he spent on a wine-red Gibson Les Paul Custom. Dave Davies in The Kinks had one like that, so PG wanted to have the same. The only difference was that Per’s was a 2-pickup, while Dave Davies’ was a 3-pickup. It was stupid enough that they had no money to pay the VAT, so they smuggled the guitars. They got caught and came home empty-handed. Per then wrote a long letter of apology to the customs. He wrote that it wasn’t their intention to break the law and they didn’t know they should have paid VAT. They got a fine of 2,000 crowns, which was a fortune back then, but got their instruments back. True story, he says. Per still has that guitar and played it on GT’s first album, on Flickorna på TV2, for example.

Per tells the first setup of Gyllene Tider was Micke Syd, MP, PG and Janne Carlsson, but after Janne left the band, Anders Herrlin and Göran Fritzon joined them. It must have been January 1979. They got a record deal with EMI the same year and recorded their first album. There were a couple of years when they tried to find their sound. They came from nowhere when they met and they spent all their time rehearsing and learning the craft. They had to learn how to write a song, how the bass works, how a band works at all. They started sending their recordings to all record labels in spring and they got their EMI contract in autumn, so all went quite fast anyway. 3 years after he got his first nylon-string guitar. GT played 6 gigs in front of an audience before they became No. 1 with Flickorna på TV2.

Alexander asks how Flickorna på TV2 came about. Per says MP and he were influenced by Elvis Costello’s Watching The Detectives. It has a strange reggae beat. They wanted to record Flickorna på TV2 that way. It didn’t go so well, but that was the song’s identity, pretending to be reggae. It wasn’t until they sat in the studio to record their first album to figure out how to simplify the beat. The song really stood out. The lyric idea came from Hasse & Tage (a Swedish comedian duo). Their word play of the only thing they get to turn on when they get home is the TV was the base. There was also a lot of talk on TV2 back then, Catrin Jacobs was on. It was in Per’s teenage years. Alexander asks if the guys met the girls on TV2 and if the girls thanked for the song, because even more people started watching the TV. PG says he can’t remember, but there weren’t too many channels in that era anyway.

The single was released right before Christmas 1979 and the album was released in February 1980. It wasn’t hysterical yet, but in autumn 1980 when they released När vi två blir en as a single it started to become very big. The song was No. 1 in Sweden for months and that led them to their second album, Moderna Tider. Then came an explosion: record in sales and a huge indoor tour in Sweden. He lived at his mother back then and all what was movable, disappeared. Even the laundry on dry in the garden. Fans stole everything. Haha. When he turned 22 in January 1981, he got appr. 3,000 letters. There were 3 big sacks full of letters in front of his mother’s house. Then came 100 letters each day or so.

Per also talks about the accident in Kristianopel that happened before a GT concert in 1981. 3 fans died because of stampede at the entrance. It was tough, they couldn’t imagine such things could happen.

Another hysterical era in Per’s career was the beginning of the 90’s when Roxette toured South America. Appr. 1,000 fans were waiting in front of their hotel, singing songs at night. PG tells all the Formula 1 teams were at the same hotel and they were complaining. When Per was down in the hall and the F1 guys realized he is from Roxette, they said: „Oh you, you fucker, you kept us up all night!” Haha.

Alexander is curious how Roxette came about. Per says it came step by step. He met Marie at the end of the 70’s at the rehearsal studio they shared, Gyllene Tider and Marie’s band, Strul. She was singing fantastically and played the keyboards. She had a kind of musicality Per had never seen before. They simply became friends. Gyllene Tider broke through, but Marie’s band didn’t have as much success then. They shared a dream to succeed with their music abroad. It was a natural way of development for Gyllene Tider to try their luck abroad and they recorded their fourth album, The Heartlan Café in English. It was released in the US, but nothing really happened with that. Marie’s primary goal was to get a record deal in Sweden. Her career went uphill, while Per’s went downhill. GT broke up and PG’s solo stuff didn’t go too well either. Per was asked to write a song for Pernilla Wahlgren. He wrote Svarta glas, which he thought was perfect for Pernilla, but she never recorded it. Per’s demo was circulating at EMI and the boss, Rolf Nygren suggested PG to write English lyrics to it and record it with Marie. Rolf thought then they would have the perfect song to succeed with abroad. Per thought it was a brilliant idea and Marie was also in, however, her producer and her own record label thought she shouldn’t work together with Per, but rather focus on her solo career. Nevertheless, Marie wanted to work with Per and they recorded Neverending Love. It didn’t become a hit abroad, but a big hit in Sweden and that led to the chance they could record the first Roxette album. Everything went so fast and Per had no songs in English. However, he had songs in Swedish he wrote for his never-released upcoming solo album and quickly translated the texts to English. There were a lot of coincidences that led to Roxette. After the first Roxette album, Marie went back to her Swedish solo stuff, while Per, triggered by Roxette’s success in Sweden, started writing songs for the album that became Look Sharp!

Mr. G talks about the story of It Must Have Been Love ending up in Pretty Woman and tells that the movie’s title first was 3,000. Per talks about Germany, which was the biggest market in Europe back then, but nothing really happened with Roxette outside Sweden. Their German record label told them they should write a Christmas song, because then it might be easier for them to be played on the radio. So in 1987 Per wrote a Christmas song, It Must Have Been Love (Christmas for the Broken Hearted). They released it in Sweden and it became a gold record, but Germans didn’t like it. The record label in Germany didn’t release it. Marie went back to her Swedish solo, Per started writing songs for the next Roxette album, so IMHBL was kind of forgotten. After they broke through, they were sitting in Los Angeles, having lunch with their US record label and they were asked to be part of the soundtrack to Pretty Woman. They told David Bowie was in, Robert Palmer and several other EMI artists as well. Per couldn’t go home and write a new song for the movie, because they were constantly on the road doing promotions. They were heading to New Zealand then. He said, „but we have a damn good Christmas song!” They updated the intro a bit, took away the Christmas reference, Marie sang a bit and they were ready and gave the recording to their US label. Roxette was recording their next album, Joyride in 1990 and at the old EMI studio in Skärmarbrink Per got a call from the director of Pretty Woman, Garry Marshall. Per didn’t know who he was, they never met. Garry just wanted to tell that he loved the song so much he had given it a great place in the movie and there is no dialogue over it. Per hadn’t seen the movie, so he didn’t know what Garry was talking about, but thanked for it. Marie and Per were invited for the screening of the movie. Mr. G remembers that they were watching it in a theatre and there was an earthquake and someone told them „don’t worry, this is an earthquake-safe building!” Per thinks it’s cool they could be part of the movie, because it became a huge success, one of the biggest movies of all time and IMHBL became a huge song as well. Still one of their biggest songs. Anytime Per hears it he thinks of Marie, how amazing she was, what a fantastic singer she was. PG tells you can find hundreds of covers of IMHBL on YouTube, but there is no version that comes close to Marie’s capacity of singing it.

Per tells again that Marie and he had this common ambition to try to succeed abroad. They loved the romanticism in old pop and rock culture. It was very different vs. what it is today. They wanted to go outside Sweden and play pop and rock music. It was a dream they shared. They also recognized very early that they were good at different things. Marie was an unbeatable singer and Per’s job was rather being the director. Writing songs, planning and networking. Per was always triggered by success, then he became double as good next time. Other people become stressed by success and take a step back, but Per has always been the opposite. The more they worked, the more Per wanted to work. That was also a difference between Per and Marie. The bigger they became, the less Marie wanted to work, Per laughs. They were a very good team.

Alexander asks PG about the creative process. He had written a lot of big hits during that period. Per tells he has never found a formula. There is a big difference between him and today’s pop music. He wrote almost everything himself, text and music. Nowadays artists work a lot in teams of 6-8 different people. One writes the melody, the other finds the groove etc. and that makes it less personal. Roxette’s success is based on several things: they decided to stay in Stockholm, not to record in Los Angeles or London or New York, to work with Swedish musicians and a Swedish producer, Clarence Öfwerman; Per’s songs and Marie’s fantastic voice that sounded like no one else. ABBA did the same and no one else sounds like ABBA. The problem nowadays is that there are too many songs that sound exactly the same. Everyone works with the same computer program, all have the same plugin and same sound. It’s very hard to stand out. When you work the old, organic way, you play real piano, real saxophone, real guitar or real drums, there is a unique sound. If you think about Charlie Watts for example, no one else sounds like him. If you look at the premiere video of their current tour, it sounds OK, but it doesn’t sound like The Rolling Stones now. Charlie’s style affected the whole band. It’s the same with Roxette. Jonas Isacsson’s fantastic guitar playing style put a stamp on Roxette’s early recordings. Per’s songwriting style and how he builds a song also affects the sound, Marie’s singing style and the choice of keys as well. Clarence’s fantastic arrangement and sound choice too. All this makes it special. But Per has no special way of writing a song. He was writing songs constantly. He thinks this comes from the fact that he grew up with the music of the 60’s and 70’s, which is very melodic. Everything he works with is adjusted to melodies. He listens to melodies and harmonies in a different way. It’s hard for him to listen to hip hop music, because there is almost no melody. It’s more grooves and sounds than real melody.

Alexander asks Per to tell an example how a hit of Per’s was written, if he had a phrase first. PG tells he always has his antennas out. It can be an expression or anything to start with. For Joyride it was e.g. a note his then girlfriend, now wife left on the piano, „Hej din tok, jag älskar dig!” and that became „Hello, you fool, I love you!” It sounds like a super lovely chorus. Then he read an interview with Paul McCartney where he said writing songs with John Lennon was like being on a long joyride. So it became „Hello, you fool, I love you! C’mon join the joyride!” It’s a damn good slogan, it’s positive and exciting and colorful. There were a lot of associations and a world came alive in Per’s head, so it went very fast to write this song. He wrote Spending My Time the same day in the afternoon. It was a great Saturday, he laughs.

The Look was written when he bought a new synth and tried to learn how to program it. He used chords A, G and D. It was extremely simple and then he started singing the first thing that came out of his head, „walking like a man, hitting like a hammer, she’s a juvenile scam”. It didn’t sound wise, it meant nothing, it was more about the rhythm and sound. Per’s idea was that Marie should sing it, that’s why it was „he’s got the look” first, but she didn’t want to sing it, because she thought it was too strange and didn’t fit her style. It’s like rap in a way. She was just singing the chorus and that also made the song special.

Per says sometimes it’s like solving a puzzle when you write songs, other times it can be that you write a long lyric and you find a melody half year later and you edit the text to match it. Spending My Time’s lyrics was written before there was music to it. There are a lot of examples. No song is like the other.

Alexander asks Per when he is in his most creative status, maybe in the evening or at weekends or when drinking a good wine. PG says he tries to work as little as possible. He is not the type who goes to the studio and plays the instruments 5-6 hours a day. He only writes when he has something on his mind. There has to be a project or a purpose to write. Mr. G usually writes during the day and not really after drinking wine at brunch, he laughs. He says he must be focused. Per works very intensively when he is working, in his own bubble. His wife leaves him in his bubble until he is ready. PG doesn’t know where his creativity comes from. He likes to write and it’s the way of expressing himself.

Alexander is curious about how it was when Roxette was huge in the US. Per tells it came in different stages. When they broke through with The Look, no one knew who they were. They were from Sweden, which was very strange and most people thought they would have a mayfly’s life. When they released their second single, Dressed For Success in the US it peaked at No. 14 on Billboard. Radios didn’t want to play DFS, it was only The Look that existed from Roxette. Then the third single was Listen To Your Heart and the radios started playing it and it became No. 1. So it happened in different stages. It was overwhelming to have success there and Per thinks they should have focused more on the US. But they had success everywhere else too: in Australia, Japan, South America, Europe etc. The US became only one of the markets. If they focused more on it, they should have stayed there for a year and block everything else, because the US is so huge from New York to Los Angeles. They decided to go everywhere else instead. They had to pay the price for that in the US. Their American record label was bought up and then they kind of lost that market.

Per is thankful for the journey they could do with Roxette. Before they broke through with The Look, they had been working in Sweden for 10 years as professional musicians and they knew it very well that it’s very difficult to succeed internationally. When it happened at the same time everywhere, they were happy: „oh, we have to travel to Sydney, we have to travel to Tokyo, we have to travel to Moscow”. They were thankful that people were interested in them all around the world. When they travelled to South America, there was an economic crisis in the world and a lot of artists cancelled their tours in South America, because you could earn nothing there. Marie and Per still wanted to go, because they thought it would be fun to play their songs in there. Everything exploded then. Theatres of the capacity of 4,000 became soccer stadiums instead and it became a gigantic tour for Roxette. Their experience there was incomparable. That was the greatest memory on the Joyride tour. They never played soccer stadiums before. It’s like Ullevi with 50-60 thousand people. Everyone was singing along. When they arrived to Cordoba, there was a long line of people from the airport to the hotel waving to them. It was magical to be on that whole journey. The first night they played in Buenos Aires there were 50,000 people and they had to add an extra show the next day and sold the rights to broadcast it on Argentina TV1 and the other existing channel broadcast Roxette live in Zurich from half a year ago.

To the question how they succeeded Per replies they were at the right place at the right time and they could deliver. They were of course ambitious and determined. Mr. G says when you work with your own art and own creativity, it’s actually not like a job, it’s more like your hobby, your personality. His whole existence is his work in a way. There is not other art like music, he thinks. You can be on any content, play to different nations with different religions or cultural backgrounds, speaking different languages, there is nothing in common among them, but they all sing along the same songs. It’s amazing to be part of it and hear your songs being sung by fans all around the world. You have to pinch your arms all the time. And those songs are still huge. New generations are coming and they also like them. It’s fantastic.

Alexander asks Per if there is anything he wishes he would have known when he was 20-25 what he knows now. Per thinks there is one thing that is better when you are getting older and it’s the experience that most of the things can be sorted out. When you are young you are more stressed and you are rather on the edge all the time. When you get older you realize that not everything is so important. The unplugged tour, where his music is so much in focus in that intimate atmosphere, he feels like he couldn’t have done 25 years ago. Now he dares to do it and it feels more natural now to take such a step. Mr. G says it wasn’t a real answer to Alexander’s question, but it’s difficult to answer that, because each part of your life is so different. You are in different situations, e.g. when you are 20-25 years old, you build things, you might find your partner and raise a family, then when you are 30 there is another stage and when you are 40 it’s again a different thing. Per says experience and routine help a lot. Go and play each night for an audience and that becomes an everyday routine. Then you have this feeling you want to leave your comfort zone a bit in between. Per thinks when you work with your creativity it’s important to try new things. If you change one key figure in the team before each major project to bring new blood, the others will stand a little on their toes to prove themselves in front of that new member and everyone can be influenced by him. You become a bit different when new people come into your circle. Per thinks it’s good to think about such things.

Alexander asks Per about the worst setbacks in his career. Mr. G tells he didn’t have too many. The worst was when GT broke up in 1984 and he released his second solo album in 1985. Those were very weird times. After his second solo album he had no record deal anymore and started writing songs for other artists. It didn’t suit him to be a hired gun. He always wanted to write for himself. Actually, before Roxette there were appr. 2 years like that.

Alexander asks how it affected Per privately when he was tired or a little lost in his career. Per says he tries to avoid boredom by having many branches on his tree. He had Roxette, Gyllene Tider, his solo stuff, Mono Mind. When he gets tired of one thing, he starts dealing with another. It helped him a lot even when Roxette was huge, to e.g. go back to Gyllene Tider a bit, because it was different and it was in Swedish. That’s how he tries to fool himself. He has never had a mental collapse or anything like that. He tells he can be confused how the music industry has changed during the past decade with streaming and all that. How the pop romanticism disappeared with its album sleeves and videos. We live in a different time now. Pop music’s sole purpose is to reflect its own era. If you look at pop music of the 60’s and 70’s, it reflects very well that era. Fashion, music, movies, all went hand in hand. If you look at today’s pop music, it’s efficient and based on formulas, everything has to be in a certain way. Radio channels play the same type of music all the time. For Gyllene Tider from 1979 from Halmstad it would be very diffult to make it today. They were rather outsiders and then managed to become mainstream in a strange way. Roxette was outsider since they came from Sweden. When they were to release The Look in England, their English record label said in their press release tat Roxette was an Amercian band. Today it’s difficult to succeed when you are an outsider. If you look at all the Netflix movies or HBO series, they follow the same formulas to be efficient. It makes it cheaper to produce that way. When they worked on Joyride, they had no budget. It doesn’t work like that anymore. Alexander agrees that nowadays everyone wants to earn on what they do as soon as possible. Per can understand that it’s like this in the hardcore business, but this way there is a compromise between the artistic expression and earning money.

There comes the section of the last three questions. The first is if Per has any Netflix or HBO series to recommend. Mr. G thinks The Undoing is very good, he watched Midnight Mass too – Åsa likes horror movies, Per says.

The next question is what Per suggests those who want to go outside the box. The only hint Per can tell is that you have to follow your gut feeling all the time. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you will become extremely rich or successful, but you will feel good doing that. At the same time, he has to tell that his personality and his way of thinking wouldn’t have worked today, because he is not the one who wants to compromise. It’s always sad to hear when nowadays a record label doesn’t want to sign artists who play real instruments, because it takes more time for them to become good. It’s easier to work on computers. That’s how it works today, but it’s good to know how it is to play in a band, when everyone plays the same song. It feels fantastic to be a part of that. Mr. G has no secret recipe, he suggests to do your thing at full throttle, pedal to the metal.

The last question is what Per will be doing in the coming years. PG says he is touring in autumn (2021), then in spring (2022) he releases a new English album and hopes he will be able to tour with it around the world. He thinks it’s a lovely album and he is very satisfied with it. He has no other plans yet. Throw in the towel, he laughs.

Alexander thanks Per for being there and they say goodbye to each other.

Per Gessle releases the Finn 5 fel! demos

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Lucky fans we are! Per Gessle continues releasing demos from his archives. The new set he thought to surprise us with this Christmas is the demos to Gyllene Tider’s Finn 5 fel! album. The album contains 14 songs, but there are only 9 tracks on this current release. Well, the album title is „Find 5 errors!” and… haha… 5 demos are missing: Solsken, Ta mej… nu är jag din!, Du måste skämta, Ande i en flaska (Gabba Gabba Gabba Come On Come On Karma Karma) and Har du nånsin sett en dröm gå förbi? Why, you might be wondering. Here is what PG says about it:

I only made these nine demos. The other songs were presented to the band when we got to the studio. “Ande i en flaska” is a silly version of “Ghost In The House”. “Ta mej… nu är jag din” is based on a Rox track I demoed in Nov 1999 called “I Don’t Care If It Rains”. It will pop up eventually… Or not.

This guy knows how to tease! Fingers crossed I Don’t Care If It Rains sees the light of day in the near future.

FINN 5 FEL! – DEMOS tracklist

1. En sten vid en sjö i en skog – T&A Demo, 28 Okt 2003 – 2:42
2. Tuffa tider (för en drömmare) – T&A Demo, 30 Dec 2003 – 3:25
3. Ordinärt mirakel – T&A Demo, 2 Dec 2003 – 2:42
4. Jag borde förstås vetat bättre – T&A Demo, 28 Okt 2003 – 3:20
5. Nere på gatan – T&A Demo, 3 Dec 2003 – 2:57
6. 72 – T&A Demo, 20 Juli 2002 – 3:47
7. Varje gång det regnar – T&A Demo, 27 Okt 2003 – 3:37
8. Hjärta utan hem – T&A Demo, 2 Dec 2003 – 3:00
9. Speciell – T&A Demo, 28 Dec 2003 – 2:32

Listen to the F5F demos on Spotify, Deezer, YouTube or other digital platforms! No physical release is planned.

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – Room Service 20

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You might remember that in the June episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM, at the end of the Joyride 30th anniversary chat, Per Gessle and Sven Lindström mentioned they would celebrate the 20th anniversary of Room Service in the next episode. That episode was broadcast in September, but it took a bit more time than usually to get access to that part. Thanx a lot for Sven’s support!

Just like the Joyride 30 episode, Room Service 20 was also recorded in Per’s kitchen in Stockholm, so the guys probably had a full day anniversary recording. Per says it’s a great little kitchen, they have a lot of meetings there and exquisite lunches. Sven introduces the show: „another day, another anniversary, they say in the pop business”. Per laughs and says „that’s what happens when you’re getting old”.

Per tells Room Service is one of his favourite Roxette albums, maybe because they recorded it in the old ABBA studio in Stockholm. It’s closed now, most studios are closed these days. Mr. G says they worked with a new engineer, Ronny Lahti, a guy that Per is still working with. It was a fun album to make.

The guys play an ABBA song, Voulez-Vous that was recorded in Florida instead of that Stockholm studio. Then comes Broder Daniel’s Army Of Dreamers. The next one is Titiyo’s probably biggest hit, Come Along from 2001 to check the atmosphere of the year when Room Service was released.

Sven asks Per how he remembers 2001 and if there is anything that sticks out. Mr. G says he was touring, they did a big European tour with Roxette. Apart from that, he probably had a big hangover. The guys are laughing and Per asks Sven how he remembers that year. Sven says he wasn’t touring, but he was probably stuck with a hangover.

Here they play I’m Alive by The Hives, one of Per’s favourite bands. Then comes Get Some by Lykke Li and Hopeless Case Of A Kid In Denial by The Hellacopters. Regarding The Hives, Sven tells it was their first single in 7 years when they released it two years ago. Mr. G says they play fast, but are pretty slow in releasing records. Sven says they just don’t do it like Per, working 24/7. PG says he doesn’t do that either, it just looks like that. The guys are laughing. Per says he just keeps himself busy, he likes it like that, he likes to work a lot. If you have a project going on or a record or a career for that matter, you have to work, Per adds. You have to maximize everything and at the same time you have to challenge yourself and try to expand your possibilities and explore new things all the time. When it comes to writing or when it comes to producing and performing as well. It’s hard to do. Sven asks Per if he is the kind of person who can work endlessly as long as he doesn’t feel like it’s work, when he is driving it himself. Mr. G says he is a very lucky guy, because he winded up with a profession that doesn’t feel like a profession. When he looks back on his life, it has always been about pop and rock music. Eventually, he could make a living out of playing pop music and writing music and it’s just a blessing. So for him it doesn’t feel like he is going to work. Of course there are days, especially in the old days when you did endless months of promoting, then it becomes a work. You deal with journalits, you are doing photo sessions and in-stores and it becomes tedious after a while. But at the end of the day it’s a tiny price to pay for being able to do what you love the most, which is being part of this crazy industry.

Sven says one piece of that crazy industry is The Centre Of The Heart (Is A Suburb To The Brain). Per tells he wrote this track for Have A Nice Day. They even recorded it for HAND, but there was something missing, it just didn’t feel right. They just left it, forgot about it and later when Per was in France he came to think of it. He heard some other music which reminded him of TCOTH, but it was much faster. He called Clarence and told him they should go back to TCOTH and speed it up, to make it a little bit more uptempo, because it had all the great ingredients, it’s catchy and has a great chorus. It became the first single of Room Service. Sven tells Roxette pemiered it on Melodifestivalen (ESC) on Swedish TV. Sven asks Per about the lyric, mainly this part „a suburb to the brain”. Per laughs and says „it just makes sense, doesn’t it?” The guys are playing the song.

Sven asks Per about the international release of Room Service. Mr. G says of course it has tough competition when you compare it to Look Sharp! or Joyride, but it went very well and they had lots of success with the three singles from it.

Regarding the tour PG says they hadn’t been touring since 1995, so in 2001 they had a slightly different band and they started working with Jonas Åkerlund who designed the stage set with lots of clips. It was different vs. what they had done before.

Sven tells the album sleeve was shot at The Madonna Inn, San Luis Obispo, California. Per tells they went there for almost a week to shoot the TCOTH video. Jonas is not only an awesome music video director, but an amazing photographer as well. They spent a whole day taking pictures in different locations of that amazing place. Madonna Inn is just the craziest place Per has ever seen. Mr. G tells it was fun and the video became great as well.

The next track is My World, MY Love, My Life which is one of Per’s favourites and Sven asks PG what makes it so special for him. Per tells some songs just turn out great soundwise. He has always loved the sound of this track. He loves Jonas Isacsson’s guitar playing, the melody, Marie’s voice and the key she sings in. It sums up that era of Roxette very well for Per. It’s the closing track of the album.

After the song is played, Per says it’s 20 years… Sven asks „it’s 20 years of…?” PG replies „wisdom!” Sven is curious if Per got wiser. Mr. G laughs and replies „of course, by the minute!” Sven says Room Service is an interesting album in many ways. He adds it could have been the last Roxette album, because in 2002 Marie got ill and the future for Roxette looked really dark. Per says in a way it became the last album, the last of that main, classic Roxette era. Marie’s illness affected her so much. When she came back in 2010 it was a different thing. Sven tells that against all odds Marie recovered from this really severe illness and made a comeback with Roxette. They enjoyed many years of incredible touring then. Per says Marie was an amazon for sure. She came back in 2009. They did 55 shows with Night of the Proms, they headlined that in Europe and it was a great start for Marie to come back, because even though they were the headliners, they only did 5 songs. She wanted to see how it felt and it felt actually good for her. She got better and better and she loved being on stage. She felt at home there. After that they decided to go back on the road as Roxette, so they continued working for another 5.5 years. Those 20 years since Room Service contained some amazing drama.

Sven asks Per what his thoughts were back then, in 2000-2001, where Roxette was going. Per always says they had amazing success all over the world during those 8 years between 1988 and 1995, they worked constantly and did all those world tours. In 1995 Marie wanted to have a second child, she wanted to take a break for a couple of years, so Per did a lot of other things with Gyllene Tider and solo stuff, as well as doing compilation albums with Roxette. This meant he had to write three or four songs for Roxette. Then they did a comback in 1999 with Have A Nice Day, but decided not to tour, mainly because Per had become a father and Marie wanted to stay home with her kids. They waited for another album, Room Service to tour with. The journey went on. Who knows what would have happened if Marie wouldn’t have become ill in 2002.

The guys play one of the main ballads of the album, Milk And Toast And Honey. Sven asks Per if he remembers writing this one. Mr. G tells he had this song in his head for many months before he even bothered to write it down. It’s a natural song for him, it came natural with its baselines and everything. Per heard the melodies, all the chords and modulations, he was just waiting for a good idea for a lyric. He got the title and created something around the title. It went very smooth. Mr. G loves this song and the video a lot. The clip was shot in the Stockholm archipelago and Marie is just amazing. She is singing so well and makes it a really beautiful song.

Towards the end of the episode Sven says they had Joyride 30th anniversary, Room Service 20th anniversary, but they all pale in comparison to Gyllene Tider celebrating the 40th anniversary of Moderna Tider. Per tells it was released in 1981 and it became a megahit in Sweden. Mr. G says it was crazy days, Sven adds GT were insane teenage idols, having Beatlesque popularity. PG adds they toured a whole year in Scandinavia and especially the summer was really amazing. Sven tells GT was heavily influenced by the new wave, punk and power pop era, as well as the 60’s. The guys play (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet from the album. Per is thinking how to translate it into English. Sven says „Come on and let’s live life!”, Per says „C’mon, join the joyride!” Haha. PG tells it was a big song for them. He wrote it on his 21st birthday. Per: „Why didn’t I have a party? Maybe I had a party afterwards.” Sven: „You were working!” Per: „Ah, I was working, of course, even in the 80’s.” They are laughing.

Before saying thanks to the listeners, Sven tells it was a teaser for an upcoming show featuring the power pop sounds of Gyllene Tider.

The show ends with Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes as usual.

 

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – 500th episode

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström celebrated the 500th episode of Nordic Rox on Sirius XM last Sunday, 5th December.

The guys are chatting in Stockholm, talking about the beginnings 15 years ago. Per tells it was before Sven’s time. He started doing the show with Viktor Petrovski after he got a request from Sirius XM to do a show where they would play Scandinavian and Nordic music. Mr. G found it a cool idea. He wouldn’t have been able to do it on his own, so he needed someone to collaborate with. Viktor, a Swedish music journalist came up. It was fun and then Sven came along. Sven inserts „to make things worse”. The guys are laughing. Mr. G tells Sven is also a music journalist and author and his knowledge about Scandinavian music is pretty big. „Together we were unbeatable”, Per says. Sven tells it was a fun story when Scott Greenstein at Sirius – who came up with the idea, because he loves Scandinavian music – persuaded PG. He really came off as a fan when he discussed his idea with Per. Mr. G tells the first time they met, Scott quoted one of Per’s Swedish songs in Swedish for him. PG says it was pretty impressive that he took it seriously and learned Swedish for that. Per feels very honoured to have been part of this during the past 15 years. It’s pretty crazy.

Mr. G tells 15 years in the music industry is a very long time. Lots of things happened music-wise, the style of pop and rock music has changed. Per adds they are both – Sven and he – 15 years older, but their hearts still beat for the old stuff, they still prefer the old production styles and the old sounds. Even though Per is listening to a lot of new music as well to see what’s going on. The problem is that you’ve heard so much music throughout your life that you always compare things. The knowledge you have is incredible, because you’re getting old. Haha. Per has been a music fan since he was 5 years old, Sven tells. PG adds he had an older borther, a young teenager in the mid 60’s who bought all the records of The Beatles, The Kinks, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Byrds, so ever since he was very young, pop music has been his entire life. „My wife doesn’t like that, but that’s the truth”, Per says. Haha.

The guys dig deep into some Scandinavian classics and they kick off with one of their favourite bands’ song, Sister Surround by The Soundtrack of Our Lives from Gothenburg. Sven tells they had quite surrealistic album titles, e.g. Welcome to the Infant Freebase. Per thinks it’s a good title. Their second album’s title is Extended Revelation for the Psychic Weaklings of Western Civilization. „It’s no wonder they broke up”, Per laughs. Mr. G thinks they were an amazing band and it’s sad that they didn’t break through even bigger than they had. They had it all. A great front person, Ebbot Lundberg, the band was really cool with really good players and they also had great songs. They had success, but they didn’t become massive. For Per they are still one of the best bands that ever came out of Sweden.

The next track is Adiam Dymott’s Miss You. Then they play Hate To Say I Told You So by The Hives, another amazing band. They are the best when you see them live, PG thinks. HTSITYS, their breakthrough hit sounds a bit like MC5 on steroids to Mr. G. He loves it, it’s a great great track. Sven tells they also had some surrealistic titles, e.g. Some People Know All Too Well How Bad Liquorice, or Any Candy for That Matter, Can Taste When Having Laid Out in the Sun Too Long – And I Think I Just Ate Too Much. The guys are laughing. „Hard to beat!”, Per says.

The next one is Cardiac Arrest by Teddybears feat. Robyn. Per thinks it’s a great song, full of energy. Sven asks Per when he wrote a song about a deadly disease. Mr. G says it hasn’t happened yet. For PG the Teddybears is a band you should digest in small doses. They are a perfect singles band, he thinks. Sven says he can actually indulge in the Teddybears, he likes them a lot. They started out as punks and then they switched, but you can still hear this punkish, new wavish style in their DNA. Per loves all the synthesizer sounds they use, these toy or computer sounds. It’s fun, young and fresh. When they get a proper song made, it’s sensational. And Robyn is an amazing singer. On the Swedish edition of the song Teddybears are featuring Maipei, but Per prefers the Robyn version (released on the international edition of the album).

The guys go back to Gothenburg, the second biggest city in Sweden on the West Coast. Mr. G says ever since the 60’s they had lots of great music coming out of Gothenburg. Broder Daniel’s Work is what they play and Pale Honey’s Lonesome is next, also from Gothenburg.

After these two tracks, Sven asks Per what he is busy with right now. Mr. G tells he is happy that things have opened up a bit and you are allowed to perform again in these corona times, so he is on tour now. It’s an unplugged tour with 15 shows. It’s something he has never really done before, so he is stepping out of his comfort zone a bit, talking a lot between the songs, telling some anecdotes from e.g. Roxette’s history. Per tells he has a beach hotel on the Swedish West Coast. When the regulations were still on, you could only have a certain amount of people attending and he was to do 2 acoustic shows at the hotel. But it felt so cool that it became 10 in the end. After those 10 gigs he felt he should do a tour, because it was much fun. It’s so different from everything else he has done. He digged into his files and vaults from the past and played songs he hasn’t played before. Per tells when he started out at the age of 18, he was unemployed in the late 70’s and he got a government supported job, being a troubadour playing for elderly people in elderly homes for 6 months with another guy. That’s how he actually started out performing in front of people, playing Swedish folk music at elderly homes and sneaking in 1-2 of his own songs that he started writing those days. „I’ve come full circle now, I’m playing for elderly people again, because I’m old now”, Per says and the guys are laughing. „It’s good fun, it’s a sold-out tour, I’m really pleased, the response has been amazing, so I’m just having a blast doing this”, Per adds. He is just happy that things are opening up a bit and he can speak for every artist, musician and technician on the planet. „We’ve been missing our work so much!” Sven tells the audience has been missing it as well. He heard that the hard thing now is to book the venues. Per says as son as the regulations are opening up, everyone wants to tour, so it’s really hard to get the venues. People are really starved for music and entertainment and socializing, so it goes very well for everyone.

Next song is Jerk It Out by Caesars Palace, then Nicole Sabouné’s Unseen Footage From A Forthcoming Funeral is played.

Sven and Per then talk a bit about the Joyride 30th anniversary release, and Sven asks Per how it is to zoom back 30 years, checking all Mr. G’s home videos and stuff like that. Per says it’s crazy how time passes by. He is getting used to it, but this year also his Swedish band celebrates the 40th anniversary of their Moderna Tider album. It was a big album in Scandinavia. It feels like every year there is a new anniversary. „If we stick around long enough, it’s gonna be a 50th anniversary coming up”, Sven says. From a fan point of view, Per as a Tom Petty fan says, you’re really into the things that you haven’t heard before, so he thinks a lot of people appreciate these anniversary releases with outtakes, alternative versions or demos. Sven agrees and says he has just seen the Tom Petty movie about recording Wildflowers and it was really heartwarming to see, you really miss him.

Regarding the Metallica cover Per did for Nothing Else Matters he says The Black Album also has its 30th anniversary this year and he was invited to be part of that. It’s cool that all those big albums have big anniversaries.

Reeperbahn, a Swedish band with German name is next. Per thinks their best song is Inget, so they play it on Nordic Rox. Then it’s Atomic Swing’s turn with Soul Free.

The guys get back to the Metallica cover topic and Sven says it’s unexpected to hear a Roxette cover of a Metallica classic. This is the first time PG entered the metal world. Mr. G tells when he first got the invitation he felt like „hm, I don’t know what to do with this”, because he doesn’t know how to transform a heavy metal song into his world. Then he came to think about Nothing Else Matters which is such a great track and Per remembers when it came around in the early 90’s, Marie and Per always joked about that it could have been a great Roxette ballad. It’s got such a great melody and amazing lyrics. Mr. G felt like „shit, I should give it a go”. He did the cover with the old Roxette band. They tried to treat it as a Roxette ballad. Sven says: „with Marie Fredriksson having passed away, you had two singers taking her place”. Per says the two girls are very special in their own separate ways, but when you combine their voices, a third person comes out. Per tried to use that and it sounded really cool. He thinks they nailed the song pretty well, it sounds great to him. Mr. G is really honoured to be part of it. They play Nothing Else Matters by PG Roxette on Nordic Rox.

With this the guys are wrapping up the show and just like any other time, Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the 500th episode too.

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

Thanks for the technical support to János Tóth!

Gyllene Tider’s story becomes a film!

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Nordic drama production company Nevis Productions has secured a deal with Sweden’s great music treasure, Gyllene Tider to make a feature film and a TV-series based on the band’s incredible journey to success.

Per Gessle and Mats Persson formed Gyllene Tider with Micke Andersson, Anders Herrlin and Göran Fritzon in the late 70’s. After taking Sweden by storm, they broke up in 1984. Per Gessle then formed Roxette with Marie Fredriksson and became successful all around the world.

The feature film about Gyllene Tider is developed in full collaboration with the band and will be a warm feelgood story about friendship and growing up in the spotlight. The script is written by Pernilla Oljelund (Miss Friman’s War, Wallander, The Restaurant) and the shooting will start in 2022. Producers at Nevis are Anni Faurbye Fernandez, Moa Westeson and Cindy Hanson.

The film tells the story of Per, an ambitious outsider who dreams of pop stardom and finds a brotherhood through music with MP, Micke, Anders and Göran. They experience the highs and lows, but despite all setbacks, being ridiculed and rejected, the band works hard and purposefully – and breaks through with their power pop, their effective choruses and joyous and affectionate lyrics about life in a small town.

The movie is a story about dreaming big and achieving something even bigger. Success is not only accompanied by joy and happiness, but also pressure, conflicts and tragic events that challenge the band and force them to grow up in unexpected ways. In the end, it’s the friendship and music that lead forward. The gang not only survives, but also becomes bigger than ever.

After their breakup, Gyllene Tider reunions and tours have taken them to heights that no one, least of all themselves, could have imagined. When the band celebrated their 25th anniversary with their first new album in 20 years, the tour in 2004 became the largest in Scandinavia ever and the third largest in Europe. For over 40 years, GT has maintained its popularity and been loved by generation after generation, who have grown up with their songs. Gyllene Tider reunited several times, most recently in 2019. At that time, they celebrated their 40th anniversary as a band and also released a studio album, Samma skrot och korn.

Per Gessle says:

The story of the guys in Gyllene Tider could be the story of any young small town person. The shaky possibilities after finishing school, the uncertain prospects of the future. However, inspired by the new wave and power pop scene of the era, bonding in our tiny rehearsal shack, we found a very unusual way to grow up. The early and crazy Gyllene Tider years changed our lives forever. And it seems we might have changed some other people’s lives as well along the way. The lads and I are all excited to be part of this production.

Producer Moa Westeson adds:

We have long dreamed of dramatizing the exceptional, inspirational story behind legendary Swedish pop band Gyllene Tider and are excited to bring the audience along on this fun, uplifting whirlwind celebration of music, friendship and coming of age that captures the zeitgeist of a bygone era.

Nevis is an independent production company with offices in Copenhagen, Stockholm and London. Nevis Productions was founded in 2020 by Anni Faurbye Fernandez, Cindy Hanson and Moa Westeson and is backed by London based production company NEVISION. Their mission is to create high quality storytelling that appeals to both the local Nordic market and to a wider, global audience. With passion and dedication, they aim to entertain, inspire and move audiences with a variety of creatively ambitious TV dramas.

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