Sebastián La Mastra from Argentinean newspaper Diario Popular did an interview with Per Gessle about Mono Mind and songwriting and Per told some anecdotes and talked about his admiration for the Argentine crowds. Read the interview in Spanish HERE!
In the interview Per talks about how it all started with Mono Mind and tells it’s a little more groove oriented than what he did so far, but without losing his writing style. Almost everything was done on the computer. It has become a tool to try different ideas with different collaborators. Per hopes to continue with Mono Mind for many years. He has many plans, as always, and the possibility of performing live shows is on the table. Mr. G says he would love to perform in South America and Argentina, it’s just about making things work financially.
About songwriting Per tells it’s easier to write mid-tempo songs or ballads than uptempo ones. Those 3-chord gems are hard to make at his age. You have to have the ability to keep yourself “simple” and that’s hard to do when you have written as many songs as Mr. G. He always tends to complicate his music. He hates that.
PG says the songs he writes are not about him, but they are written by him, therefore he is there somewhere. But at the same time, everything is fiction. He is a writer, he’s not making confessions.
The reporter asks Per what the funniest and most emotional memories are during his long career. Per tells the story of his trousers got broken on stage in Mexico back in the days and their 1995 Roxette concert in Beijing.
If he wasn’t a singer-songwriter, he would have loved to work in another artistic field. Maybe as an architect or interior designer or art director. Who knows.
Per mentions It must have been love and Queen Of Rain, Sleeping In My Car and The Look as his favourite songs. He also tells that all those years of touring with Marie were incredible, she is an incredible singer. Per says he was lucky.
To the question how he would define himself Per replied “lazy, lazy worker” and he shares his biggest dream, “peace and love on planet Earth”.
The guys talk a bit about Baladas en español. Per remembers that when choosing which songs to record, he only picked songs for Marie to sing. Except Vulnerable, which is interpreted by PG. The songs sounded great in Spanish, without knowing what they were about. It was a very strange experience, but at the same time fun. Per says he knows only “Hi, a beer please” in Spanish. To the question if he records anything in Spanish again, Per replies he doesn’t think so. But you never know. That’s what makes life interesting. Anything can happen.
The reporter asked Per to tell about his memories with Roxette in Argentina. He says South America and particularly Argentina have always been their favorite places to perform. They didn’t expect that kind of affection the first time they went. The crowds were so loud and they knew the lyrics. If only they could go back and perform to Argentine fans.
Per & Co. entered the stage at 20:30 and rocked big time with the opener The Look. After TL, Per told the crowd it’s always, always fun to be in Göteborg. I have to agree with him. I only remember fab shows in this city. PG said it wasn’t so long ago when he played in Gothenburg. It was last year. He asked if we were there. He got a loud yes as a reply from the audience. Christoffer and Magnus also said into the mic they were there. Haha. Then Mr. G said it’s bizarre that he has been writing songs for more than 40 years. The most songs he wrote for Roxette, so he thought to dive deep into that catalogue and play a few favourites, but he also sneaked in some of his solo songs to be on the safe side. The crowd was cheering for him and he asked them to sing along.
Mr. G said what a fantastic evening it is. The last time he had a fantastic evening, or better said a good day was in 1990. He said he woke up and found a note on his piano saying ”Hej, din tok, jag älskar dig” (Hello, you fool, I love you). It was left there by his then girlfriend, now wife, since he had to marry Åsa after such a cute note. After writing Joyride in the morning, it was still only 11 am, so PG had a little break and after lunch he wrote another song, SMT. Per was talking so much about Joyride that he even picked a white medium plectrum off his mic stand. The thing is that he plays the acoustic guitar (for SMT) with a thin red pick. We were wondering when he would change it. He was probably also distracted a bit by the fact that his power chord finger started bleeding again. Not as much as in Linköping, but it was visible. So one could get hold of some bloody picks this time again. 😉 While Chris and Malin-My were playing the intro in the front and Per was standing in the back, he might have realized he had the wrong pick in hand, but still hadn’t changed it. He was looking at his finger rather. Then Helena started singing and when Per came to the front, he was playing the guitar with the medium pick, then when he went towards the back of the stage, he threw the white medium pick away, towards his ginger tea-holding trolley and picked a thin red plectrum off his guitar, licked it to have it stuck to the finger (however, the blood would have done it, haha) and played on. Helena was singing beautifully, for which she got a huge applause from the audience again.
Then came the intro talk to IMHBL. Per said he sent the band 96(!) songs to rehearse for the tour. Magnus said they learned to play 102! They overdelivered. Haha. Per said it’s fake info. He said he was thinking about skipping one song, because there are so many others, but then came Magnus and actually, he has only 3 favourite songs. One of them is ”Livet är en fest” from Nationalteatern, the other is ”Happy Nation” from Ace of Base and the third one is what they are going to play right now. Magnus said to the crowd ”thank me later!” Haha. The crowd loved IMHBL. It would have been a big mistake not to include it in the setlist.
The crowd was loud, clapping and shouting, so Per and the band came back on stage, PG thanked the crowd and said what a fantastic evening it is. They performed QOR, one of Per’s favourite Roxette songs and of course Helena was cheered after the song. Then it was time for a little Joyride. How Chris and Per were teasing each other in the intro part was again much fun! During the song both Chris and Ola got on their knees and were playing their guitars like that. It was so cool! Helena sat on the edge of the stage in front of us and animated the crowd from there. She’s so good at that (too)! She had a tambourine in her hands and rocked using it. At the end of the song she put it on her head, like a crown. Looked so great! Haha. Then off they went.
PG & THE Band came back for the 2nd encore. Per thanked once again and he put his hand on his heart to emphasize how he wanted to absorb all the love they got from the crowd. Then he said: ”A Friday night in Göteborg! That would be a good song title actually.” Haha. They played LTYH after this and it sounded wonderful. The crowd’s sing-along was the loudest at this song. Great! Before they played the very last song, Per said it’s a special night, because this is the last concert on the European tour. He thanked the band and also the crew for their fantastic job, he thanked Live Nation that made the tour possible and also thanked the people that came to the shows and he mentioned those separately who came to several shows. Then he switched to English and said: ”Thank you very much, you know who you are! Thank you!” And he showed thumbs up and looked at those fans in the front row. He is so amazing! Ojojoj! The bittersweet goodbye was getting closer. TSHTSG, the closing song that probably became everyone’s favourite earworm during the tour in this new arrangement. Another MUST BE RELEASED (on CD and DVD) song! Just saying! 😉 Since I somehow wanted to thank Per and the band for the whole tour right there at the last concert, being fortunate enough to have seen 15 shows out of 20, I prepared 
The Look was a blast already! Not only Per and the band were rocking on stage, but the audience also rocked big time. Loud sing-along, clapping, shouting. One could feel it would be an awesome show. After TL, Per told the crowd it’s so nice to see so many people and that it was quite long ago, the last time he played in Oslo, he can’t even remember. He asked if anyone remembers and someone shouted 1995. Could be. During his talking, the crowd was cheering him all the time. Amazing!
IGYC sounded beautiful, just like STT. Before the latter one Per talked about Nashville. The crowd enjoyed both songs so much, they clapped loud and cheered the musicians up on stage. Per showed thumbs up to them after STT.
After TL, Per told the crowd it’s always fun to play in Linköping. The last time he performed there was last summer. He asked the audience if they were there and the crowd was shouting yeees. Per said they were there too, actually all of them on stage. He said they would play Roxette songs, but he thought to include some of his solo songs too, because it’s fun to play songs that nobody knows. Haha.
After SGNO Per picked up a black towel with which he usually wipes his face. Now he was wiping his bloody finger. While he was talking about his good day in 1990, he was constantly checking his finger and wiping it with the towel. He said he woke up one day and found a cute note on his piano saying ”Hej, din tok, jag älskar dig” (Hello, you fool, I love you). He had to marry his girlfriend after this note. The crowd was cheering and clapping and Per said ”she is not here tonight”. Obviously, he wrote Joyride, then he had a lunch break and then he wrote another song. SMT, of course. During the song Per walked to the left side of the stage to the technician board. Maybe he did ask Jakob for a plaster, but he might have run out of it because of a certain heavy user, a.k.a. Christoffer. Haha. Just kidding. It was funny that after fans saw the bleeding finger, they were trying to catch the thrown picks even harder than usual, to have one in their collection with Per’s blood on it. How cool is that! Haha.
What a most fantastic Saturday night! It could even top our Friday in Karlstad I would say! Who would have expected it?! Not me! I realized it only towards the end of the concert that Christoffer’s shirt got torn on the right side. He must have been rocking out to one of the uptempo songs when it happened. A real rock ’n’ roll guy! Haha.