Sven Lindström

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – December 2024 – CBB30 Special

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström are celebrating the 30th anniversary of Crash! Boom! Bang! in the December episode of Nordic Rox. The album came out in 1994. Sven asks Per how it feels, because he is celebrating something almost every year. PG says that’s the way it goes. It feels good. Roxette had an eight-year span when they were at their prime. The Roxette heydays were between 1988 and 1995. Then in 1995, Marie got her first child and everything changed from there. Crash! Boom! Bang! is the last big album in that era. It was recorded in London, on the Isle of Capri in Italy and in Stockholm. It took forever to make, Mr. G adds. There are lots of songs and it’s got some nice stuff in there, he thinks.

Sven says it’s coming with a bonus CD as well with some demos and he promises an interesting flashback to 1994. But before that, they kick off with Driving One Of Your Cars by Lisa Miskovsky. Per thinks it’s a great track. It was one of Lisa’s earliest singles, but it’s still a great song. It has stood the test of time.

Ahead Of My Time is played by Teddybears featuring Daddy Boastin’. It’s taken from the Soft Machine album. Sven thinks it’s a cool band. Per agrees. Great productions, great producers, and they have been producing so many other artists as well. They always appear with the bear heads on stage. Something for the new line-up of Roxette to be inspired with, Sven suggests. Per says why not, then they are laughing.

Final Gørl by Sløtface from Norway is next. The song is from their latest album Film Buff. Sven thinks they are a great band. Sven and Per played some songs from them in previous shows.

Then comes Are You Still Having Fun? by Eagle-Eye Cherry. It’s a great song, PG thinks. The guys are having fun and Sven says they are going to have even more fun now, because now it’s time for the Crash! Boom! Bang! special.

The album came out in spring 1994, after about 12 months of recording and preparations and songwriting. Songwriting took even longer, Per says. They started recording CBB in 1993. They just came off the big Joyride tour and they started working immediately on this album. Sven thinks that if you compare it with the Joyride album, Per was in a different frame of mind when he started writing for this one. Mr. G says it’s true in a way. When they recorded Joyride, they had a breakthrough with the Look Sharp! album. Per wanted Joyride to be a super mainstream, catchy album. Basically, every song on the Joyride album was written to be a single. But it was a different ballgame when he started writing Crash! Boom! Bang!, because they had been touring for over a year and they were on top of their game. PG felt a little bit more relaxed. They started using other Swedish musicians and also experimenting a lot in the studio and trying things out in a different way. Maybe CBB didn’t become as mainstream as Joyride. Looking back at it, Per thinks there are a couple of tracks that you could have thrown away in the waste paper basket even then. Nevertheless, the highlights for Mr. G are really, really high in Roxette history.

Sven says the Joyride album was written to be smash hits all over the place. When they presented Crash! Boom! Bang!, it was a 15-track album and almost an hour’s playing time. Per explains that the vinyl was basically gone. The CD was there, so you could extend the album’s playing time. Those days they had these open budgets, so you just went on and recorded and recorded. They did so much stuff. When they eventually played what they had done for their record label, they loved it, but they said the classic words, „we can’t hear a single”. Per was really pissed off by that, because he thought they had so many great tracks. Especially, he thought that Roxette had made giant steps forward, artistically at least. And Marie was singing really great. Songs like What’s She Like?, Run To You and Love Is All are great tracks for Per and for Marie as well. But the record label didn’t agree. So PG was really pissed off and he went home and wrote another song. That turned out to be Sleeping In My Car, which became the first single. That was written out of frustration, in furious anger, but it turned out nice. Per always loved Marie singing that type of songs. It’s not really her cup of tea, she was never really a power pop girl, but when she sang songs like that, she was always the best.

Here they play Sleeping In My Car, the single that paved the way for the Crash! Boom! Bang! album.

The CD version of the anniversary release has a bonus CD with quite a lot of demos written for the album. 23 demos. It was basically all the songs that Per wrote for the project. He looked back into his archives and it’s more songs than he remembered. Sven was a bit surprised to find out that this upcoming song, She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, was written for the Crash! Boom! Bang! album. It was recorded by Per’s power pop band Gyllene Tider and it turned up on the compilation album Don’t Bore Us – Get To The Chorus!. Per says he wrote the song together with Mats Persson from Gyllene Tider, who also co-wrote Listen To Your Heart and Spending My Time. They wrote the song for Crash, but they didn’t record it. They had so many songs, these typical power pop, guitar driven songs. Per was basically the only one in the band who really loved that kind of music. And of course, since he was the writer, he presented these songs, many of them, for Marie and their producer Clarence Öfwerman, but it wasn’t really their cup of tea. So lots of these songs were leftovers. Then they recorded it eventually for the first compilation album that Roxette did in 1995, called Don’t Bore Us – Get To The Chorus!. It became a single, but that was years later. Sven says, if they asked him – nobody asked him at the time –, he would have taken out some of the slower numbers and replaced it with She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Per says, when you are in a band, you have to compromise. Just like in your marriage. Haha. Sven was a bit surprised that this was recorded in December 1992, so when they recorded material for the Crash! Boom! Bang! album, they considered those sort of power pop numbers. PG explains that when you make an album and you spend a year in the studio, time goes by and you write new stuff all the time. At the end of the day, you want everyone to agree on what you are recording. That’s also how you get a good vibe in the studio and what’s the best for the band. So sometimes you have to kill your darlings. On every album that Per has been involved with, if it’s Roxette or with other bands, it’s always compromises. There are always songs that he felt like this is a much better song, it should be on the album, but it became a B-side instead. Sven says it’s because you want everyone to be on the bandwagon as well. Sven adds that Per is never short of songs when he is recording an album. Per smiles and says no, because he keeps himself busy. Now they go back in time to a demo recorded in December 1992, probably shortly after it was written. We can hear Per and MP and a drum machine. This is how it sounded when it was written in 1992. She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Silly little demo, Per says. Charming stuff, the guys think.

They guys are digging deeper into this demo bonus CD with another track that never was recorded by Roxette, but eventually became a single by Belinda Carlisle. Per wrote Always Breaking My Heart also in 1992 for Roxette’s Crash! Boom! Bang! album, but they never recorded it. He kept it and a couple of years later he got an invitation to produce and write a couple of songs for Belinda Carlisle, which was amazing. She was one of Per’s favourites. He loves The Go-Go’s and he was really honored by the request. PG wrote a song for Belinda called Liberty, which she didn’t like, so they never recorded it. Then this song, Always Breaking My Heart, came to mind, and Per felt like this sounds like an old The Go-Go’s song. Belinda liked that one, and the A&R guy who worked with her, loved it too. So they decided to record Always Breaking My Heart. Then Mr. G wrote another song called Love Doesn’t Live Here, which also turned up on that album of hers. ABMH was actually written for Roxette to begin with, so what they have here now is Per’s acoustic demo from Christmas 1992. Both She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Always Breaking My Heart were written around the same time. Per explains that they stopped touring, the Joyride tour ended in summer 1992, and they released the Tourism album with Roxette. One of their biggest songs was on that album called How Do You Do! in summer 1992. As soon as that tour was over, Per started to focus on writing. Autumn 1992 was a big writing time for him. Sven asks PG if he remembers where he was at that time, December 1992, music-wise, things that inspired him. Per says it’s far away. The grunge scene just started to happen, so of course he listened a lot to Nirvana and Oasis. But as always, the ’60s and ’70s stuff, the glam rock thing, all those things are in his DNA. Every time a new band came along that he really liked, it didn’t really change his life that much, because he is still a child of You Really Got Me by The Kinks.

Sven thinks that the best moments of the ’90s, guitar, pop, rock, is like a confirmation of all the things Per loved about the British Invasion. And also the new wave thing in the late ’70s, Per adds. Technology moved forward, it sounds different, it sounds harder and rougher, and better, for that matter. You start to listen to the same things with new ears, so to speak. Sven says in this case, we have to imagine the distorted guitars and the crashing drums, because it’s Per in troubadour mode. There is just an acoustic guitar, a tambourine and a little piano on this demo. This is how it was written. Per says that recently – that means the last decade, haha –, when he makes demos, he makes them just on an acoustic guitar or just a piano, to get the vibe of the song and the vibe of the lyrics. When he wrote the songs for Joyride, he basically produced the demos. Roxette producer Clarence Öfwerman didn’t like that Per came to him with a sort of finished product, because he wanted to produce it, which makes sense. So Per gave that up eventually. This is the other side of the spectrum. Sometimes it depends a little bit on what kind of music you are working with. If you are going to hire an outside producer, it’s better to just show a little bit of what you are after, lyric-wise, melody-wise and chord-wise and then let the producer do the rest of the work or at least suggest something and you do it together with him or her.

Here they play the 1992 demo of Always Breaking My Heart.

There is another leftover that never made it to the album back in the days, but for a while Per thought of this one as a single. PG confirms, he always loved this track, Crazy About You. It was written for the Crash album and they had a little problem with it. It sounded really fresh, it was something really new for Roxette to do a song like this. Then they did another take, this is the second version actually, this is a little bit faster than the first one. In those days you had to re-record everything to change the tempo, not just press a button. Haha. Per always felt that this could be a contender for becoming a single, but at the end of the day, they had lots of tracks on this album, so this became a leftover. Per doesn’t know if it became a B-side or if it came out on something else, but it wasn’t on the album. It found its way into the extended version of Crash! Boom! Bang!. This four-minute-long song wraps up the CBB special. Sven says there was a heavy competition to get on the album. Per thinks it’s a nice song. He doesn’t know how good or bad it is, but at the end of the day, you try to make the best possible mix of ballads and mid-tempo songs and up-tempo songs on the album, so this was a leftover. Life sucks. Haha. Life sucks, but you can always enjoy some fine wine, which is a bridge over to the next song, I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer by The Cardigans from Malmö.

Painted By Numbers by The Sounds is next from 2006, from the album Dying To Say This To You.

The show ends with this and the guys thank the listeners for joining them. Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom is played as the last track, as usual.

Still is from the Bag Of Trix talks recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – October 2024

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström are finishing the countdown of their ’70s toplist in the October episode of Nordic Rox. Per thinks it’s been really exciting to make this list. Sven explains they have taken a look at the top 20 Swedish tracks that defined the ’70s as they see it. That’s as close to the truth as you can possibly get. Haha. Per agrees.

The guys kick off the show with a trip to Denmark with a band called D-A-D, originally called Disneyland After Dark. They changed their name to avoid a lawsuit from The Walt Disney Company. They are celebrating their 40th anniversary. Their great, brand new song, Keep That Mother Down is played. Mercy by Goldielocks from Finland comes after that. It’s their latest single. A good one, PG thinks.

The next song is Lone Rocker by The Gonzoes, a wild and crazy garage band from Stockholm. Per loves this song, both he and Sven think it’s very cool. Sven says he would love to see them live in some sweaty old club in Stockholm whenever possible. He will give Per a call when it’s time. Haha.

The guys play somewhat mellower tones, Happy by Deportees feat. Esther is next.

Talking About Love by the Cocktail Slippers follows. They are signed to Little Steven’s label, Wicked Cool Records. They have been there forever and they are a really cool garage pop, new wave-ish band from Norway, Sven says.

Sven and Mr. G kick off the top five songs on their ’70s list with a Eurovision track. The artist is Björn Skifs. He was actually No. 1 in the US in spring 1974. The same spring as when ABBA came out with Waterloo. Sven says it was a major happening in Swedish music, going international for the first time. Per can’t remember that and he tells Sven he is so old. Haha. Getting back to Björn, he was singing in a band called Blue Swede and they were No. 1 on the Billboard chart with Hooked On A Feeling. Next year, in 1975, Björn was the winner in the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest with Michelangelo. It was a huge hit, even Per remembers that. After the song is played, Sven realizes that the song was a winner only in his mind. It ended up in the 5th place, however, it was the biggest hit from that contest. A boring song called Jenny Jenny won that year. Nobody remembers that one. Sven is wondering what people were thinking. Haha.

The guys move on to No. 4, one of Per’s favourites, a Swedish singer-songwriter called John Holm is next. This upcoming track is the first track of his very first album in 1972. Per loves it. He loves John’s voice and the lyrics. John’s first three albums were really influential on PG and a lot of other aspiring teenagers. He didn’t sound like anybody else, Sven says and adds that Per was so inspired that this track opens his first solo album in Sweden. Mr. G corrects Sven that it wasn’t the opener, but it’s on that album. Sven laughs and says he is really cooking today. Haha. Per says Sven is confused. Mr. G explains he made a cover of this song and played it live many times. He thinks it’s beautiful and he likes it. So now they play the original, Den öde stranden (The Deserted Beach).

No. 3 is from a cult album from 1970 by a female singer, Doris. Per says this album didn’t happen at all. She was singing very easy listening stuff in the ’60s and eventually she made this album in English. It sold 2,000 copies only, but 25 years later, one of the tracks ended up on a British compilation of acid jazz music, Sven informs. Boom, suddenly it happened. It sold 10,000 vinyl copies newly pressed in Japan. The guys say never give up. The main track on that album is the one they picked, Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby. Hearing it now, Per and Sven consider it a ’70s classic, but back then it wasn’t considered by the audience to be anything at all. Per thinks Doris has a wonderful voice and she is a great singer. Sven says they hope you agree with them that this is a truly remarkable song.

The next track is by another very influential guy, Pugh Rogefeldt. Vandrar i ett regn (Walking In The Rain) comes next. Per has also covered this one not long ago. Pugh passed away, unfortunately and Per was part of an homage for him on TV. He recorded this particular song, which he loves. What the guys play is actually a live recording, which PG attended when he was a kid. He was like 16 years old, sitting in the audience, and just having the time of his life watching Pugh on stage. He was really one of the greatest rock artists in Sweden at that time, 1975, Sven says. He was one of the first Swedish artists who actually did rock music in Swedish. He made it cool. It wasn’t happening in the ’60s at all. His debut album came out in 1969. He continued that all through the ’70s and became a very influential artist. He became the godfather of Swedish rock, basically. Sven says there is a backing vocal choir in the song singing „chip chili, ungarna de väntar” (translating into „chip chili, the kids are waiting”). Sven is wondering what that means, but Per doesn’t know. Sven was hoping that PG could clarify that. Mr. G thinks nobody knows. Haha. For some reason, this is typically Pugh. He wrote whatever came into his mind. He was really influenced by Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, that kind of stuff. He was one of a kind, for sure. When he did this thing in Swedish, it was like nothing else. He had a fantastic fantasy and way of expressing himself. Per thinks that on the third album Pugh made, he invented his own language, Pughish. He wrote all the songs in his own language, which was far out.

The only track left now is No. 1 and Sven gives a clue. They can say the winner takes it all. There has to be an ABBA track as the winner here. The guys’ favourite ABBA song turned out to be the same, SOS from 1975. It was a good year. It’s taken from the ABBA album a year after their breakthrough with Waterloo. This is both Per and Sven’s favourite ABBA album. It’s got so many great pop songs. By listening to SOS, we should just enjoy ABBA in their heydays. Well-deserved win on the guys’ ’70s list. Per thinks it’s a beautiful track and it still sounds fresh to his ears. Sven agrees.

There are still a few tracks with good-looking music before the guys wrap it up. The first one is a song seldom played, Mother One Track Mind by The Soundtrack Of Our Lives.

The next one is Nyper mig i armen (Pinching My Arm) by Per Gessle and Albin Lee Meldau. It’s from PG’s duet project. It’s the third single from the album that is coming out in autumn. Per thinks this is the last song he wrote for the album. He wrote it last Christmas. It’s got this sort of country style to it with violin and lap steel. Mr. G like it and says it’s very popular, people like it a lot. It’s been played a lot on Swedish radio. Sven asks Per if he had Albin Lee in mind when he wrote the song or if it happened later. PG says he was looking for a male partner to sing with and Albin Lee just popped up in his head. He never met him before, but he called Albin Lee up. Per knows Albin Lee has recorded one of his songs earlier, so he knows that Albin Lee was into what Per was doing. Albin Lee came over to Per’s house and to the studio and they just had a great time. It clicked immediately.

This wraps up the October episode of Nordic Rox. Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – September 2024

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström count down from 10 to 6 on Sirius XM in the third part of their ’70s countdown in the September episode of Nordic Rox.

Per asks Sven how he is doing. Sven is fine. He asks Per how his summer was and PG says it was excellent. No touring for him this year, so he has been really lazy in the sun. Sven is joking that it is Per’s favourite position. Mr. G confirms, that’s where he belongs.

The guys are up to play music that defined the Swedish ’70s, goodies that have never been played on American radio before.

Sven and Per kick off the show Only Summer by Green & Granstrom. Sven informs that it’s a rather interesting cooperation between a guy from Malmö, Sweden, called Lars Brundin, songwriter, also photographer and a friend in the States called Jimmy Granstrom, who has been working with one of Lars’ tracks and written an English lyric to that. So that’s Only Summer and it was recorded in the States. So it’s a bit of a Swedish-American partnership there.

Late To The Party by Anna Lille is next, a new song from Norway by a 20-year-old singer. It’s a good track.

Shimmy Shimmy Style by Teddybears comes next. The guys are guessing it was released maybe 10 years ago. [It was released in 2018. /PP] Per loves the Teddybears. They have done some great songs. They are a pretty cool band, Sven thinks. They should produce more music, new music. He is always eager to hear more music from them. So if this message reaches them, back to the studio. Per says they are probably lazy in the sun. Haha. Sven says summer is over, boys. Get back to work! Haha.

The guys take another trip to Norway. and play Tired Old Dog by Sløtface.

Then comes Sällskapssjuk featuring Per Gessle and singer Lena Philipsson. Per says it’s an impossible word to say in English. He has some English friends and he tried to translate that phrase for them, but that word doesn’t exist in English. Sven says it means that you are really longing to be with someone. You are longing for company, Per says. It’s a great phrase in Sweden. Sven says that the immediate translation would be company sick, but that would take the focus away. This single was released a month or two ago and it’s also the title for the upcoming album. Per has recorded an album with lots of duets, and Lena is one of them. She is a great singer, and she is also going to be lead singer on the upcoming Roxette tour, starting in South Africa and Australia next year. Sven thinks that must be terribly interesting and exciting. Per confirms it is. He brought together the old Roxette band. They unfortunately lost Marie and also Pelle, the drummer, but the rest of them are coming with PG, and Lena is doing the vocals. They are going to play the old Roxette catalogue. It’s going to be cool, Mr. G thinks.

The guys get down to the mission of this episode, to dig deep into the Swedish ’70s, to songs that they think define that decade. At No. 10 there is an amazing song called Livet är en fest (Life is a party) by Nationalteatern. It was a big hit in 1974. Sven thinks it’s a fantastic album, very unusual also for the time, because they were like a prog band, a progressive leftist band. They didn’t sound like any other band. Per agrees. They were like a theatre. They went to schools, played performances. They had some really wonderful songs. This soundtrack to this particular show became a big thing. Per thinks it was a No. 1 album in Sweden. Sven confirms. It became a classic. They had a bit of a punk ethos to them. They started out like actors and then they learned to play to reach out to teenagers. Then they became better and better, but still had that sort of half amateurish thing, which is making them unique. According to PG, it sounds great. The sound of this record is really cool. It still is.

No. 9 is a classic Swedish artist. The song they play is from his debut album released in 1975. He is called Ulf Lundell, a big artist in Sweden. He is still around and touring once in a while. He was really big in the ’80s, especially. His debut album sounds like the mid-70s a lot. Sven agrees. The track is called Då kommer jag och värmer dej (I’ll come and keep you warm) and it is sort of a blues pop song. Quite cool. Ulf Lundell made a major breakthrough on the Swedish scene, both musically and culturally in general. He published his first book, Jack, about growing up in the ’60s. It was a big success. He came from nowhere and just boom, entered like that.

No. 8 is a song from 1977, so there is a bit of a punk influence here as well. The guys are talking about Magnus Uggla, who had his big breakthrough with this album and this song. He came from the glam rock scene. It was a sucker for Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter and Bowie and that kind of stuff. He moved into the scene with one foot in glam rock and the other one in punk, the new wave scene. The title for this album, his third album, was Va ska man ta livet av sig för när man ändå inte får höra snacket efteråt (What’s the use of committing suicide when you can’t hear the talk afterwards). Haha. It’s a great one, Per thinks. The song they play was really big. It was everywhere in the late of ’77 and it was super controversial as well, because he was singing about going out, getting girls and trying to get girls laid. He wrote about it in a way that was really to the point with no further ado. There were a lot of controversial debates about if one can really write such songs. Per remembers that. He was a punk guy, but he was from a nobility family, so that was also a question mark, if you can really be a punk if you are upper class. Varning på stan is played.

The guys are ready to move forward to something completely different, as they say in Monty Python. Ted Gärdestad, who was a very young singer-songwriter in the early ’70s, had a big breakthrough when he was 15, in 1972. His first two albums were produced by Björn and Benny from ABBA and they were really wonderful songs. His brother wrote the lyrics and Ted himself wrote the music. You can still hear his songs all the time, even today. His music has just transferred over generations. It still moves a lot of people. The song they play is Per’s favourite song on this. It’s called Come Give Me Love. The girl singers you hear are Agnetha and Frida from ABBA, singing the chorus. Despite the English title, the Swedish lessons continue. It’s a taste of Ted Gärdestad at his best in 1973. Per thinks this amazing song has a wonderful sound.

The final song from the ’70s on this show is from the end of the decade, autumn of 1979. It’s a band that Per is totally in control over, everything that happened, because it’s Gyllene Tider, Mr. G’s power pop group. Per says this is a song from their first album recorded in 1979 and it became their first No. 1 single in the early months of 1980. It kicked the doors open for the major breakthrough and changed everything for all of them. It was a double A side single. The record label wasn’t really sure about which song they should promote. It was also the era of all this dance stuff that was typical of the late ’70s. The other song was more of a dance record and this was like a homemade sort of reggae style. Sven says they were heavily influenced by the new wave movement. Blondie, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Ramones. PG adds Tom Petty. They loved the new wave and really loved proper songs and going back to the ’60s and ’70s as well. The whole attitude they had… they were like 18, 19, 20 years old. Sven says the 20-year-old Per Gessle sat down writing a lyric that made this one stand out, definitely on the radio. PG says it’s about checking out the girls on TV. The ones who present the show. You had the hostess those days in between the programs. It’s TV2. Sweden at that time had two channels. Sven explains the double meaning of part of the lyrics. What Per says basically is to put on TV2 and put on the girls on TV2. Per says it was a little game with the words. A little bit of innuendo, Sven says. And it made it happen, PG says. Sven says now the listeners are totally aware of what this song is all about and they play Flickorna på TV2 (The girls on TV2).

Next month the guys are back with the top five. Per promises it’s going to be sensational.

The next song on the show is a track about Elvis by Albin Lee Meldau. PG says he is a great guy and a fantastic singer. He is like a troubadour, singer-songwriter. Per has seen shows with him, just him and an acoustic guitar, which are amazing. He is actually touring in Europe right now and Mr. G is sure he is going to be big. Elvis, I Love You is a taster of an upcoming album in English, something to look out for. He is also Per’s partner in his duet album project. Per has made a single with him as well. He is wonderful, PG thinks.

Sweet Jackie by Sugarplum Fairy is wrapping up this Nordic Rox episode. Per thinks it’s a great song. Sven thinks the chorus is beautiful.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos, 2019

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – August 2024

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström are back to Sirius XM with the second part of their ’70s countdown on the August episode of Nordic Rox.

Before the guys get down to those 5 great songs from the ’70s, they stay in present tense and play Fire In Cairo, a new track by The Hellacopters. A wonderful song according to PG.

The next one is Black Hole by Edith Backlund. Per loves this song. It came out appr. 10 years ago. Then comes Send Her My Love by Robert Pehrsson’s Humbucker. Sven thinks it’s a great band name and Per agrees it’s a wonderful one, but he doesn’t know anything about Robert Pehrsson and his Humbucker. It sounds great, Mr. G likes it. Sven found this song on a list of Swedish garage rock.

The guys start talking about Gyllene Tider – Per says he knows those guys, haha. It’s Per’s power pop band from Halmstad. PG says they started off in 1978 and in 1979 they had their breakthrough. Sven says they made a major impact in Sweden in 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 and around 1983 they were ready to conquer the world. Per says he did his first solo album in 1983 while the other guys in the band did their military service. The band had a comeback and they made an English album called The Heartland Café that came out in 1984. It’s not the best album in the world, PG says, but what’s interesting is that there is one track that was pretty popular called Break Another Heart. That was the first time where Per worked with Marie Fredriksson who he eventually formed Roxette with. Sven says it was released in the States and they used the name Roxette, so this is actually a teaser of what would become Roxette five years later. Per confirms, the first version of Roxette was actually these five guys. The album came out on Capitol Records in 1984. It sold about 225 copies, Sven adds. The guys are laughing. It didn’t sell that much. Per remembers going to Los Angeles and he went to Tower Records on Sunset and they had their own little section next to Roxy Music. PG thought it was so cool. Then the band split up and he started Roxette with Marie instead. It was a good idea, Mr. G says. Sven says if you are a record and vinyl nerd, which they grew up with of course, the bass player in Roxette, Magnus Börjeson had a band called Beagle in the early ’90s. They were really happy about that name, because that put them between The Beach Boys and The Beatles. Haha. Per thinks it’s brilliant.

Yours To Keep by Paola is next. Per thinks it’s a nice one; the Teddybears is involved in that song. Then comes Where The Wolf Bane Blooms by The Nomads, a superb garage rock band from Sweden. The song is from their debut album.

Here comes the ’70s list from No. 15 to No. 11. Sven warns the listeners, because if they are sensitive to sweetness and sugar, they should watch out. A super sugary track called Moviestar is next by Harpo, produced by Bengt Palmers, one of the biggest producers in Sweden in the old days. He produced Hooked On A Feeling, for instance, and he was really big, producing lots of artists for EMI Records in the ’70s. Moviestar was an enormous hit in 1975 and it was also an extremely big song in Germany. Harpo is still touring in Germany once in a while, Per adds. He says you couldn’t escape this one in the ’70s if you were in Sweden or in Germany. Per asks the listeners to fasten their seatbelts.

Sven says they got the reason to return to Bengt Palmers later on in the shows, because you can’t escape him.

No. 14 is a guy called Magnus Lindberg. He used to play in a band called Landslaget, before he became his own sort of singer-songwriter, eventually becoming a little bit more new wavish. He did two albums in the ’70s. They were pretty acoustic and very good. He’s got a wonderful voice according to Per. He writes his own songs as well. The guys picked Månsken Peggie (Moonlight Peggie). PG thinks it’s a beautiful song. It came out in the late ’70s.

No. 13 is a band of ’60s pop veterans, Secret Service. They consisted of lots of people from the band Ola & The Janglers from the ’60s and some veterans in the industry. The band had their own distinctive sound and original songs as well. Not bad in Per’s book. PG says it was pretty rare in the ’70s to have international success for Swedish artists. ABBA was probably the only exception. They probably woke Secret Service up to the idea. They became enormous in France and this is their breakthrough song, Oh Susie from 1979.

Now the guys go to the north of Sweden and play a wonderful, typical ’70s mix of modern music and old traditional Swedish folk music. Gammal jämtländsk brudmarsch (A wedding march from the county of Jämtland /in the north of Sweden/) was a big hit. It was an instrumental track by a girl playing the organ called Merit Hemmingson. It was a big one on the radio in the ’70s, produced by Bengt Palmers, who also produced Moviestar by Harpo we just heard. Sven says, he was back earlier than they expected. Haha. Sven thinks it’s an interesting mix of musical styles. Per says the first time he heard it, he loved it and he was just a kid. He still loves it. Sven thinks it might be the first time Merit is played on American radio.

This brings the guys up to new wavish sounds from mid Sweden. A band called Eldkvarn is next. They had a big breakthrough in the ’70s and they are still around on and off. They closed down the factory a couple of years ago, then they came back again. They have been really big and have their own distinctive sound as well. The songs are written by vocalist Plura Jonsson. Their current tour, a sort of new farewell tour is named Det är aldrig försent att lägga av (It’s never too late to quit). The guys are laughing. Per finds it a good tour name. When Eldkvarn started out in the mid ’70s, they were not called Eldkvarn (Fire mill), but Piska mig hårt (Whip me hard) instead. It probably caused some controversy, Sven thinks. Per has never listened to them that much. In the ’80s-’90s he listened to them a bit, but this is new music to him. It’s taken from their 1979 album where they totally change musical style from slightly progressive ’70s rock, Sven says. Per thinks it sounds like Elvis Costello & The Attractions came into their lives. Sven thinks that there is life for Eldkvarn before this year’s model and there is another life after. They took up their amps to eight or something and started speeding up the tempo. It’s not bad, Per likes it. So they play the title track from their album Pojkar, pojkar, pojkar (Boys, boys, boys), wrapping up the ’70s countdown on this show.

The guys take a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. Here is She Owns The Streets by The Raveonettes. Sven thinks it’s a cool band. Per adds it’s one of their favourite bands.

The amazing sound of I Go For The Cheap Ones by Heavy Tiger is next. They are a female band from Stockholm. Per heard they haven’t been doing anything since 2019, but they are an amazing group and they are missed. Sven says they should come back, the world needs Heavy Tiger.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Pic by Patrícia Peres, Book Fair 2014, Gothenburg

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – July 2024

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After doing the ’60s countdown, Per Gessle and Sven Lindström came back to Sirius XM in July and started a ’70s countdown for Nordic Rox. They listed their favourite Swedish and Scandinavian songs from the ’70s from 20 to 16 in this episode.

The guys are talking about another decade. Per says there were so many things happening on the Swedish music scene in the ’70s, so they are going to go through a couple of songs that they like. Then he adds that to tell the truth, they even included a couple of songs that they didn’t like. Haha. Sven says they are very open-minded and inclusive here on Nordic Rox.

Before getting down to the list, they kick off with a track by a band that made an album 30 years ago, and Sven thinks Per is familiar with it. PG says it’s Roxette and the album is called Crash! Boom! Bang! It was recorded in the isle of Capri in Italy. The song they play from CBB is Run To You. Sven asks Per what he remembers about this one. Mr. G remembers they spent like six weeks in Capri making the core of the album in 1993. It was good fun. INXS had just been in the studio when they arrived, so they inherited a lot of the INXS wine bottles. Haha. They had a great time and it was a very creative period in their lives. Marie just had her first child, so she had a family with her. They did some great stuff on that album. Sleeping In My Car, for example. Sven says a jubilee version of the album is coming out. Per confirms it’s coming out just before Christmas, the 30th anniversary release. Sven says they will get back to that one.

A new single from one of the guys’ favourite constellations comes next. It’s Say Lou Lou’s Above Love. Sven thinks it’s a great one, PG says it has a French touch to it. Sven saw all these French singers, Françoise Hardy, Brigitte Bardot. They made some cool ’60s pop songs with fussy guitars and that sort of touch is here as well.

Then comes Borderline by The Soundtrack Of Our Lives from the album Origin Vol. 1. There never was an Origin Vol. 2, but for some reason it was named Vol. 1. Per thinks the band has a classic sound, and it sounds like it’s really familiar, but at the same time, it stands out. They have a very distinctive sound. Every song you hear from their catalogue sounds like The Soundtrack Of Our Lives.

Nordic Rox continues with a new single by Noak Hellsing from Stockholm. The song is All Day. PG says he has never heard of Noak Hellsing before. He must be very young and very new. Sven says Per is right on both points. Mr. G thinks it’s a good song, Sven agrees.

Shimmy Shimmy Style by the Teddybears is next.

Then the guys are leaving the modern age and going back to the ’70s. Track No. 20 is by a guy called Ola Magnell. Per says Ola was a singer-songwriter in the early ’70s and he had a couple of so-so hits, but then he went on tour with another Swedish guy that was a little bit bigger than him called Pugh Rogefeldt. The song they play is a live recording from a live album coming out in 1974. Per was there at the recording of that album in his hometown, Halmstad. Mr. G was 15 years old at the time. He remembers it being an amazing show in a pretty small theatre in Halmstad. There were like 800 people or so. It was a sensational evening for a 15-year-old kid. Sven remembers Pugh, he was probably the biggest rock star in Sweden in 1974. Sven saw Pugh and Rainrock in his hometown at the disco called Barbarella. The bass player came out on stage in a jeans skirt and that was rather cool. Back to Ola, the guys play his breakthrough song Påtalåten. It’s done with the Pugh band and it’s a live version from 1974. Per thinks it’s really, really cool and hopes the listeners like it. Per thinks it’s a great song. It’s got this sort of country flavour combined with some Swedish folk music. The rhythm is really wonderful. Sven thinks that sort of mix sounds incredibly Swedish. A lot of people were looking back to folk music in the ’70s.

Speaking about that, one of Per’s favourite singers, Monica Törnell is up on position No. 19. Mr. G has had the pleasure of working with Monica a couple of times, singing together. She’s got a really amazing voice, Per thinks. She had a breakthrough in 1972. There was a Swedish singer-songwriter called Cornelis Vreeswijk, who unfortunately is not with us anymore. He found her and he got her a record deal. Monica made an album which was basically a lot of covers translated into Swedish. It’s really an outstanding album, because her voice is so outstanding, PG thinks. It’s the elite of the Swedish session musicians at the time playing. It sounds really cool with standup bass and amazing piano playing. Per just loves this song. The original, I Really Loved Harold was written by Melanie. It’s called Förut (när jag var liten) in Swedish. Sven asks Per if this was something that mesmerized him when he was a teenager. PG listened to this album a lot and this is his favourite track. Sven thinks Monica sounds like some kind of mythical figure living far up in the woods. Per loves her voice.

The guys travel to Hollywood, somewhere in Los Angeles in 1971. Gram Parsons And The Flying Burrito Brothers. The next song sounds like that at least. It’s a guy called Basse Wickman and it’s taken from his first album in 1976. Out On The Road is not a big hit, but both Sven and Per always loved Basse. Per says he’s got this amazing, velvety voice and he made some amazing albums. Actually, PG has never heard the debut album before, so this is a new one to him. Sven says it’s actually quite obscure. For some reason, he never really made it, but Sven thinks they have a couple of tracks that they are going to revisit on the ’80s list when they get there. Per agrees and says Basse had his peak in the ’80s. Now comes some sort of Swedish country rock. It didn’t make the charts in Sweden at all, but it sounds lovely, Per thinks.

No. 17 on the list is a group called Dag Vag. Sven says it’s some sort of slight new wave reggae. Mr. G says it’s more like ska music, like The Specials from England. Dag Vag was really outstanding in the ’70s on the Swedish music scene and made it big, Per says. Sven says they were a bit older than the new wave movement. He means they came from the hippie movement, more or less. Per agrees, but they used this punk new wave attitude to come through and they did it very well. They brought along Kenny Håkansson on guitar from the prog rock group Kebnekajse. He is an amazing guitar player. Everyone in the band had really weird names, alter egos. Per can’t remember the name of Kenny. Sven thinks he was called the Silver Surfer, but he is not sure. Dag Vag means a „vague day” in English, it doesn’t make sense. Sven says „if it doesn’t make you any wiser, you can trust us, we’re not wiser either.” And the song is called Dimma, which means „fog”. It’s probably the first time this song is played in the US.

The guys think they did a great job on this list, as always. Now they are moving to the late ’70s, 1979. There was a group called Factory, that was enormously big in Sweden. Per says, first of all, most of the songs from the ’70s they played are in Swedish, because it was a big thing in the ’70s to work in Swedish. In the ’60s nobody did that at all. But in the ’70s everyone changed. Pugh was probably the first one. So, Efter plugget (after school) by Factory was a huge hit in 1979. If you listen to it now, you can trace the influences by Supertramp a lot. Per remembers when he was a kid, this song was all over the place. Sven says it was rock disco, a sort of danceable rock music. It was the same time as Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? by Rod Stewart. That sort of style. Or Miss You by The Rolling Stones. This one was all over the airwaves in 1979, you couldn’t escape it, for good or for bad. People tried to dance to it. Sven remembers girls from that time looking slightly bored. At least when they (the guys) came up on the dance floor. Per says probably that was the reason why they looked bored. Haha.

This wraps up the ’70s list for July.

Nordic Rox continues with Nowhere Blue, an indie duo from Stockholm with a new track called Keep On Running Off.

Do You Love Me by Amanda Jenssen is next. Amanda is one of the guys’ favourites and the song is from her debut album Killing My Darlings, 2008. Per thinks it’s a wonderful song. Sven thinks she is an amazing artist and an amazing singer.

The beautiful sound of Doojiman & The Exploders is next and their wonderful Yeah Yeah Yeah, Per says. Garage rock in its prime from Sweden, taken from the album Sweden’s Newest Hit Makers, Sven adds. PG thinks it’s such a great title. Sven says it makes you think of how they marketed The Rolling Stones in the States back in 1964: England’s Newest Hitmakers.

The guys are ready to leave, they have to go. Studio time is up. They will be back with five more songs taken from the Swedish ’70s in the next show.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!