Sven Lindström

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – April 2023

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström welcome you on the April episode of Nordic Rox. The guys are situated in sunny Halmstad. Per says it’s a sunny day and it’s really beautiful on the West Coast of Sweden.

Sven says they are in a perfect mood for presenting another special show featuring a group from Helsingborg, The Sounds. Per thinks The Sounds is a great band, they had quite a big success in the States as well. Sven informs they made an album and single called Living In America, and it eventually got them there. They toured the States a lot.

Before that, why not kick off with The Hives? Per thinks it’s a good idea, so they play Tick Tick Boom by The Hives. Not to be mistaken by any other band, Sven says. Per thinks it’s a great, great band. The song is from The Black And White Album. The second song is House Arrest by Stella Explorer. Another interesting track, Sven says. Per thinks she is great and he likes that song a lot. She is doing some really interesting stuff. This song is taken from the Dorkay House EP.

The next song is Run To You by Roxette from the Crash! Boom! Bang! album in 1994. Sven says that was the follow up to the Joyride album, if we are not counting the Tourism live thingy. Per says Tourism came in 1992. Sven asks if Per would say that the Crash! Boom! Bang! album was the proper follow up to Joyride. Mr. G says in a way it was. It was a follow up in the sense that it was another studio album. Tourism, the one in between, was basically recorded in hotel rooms and some live shows and this and that, all over the world while touring. Hearing a track like Run To You today, Sven is curious what triggers Per’s mind when he hears it. PG says first of all, he is always knocked out by Marie’s singing abilities. She was an amazing singer and she made his songs so much better than they actually were. She had this ability to make everything come alive. Great, great singer. Per thinks it’s a cool song, a great arrangement. They had a little problem with this one in the studio and he got stuck a bit with the production, but their bass player at the time came up with this idea to build the arrangement around acoustic guitars instead. So it changed shape a bit, but it turned out nice. It was a big hit for them in certain countries in Europe and Australia. Sven says it still sounds good. Per thanks for saying it.

The guys go down to Malmö and play Ray Wonder from the ’90s. We Got To Be Good To Each Other by Ray Wonder feat. Nina Ramsby is next. Then comes a new single by The Black Angels & The Raveonettes, My Tornado. It’s a track The Raveonettes had on their debut mini album, Whip It On, 2002. Sven thinks it’s a cool collaboration, The Black Angels being from Austin, Texas and The Raveonettes from Denmark. A 20-year-old track getting a new life. PG also thinks it’s cool and it sounds great.

Here comes this episode’s special, The Sounds. They are from Helsingborg and were formed in 1999. They have been working really, really hard since their debut in the early noughties. The guys play the title track from their debut album called Living In America. It didn’t immediately break them in the States, but it became a pretty big song, their big breakthrough in 2002. They started touring and really working hard for many years. Per says Maja Ivarsson is the name of the lead singer. Sven says she is terrific. Per thinks she is wonderful on stage, a great front person and a great singer as well. Sven agrees.

Mr. G says The Sounds is one of those bands that has been touring and touring and touring. They did so many shows supporting other bands like the Foo Fighters, No Doubt, and especially in the States they have been touring year in year out. Sven says they are a superhard-working band. Their second album actually brought them to the States for real. They recorded this album called Dying To Say This To You in Oakland, California with Jeff Saltzman. That was really the start of major touring. They played 200 shows in 2006. That’s a lot. Sven asks „how can you get away with that?” Per says „you have to be very young”. Sven says you can hear that they became incredibly tight as a band. He thinks this second album is super cool and sounds really good. Per agrees and they play the next song, Painted By Numbers, which is a great track.

Mr. G says The Sounds is a great band, they are cool, especially live. Maja Ivarsson is a great performer, a great singer and she is really wonderful to watch and listen to. Sven says she is an absolutely terrific rock’n’roll woman. Per introduces the next song, which is from The Sounds’ third album, Crossing The Rubicon. This one came out in 2009 and the first single is called No One Sleeps When I’m Awake. It’s got this really heavy sound to the production and it sounds really amazing still. Sven adds that Per especially likes the snare drum. PG says the snare drum sound is pretty heavy, he likes that. Sven loves the intro, the guitar intro is fantastic.

The guys move on with the fourth and final The Sounds song in this special. The band’s next album, Something To Die For came out in 2011. The track Sven and Per picked from that is The No No Song. PG thinks it’s a really great track and it’s got all The Sounds trademark. Sven says it’s got all The Sound sounds. Haha. The energetic guitar and the synthesizer doing this melody thing. Per thinks it sounds really cool.

Sven introduces the next song, Tuesday Afternoon. He thinks the word Beatlesque is what he is looking for. Per says this is a great band from the early ’90s in Sweden called Stonecake. They came and went. They managed to squeeze in this song in the pop history of Sweden. It was a big hit in Sweden. Sven says this was the first track they made more or less and they never became bigger than this one. Per says it’s a great song, you can hear their inspiration from The Beatles or from Smashing Pumpkins or The Move from the ’60s, Roy Wood’s The Move. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, but it’s a very catchy chorus. It was a big song and Per doesn’t know if it was number one in Sweden, but it was definitely a top five song. Sven says a million dollar chorus is waiting for you right here.

Year of Love by Jenny Hval is next. She is a Norwegian girl. She is one of Per’s current favourites. She is just amazing. She did an album last year called Classic Objects and this is the first song from that album. PG suggests checking her out if you get the chance. He spells her last name, Hval.

The guys play Blue Fun (The Robert Palmer Mix) by Mikael Rickfors. It’s the title track from his 1983 album. This one he sent to Robert Palmer in the Compass Point Studios. Per says Robert Palmer did a great mix of this song. It wasn’t on the original album. It was on a 12-inch single. Sven thinks it came out in 1984. Per doesn’t really know why they sent it to Robert Palmer and why he even bothered to work on this. Mr. G says Micke Rickfors used to be a great Swedish singer, but he also used to be the singer from The Hollies. A terrific singer. Sven thinks the studio version, the Swedish mix of Blue Fun is quite horrible. It’s a lot of echo and 6000 instruments playing at the same time. But it’s a great song, Per thinks. It’s really terrific. Sven thinks Robert Palmer just took basically everything down and then took a couple of things up, which made it so incredibly simple and dry. It’s really hard-hitting and Micke sings so well here.

This wraps up the show. The guys thank the listeners for joining them and as usual, Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom is the closing track.

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

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – March 2023

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After a well-deserved beachtime, skipping one month of being on air on Nordic Rox, Per Gessle is back on the Spectrum with Sven Lindström. Mr. G is taking a break from recording to make this episode with Sven. He is in the studio at the moment. Also preparing for a big summer tour in Sweden with Gyllene Tider, but he says it’s great to be back on the show. Nordic Rox is where it’s at. Sven asks PG what kind of project he is working on right now. Mr. G says right now he is working on some solo material. There will also be a Roxette musical coming out late next year, so he is working on that one as well. There is a movie coming out about Gyllene Tider next summer, so he is keeping himself busy. No peace for the wicked, Sven laughs. Per says it’s good. He just released the PG Roxette album in October last year, so he is still releasing some singles from that one. Some promotion here and there. Sven says as soon as that one is out, they will play it on Nordic Rox. He asks Per when the EP will be available in stores. It’s out mid April and he is preparing some videos and stuff for that one as well.

The March episode has a special where the guys are focusing on a Swedish group called Atomic Swing. They are a great band that started out in the early ’90s. They were big in Sweden, big in Japan.

The first song the guys play is Sven’s band’s new single, Close To You. The only thing he has to say is „here’s Nordic Rox with some good looking music in the shape of Velvet Beat”. After the song is played, Per says Velvet Beat is a Malmö band.

The next track is Gold Rush, new music from Stella Explorer. Then comes Hey Princess by Popsicle. Per thinks it’s a beautiful song. A classic.

Next one is The Loneliest Girl In The World, one of the hits from the PG Roxette album, Pop-Up Dynamo! Sven says they talked about this song earlier, but he is curious how it came about. PG says he doesn’t know, but when he wrote it, he just felt immediately that it’s got a really catchy chorus. He says you feel that in your spine when you are writing songs, when it hits that a chorus is really going somewhere. So he felt immediately that this is going to be a very strong song. He didn’t have a title or any lyric at the time, but it turned out to be the first single off the album. Sven says Per could have written it for Gyllene Tider. They were making an album around the same time. PG reacts that it was a little earlier, but it is sort of the same style, he agrees. The big difference of course is when he works with GT, it’s a very organic band with five people playing all the time, while with PG Roxette everything is programmed. So it’s more like an ’80s-’90s synthesizer based production. Even though the music is quite similar, the end result is pretty different.

Next is Sergels Torg by Veronica Maggio. Sven says it’s always great here on Nordic Rox to grab the chance to polish up your Swedish with the help of Veronica Maggio. Per adds for those who haven’t been to Stockholm that Sergels torg is the big square in the center of town where you are sort of wheeling and dealing, underworld, dark web. Sven adds it’s a place where you can buy this and that.

The Atomic Swing special starts with the guys talking about the band. Sven asks Per if he remembers when they came out. They were formed basically when Roxette were travelling the world in 1992. Atomic Swing made it quite big in Sweden. Per remembers their breakthrough. He liked the band a lot and they sounded pretty different. Per thinks their sound was really fresh. Good songwriting as well and they are a great band with great singers and great arrangements. The first album was a massive success for them. Sven says they made it really big in Sweden and they also broke through in Japan and Australia. Sven thinks the singer, Niclas Frisk has got a special attitude. Nobody else sounds exactly like him and he is also a very good guitarist. Per agrees and says it was a complete band. A really good band and they looked cool too. The first song the guys play from them is Stone Me Into The Groove, their biggest hit from their debut album, A Car Crash In The Blue (1993). The band was definitely influenced by the ’70s, but still there are some new elements to it in their sound. They sound like the ’90s as well. Sven says it’s just like the way Oasis updated the ’60s, to make it into a ’90s thing.

Per thinks that what made Atomic Swing work was that they had good songs. The next one they play, Dream On is an even better song, he thinks. It was a big success for another Swedish artist called Jerry Williams, an old rocker from the ’50s. Atomic Swing made their own version and it’s from another album. They made three albums in the ’90s and split up in 1997, and then they were gone for like 10 years and they reformed to make The Broken Habanas in 2006. Dream On has a wonderful guitar and organ solo where they sort of overlap each other in a wonderful way. Per thinks it’s a great song. He loves the guitar sound and the Hammond thing as well. They used Hammond a lot in the production arrangements. It makes the whole production sound really big.

The next song is also sort of flirting a bit with the ’70s sound. The guys go back to Atomic Swing’s second album called Bossanova Swap Meet. It was released in 1994 and had a track called Soul Free. There is a great little flute melody in the intro. It’s nice. Per thinks flute is a very underrated instrument. You immediately think about Jethro Thull. The flutes were everywhere in the late ’60s, early ’70s and then boom, off they went.

The last Atomic Swing song they play is Lovin’ Out Of Nothing, which Niclas Frisk, the leader of the band wrote together with Swedish singer Titiyo. She released her version in 2004 and it became a big song. A couple of years later, Atomic Swing released their own version on their comeback album, The Broken Habanas. Titiyo’s version is quite different, but it’s a really good song. Per didn’t know that the Atomic Swing had recorded it themselves, but when he heard it, he immediately recognized it of course. Sven was looking for the word „atmospheric” to describe it. Per says why not, it’s a good word.

The guys go back in time to 1995. Sven asks Per what happened in 1995. PG says it’s a long time ago. He was on the Crash! Boom! Bang! tour with Roxette. Sven says in Stockholm, Sweden a young girl was recording her debut album. He talks about Robyn and plays Do You Really Want Me (Show Respect) from her.

Hollow Talk is next by Choir Of Young Believers, a Danish one man band. It was the theme song for The Bridge TV series. Great TV series, Per thinks. Sven also thinks it’s very cool and it turns out Per didn’t see the last two episodes, because for some reason they stopped showing it on the network. That’s what you call a cliffhanger, Sven laughs. Per says he has to do something about that. Haha.

The guys wrap up, thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom is closing the show.

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

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – January 2023

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Sven Lindström and Per Gessle had their first chat of the year on Nordic Rox. They wish a happy new year to each other. They ask each other how they are doing. Both feel good and Per adds he survived Christmas and New Year’s Eve… in style, he thinks. Sven had a moment of silence. He thought that would say everything about whether he survived or not. Per says „we weren’t at the same party”. They are laughing.

They think it’s good to be back on the show. This time they plan to turn up the amplifiers till 12, sometimes up to 13.5. The featured band on this episode is The Nomads. Per thinks they are a great, wonderful band. This tradition in punk pop music is just the best there is. Sven says they are kicking some serious ass and they have done that since the early ’80s and still do.

The guys kick off with a wee warm-up here in the shape of Troglodyte by Viagra Boys. They remember The Troggs [English garage rock band] and think they were a great band. Per’s favourite Troggs singles were I Can’t Control Myself and Love Is All Around. „I go for the ballads, you know me, Sven.” PG starts singing Anyway That You Want Me here and Sven says, „OK. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Reg Presley [singer in The Troggs] says hello.” They are laughing.

Holiday Inn by Adiam Dymott is next from her debut album. Mr. G thinks that’s a great album and they played quite a few songs from there over the years. I Miss You, John Denver, Pizza, almost every track. Then comes Sugar, the new single of Tribe Friday.

Sven says they have a kick in the ass section waiting for you out there in the shape of The Nomads and they will play four of their highlights from their illustrious career. But before that, some more songs from the Nordic countries. Smile by Atomic Swing comes next. It’s a great ’90s track, one of their biggest hits.

Headphones On by PG Roxette is next, then Between The Lines by Sambassadeur. Per likes this one, he has never heard that before. It’s a great track. Mr. G thinks she has a great voice and he likes their style and the arrangement. Sven says Per mentioned another track while listening to this one, it was like an indie version of Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer. But that’s a little bit more sophisticated and this one is more indie style. Charming, they think. Speaking of charming, the guys get back to Headphones On. It’s the new single of PG Roxette. Per asks Sven if he likes it. Sven thinks it’s cool. PG thinks it’s nice. He is honoured to have the old Roxette lead guitar player, Jonas Isacsson around. He is playing a guitar solo on this one. It’s so rare to record guitar solos these days, he adds. Sven thinks it’s desperately needed. Per thinks so too. Sven asks Per if Jonas was happy for getting the chance to let loose. Mr. G says he is always happy when he gets a chance to play guitar solo. Every guitarist is. „Did you try it, Sven?” Sven says as soon as they are ready, he is going to pick up his guitar and fire away. Haha.

Mando Diao has a new single, Fire In The Hall. Sven asks Per what he thinks about that. PG thinks it’s OK. He thinks Mando Diao has its ups and downs and this is somewhere in the middle for him. But it’s always interesting to hear what they are going through. This song is from the EP Primal Call, Vol. 2.

The excellent new single from Stella Explorer, House Arrest is the next song. The guys think it’s a very, very cool track. They like it a lot. Per thinks this one is also from an EP. It’s very popular to do EPs these days, a shorter version of albums. Sven asks Per if he knows what EP stands for. Mr. G knows it of course, Extended Play. Those things were important to learn back in the days. Per thinks it’s actually good nowadays when you have the streaming services that you can release 4 songs instead of 12. He will always go for releasing albums, but a lot of people are complaining and you can tell by the streaming numbers as well that people are getting bored after four or five songs. He is laughing. Sven says that was a challenge that The Soundtrack Of Our Lives always took up, releasing double albums in the streaming area.

Sven and Per get down to an amazing band that they both like a lot, The Nomads. Sven says they are taking the elevator down to the garage now, the Swedish garage scene. The Nomads kicked off in 1981 and they went ahead of any band in Sweden, against the stream. They kicked off almost alone the Swedish garage rock scene. Per thinks without The Nomads there wouldn’t have been The Hives, for instance. The Nomads were never really a mainstream band. They toured a lot and toured and toured and toured. They are actually still around and it’s amazing. They always kept that garage rock spirit and never really lost their drive or energy. It’s really cool. The guys kick off with Rat Fink A Boo-Boo, showing the listeners a bit what they are all about.

Continuing The Nomads homage, Per says in 2013 they released an EP called Loaded Deluxe and he thinks we should listen to Get Out Of My Mind. This is one of his favourite Nomads tracks.

Then it’s time to slow the tempo down and play not a ballad, but as close to a ballad as what you can find in The Nomads catalogue. The Way You Let Me Down, also taken from the Loaded Deluxe EP is next. It is produced and co-written by a guy called Chips Kiesbye. He is like a household name in Swedish circuit since he produced so many artists for many, many years. And he also started out himself in heavy influence by the new wave era in the late ’70s, in the band called Sator. He tried to polish The Nomads up and the guys think he succeeded.

Sven mentions he wrote a book that came out a couple of weeks ago. It’s about a very narrow subject, the Ramones in Sweden. They played 2263 shows, 18 of them in Sweden. The whole book is about those 18 shows and what the Ramones meant for the Swedish scene. Sven also interviewed Per, for example and he interviewed The Nomads as well. They were heavily influenced by the Ramones. They were actually supporting the Ramones on some shows in 1990 and 1991. They told Sven that once upon a time in a show there Joey Ramone was wearing a Nomads T-shirt, which they of course were incredibly proud of and sometimes he also dedicated the track Pet Sematary to The Nomads while they were playing. During one of the tours in 1990 in Sweden, during the soundcheck, The Nomads went out and played Chinese Rock. Immediately, both Johnny and Joey Ramone were by the stage with a look like you can’t play that track, it’s ours. Written by Dee Dee Ramone. Haha. The guys wrap up this Nomads special with Miles Away from their Solna album.

Get The Moon Up by Daniel Norgren is next. Leaves by Children Of The Sün comes next. Per thinks this is an amazing song. This amazing band is quite new, PG has never heard of them before. When Sven heard them, he immediately thought about Jefferson Airplane around 1969, crossing over to Led Zeppelin between their first and second album. Mr. G says he thought it was reminding him a little bit of the early Heart, which was sort of very influenced by Led Zeppelin, but at the same time when he heard this girl singing, he thought they sound a little bit like ABBA. The guys couldn’t stop talking, they drew in all influences they could hear. It’s fun and it’s very special, they think. Children Of The Sün, they have to remember that name. Great band.

With this, Sven and Per wrap up the first episode of 2023 and promise to be back with more good-looking music. Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is closing the show, as usual.

Selfie from Per’s archives (2014)

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – December 2022

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Sven Lindström and Per Gessle sat together in Halmstad to record the December episode of Nordic Rox. Sven says it’s soon Christmas time and Per has got his Santa outfit on himself because he is ready to present his brand new Christmas single coming up later on the show.

This time it’s The Soundtrack Of Our Lives special, taking a closer look at this Gothenburg band’s songs. Per says they played them quite a lot here on Nordic Rox, because they like them a lot. The band is not around anymore, unfortunately, but they were killer in their heydays.

Before the special, the guys present some weird sounds from the north of Sweden and the first track is Boogie Woogie/Rock ‘n’ Roll by Komeda. Per says it’s pretty famous, because it was part of an ad on Swedish television many years ago. Mr. G thinks it’s a great track and it sounds amazing. Sven adds they just picked out this bababababa from the song for the ad and it was incredibly irritating. Not many people knew what the track was.

The next song is Happyland by Amanda Jenssen. She is from Lund, Sweden. Then comes Different Sound by the amazing Teddybears. Sahara Hotnights is next with Gemini.

Bald Headed Woman from The Hep Stars is the next track. This song was No. 1 on the charts in Sweden in 1965. Sven says it tells you everything you need to know about Sweden in 1965. Per remembers it was on the first Kinks album and Sven adds he thinks The Who as well did it. PG shares the info that the keyboard player in The Hep Stars is Benny Andersson, who eventually became one of the key players and writers of ABBA. Sven says he doesn’t know if you could hear any sort of traces of ABBA here, but he went berserk on that organ at the end of the song. He is a fantastic player. Per says they were a good live band as well. Sven saw them at the end of their career in 1966. Per says he was too young back then. Haha. Sven says Bald Headed Woman was like an old blues track, but he never really figured out the lyrics. He asks Per what he thinks the lyric means. Mr. G laughs and says „well, he preferred women with hair”. Sven adds he didn’t like sugar in his coffee either („I don’t want no sugar in my coffee”). PG says it was tough in those days. Haha. Sven says it was like listening to an old Ramones record. Per agrees.

Sarah Klang’s latest single, Belly Shots is next. Per thinks she is a great singer and it’s a great song. Sven agrees she is a terrific singer.

It’s time for the guys to zoom up to Gothenburg and relive some of the greatest moments of The Soundtrack Of Our Lives history. Per thinks it’s a great band. They started out in 1995 and went on until 2012 when they disbanded. Sven adds they released a final album then. Per always liked them. They had a great sound and were very guitar-driven and very melodic all the time, even though their songs are pretty long. Lots of instrumental passages, but they always had really good melodies and good songwriting as a basic thing. Sven says the first track they play, Instant Repeater ’99 is from their debut album, Welcome To The Infant Freebase (1996). It sets the tone for The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. Some elements of Stones, some elements of psych rock, some elements of punk. A little bit of everything. Mr. G thinks they were great live as well and Ebbot Lundberg is a very prolific singer.

Sven says the band had wonderfully psychedelic titles for their albums. The next album they released in 1998 was called Extended Revelation For The Psychic Weaklings Of Western Civilization. They also made very long records. In the vinyl era these would have been double albums. The first one was 70 minutes long and the second was 62 minutes. PG says they didn’t believe in kill your darlings. Sven says he doesn’t think they were ever aware of either darlings or killing. Haha. According to Mr. G, it’s good anyway, they have their own identity and he really likes the style of the guitarist. They have these guitars all the time that are really melodic and they sort of create all these patterns in the music, which is really interesting. It’s very special and he likes it a lot.

Sven thinks there is some sort of Stones element to it and it also adds some psychedelic thing to the melodies or the whole attitude. That becomes very clear in the next song, Bigtime from their fourth album, Origin Vol. 1. Per says this is probably his favourite track from them. He thinks it’s really cool, it has a great groove to it and it’s just so exciting to listen to all the time.

Per says every time he hears this band he is getting more and more impressed. They are a whole great package of wonderful musicians and great melodies, great songwriting. And Ebbot, the lead singer has got a great voice. Sven also thinks that most of the things they did was fantastic. Just take a look at the cover of the album they made in 2008, Communion. Sven can never stop being fascinated about that cover. It looks like a middle-aged couple in a spa, drinking some greenish smoothie. Per thinks it’s a great sleeve. They are talking about it, so it must be good.

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives made it quite big with the third album in the US and also other countries. The guys plan to play 2 songs from Behind The Music. Per says the first one they play is Nevermore. It’s got a little more acoustic touch to it, but it’s a great track and also it’s a beautiful melody line. PG always goes for the melodies, as we know. The album is from 2001 and this is the one that sort of cracked the US market open for the band and especially the next track Sven and Per play, the Sister Surround single. Per adds they toured the States as well, in 2002 they were supporting Oasis. Sister Surround is a terrific track, a classic rock and roll kind of rock music that became rarer and rarer until it almost became extinct, Sven says. PG thinks it’s a great way to end this homage on the show with the highlights of their career.

A song spinning heavily on Swedish radio right now is Stockholmsvy by Hannes & Waterbaby. The title translates to View of Stockholm. Per says the song is in English except for the title, which is in Swedish. He thinks it’s a good song. When he heard it for the first time, it felt like it was like a Leonard Cohen track from his late era. Really smooth and mellow and beautiful and sparse. Mr. G also thinks that it’s nice that they are getting some really good airplay here.

Next song is Waterlily Love by Per’s partner in crime, Helena Josefsson. This is from her debut album in 2007. Mr. G thinks it’s a beautiful song and Helena is a great singer.

Ifrån mej själv by Dundertåget comes next. The title translates roughly to Beside Myself and the band name translates to thunder train. The guys think it’s a good name and a good track as well.

Here comes a Christmas celebration from Per Gessle and PG Roxette, Wish You The Best For Xmas. Per says it’s time for another Christmas song. He wrote one in 1987, which was called It Must Have Been Love. Sven says he doesn’t think Per has to introduce that song, but maybe he has to introduce it as a Christmas song, because probably nobody remembers that it started out as a Christmas song. Per says the reason for writing it was that Roxette tried to get airplay in Europe and it was impossible. Their German record label suggested that Per should write a Christmas song, because then it could be easier to get on the radio for Christmas. And so he did it and wrote It Must Have Been Love (Christmas For The Broken Hearted) and presented to them. They didn’t like it, so they never released it. However, Roxette released it in Sweden and it became a big hit for them as a Christmas song in 1987. And then of course, three years later it popped up in the Pretty Woman movie. Without the Christmas reference in the lyrics, that went out the window. Now it was time again, so this summer PG decided to write an uptempo Christmas song. It’s a great tradition in pop music generally when it comes to Christmas songs. Per has his favourites, e.g. I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Roy Wood’s Wizzard, Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade or all those songs that were big in Sweden when he was a kid. Once in a while, you have to make a Christmas record, Mr. G thinks.

At the end of the show, the guys wish merry Christmas and happy new year to all listeners. They promise to be back early January.

Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes is the closing song, of course.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – November 2022 – PG Roxette special

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Sven Lindström renamed Nordic Rox to Nordic PG Rox for the November episode. Haha.

The guys sit together to provide a taster of the brand new PG Roxette album on a great day in Stockholm. Per is excited to talk a little bit about the new PG Roxette songs. Sven is holding the vinyl record in his hands and he thinks it looks great. PG says he loves this format, because he loves the album sleeves. It’s so much part of the record, he thinks. Mr. G really misses the sleeves these days. The whole digital world we live in, the streaming services, it lacks something for him because he’s probably getting old. Sven assures Per he is not alone with this. He thinks their generation is the one that’s going to sit in retirement homes, pestering the young guys and girls about vinyl covers. Per agrees and they are laughing.

Sven says they are going through a great list of Scandinavian music at its best and also have a look into the new PG Roxette album, which is titled Pop-Up Dynamo! The first song on the show is Answer by Pauline Kamusewu. To Per it sounds like a hit. He thinks it’s a very good song and can’t understand why it hasn’t become a hit. Then comes Phantom Punch by Sondre Lerche, a Norwegian guy. Sven and Per try to pronounce his name correctly with a Norwegian twist. Per likes this song a lot. Sven thinks it’s a bit quirky. It’s the title track from Sondre’s fourth album. The third song is Worry Sick by the amazing Edith Backlund from the north of Sweden. The album is called Death By Honey and came out in 2008 as her second album.

The guys move on and play Magnetic City by Silverbullit from Gothenburg. Sven says they make you think a bit about the crazy guys from Manchester in the early ’90s. Great vibe to this song.

Here Comes The Night by Agnes is next. It’s one of Per’s favourites. He thinks Agnes is an amazing singer, one of the biggest artists they have in Sweden at the moment and she has been around for a couple of years now. She is making great singles and and she is really an astonishing singer. She had some international success with the song called Release Me a couple of years ago and she is still around and doing great.

Chris Craft No. 9 by The Shanes from the north of Sweden is played next. It’s from 1967 and Per thinks it’s a great song. He loved it when he was a kid. The band is fantastic and this song sounds terrific to Mr. G’s ears. It was recorded at the Abbey Road Studio in London. Sven adds that not many Swedish bands made that trip, but they did. PG says there was a producer, Anders Henriksson, Henkan who produced Tages, another Swedish band and some of The Shanes songs as well. Since he was part of the EMI organization, he had allowance to the Abbey Road Studio and he used it a lot. Tages recorded there as well. Per thinks Chris Craft No. 9 is really one of the best Swedish tracks from the ’60s. Sven agrees that it’s a great track, written by Kit Sundqvist in The Shanes. He played the organ. Sven says it was produced by the George Martin of the Swedish ’60s, Henkan.

Now it’s time to look at the Pop-Up Dynamo! album, which is a new Roxette album, a PG Roxette album. Per says he decided to continue the Roxette journey. It actually started out that he wanted to play the old Roxette songs live. All those songs that he wrote for Roxette are still with him and they are still popular around the world. But then the pandemic thing happened, so everything got postponed and he started writing new songs in the Roxette style instead and made an album with the old Roxette players. Jonas Isacsson on lead guitar and Clarence Öfwerman playing the keyboards. The two backing vocalists, the girls who toured with Roxette the last 6-7 years or so, Dea Norberg and Helena Josefsson. They stepped up a bit to do the female vocals and they did a great job on this record, so he is really proud of the whole package. Sven thinks it’s cool and he asks Per what he aimed for when he was writing these songs for this version of Roxette. PG says he decided early on that it’s not about replacing Marie, getting in another girl to take her place. It’s more about the songs. So basically, he just felt like going back to the style that he had in the late ’80s and early ’90s when he wrote Look Sharp!, Joyride, Tourism and Crash! Boom! Bang! So it’s basically an extension of that. It’s a little bit nostalgic for him. Even though you don’t really realize it yourself, you change with the years, your style is changing and developing all the time, so the evolution is going on. This was like going back to thinking in the same way that he was thinking in the ’80s. He hopes that we can hear that. Productionwise they picked sounds that were used in the ’80s as well, the old synthesizers and they also used the guitars. But at the same time, he thinks and hopes it sounds fresh and modern, because it shouldn’t be like a retro thing. He thinks one can recognize the Roxette gimmicks. According to Sven it sounds like a fun experience. PG says ot was fun and excellent to work with these people again. They had a blast in the studio and he had a good time writing. Sven tells they should listen to one of the tracks and asks Per which one to start with. Mr. G suggests Walking On Air, which is the first song of the album and it’s the current single as well. It’s a good example of how the album sounds.

Sven thinks it sounds really interesting, especially with the mix between Per’s voice and the female singers’ voices. Mr. G says it’s Dea Norberg and Helena Josefsson who are singing with him. They used to be the backing vocalists with Roxette when they were touring. Now they have stepped up a bit. What’s interesting with them, Per thinks, is that they have such different styles when they sing. So he tried to combine those two styles to create like a third person. It’s a little bit like ABBA. If you listen to the old ABBA records, for instance, it’s really hard to tell who is Frida, who is Agnetha because they are overdubbing themselves and doing harmonies, so it’s really hard to say. It creates like a third persona and Per likes that a lot. When people hear the new PG Roxette album it’s hard to pinpoint „that’s Helena and that’s Dea”, because when you combine them, they sound very, very different. Per thinks that’s really cool. Sven thinks it’s very interesting because both Helena and Dea have very characteristic voices. PG says it’s fun to work with them in the studio. When you tell them to add a little a bit of wailing or do something soulful, they just approach that sort of challenge totally differently and the outcome is so many different things. It’s really fun to work with them and to edit everything down together and take the best pieces of both of them and use it. It has been really exciting to do this.

The next song Per picks is the single that he released this summer, The Loneliest Girl In The World, which is a classic guitar-driven pop song. There are songs that are really timeless in his book. These type of songs are the hardest to write because he has written so many of them over the years. It’s like a classic 3-chord pop song basically. Sven laughs and tells that Per always complains about having trouble writing these kind of songs, but still he comes up with them time and time again. Per laughs too and says he is so happy when that happens, because it’s so hard to do. If he sits down by the piano or with a guitar, he starts to play something and it’s always like mid tempo and he has his favourite chord progressions and everything. But when he has to write a classic immediate pop song, it just happens and you can feel it immediately. „Hey, this is really cool. This is a really great melody line.” Per’s whole music, everything he does is based on melodies much more than the rhythms. So it has to have this really strong and very catchy melody to make it, to go to the next step in the writing process.

Sven remembers there is one trick Per uses and it’s that he buys a new guitar. Whenever he bought a new guitar and tried it, he wrote a new song. Per confirms. That’s because every guitar has got its own personality. And you put it into the amplifier and it sounds so cool. And if it’s something that you like, out pops this new song. Sven laughs and says it’s easier to store a song than the guitar. Per agrees and says you have to have a big wardrobe. They are laughing.

Sven is curious if the title, The Loneliest Girl In The World was something that’s been buzzing around in Per’s head for a while. Mr. G says he likes that title because it’s a little bit romantic and it sort of makes a vision in your mind. When he writes songs, if he finds a good title to begin with, it helps his stupid brain a lot. So he actually collects ideas, titles and phrases that he can use. It’s just a part of how he works. Sven likes the title, he likes pop titles. He can imagine that in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, Per had a notebook, but he wants to know what he is using now. Per laughs and says he has a laptop. But Sven says a title could come when Per is out walking, when he is not carrying his laptop around. PG says it could come in a dream or it could come from a TV show, you can pick up something a taxi driver says and you just keep it. Per usually texts himself with ideas all the time. It’s the same thing with music. He can go in a department store or whatever and come up with a melody thing that he hears and he calls himself to tell himself [he laughs] about the chords he is hearing and then how the melody works. As soon as he gets back home, he tries to record it on a guitar or piano or whatever. You collect things, you have your antennas out all the time. That’s how Per works anyway. His iPhone is filled with short snippets of ideas. 10 seconds ideas. Sven laughs and says grocery stores must be filled with people saying „don’t look now, but I think it’s Per Gessle, humming into his telephone”. Per laughs too and says that has happened, actually. He is getting this weird look, „Jesus!”.

The third and final track in this sneak preview of the new album is Headphones On. Sven thinks this title sounds like a pop nerd title. You put your headphones on and just dive into some music. Per tells Sven it’s pretty interesting, because he wrote this lyric to another piece of music and he didn’t use it. For some reason he didn’t like the music that much, but he kept the lyric. He rearranged the lyrics a bit and he wrote something new to it. He loves this, because it’s got a great energy and a great sound. When they combine the voices of Helena, Dea and Per, it’s just really cool. Per is singing the falsetto parts here. Also of course, Per has this wonderful privilege to have Jonas Isacsson playing this amazing guitar solo. There is no guitar solos anymore in pop music, he says. This was actually the last song they recorded for the album and he told his co-producers that he has to write a song where they can put a guitar solo and so Jonas can show that he’s still got what it takes. He is just doing this magnificent guitar solo in the end of the song. It’s really cool. Per loves this track. Sven adds that Jonas Isacsson is the guy playing the fabulous guitar on Roxette’s breakthrough single, The Look. Per says he is the mastermind behind all those guitar licks in Roxette history, Dressed For Success, Listen To Your Heart. He is a great guy and it was so much fun recording this album. Per hopes it shines through when you listen to it.

After Headphones On, the guys play Not Too Young by Sabina Ddumba. Next track is Shimmy Shimmy Style by the Teddybears and then comes Poetic by Seinabo Sey.

Sven and Per thank you for listening and play Anita Lindblom’s Cigarettes as the closing song, as usual.

Still is from a 2017 teaser video for Swedish Radio.

Thanks for your support, Sven!