Roxette’s most amazing 5th album, Crash! Boom! Bang! celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. The album was released on 9th April and I wanted to do an interview with Per in April, but so many things came in between that we postponed it. Now the time has come and we could Zoom in for a chat about the CBB era. As usual, we touched on other projects as well, especially Joyride – The Musical that premieres on 6th September, but also his upcoming Swedish album and of course, there is a lot of talking about his songwriting. If you are strong enough to read it until the very end, you will get to know some details about the CBB30 anniversary release as well.
We met via Zoom on 20th August and Mr. G joined the meeting 5 minutes late. But he had the perfect excuse.
Per Gessle: – Hey, I’m sorry to keep you waiting!
Patrícia Peres: – Hej, no worries!
PG: – I was a good boy, I was buying flowers for my wife, because we have our wedding day tomorrow.
PP: – Aaaw, you’re very nice!
PG: – I do my best sometimes. Haha.
PP: – How are you doing?
PG: – I’m good. It’s busy. I’ve been working in the studio a bit and I’ve been going to Malmö quite a lot. I’ll be there tomorrow again for more rehearsals. What else? I’m recording a new video next week for another single from the new Swedish album.
PP: – Oh, so there will be another single.
PG: – I have one song, I won’t tell you that much about it, but it’s my favourite song on the album. It’s just an amazing song. Once in a while there is one song that means something special to you, like “Vid hennes sida” from “Samma skrot och korn”, for instance, which is my favourite song, or “Tycker om när du tar på mej” from “Mazarin”. It’s just my favourite song from the new album.
PP: – It sounds very exciting. I know you like to look into the future rather than looking back on the past, but it’s always so interesting to hear your thoughts on your albums in retrospect. “Crash! Boom! Bang!” turned 30 in April. You were after “Joyride” and “Tourism”. How do you remember the time when Roxette’s 5th album was still just an idea? What was your ambition when you started writing songs for this album?
PG: – I think I had big big big ambitions for this album, because I was really on a roll. I’ve always been that kind of person who, when something gets successful, or I get lots of self-confidence from people liking what I do, then I just want to do more of that. More work, actually. Marie was the opposite, because as soon as we got really, really big and toured all over the world, she wanted us to take it easy a bit, relax and enjoy life, blah, blah, blah. And I thought that was rubbish. That’s why I convinced… or forced everyone to do the “Tourism” album. Everyone was looking forward to touring the world, checking out all these beautiful countries and cities, but I told them that we’re going to go into the studios in Buenos Aires or this nightclub in Sao Paulo or wherever to do recordings. And they said, no, no, no, we don’t want to do that. Anyway, I got my way. That was a brilliant idea. And so for “Crash”, I was just really focused and did a lot of really focused writing. Some of my best songs are on that album. “What’s She Like? ” is a great song for me. [He has a note open on his computer, so he is checking it every now and then.] “Vulnerable” is a great song. It was in my head for a couple of years. I’d never bothered to make a demo, but I knew it by heart.
PP: – If we start with the sleeve that gives a face to the album, what does it tell about this record?
PG: – Well, we just wanted to do something that was really big and you could use it on a production on stage as well. So this checkered flag idea came up. That particular picture was one of my favourite pictures, but we couldn’t really use it, because I didn’t have any light in my face. So they had to work on the light in my face.
PP: – So you put it on the sleeve. Haha.
PG: – Haha. There are so many pictures from that session, but it took forever to paint that.
PP: – [I show the picture on the back of the booklet.] It’s a very cool pic too.
PG: – In those days, everything was larger than life. So it was like no budgets, any crazy idea deserved to be tried out. But it turned out to be a great sleeve. Looking back at the album, I think it’s a little bit too long. I think there are some crap songs on there, which I don’t like. “I Love The Sound Of Crashing Guitars” is a much better lyric than the music. I think that for me, that takes down the whole album. The title song is a beautiful one.
PP: – You recorded the album in London, Stockholm, Capri and Halmstad for 11 months, between February 1993 and January 1994. Why did you start the recordings in London and how did Capri come into sight?
PG: – I don’t know. I think we just wanted to change scenery and change studios. I think we were doing “Almost Unreal” for the Super Mario movie. It was actually made for another movie, the Hocus Pocus movie. So I think we did that in England and I guess we just felt comfortable hanging out in London for a while. When I think about that album, I think about Italy and Capri. We were there for a month or five weeks. That gave the whole album this particular vibe.
For me, it is an album where I had a lot of self-confidence as a writer. So it’s a little bit more sophisticated. For me, when I look back on “Look Sharp!”, “Joyride” and “Crash”, “Look Sharp!” is like I’m young or almost young anyway. “Joyride” is just a massive album. Every song was supposed to be singles. And on “Crash” I tried to get into being personal and trying to find my style.
PP: – Was it because of that that you started playing even more? I think you play more guitars on this album than before.
PG: – Yeah, I think so. We also expanded the band a bit and we had lots of different players. Christer Jansson played drums as well, and Micke Nord played guitar and Staffan Astner played guitar. [Staffan didn’t play on CBB, but on “Have A Nice Day” and here comes the explanation why he is mentioned.] Lots of people came down to the studio, I think. Sometimes I just mix up the album sessions, you know, I’m talking about something and then suddenly I realize, shit, no, that’s Spain and “Have A Nice Day”.
PP: – You mix up those sunny locations. Haha.
PG: – “Place Your Love” is something that I wanted to sound like my style. Jonas played on that one, but we couldn’t play acoustic guitar together, just the two of us, because we come from totally different schools of guitar playing. So I had to make a choice. It’s either going to be Jonas or it’s going to be me. And I chose me, because Jonas did all the stuff on “Watercolours In The Rain”, for instance. So this was like a new thing for me.
PP: – And how was the recording team in Capri? You were under one roof for a long time.
PG: – Yeah, so to speak. We had this fantastic studio. We had different bungalows and we had dinners together. We had the whole place to ourselves. So we worked, we tried different settings. I remember we tried playing acoustic guitars in the garden to see how that sounded, with no acoustic rooms around us. We just tried out different things, which was very inspiring. But at the end of the day, it’s all about the songs, all about the material. It’s 15 tracks on this album. If you get rid of five, you get a great album.
PP: – Nooo, it’s a perfect length! The album is very guitar-driven, but besides that, there are also noises of nature, as well as drums and strings. It has a very detailed sound. When you listen to it now, what do you think about the sound?
PG: – It sounds very expensive, haha, because it’s a lot of recordings and then re-recordings and trying things out in the studio instead of trying things out when you make demos. That’s the way we worked in those days. [He looks at his note on the computer.] There were leftovers, the bonus tracks on the CD. “Almost Unreal”, which is from the movie, and “Crazy About You”, which I thought was amazing. I thought that should be a single.
PP: – Yeah, that would have been the first single. Why did you drop it?
PG: – I never understood that, but we had this voting system. Nobody liked that at all. And “See Me”, I thought was a really beautiful song as well. For some reason, it didn’t make it. And then I think Marie chose “Go To Sleep” instead as the ending track. And I thought “Love Is All” was supposed to be the ending track. I think we closed the gigs with that on tour. I can’t remember, maybe we did.
PP: – You closed the shows with “Go To Sleep”.
PG: – “Love Is All” is a great song. It’s very simple, but very nice. It’s got a very interesting melody, but it’s too long. Come on! We’re not Pink Floyd. Haha.
PP: – Compared to “Joyride”, what is the biggest difference for you on “Crash! Boom! Bang!”?
PG: – Well, like I said, this is a way for me to become a little bit more personal, a little bit more finding my own style. And that is easier said than done. Of course, you have your own style, your own ambitions and you know what you want to achieve as a writer. But as time goes by, you get better and you get more sophisticated. You learn more, so slowly, without really noticing it yourself, you become a different writer. “The First Girl On The Moon”, for instance, I could never have done that on “Look Sharp! “. I was ready to write it for “Crash”. I think the title track is also beautiful. It’s a classic Roxette big ballad, which is amazing in the musical, by the way. All those ballads are just wow! Because they just fit with this big orchestra and it’s so sentimental.
PP: – Actually, now that you say “Crash! Boom! Bang!” is a classic Roxette ballad, compared to previous ones, it was different. The strings mixed with guitars give a wonderful warm sound to it. Your classic ballads were power ballads back then. So CBB was actually a bit different versus the ballads you did before.
PG: – Yeah. And also, it’s a different beat. I mean, it’s a 6/8 beat.
PP: – This is where I’m lost… Haha.
PG: – Haha. [Here he is humming the beat of CBB, then LTYH to show me the difference.] “Listen To Your Heart” is a normal 4/4. I always liked 6/8. I talked to someone the other day. Maybe it was Albin Lee [Meldau]. He said, he can’t write songs with that beat. And I said, if I have a great melody and it’s that typical 6/8 groove to it, it’s going to be amazing, because I don’t find it hard to do. The hard thing is to make it interesting, but that goes for every song. There are several examples. I just tried to think of other songs in that same beat that I’ve written. It will come to me in 20 minutes or so. I love that song. I think it’s great and Marie is singing it amazingly well.
PP: – This is one of the songs that had a video. The director was Michael Geoghegan, who made three videos for you for this album. Why did you pick him exactly?
PG: – I can’t remember, actually. We were looking for directors and his name came up from the English office, I think. We liked his work, but also, I think it was a political thing that we wanted to have the EMI UK office involved in the project. Sometimes you just do things like that. You let the English decide who’s going to do the remixing or the Americans or the French. Maybe if you have a great French remixer, the French company will get more interested in your project. So we did those sneaky things. It went like that.
PP: – In an early interview you mentioned that “Joyride” was a very American album, while CBB was very British.
PG: – I don’t really think so, actually. I never thought “Joyride” was an American album. I mean, the thing with Roxette, to begin with, is that we don’t really sound American or English. We sound Swedish. And all the players are Swedish. We tried sometimes. With “Listen To Your Heart”, for instance, we did our best to sound American, but if you listen to similar American bands at the time, they sound different. All those bands and Bryan Adams or whatever. So I don’t know. If I said that, I don’t know what I meant by it, because I never really thought so.
PP: – The opening track is “Harleys & Indians (Riders In The Sky)”. A real rock song and just by the title, one would think it’s about motorcycles, but it’s not. What was it inspired by?
PG: – Well, I was really into bikes in those days and I just wrote this track. I thought the whole song was interesting, because it was pretty different. It had a great guitar groove, guitar riff and also the chorus was amazing with Marie and me singing together. So it just sounded like a special song. I can live without it. It’s not a “The Look” for me. It’s not an important song on the album for me. But for me, the best songs are “Crash! Boom! Bang!”, I think “Run To You” became a great song. When I wrote it, it was a little bit more, as you probably heard on the demo, a more classic pop song. This arrangement was Anders Herrlin’s idea, to do this groove and use the strings. So we took away all those big electric guitars and it just turned out to be a nice song.
PP: – Yeah, definitely.
PG: – “Fireworks” I thought was cool, because it had a cool lyric. But it’s too long. Haha.
PP: – Well, the average length of the songs is four minutes on this album. Am I right that the working title of the album was “Fireworks”?
PG: – Yes.
PP: – What made you change it to “Crash! Boom! Bang!”?
PG: – Probably because “Crash! Boom! Bang!” was written later on and it’s an even better title, I think. I thought it was like crash! boom! bang! [here he demonstrates onomatopoeia (a sound written as a word)]. What’s his name? This American pop art guy, you know… that cartoonish style.
PP: – I can’t remember either, but I know you used that style on your archives sleeves. [Roy Lichtenstein style.]
PG: – It’s sort of cool. I can’t really remember why we changed it otherwise, but “Fireworks” is a good title, too. It’s a good title for a greatest hits album.
PP: – Next time! You mentioned “Run To You” and it also had a video, but it was directed by Jonas Åkerlund. The style is very different to the Geoghegan videos, nicely built around the touring life from travelling through soundchecks to being on stage. What did you want the viewers to get to know about you in this video?
PG: – As little as possible, probably. Haha. We had to shoot that video on the road, we didn’t have time to have a big production and go somewhere else. This idea came up to work with Jonas and he did a great job. When you do lots of videos for an album, it’s nice to have different styles. So it was fun. It turned out great.
PP: – I agree. “Sleeping in My Car” was the lead single. You told the story of it that the record label missed a single, so you wrote this one. It all happened very fast, writing the song and recording it, but do you remember how you started it? Was it the music or the title or the lyrics first?
PG: – I was listening a lot to Paul and Linda McCartney’s “Ram” album. And there is a song called “The Back Seat Of My Car” on that album, which I love. I got really pissed off when they said that they couldn’t really hear any single. I thought it was loaded with singles, of course. So I went home and I just came up with this idea and “Sleeping In My Car”.
The next day we booked Studio Two at EMI. We already had Studio One, so someone else had to move out from Studio Two. Haha. We made a demo there, which sounds crap, you probably heard it. Haha. But it was an instant way for me to present a new song to Clarence and everyone. Clarence didn’t like it at all, because he felt like it sounded like a Gyllene Tider track.
I basically handpicked players that I wanted to play on it, and they weren’t Roxette players. It was Mats Persson on percussion, who eventually became a percussion player on the tour. And Pelle Sirén, who used to play with X Models, which was an EMI band as well. He played guitar. I don’t know who played bass. Anders maybe?
PP: – Yeah, I think so.
PG: – So we did it very quickly and I just loved the energy of that song. So it was written and recorded just to show them, here is your single…
At the same time, I must say, it took a very long time to make that album. What also happened was that the British invasion happened. Oasis, Blur and all those bands came up. So suddenly I felt like, let’s do something that is sort of in that style, because that sort of Oasis guitar driven style is my home turf because of Gyllene Tider. So it’s nothing new to me. Let’s do it and let’s do it really loud and pump up the guitars and just have this… I don’t know how, but I managed to make the song quite interesting musically. I think the verse is in D minor and the chorus is in D major, which is quite unusual for a song. But it sounds natural when you listen to it. And when you manage to do something like that, you know you have something special going on. So musically, I felt like this is not a sellout, this is not a simple song and if you’re going to play it yourself, you’re going to notice that you’re in a lot of trouble, because you haven’t found out what to do. Haha.
PP: – When you look back now, do you agree that the album was missing the first single before this song?
PG: – Well, it depends. When you present an album, especially in those days when albums were so important. There were lots of bands like Def Leppard. They always released something quite complicated as the first single, but then the big smash was the second single. But then you have sort of presented that you’re here and you’re doing something special, blah, blah, blah. Today, everything has to be upfront immediately, and it has to be short, because people don’t have the attention span like they had 20 years ago. To answer your question, it depends on how you want to present the whole album. When you release “Sleeping In My Car”, if you like “Sleeping In My Car” and you don’t know anything about Roxette, you might be a little bit disappointed with the rest of the album, because there is no other song that sounds like that. On the other hand, if you go with “Run To You”, it doesn’t really reflect the album either. From a commercial point of view, maybe we should have gone with the title track, because a big Marie ballad is what everyone was used to at the time. I don’t know. Oh, and that’s the same with the “Sällskapssjuk” album. The first single was Molly, the second was Lena, and both those songs were co-produced by Andreas Broberger and Anton Ekström. Those are the only two songs that they are involved with. Now the third one, as you can hear, sounds pretty different.
PP: – Yeah, it’s very different.
PG: – It has a country vibe with Malin-My on violin.
PP: – It’s kind of Nashville style.
PG: – Yeah. And it’s got my new superheroes here, Fredrik “Gicken” Johansson and Magnus Helgesson, the bass player and guitar player from Halmstad. They play on the whole album. The next single is also very different, so it depends on how you want to present your project. Nothing’s right, nothing’s wrong.
PP: – “Sleeping In My Car” deserved a rocking video and it was also directed by Michael Geoghegan. What is your best memory from the shootings and how do you remember your and Marie’s acting?
PG: – Marie loved it and I was always very happy to make videos when she was singing, because it was less work for me. I only had to stay there, play chords and look as cool as possible, which was hopeless. Haha. But I did my best. We had a good time.
To do the “Crash” video was much more complicated. That took forever. You know that we had to reshoot it for technical reasons. But it was really complicated to do a video like that in those days.
PP: – It was very much ahead of its time.
PG: – Yeah. It’s just one sequence. It was a brilliant and very expensive idea. When we had to reshoot it, people were crying. The insurance company had to pay for everything.
PP: – So they were crying, too. Haha.
PG: – Haha. But in the end, it’s a beautiful video. I hope we can do… I’m sure we will do an HD version, because it’s really poor quality on YouTube.
PP: – It would be amazing to have all the videos in much better quality. Back to “Sleeping In My Car”, related to this song there was a protracted lawsuit. [A musician accused EMI and Per of plagiarism. Similarities appeared in the chord progression, but the independent expert concluded that there was no infringement of the copyright.] I don’t really want to talk about the case itself, but I’m curious how it works for you as a songwriter, that even if you hear a tremendous amount of songs and of course, nowadays it’s even more difficult to find out new things, you can still stick to your own style and don’t make the same sound as another artist. How does that work?
PG: – Haha. I think it’s easy for me, because I’m not a very competent musician. So even if I try to be Tom Petty or Paul McCartney, I’m not going to succeed. I’m not there on that level. Everything I’ve listened to all my life that I liked, I’ve used that in my own music. And I think if you talk to any artist or writer, they say the same thing. It would be really silly for anyone to say that they invented the wheel, because they haven’t. John Lennon loved all these ’50s stuff, which you could hear in his music. Tom Petty loved The Byrds and that kind of stuff. And Del Shannon. Everyone is influenced by the people that they like and they love, and I’m the same way. I try to figure out how they did that Al Green song. Especially when it comes to styles that I’m not really familiar with. Song styles that are maybe not melody driven, they are driven by the groove instead, the bass and the drums, which is really unfamiliar territory for me, I’m very melody driven, as you know. But if I’m trying to write something in a ’70s soul style, I’m totally lost. I don’t know what to do, but it turns out to be something else, which could be interesting.
PP: – You’re sailing.
PG: – Yeah. There’s no right, no wrong.
PP: – That’s the motto of the day.
PG: – It’s the truth!
PP: – “Vulnerable” was the fifth and final single from the album. How did you pick this word?
PG: – I think that was the whole idea with the song. It was that word. I love that word, it’s impossible to say.
PP: – Was it because of that why Marie didn’t want to sing it?
PG: – No, I don’t know. Did I write that for Marie? I can’t remember.
PP: – I don’t know. Probably not.
PG: – It’s a little soft for her. It should have been written differently if it was sung by her. Nevertheless, I always thought my vocals were crap on that one. One of these days I should re-record that and do it a little better. We never really played it live. We are talking about playing it live on the new tour.
PP: – Yes, please! We expected it to be played on your unplugged tour, because it would have fit so well, but it never happened.
PG: – I think we tried it out, but it just felt like it didn’t go anywhere. It’s got this string thing happening and that’s about it. It has very long verses, it’s like double verses every time, and it has a long chorus. Four minutes feels like eight minutes on stage. Haha. But we’ll see, we might use it.
PP: – I hope so! You just said that you were happy that Marie was the main character in the videos, but here it was you. How did it feel?
PG: – It was fun. I think it was shot in Australia.
PP: – Yeah, at Bondi Beach.
PG: – I have just vague memories of it, but it was fun. I felt very comfortable doing that. I was always proud of that song, the only thing I wasn’t proud of was my vocal performance. I thought it was really crap. Haha.
PP: – Haha. I like those vocals!
PG: – Yeah, lots of people love that song. Åsa loves it too, but I just wasn’t ready for it. It’s so different singing ballads, compared to singing uptempo songs. I don’t know why. In those days, I never really felt like I was ready to do that. I’ve been really a very late bloomer when it comes to singing properly. It’s somewhere around the mid ’90s, late ’90s, when I really start to think that I sang OK. On “The World According To Gessle” album there are some really nice ones. “Stupid” is good vocals. But most of these songs… “Fireworks” is not really good vocals.
PP: – I remember when we did the interview about your solo debut album on its 40th anniversary and first you said, oh, it’s a cool album. And then you said, this song is terrible, this song is terrible, this song is terrible. And now you do the same. Haha.
PG: – Haha. It’s because you find the mistakes looking back. At the same time, one of the things that got me in a very positive way, emotionally as well, at the musical rehearsal in Malmö, is that it’s such a massive catalogue of songs. It’s so many songs. And there are so many really, really nice songs. I’m not saying that to compete with anyone, but from my personal level, I’m really proud of some songs. When you hear lots of those songs in a row, it’s sort of heartbreaking. It’s all my life, basically.
PP: – There was your life in the GT movie, now there is your life in the Roxette musical.
PG: – Yeah, but it’s even more so in the musical, because it’s a bigger span. At the same time, for almost every song that you’ve done, if you listen to it, you want to change things. “Do You Wanna Go The Whole Way?”, for instance. I think that’s a great track, but it’s so slow. It should be…, you know, up with the tempo, so it becomes a bit more groovy. I don’t know why nobody noticed that in those days.
PP: – But Marie’s vocals are so powerful on it.
PG: – Maybe there was a trend, a Massive Attack thing going on in England at the time, or whatever that Clarence was really into, and he wanted to keep the tempo. I don’t know. I can’t remember. Speed it up, please!
PP: – Did Marie like to sing it?
PG: – I don’t know. I can’t remember recording it. I remember making the demo with Mats, and I thought it was a really nice melody, because it’s so unusual, that melody coming from me. So it must have been a mistake. That’s why I probably used it. [He is humming the melody.] It’s a really beautiful little thing there. I thought the title was interesting and I thought it was a cool song.
PP: – It’s a question in the title. There are two question titles on “Crash! Boom! Bang!”.
PG: – I love question marks!
PP: – Which is the best ever song with a question in the title?
PG: – On this album?
PP: – No, from anyone.
PG: – [He is thinking hard.] Oh, I can’t think of any song with a question mark. “What’s She Like?” got a question mark. I think it’s interesting to ask a question in the title. The title is the first thing you notice in a song. I just thought it makes you curious. I have to find out what’s she like.
PP: – There is this middle section with “The First Girl On The Moon” and “Place Your Love”. Can you tell me about this idea?
PG: – We had these two songs, and since the album was so long, we made it act one, act two, and put the acoustic stuff in the middle. I think those two songs are really nice, both of them. “The First Girl On The Moon” is a really wonderful song. “Place Your Love” is cool as well. Like I said, I was the one who was playing the guitar on that one.
PP: – “I Love The Sound Of Crashing Guitars” was inspired by Pete Townshend. What did he mean to you?
PG: – Oh, he’s a master! An amazing guitar player and even better writer. He’s just an amazing composer and the way he plays as well. He is doing really complicated things, but he makes it sound so simple. I’ve listened to The Who all my life. I still do. When I have nothing to do, I always go to YouTube and check out some The Who live from the old days. It just puts you in a brilliant mood, because that’s what it’s all about. This is what rock music is all about. A much more interesting band than, for instance, Led Zeppelin, because they have all these songs, “Baba O’Riley”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” or “Behind Blue Eyes”, or even back to the ’60s, “Substitute” or “Happy Jack”. These are amazing songs. “I Love The Sound Of Crashing Guitars” could definitely be left out and forgotten in a drawer somewhere. Haha. I think it’s a nice idea for a lyric, but I think the music is bad.
PP: – Have you ever crashed a guitar?
PG: – No, I haven’t.
PP: – Not even by accident?
PG: – Well, no, but I left an acoustic guitar on stage once, and when I came back, someone had made a hole into it. It was a very nice acoustic guitar, so I had it repaired. I don’t know what happened to it. Something fell on it, probably, on tour somewhere.
I have a great Trini Lopez Gibson guitar that I have on tour as well, and I used that in the studio with Mats. I put it on the sofa and then I was going to sing, so I took away my watch. Then I threw my watch on the sofa and it hit the guitar and made this really big scratch on the guitar. [He demonstrates it with his hands.] Haha.
PP: – Ojoj. So you did crash a guitar. Haha. Now talking about MP, “Lies” is the only track where the music is written by you and MP. What was MP’s addition to this song? The vibes of it remind me a bit of Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way”. Is there any relation to that?
PG: – No. I think the guitar riff is what MP wrote. It’s a silly track anyway. I don’t really like it. Haha. By the way, the la-la-la-la-lies, there was a The Who song called “La-La-La-Lies”. Maybe I borrowed that little phrase from them. I can’t remember. And we had another drummer there, Nicki Wallin. He was a heavy metal drummer who plays drums on that track. That’s one of those five songs that you can get rid of.
PP: – Then let’s talk about “I’m Sorry”.
PG: – Oh, “I’m Sorry” I think is a brilliant track!
PP: – In the Roxette demos talks with Sven you mentioned that it had the potential to become single material, but probably because of your fault that you held the production back to make it sound like the demo, it didn’t happen. Was it often the case back then?
PG: – It should have been a single, because it’s a really good title. “I’m Sorry”. I always loved that chorus. I think it’s a brilliant chorus. It’s so catchy. Maybe the production is compromised, because I wanted certain things and Clarence wanted other things. At the end of the day, nobody was really happy with what we’ve done with it. So that’s why it got really low on the album. It never became a single, but it’s a good track. I think it’s one of those songs that I would love to try to play live as well in the future. We’ll see.
PP: – Would be great! The last two tracks are “Love Is All (Shine Your Light On Me)” and “Go To Sleep”. Do you remember Marie’s first reaction and thoughts on “Love Is All”?
PG: – No, I don’t. I remember when I made the demo, it was sung by Camilla Gustafsson, who was singing on a few of my demos in those days. She did a great job. Musically, it’s a pretty interesting song. It’s all about these sustained chords. I thought it was really nice to have these angel style verses and then I’m coming in to do the chorus, which is very simple. It’s a very classic chord sequence. I thought it was great, but it’s too long. That was like this „Hey Jude” style. The same style we have at the end of “Doesn’t Make Sense”. You create like a new theme and it just goes on and on and on until you just puke. Haha. I think we overdid it on “Love Is All”. But I’m sure that if you check out the master tapes, the multitrack tapes, it’s probably five minutes longer.
PP: – So in the end, you shortened it. Haha. “Go To Sleep” is the only song to which Marie wrote the music. How did it work?
PG: – Well, I think Marie just had her first child when we recorded this album, so she was on and off in the studio. When she presented “Go To Sleep” and “See Me”, for some reason, we picked or she picked “Go To Sleep”. Maybe it was like a go to sleep song in the end. Personally, I prefer “See Me”. I think that’s a really wonderful song. We used that on “Travelling”, right?
PP: – Yes, it’s on “Travelling”.
PG: – A beautiful one!
PP: – You mentioned that Marie had her first child when you recorded this album and she recorded many of the vocals while she was pregnant. She said in an interview that it felt comfortable for her to make this album. Did you hear any difference in how she was singing?
PG: – No, not really. I remember what was different was that she wasn’t around that much as she used to be. But that was natural. Then, of course, that became the norm. Then she had another child, Oscar, and I became a parent as well. When we did the “Have A Nice Day” album in 1998 it was also different, because then suddenly we worked with Michael Ilbert who was producing, and he and Marie didn’t really get along that well. It became more and more me and Clarence and then me and Clarence and Christoffer. That was a little bit unfortunate, I thought. But it was Marie’s choice. Vocal wise, she was always amazing. I remember doing “Milk And Toast And Honey” for “Room Service”. It was just an amazing take, but she wasn’t really that interested anymore. I called her up and I said, “can’t you come to the studio and do another take on the end of the song? Because we have to alter the melody of it. So you have to bring the song home, so to speak.” So she did. But she came with a taxi, and she left the taxi outside. So she went in and sang the new melodies that I had written and it took like six minutes or so. Then she went away and we continued working. That was unfortunate a bit, but that was the way it turned out to be. She had family, so she had other priorities. And that was also what I guess became the ending of Roxette before Marie got ill. She wanted to do other things.
PP: – Four of the album songs were also released in Spanish: “Crash! Boom! Bang!”, “Run To You” (Directamente a ti), “I’m Sorry” (Cuánto lo siento) and “Vulnerable” (Tímida). 3 were sung by Marie, 1 by you. You tried to avoid singing in Spanish. How come you picked “Vulnerable” as well?
PG: – [He is hiding his face with his hands.] I tried to sing in Spanish and it just sounded so ridiculous. But Marie was really amazing. She didn’t speak Spanish at all, but she sounded great. The Head of EMI Spain, I think his name was Rafael Gil, he was a wonderful person. He came to Stockholm during that whole recording session and he was like the tutor to tell Marie how to pronounce things and what you can and can’t do. She didn’t have a clue what she was singing about and I certainly didn’t have a clue what I was singing, but I did my best. I never really listened to that album at all. But a lot of people liked it. It was a record label decision to do something in Spanish. I didn’t really like the idea, but then I remembered that The Beatles did stuff in German, so I said OK. Haha.
PP: – It’s fun that you did that. Which is the best title on the album?
PG: – Best title? “Crash! Boom! Bang!” is a good title. “Fireworks” is a good title. “Sleeping In My Car” is a good title. “The First Girl On The Moon” is interesting. “I Love The Sound Of Crashing Guitars” is a much better title than song. “What’s She Like?”, good. “Do You Wanna Go The Whole Way?”, good. “I’m Sorry”, good. “Love Is All”, hm. “Go To Sleep”, decent.
PP: – Which song has the best hook?
PG: – Best hook? [Per wanted to look at his note on the screen, but it went dark.]
PP: – The hook has gone. Haha.
PG: – I think “Sleeping In My Car” has got a great guitar riff. I think that’s pretty in your face. But I like the “bamm ba bamm” [he is humming it] on “Crash! Boom! Bang!” as well. That’s Burt Bacharach style. I’ve always loved that one.
PP: – Which song has the strongest lyrics?
PG: – “Crash”, I think. “What’s She Like?” is also a good lyric. For me, that was like the special song on the album.
PP: – And why was it so special to you?
PG: – Because everything was there. Marie’s voice is amazing, the song is there, the melody is there and the lyrics are there. And also Clarence’s choice of sounds, synthesizers [he has a problem pronouncing this word, haha]. I can’t speak after 16:30… Haha.
PP: – I’m sorry. Haha.
PG: – But anyway, he picked really wonderful sounds. It’s a very good song and it’s like mature Roxette. If someone who doesn’t know anything about Roxette and they pick “What’s She Like?” to represent Roxette, I’m more than happy.
PP: – Which chorus are you the most proud of?
PG: – Most proud of? “I’m Sorry”. It’s the best chorus. The “Sleeping In My Car” chorus is very efficient. “Vulnerable” has a nice chorus as well. But “I’m Sorry”, it’s a brilliant chorus.
PP: – The best melody?
PG: – I don’t know if it’s the best, but the most interesting melody for me is “Do You Wanna Go The Whole Way?” I think it’s really weird, very unlike me, like I said before. It’s irresistible. When I write something like that, I have to do something with it, because I’m stepping out of my comfort zone doing things like that. I don’t know how I do it, but I did it once for that one.
PP: – The coolest rhyme on this album? Do you remember all the lyrics? [He is thinking.] For me it’s “pills and thrills – Hollywood Hills”.
PG: – Yeah, and I like “vintage Jesus – crash the guitar into 1000 pieces”.
PP: – Aaah, that’s cool indeed!
PG: – That’s a nice lyric. It’s just that I don’t like the music. You know, I had that lyric lying around for quite a long time. I tried to write music to it, but it’s complicated, because it’s got all these really long sentences. It’s really hard to write in my style of music. I need shorter phrases, so I can sort of trick the ear a bit. This is hard for me to do. And when you use a lyric like that, that is so long sentences, it becomes a very long song. I lose interest.
PP: – Which song would be an instant hit in a 2024 remix? If it’s done by Bassflow. Haha.
PG: – Haha. There’s not that many. I mean, “Sleeping In My Car” is the obvious choice, because it’s sort of instant. You could do “Sleeping In My Car” in so many different ways. If someone would have done that in a Max Martin production style, it sounds like a hit record, because it’s got all those chord structures and those melodies and lyrics. This album was made by 35-year-old people. I mean, we were getting old already then. Haha.
PP: – Being on the charts was more important for you in the ’90s than it is today. How did you cope with the positions you reached with CBB after the success of “Joyride”? I mean CBB was a commercial success too.
PG: – Well, it was OK for us. The problem with “Crash” was that we didn’t have a deal in the States anymore, because our record label got sold. 127 people got sacked and 127 new people came in and they didn’t have any relationship with “Look Sharp!” or “Joyride” or Roxette. So, we were left out in the snow. They didn’t really want to release this album and that’s why we wound up in a campaign with McDonald’s, as you know, which was crazy. It was just a business thing for the label. Tina Turner and everyone was involved. They sold zillions and zillions of records, but we were the only ones who presented new music. Everything else was like compilations.
PP: – Ah, I didn’t know that. That it was compilations for other artists.
PG: – I thought it was a big mistake to do that. I told them so, but they convinced everyone, including the Swedish company, that that was the way to go. Knowing that, I felt like we lost our momentum in the States, which we did, and that really never came back.
PP: – I’ve checked the charts who was No. 1 around that time, April 1994. I was surprised to see “The Sign” by Ace Of Base was No. 1 for several weeks in March and May and April was owned by R. Kelly on the Billboard Hot 100. Wasn’t there any chance to change the record company to a more competent one back then?
PG: – No, because we were stuck with a long contract. So eventually, when “Have A Nice Day” came out in 1999, it was never released in the States at all. Then we found an independent label called Edel Records. Maybe we did a compilation. I think it was probably a compilation with all the old hits. [Edel America Records released a 16-track “Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus” greatest hits compilation in the US in 2000.] We toured acoustically and did acoustic shows in the States.
PP: – At Virgin.
PG: – Yeah, Virgin Megastore in New York and some theatres here and there. But it was tough. The momentum was pretty much lost with “Crash” in the States. Thinking about that, I thought the response elsewhere was great.
PP: – The tour excluded the US, but still you did 81 concerts in 4 continents for more than 1 million people. That’s amazing!
PG: – The tour was a big success and we finally got to play South Africa. That was massive stadiums.
PP: – And also China! How proud were you that even Mick Jagger envied you for that?
PG: – That was fantastic! But all in all, when I look back, it was these eight years from 1988 to 1995, the heydays of the band. After that, we took a break, Marie had a second child and I did the first Gyllene Tider comeback in 1995-1996. Then “The World According To Gessle” in 1997.
PP: – The setlist included 8 songs from CBB.
PG: – Wow!
PP: – That’s more than half of the album. Why did you think it would work out fine to play so many new songs?
PG: – The “Crash” band was different from before. Suddenly we had Micke Nord Andersson on guitar, because he was such a great personality on stage, as well as being a great lap steel player. We had two drummers, Pelle and Mats Persson on percussion as well. So it was a different lineup. Probably, because of that. You could do that in those days. If you had a fanbase coming to your shows, they expected you to play songs that they haven’t heard on the last tour. Nowadays everyone, especially big artists, play the big songs. As soon as they play something from the new album, everyone goes and buys a beer, including me. Haha. I don’t know, it’s a different ball game.
PP: – How do you think the CBB era formed your fanbase?
PG: – Oh, I don’t know. I never thought about that. I think when you work mainly in a Top 40 format – everything I’ve done is based on what we call Top 40. It’s not Top 40 anymore, because it’s old, but it used to be Top 40. I think, if you have big songs, you’re going to keep your fans. If you don’t have big songs anymore, they’re going to move on to something else. Because most people aren’t super interested in everything you do. They are interested in certain things you do and you have to be aware of that. I always thought it was impossible and actually boring to try to have success all the time at any cost, because you have to follow your own line. We talked a little bit earlier about finding your own style and going from there. I think if you’re lucky enough to have your heart in pop music that is Top 40 anyway, you’re probably going to wind up having a hit record anyway down the road, because that’s what you’re going to get good at. But to sit down and try to create hits for an international market, when the main purpose is that it should be hits, I think that’s really stupid, because what you lose is your personality. That’s why I think lots of the current pop scene is really boring, because it’s written by eight people and there’s no one in charge. The artist isn’t in charge anymore. The producer might be in charge, but it’s like a mishmash of everything. And everything sounds like it’s the way it’s supposed to sound. I think that’s the end of a career. If you’re lucky enough to have hits, you should cherish the moment, because it might never come again. Suddenly, you want to work with some other people, or maybe you want to go in another direction, and then suddenly you lose 92% of all the people who loved the previous single. Haha. They don’t like violins, or they don’t like fiddles, or they don’t like lap steels or whatever. They think it’s too much dance or it’s too little guitars, or it’s too many guitars.
PP: – It has to please you, first of all.
PG: – If it doesn’t please me, I can’t see how I could finish the production, or finish the song even. When you write a song, you have to have a target or a goal, a direction that you want to go into with a song. And you have to fulfill that. In the ’80s, when my career went down in the mid ’80s and I started writing songs with other writers, I immediately realized that was not for me, because it’s so much compromise all the time. I write something, a lyric or whatever, and they say, oh, you have to change that line, you have to change that word, I can’t sing that word, blah, blah, blah. It winds up not being me anymore. It becomes something in between all the time and that is not what I want to do. That’s why I wanted to be an artist also. I wanted to make my own records, because then I could be in charge of…
PP: – …be your own boss.
PG: – Yeah, be my own boss, exactly. Amen.
PP: – The show in Johannesburg, South Africa was recorded to be released on VHS. You already shared a wonderful, remastered version of “Spending My Time”. Will we get to see the complete show remastered?
PG: – I think it’s done, actually. Absolutely, it’s on the way.
PP: – Fabulous! And earlier you promised a 30th anniversary release. What can we expect and when? I guess it will come only next year?
PG: – No, it’s coming for Christmas!
PP: – For Christmas this year? Yay!
PG: – It’s got 23 demos on it.
PP: – Wow!
PG: – There’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 [he is checking his note on the computer], at least 5 that’s never been published before. Some of them are out in The Per Gessle Archives box, but there’s a few that I found, like “Lies”, for instance, “What’s She Like?”. That’s a terrible demo. Ew! I remember that one.
PP: – Haha, we will love it, I’m sure!
PG: – And there’s other songs that didn’t make the album, but it was written during that era as well.
PP: – Sounds exciting! So it will be the upscaled version of the live thing, then the demos. What else can we expect?
PG: – It will be a physical product. I don’t know if it’s going to be a triple album or a triple CD or a double CD or whatever. But the concert will be separate. That’s the plan anyway. We talked about it the other day. I actually called Warner, because I knew I was going to talk to you, so I thought I might have some updated info.
PP: – Thank you!
PG: – We will release it at the end of November, early December. It’s in the can.
PP: – Great to have something to look forward to for Christmas as well.
PG: – I have a fantastic thing coming out on my birthday next year.
PP: – You are a teaser! Haha. So, in the musical, there will be “What’s She Like?”, “Crash! Boom! Bang!”… Any other songs from CBB? I guess “Sleeping In My Car” is in there too.
PG: – Yeah, “Sleeping In My Car” is in there. There are quite a few songs from “Crash”.
PP: – As real songs or as underscore?
PG: – No, with the lyrics and everything. There are lots of songs in the musical. More than I expected, actually. There are a few songs that I miss, but they couldn’t put them into the script.
PP: – If there are so many songs included, will there be any conversations between the characters or will they be only singing? Haha.
PG: – Haha. It’s a great story. I think it’s going to be marvellous to watch.
PP: – Can’t wait!
PG: – I brought MP with me the other day, and he was silent for like three hours. It’s really cool, and everyone is so passionate about it. It’s a wonderful team and everyone enjoys working together, so the vibe is just amazing. Tomorrow we are going to watch the costumes for the first time. They created 1180 pieces of wardrobe!
PP: – Wow! I’m always amazed by all these costumes in musicals.
PG: – This is far out. This guy, who used to work in London as well, but he’s a Swedish guy, he is just wild! He loved that era, late ’80s, early ’90s. The musical takes place in the early ’90s, so you’re going back to the ’90s, and it’s just amazing stuff that he’s done. It’s a really big production. I’m really happy we are doing it in Malmö, because it would have been impossible to do this in a private theatre. This is too big for that. So this is going to be wild. It’s a huge stage. That’s what makes Malmö so special. It’s really, really deep. There are things that you can’t really do in any location in Stockholm, for instance. So, yeah, it’s going to be exciting for sure.
PP: – I’m definitely very excited about it. OK, Per. It was a bit more than one hour. I’m very sorry for that.
PG: – Nah, it’s fine. I got my flowers. Haha.
PP: – Haha. Happy anniversary to you and happy celebration!
PG: – Thank you very much!
PP: – Then see you on the 6th!
PG: – See you on the 6th! Keep it up!
PP: – Thank you very much, Per! Bye-bye!
PG: – Thank you! Bye!
Stills are from the interview.
PP: – The fab photo on the sleeve of „Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig” is taken by Bruno Ehrs. How did you choose him for this project?
PP: – Regarding „Bag of Trix”, the box set, how did you decide which tracks to put on which volume, how to mix the different eras?
