Per Gessle

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle continued their Top30 ’90s songs from Sweden series in the December episode of Nordic Rox.

The guys are counting down from position No. 25 to 21. Sven mentions at the beginning of the show that Per has a brand new single. It’s released by a duo called Per and Lena. PG confirms, but Sven keeps the listeners waiting. Good things come to those who wait, he says.

They kick off the program with some garage rock from Stockholm. Ain’t Coming Home by The Sewergrooves is played. Hemingway by Girl In Red is next. Then comes I’m Gonna Dance by The Mo and l.o.v.e by SHY Martin.

Woman & A Child by Mikael Rickfors, taken from the Judas River album in 1991, kicks off the five songs on the ’90s countdown.

The guys are moving on to a great song that Per really likes. It’s by Andreas Johnson. He used to sing and write songs in the band called Planet Waves. Sven asks Per who made an album called Planet Waves. First Per doesn’t realize what the question was referring to, but after he got it, he says it was Bob Dylan. Sven smiles and says it was just some quick pop quiz here. Mr. G continues that Andreas Johnson had a big solo career starting off with this particular album called Liebling in 1999, just in the final hours of the ’90s. This song that the guys chose was a big international hit for him in Europe. In France, for instance and in England as well. It’s called Glorious produced by Peter Kvint, a great Swedish producer. The song has a chorus you just can’t forget, according to Sven. Per thinks it’s wonderful, it stood the test of time. Sven says Per thinks that the chorus takes over everything and the verse is rather… not bland, but… Per tries to put it into words and explains that you need a neutral verse to get a chorus like that. He thinks it’s an amazing chorus. No wonder it became a major hit.

Sven and Per go into some Swedish lyric songs. Coming up first is a song called Lilla fågel blå (Little Bird Blue) by a songwriter and artist called Staffan Hellstrand. It was a big song for him, his biggest hit so far. Sven adds that it was backed by Swedish garage rock kings, The Nomads, which gave it an edge as well. PG thinks it’s a great song.

The tension rises, the guys are heading for No. 22. They picked Broken Promise Land by Weeping Willows. It sounds a bit of melancholy and that’s basically what it is, Sven says. Per agrees. It was their breakthrough song in 1997. They are still around, making new records, touring. Sven saw the lead singer Magnus Carlson on Swedish television a couple of days ago, so they are very much active.

No. 21 is a song by Marie Fredriksson. It’s another Swedish lyric song, a beautiful ballad called Tro. It can be translated into „faith” or „belief”. Marie made a solo album in 1996 when Roxette took a break. They took a four-year break after 1995, when they finished touring and Marie had her second child. She made a solo album and Tro was the first single. It was also part of a film and it was a really big hit for Marie. It’s a really wonderful song, an amazing song, Per thinks. Sven agrees and he says Marie tried to squeeze in a Swedish solo career between all the Roxette commitments, which were basically taken up all the time otherwise. Per adds that she wrote Swedish stuff that was not really in the pop style. She wanted to do things in Swedish as well. She never felt comfortable writing English lyrics anyway. She had lots of other things on her mind, which was great.

And that wraps up the Swedish ’90s list for this time. On the next show the guys are entering the top 20. So it’s going to be exciting further on.

James by Ex Cops, I Believed by Maria Jane Smith and Sweet Jackie by Sugarplum Fairy are played.

Then comes Bad Blood by Per + Lena. It’s the new single by Per and Lena Philipsson, who is singing with Roxette these days. It’s a little new piece of music that they put together over the summer season. Mr. G thinks it’s cool. Sven thinks it’s a great track and it sounds very inspired. Per says they were inspired and it was great fun making it. He co-wrote it together with a guy called Alex Shield. PG has been working with him a bit in the past on different projects. It’s got a sort of a Stonesy vibe to it. Per likes it and he also likes how Lena is singing on it. She is really cool, Sven thinks. He promises to sit down with Per and Lena to discuss the current tour and next year’s activities, which will be quite a lot. They will still be touring. It’s a big world, Per adds.

Sven and PG thank the listeners for joining them and they say goodbye. The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

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

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle started a new series in the November episode of Nordic Rox. They count down the Top30 ’90s songs from Sweden. The guys recorded this show in Stockholm before Per started the rehearsals for the autumn leg of the Roxette In Concert tour.

Per thinks the ’90s was a fabulous decade. Sven agrees. It’s actually one of his favourites, apart from the ’60s, the ’70s, and the ’80s. Haha. PG says, if you look back to the ’90s, it’s sort of grown on you over time. Sven says they are going to focus on the Swedish pop and rock stuff, which excelled during the ’90s. A lot of bands are coming up, not least a band called Roxette, which Sven can guarantee we will hear later on. Not today, because they are going to focus on positions from number 30 to 26 this time.

Sven asks Per what is happening with him, with Roxette. He says they are rehearsing for a new leg on the tour. They have been touring this year, they started in South Africa and Australia in the spring, and then did a big summer tour in Europe. And now they are going back to Europe again, playing the arenas. Starting in Budapest, Hungary, and going all over the place. 16, 18 shows before Christmas. Per says it feels good, starting rehearsing next week. They are getting the band together and seeing if everyone is alive. Sven will meet them up and check out their top shape at Wembley Arena in London. The band is playing there on 1st December. Per says Sven is most welcome and he can join Per on stage. Haha.

The kick off song on the program is a song that could be a theme song for the upcoming Nordic Rox shows, Back In The ’90s by the band Melodic Fluke. They are from Halmstad, Sweden, Per’s hometown. PG says they played Halmstad on the Roxette tour this summer and Melodic Fluke was their support act. They actually made a new album, and they sent it to Per. Mr. G listened to it and he thought it was really, really good. So he asked them to become the support act for the show. Sven says that’s what happens if you are lucky and send your new album to Per Gessle.

Hawaii Mud Bombers by Johanna Beach is next, one of Per’s favourites. Per thinks that it’s a great song. It’s like a surf, ghost punk. Sven adds that they got signed by Wicked Cool Records, Stevie Van Zandt’s record company. Stevie Van Zandt has this Sirius XM show Little Steven’s Underground Garage.

Then comes Dark Moon by Johnossi and Mon Amour by The Plan.

It’s time to check out the ’90s list. On position number 30 they have a female artist called Dilba. I’m Sorry from 1996 was a big hit single, a big radio single from Dilba’s debut album. PG thinks it’s an amazing song, such a great track. It stood the test of time for sure. It’s produced by Eric Gadd.

And Eric Gadd happens to be next in line with a song called Do You Believe In Me. It was his breakthrough song. He debuted in the ’80s, but this track is taken from his third album, which came out in 1991. The album was called Do You Believe in Gadd? Haha. Sven didn’t know, but interestingly enough, Do You Believe In Me was a dance hit in the Philippines. Per is curious how Sven knows it. Sven has got connections. Haha.

On No. 28, the guys have an amazing song that Per really likes. Precis som du, which translates into Just Like You, by a singer called Irma Schultz. She had a pretty big career in Sweden with her sister, Irma and Idde Schultz. But this is a solo single written by Mauro Scocco, who is a great songwriter. Sven says they had the pleasure of focusing on Mauro as a guest here on Nordic Rox a couple of years ago. He is a singer and songwriter in a band called Ratata, but he is doing solo as well. He is still around. He wrote this song, and this is a very typical Mauro Scocco song, and with a very typical ’90s production. Sven asks Per what a typical ’90s production is. For PG, it’s very much the style of the drum loops. Drum loops were used in a very special way. You can tell that this is like the ’90s. They did that themselves, with Roxette. They made the Have A Nice Day album, and the Crash album in the ’90s. Especially in the late ’90s, it was very much the drum loops.

No. 27. is Fishtank by a great little band called This Perfect Day. Typically ’90s. The song is from 1997, so this is where power pop, guitars, loud guitars, everything to the fore. It was a pretty big hit in Sweden in 1997, it topped the so-called tracks chart that year, which was the most important chart in Sweden at the time. The band is from the north of Sweden, and the song is taken from their third and last album. It’s called C-60. Sven asks Per if he remembers C-60 and C-90. PG remembers those were cassettes. The album surely came out on CD, the guys are not sure about vinyl. It’s a great song, Per thinks. If you happened to be in Sweden in 1997 and you turned on the radio, you couldn’t escape Fishtank.

The guys check out the debut album of Caesars Palace. They were called Caesars Palace when they started out and then they dropped the „palace” thing. Sven thinks there was a lawyer from Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, calling them up and say, they were there first. Haha. They changed their name to Twelve Caesars, but nowadays it’s just Caesars. They had a big song, Jerk It Out, a couple of years later on, but the song that Sven and Per picked is the opening track of their debut album from 1998. It’s called Sort It Out and the album is called Youth Is Wasted On The Young. Per thinks it’s a great track. It’s ’90s with a sort of garage touch to it as well. They are a very charming band, easy to like. They are featuring two future, or maybe they were current back then, members of the Teddybears. Klas and Joakim Åhlund. And Klas, of course, went on to become a great producer for Robyn, for instance. He is a songwriter and producer. He is also working with Ghost and he even wrote the lyrics to Piece Of Me by Britney Spears. Nice CV.

That concludes this show’s dive into the ’90s.

The guys still play 4 songs on the program, first Electric by a band from Sven’s old hometown, Växjö, Melody Club, then I Believed by Maria Jane Smith and Poetic by Seinabo Sey. The last song on the show is T-T-T-Take It! by Per Gessle from his solo album, The World According To Gessle released in 1997.

Sven and Per say goodbye and thank the listeners for joining them. The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!