Per Gessle

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 Gry Forssell med vänner, Mix Megapol

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Per Gessle was a guest of Gry Forssell med vänner on Swedish radio Mix Megapol on 30th November. You can listen to the morning show HERE and listen to the 20-minute-long chat from 20:10 into the program.

Gry welcomes Per in the studio by saying he has done everything from tear-jerking ballads in Swedish to international dance music. PG thanks for the warm welcome and to the question how he is, he replies he feels absolutely wonderful and it’s so much fun to be there. He mentions the radio has a nice Christmas tree. Gry explains they play Christmas music now all the way until Christmas to get into the right mood. She thinks it might be considered a bit of a jumpstart with Christmas decorations, but now after the First Sunday of Advent… Per thinks it’s totally fine. Gry is curious if Per has already decorated and the answer is a strict no. Then Gry asks if he will decorate and the answer is no again. Gry asks if Per is the Grinch. Haha. Per says he is bad at that sort of thing, but he thinks it’s kind of cozy. Gry is shocked how someone can make Christmas music and not be a Christmas decorator. She thinks it’s cheating. Per agrees and informs he wrote his new Christmas single in June. Haha.

One of the program leader guys says he found Sweden’s strangest word. It’s „nja”, the mix of „ja” (yes) and „nej” (no). He is wondering how it can be a word, both no and yes at the same time. Per thinks it’s typical Swedish.

Gry asks Per what he is thinking about today. Mr. G replies that it is so early. When he woke up this morning he was wondering what planet he was on. He tells he is not a morning person, but it got better over the years. Gry is curious whether Per stays in bed after waking up or gets up immediately. PG says he is up right away, otherwise it may get a bit too cozy. Haha.

Gry tells the listeners that they will play Per’s new Christmas song, but first she wants to hear about It Must Have Been Love, if it’s true that it’s a Christmas song. PG tells it was written as a Christmas song in 1987. They tried to get abroad with Roxette, also to Germany for example, but they said they couldn’t play anything from Roxette on the radio. They suggested that he should write a Christmas song to make it maybe a little easier then. So he wrote It Must Have Been Love and played it for them, but they didn’t like it at all. So it was released in Sweden only and became quite big at Christmas 1987. Then it was forgotten and later it appeared in Pretty Woman in 1990 and the rest is history.

After playing IMHBL, Gry tells sometimes you have to be happy that a song comes to an end because her colleague asks stupid questions. He asked Per about Gyllene Tider and reggae. Gry apologizes for the question and they are laughing. Per says they tried to make some kind of reggae version of Flickorna på TV2 and När vi två blir en, but it didn’t go too well. It was a bit of Halmstad reggae.

Here Gry reads a listener’s letter who asks for advice. She is 26 and has been going out with a guy since months, but she hasn’t told him about her past that she was a drug addict. The guy made it clear he hates drugs. She asks advice whether she should tell it to the guy or wait with it. Gry and Co. are discussing the topic and think the girl should tell her boyfriend about her past. Per thinks so too and also thinks it sounds like a quite tough relationship. They discuss that the guy thinks how can someone be so stupid to take drugs, but the girl also thinks it’s stupid, because she has stopped taking drugs. So they actually think the same. Attitude towards things is not really that simple that you can judge like that. Per thinks he shouldn’t be a hobby psychologist.

Gry tells it’s completely impossible to find scandals around Per Gessle. She doesn’t know whether Per is not involved in any or he is just hiding them very well. Per says he is very good at keeping his scandals a secret. One scandal Gry heard about, she says. Per says, „shit, what’s her name?” Haha. Gry says her name is Tylösand. She heard that Per has never bathed in Tylösand. PG says it’s true. Gry can’t believe it. Per says he has never gone down and dipped his toes in. He explains it’s because his father and grandfather were plumbers and they worked in Frösakull, so when he was a child in the ’60s and ’70s he was hanging out and bathed there. He had no close relationship with Tylösand. He was around 19, 20, 21 years old when he went down there and went to the nightclub to fool around a bit. It’s also the case that Gyllene Tider became big when he was 21 and after that it wasn’t really possible to just go down to the beach.

Gry asks Per about PG Roxette’s Christmas songs. The B side of the single was a song he wrote in 2013 for a musical that never happened. So it was lying around and matured a bit. It’s a very nice ballad, but then he thought he would write an uptempo song just out of the blue and that’s the one that became a single. Gry is curious how Per got the Christmas inspiration in the middle of summer. Per says you don’t need anything special, just to put on Santa’s hat at home. They are laughing. It’s just that you think and try to write something that is a little bit festive and lovely. Gry thinks it’s sweet that Per thinks about the single as an A side and B side thing, even if he also released it digitally. Per says it’s a sign that he is getting very old.

Gry asks Per what his first vinyl was. It was an LP by The Kinks, The Kink Kontroversy. He bought it in secret from his brother who needed money for cigarette.

The guys also talk about the happy news that Gyllene Tider goes on tour next summer. It’s called Hux Flux. They ask Per if we can expect new songs as well. PG says absolutely, there is a brand new LP already recorded. It will come out in spring and it’s also called Hux Flux. Gry says she doesn’t want Per to get her wrong, but all those who bought tickets and went on their farewell tour and stood at the front and cried and said, „now we’re part of something historic”… Do they ask for their money back now? Haha. Per says no, he hopes they had a nice evening. Mr. G says it’s an interesting discussion, though. What actually happened is that the pandemic came. It was Micke Syd at the time who thought they should do their last tour in 2019. And then when the pandemic happened, all of a sudden it felt like they might come up with something, do something more together and it started then with Per writing a bunch of songs for the band and they recorded them. It turned out to be a damn good record. Now they are going on tour again.

Here they play Wish You The Best For Xmas by PG Roxette.

Gry asks Per to tell a true and a false happening from his life. They will try to find out which one is true. Per says he has prepared a bit ambitiously for this, so instead of a statement he asks the question whether Gyllene Tider has ever been called Roxette or not. Per continues with a little explanation that in 1985 Gyllene Tider was over. It took 9 years until 1996 before the first comeback happened and the last album that Gyllene Tider recorded was in English. It was called The Heartland Café. This album was released in the US and Gyllene Tider was marketed under the name Roxette. True or false? The radio gang finds this question exciting. In 1985 they took a break, then in 1996 they came back. Per says it was with those songs, Juni, juli, augusti and Gå & fiska! Someone thinks it’s true, someone thinks it’s false. Someone thinks it was such a detailed story that it must be true. Per tells in the end that it’s true. Gyllene Tider’s English name was Roxette back then. Gry asks how come she didn’t know about it. Per says because she doesn’t read books about him. They are laughing. Per says Marie and he started Roxette one year later. The idea for the name came from a band Gyllene Tider listened to a lot, Dr. Feelgood, an English pub rock band. They have a song called Roxette that they all loved, so they took their name from that song.

Gry and Co. thank Per for coming to the show and hanging out with them. They wish Mr. G a nice Christmas break. Per wishes the same and thanks for inviting him and for the good sandwiches. Gry wishes Per a nice Christmas in Halmstad and asks him to come back to them before the GT tour.

Still is from Per’s Xmas single teaser video.

Per Gessle nominated as Hallandian of The Year for the fourth time!

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It’s the fourth time Per Gessle is nominated as Hallandian of The Year. The first 3 winners in 2019, 2020 and 2021 were Janne Andersson, Boris Lennerhov and My Feldt.

The prize is awarded by the Marketing Association in Halland in collaboration with Hallandsposten and Hallands Nyheter. Hallandians themselves have been able to nominate people who they think have been good ambassadors for Halland 2022.

Voting runs until 30th November. The winner will be awarded at the Breakfast Gala on 14th December. For the winner, in addition to the honor, a place among the previous winners awaits at Halmstad City Airport and also a painting created by artist Dagmar Glemme.

You can vote HERE!

The jury’s motivation for nominating Mr. G:

Per Gessle is one of Sweden’s most successful artists and songwriters. He has put Halland on the world map for several decades with his music in various forms and constellations. During 2022, he has once again been widely noticed in all media after releasing previously unpublished songs, recording a duet with Uno Svenningsson and releasing a new record with both Gyllene Tider and PG Roxette. Per is also a co-owner of Hotel Tylösand, which has received many prestigious awards and annually attracts large numbers of tourists and conference guests and has Sweden’s largest art gallery.

Good luck, Per!

Stills are from the Pop-Up Dynamo! track by track videos.

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!

Signed Per Gessle guitar finds loving home at STIM Music Room

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STIM Music Room – a collaborative workspace at STIM’s Stockholm office, available to all STIM affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers – has been donated a new guitar. During the ’90s it travelled the world and now it has finally found a home at STIM.

STIM: – Hello Per Gessle! Tell us about the guitar, what has it experienced?

Per Gessle: – It’s a guitar that’s been around in the dressing rooms since the ’90s when we were warming up for Roxette gigs. We used to get the whole band together and sing, play and goof around a bit. It often was “Church Of Your Heart” and “Dangerous”. A lot of warm-up singing.

STIM: – During your long and successful career, how do you think you’ve developed as a songwriter over the years?

PG: – You develop (or become more complicated) without knowing it. My style as a songwriter is probably the same as before, I have the same musical ideals. But… I’ve learned a thing or two over the years which has probably made me more sophisticated and professional. For better or worse. There’s a quality you have when you’re young that slowly but surely disappears when you start to understand what you’re doing.

STIM: – You are writing songs in both Swedish and English. Is the process different?

PG: – There is no major difference. I always try to find a symbiosis between text and music so they pull in the same direction. I often start with a title that sets the tone or color of the song. Sometimes a single word can be enough. The hardest thing for me is writing lyrics to a “finished” melody. I like it most when all the fireworks happen at once.

STIM: – What’s next?

PG: – It’s a lot going on as always. I released my continuation of the PG Roxette adventure now at the end of October. Then there will also be two PG Roxette Christmas songs at the end of November and more singles will be released in spring 2023. Spring 2023 will also see a brand new Gyllene Tider album called “Hux Flux”. And next summer Gyllene Tider will play 20 concerts around Scandinavia. In parallel with this, work is underway on a Gyllene Tider movie and an international Roxette musical. Both of these projects should be ready for viewing in 2024. No rest for the wicked. Just as it should be.

Thanx for the hint, Sandra Knospe!