Per Gessle

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – August 2025

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Sven Lindström and Per Gessle are counting down the Top5 songs on their Swedish best of the ’80s list on the August episode of Nordic Rox. The guys recorded this show in Halmstad on a sunny day.

The first song they present is Girl Of My Dreams, a somewhat unique Swedish recording of a power pop classic. Per thinks it must be the last recording ever made by Dwight Twilley who unfortunately passed away not long ago. He was singing on a track by a Swedish band called Helikoptern, which means the helicopter. It’s a great track, and Dwight Twilley has always been one of Per’s big favourites. Sven thinks he was a fantastic songwriter and his ’70s and early ’80s stuff are amazing. Per agrees. It was a song by Bram Tchaikovsky from 1979. They are one of those forgotten heroes from the power pop age in England.

Iconic by Maja Ivarsson is next. It’s her latest single from her solo project. She is the lead singer of The Sounds, a great band that is out touring now in Sweden. Paint A Picture by The Hives comes next. It’s their latest single. They have a new album coming out in the fall and there are a few tasters from that. This song sounds excellent.

You Can’t Hurry Love by The Concretes is played next. Then comes Midnight Prayer by Bad Cash Quartet from Gothenburg, a song from 2003. Per loves this track.

After that, the guys play Fancy by Svenne & Lotta. It’s from one of Per’s favourite albums. He loves this song that was written by Bobbie Gentry. There are so many versions of it out there, but this is actually one of Per’s favourites. Lotta was born in the States, and you can hear that she really loved this style of music. She was a great singer in that era and she is still a great singer. This song is from 1970 when they made this cover. When PG was a kid, he had this song and he still loves it today. It made Sven think a little bit of Dusty Springfield’s Son Of A Preacher Man. It’s the same vibe. It’s a great track with great lyrics, and Per is really happy that they found it to play it on Nordic Rox. Sven says Svenne Hedlund was the singer and the godlike pop star in the Swedish ’60s, in the same group that saw Benny Andersson from ABBA on keyboards. That band was The Hep Stars. PG’s favourite band when he was 6 years old.

Getting down to the countdown, Sven and Per start with one of the biggest bands to come out of the Swedish punk rock movement: Ebba Grön. They made an album in 1981, Kärlek och uppror. It means love and revolution. It was a big album, which made them sort of mainstream. The opening track, 800°C is at a well-deserved fifth position on the ’80s countdown. Per thinks this track is really wonderful.

Magnus Lindberg was one of Per’s label mates back in the days when he had his power pop group, Gyllene Tider. Magnus started out in the ’70s playing in a Swedish band called Landslaget, and then he turned into a singer-songwriter in the late ’70s and made a couple of albums that were really nice. Then it got sort of electrified, more energized on this album. He was really affected by the new wave scene and suddenly in 1981 he released this sort of new wave-ish style album called Röda läppar, which translates into red lips. It’s still a great album. He is a great writer, a great singer and he had a great band as well. Per says, unfortunately, he is not with us anymore, but we can still listen to his music, thank God. Sven wouldn’t say that it’s 100%, but he would assume that this might be the US premiere for Magnus Lindberg. They play Röda läppar in position number four. A wonderful song that stood the test of time pretty well.

After a solo artist, the guys are moving into the band territory. There is a great band from Stockholm in the third position. Reeperbahn had a couple of great tracks in the early ’80s. The single, Lycklig (happy) is from 1980. It was just a single, it’s not on any album. The band was really influenced by the band Television. They even looked like Television. Per likes them a lot and thinks they were really strong. 1980 was just when they got started with Gyllene Tider, and Reeperbahn was a great competition. Sven remembers Per once said that he thought their albums sounded really great, their early ’80s stuff. PG wanted to sound better on the recordings. Mr. G says that was always the issue with his band, that they didn’t sound good enough on the records. Never satisfied, haha. In the analog days, before the whole digital thing happened in the ’80s, you could really tell the difference between recordings made in Sweden versus recordings made in London or LA or New York. They didn’t really have the same equipment, or the knowledge for that matter. Sven says, except for a certain group in Stockholm, starting with A and ending with A. Per says ABBA sounded great, but if you listen to their early stuff from the mid-70s, it sounds very Swedish. After the digital revolution happened in the mid-80s, they played on equal terms. But Reeperbahn always sounded great and this song sounds fantastic even today, Per thinks. A song that definitely makes you happy.

Another band from Stockholm from 1980 is Docent Död (Dr. Death) on position two. Sven says, when he heard that group’s name, he thought they were an unlistenable punk band, judging the name. They had bands like Grisen Skriker and he thought that Dr. Death was in the same league. But it wasn’t. Per says they were a power pop thing and they made their debut in 1980 with an EP. Solglasögon (sunglasses) is one of the tracks, and it’s still one of Per’s favourite tracks ever coming out of Sweden, it doesn’t matter which decade you are talking about. A great lyric, a great band and a great attitude. Sven agrees. The song has a really funny lyric about this guy who keeps wearing his sunglasses everywhere. A lyric of the kind that is worth taking the effort to learn Swedish. Haha.

The guys are at the rightly honorable number one position. Sven says Per looks very embarrassed and explains that Per has got red cheeks now and he just wants to go out of the room and disappear somewhere. Per says it’s because Sven talked him into this and put a Roxette song, Roxette’s breakthrough song on the number one position. PG says he is much more modest than that. Sven laughs and says he leaves that uncommented. Haha. Regarding The Look, Sven thinks it’s hard to find a song that did a pop job as good as that song. It was Roxette’s breakthrough in the States without even being released there. It’s an amazing thing. It paved the way for four US number one songs. Per says it became the first number one in 1989. All the record labels turned Roxette down, including EMI. So this was brought to America through an exchange student who was in Sweden and picked up the Look Sharp! album that Roxette just had released. He became a big Roxette fan and when he went back to Minneapolis, there was a radio station, KDWB, with a show where the listeners could bring their own records and get them played on the air. So he brought the Look Sharp! album to the radio station and they of course didn’t play it. So he went back after a week to bring it home. Then fate came in and just when he was going to take the record back at the reception, the program director was there as well. He became interested in the record sleeve that looks like a newspaper. So the program director asked the exchange student what’s that and the exchange student said, it’s a Swedish band and he left the record there to put it on the air, but they didn’t play it. The program director thought they should listen to it, because it looked really cool. So they started to listen to the first song off the album and that was The Look. The program director loved the song immediately and said, let’s put it on the air. So they started playing it and the phone started to ring all the time. People wanted to know what song it was. They wanted to hear it again. That’s how Roxette got its first thing going in the States.

That is an amazing story, Sven thinks. Roxette had four US number one singles in the coming years. It was in Billboard magazine that there are 18 persons in history who have written more than three American number ones on their own. And out of those 18, only four people are from Europe. It’s Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, George Michael and Per Gessle. Per says he is in good company.

The funny thing as well with the track The Look is that most of the lyrics Per wrote down just to keep the melody going and he didn’t ever improve on it. Per explains that he had bought a new synthesizer and he tried to learn how to program it. He started working on very simple things and he came up with this idea. To remember the rhythm of what he was doing, he just made up lyrics. Walking like a man, hitting like a hammer, she’s a juvenile scam. Just to remember the rhythm. He recorded it and then when he checked it out, it sounded really cool. Then he did the second verse in the same style. It was in a sort of I Am The Walrus gobbledygook style, which is fun. The idea with Roxette was that Per was a writer and Marie was the singer, so it was really weird that Per was singing on the breakthrough song. That changed of course over the years, because Marie was an amazing singer. So that song broke every rule in every way. That’s how it works in life, isn’t it?

Tin Foil Hat by The Men is played, then Big Girl by Peg Parnevik and The Next Place by Weeping Willows.

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

Pics are from PG’s archives

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Interview with Per Gessle in Cityliv

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Joakim S Ormsmarck did an interview with Per Gessle for Cityliv magazine in Halmstad. Read the original Swedish article HERE!

Roxette is back on stage in Halmstad. With two sold-out concerts, the city is once again filled with fans from all over the world who want to experience Gessle’s treasure trove of songs here at home where it all began. But it is a tribute to Roxette – not a new Roxette – that is now taking the stage.

It has been 36 years since Roxette last performed at Brottet. The pop duo’s breakthrough was still quite fresh at the time, and the concert at home kicked off the Look Sharp Live! Tour, which was to last until the end of the year with all stops from Hunnebostrand to Milan and Brussels. A lot has happened since then, not least the fact that Marie Fredriksson is no longer with us. But Roxette is still Per and Marie, Per makes that clear when he talks to Joakim.

It’s not that I’ve restarted my band with Lena, but the tour we’re on now is a tribute to the song catalogue. Roxette is me and Marie, but since she can’t be there, this is simply a variation. A bit like Queen with Adam Lambert or like Jon Stevens in INXS… Stevens was actually our opening act at some of the shows in Australia and he played a lot of INXS songs, it was fantastic.

Joakim has managed to do this interview during a break on the tour and Per is home in Halmstad for a few sunny days before it’s time for the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland before the summer tour ends with two shows in Gothenburg and two in Halmstad.

Joakim is curious if it is nice to have a break or if it disrupts the rhythm.

Good question actually. It’s both. You lose a bit of that flow that you get when you play every other day and we haven’t played that much together yet. We have only done eighteen shows so we’re still working on getting to know each other on stage. At the same time, it’s really nice to have a few days off for the sake of your throat, plus it’s great to land here when the West Coast is at its best.

The tour started in February in Cape Town, South Africa, Australia and parts of Europe have been completed. After the gigs in Sweden this July, there is a break. Among other things, Per will be working on the musical based on Roxette’s song collection, which will be staged in the autumn at China Theatre in Stockholm. But after that, it’s the tour that counts again.

Joakim wants to know if touring is still as much fun after all these years.

It’s actually more fun now than it was at the beginning. With Gyllene, you were terrified at first. We had done six gigs before we were number one on the charts, so we were constantly fighting against people’s expectations. We learned the hard way, you could say. It was really only during the Roxette era that I started to relax more on stage. With Gyllene, I was the one who would be at the front singing, but with Marie we could share everything.

To the question how he feels the tour he is on now is different from the previous ones, Per replies:

The big difference is that we are not trying to be number one on the list with a new album, but this is a tribute to the Roxette catalogue. We are playing a fantastic treasure trove of songs that very few artists can put their fingers on and that makes it special. We don’t want to promote new music, but play the old.

If Roxette releases new songs:

No, I don’t think so actually. I would like to make more music with Lena, we released “Sällskapssjuk” together last year and I would like to continue that collaboration, but it will not be under the Roxette label.

However, there is a lot of material that Marie and I did that has never been released, studio and live recordings. So there will be more from the original Roxette.

On this year’s tour, Per has gathered musicians who have played and worked with both Roxette and Gyllene Tider, as well as his solo albums. Among others, Jonas Isacsson, who was already on the first albums, is back as a guitarist.

When Jonas plays his solos on “Listen To Your Heart” or “Queen Of Rain”, it’s like time has stood still. It sounds exactly as it did before. It’s pure pleasure.

Joakim asks Per how he puts a band together for a tour like this. If he sits down with the phone book and starts calling around.

It’s a bit like that, actually. The idea of Lena as a singer came when we recorded “Sällskapssjuk” in the studio. She has exactly the power in her voice that Marie had, but in a different way. So we had a meeting and I told her my thoughts. We tested a few songs and when she decided, I started thinking about who I should include in the band.

Per says that his aim was to include as many of the original band members as possible. Jonas Isacsson and Clarence Öfwerman have been with them from the beginning, Christoffer Lundquist was already on the “Have A Nice Day” album in the late ’90s.

Pelle Alsing is no longer with us, but Clarence and Christoffer suggested Magnus Norpan Eriksson, because they thought he played quite like Pelle. I don’t agree with that at all, but he plays really good pop drums and that’s exactly what we need. Especially in songs like “The Big L.” and “How Do You Do!”.

Joakim is curious about how long Per has contracted the band and if there will be Roxette in 2026 as well.

Yes, there is a big world out there with South America, Asia, North America and so on. What has been said now is that we are doing 2025 and 2026, and then we will see. It could be that we do the spring and then we skip it or it will be spring, summer and autumn.

But before that, two packed concerts at Brottet are ahead, and there is no doubt that Per is looking forward to delivering here on home ground.

It is of course special to play here in Halmstad and at Brottet where we have played with Gyllene in recent years, but Roxette has not played there since “Look Sharp!”. So it will be really fun.

All interview text is written by Joakim S Ormsmarck for Cityliv Magazine in Swedish. Here it is a translation by RoxBlog.

Interview with Fredrik Etoall and Per Gessle in Tylösand Magazine

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Joakim S Ormsmarck had a busy interview period and he also met Fredrik Etoall and Per Gessle to ask them about their collaboration. The result of this conversation was published in Tylösand Magazine.

When Fredrik Etoall discovered the camera at the age of 16, it was like the missing piece of the puzzle. Finally, he could express himself and capture the moment that he always lives in the middle of. Two years later, after finishing the media high school, together with a friend they took a car down to Höganäs to see the legendary photographer Christer Strömholm’s exhibition. A trip that would change his life.

It was fantastic. We insisted on getting an internship and I stayed there for periods until Christer passed away three years later. There I got to learn the craft for real, manage Christer’s legacy, retouch prints by hand and work with the images that would be passed on to buyers around the world.

This is where Fredrik and Per Gessle crossed paths for the first time when it dawned on the young photographer that the picture he was working on was going to Per Gessle and his hotel in Tylösand. A hotel filled with photos, he had to go there at some point…

My first memory connected to Per and Roxette is “Look Sharp!” on vinyl. I was eight years old and my mother had bought the record. We listened to it and danced at home in Vänersborg. But what caught my attention the most was the cover, the glamour, that’s where I wanted to be. On tour around the world.

Per interjects:

A fantastic cover. It was Mikael Jansson who took that picture!

For those who know his photography history, Mikael Jansson is a well-known name who has created iconic images over the past thirty years that have been published in all the major magazines around the world. It almost feels a bit typical that he was the one who took the picture for the cover of Roxette’s international breakthrough. Surrounding himself with the best photographers has become something of Per Gessle’s signature. Not uncommon at the beginning of their careers.

To Joakim’s question regarding how Per and Fredrik found each other, Fredrik replies:

In the fall of 2011 I worked with Icona Pop and made the video for “I Love It” which was very different from everything else that was being made at the time, rawer and less tidy. We had almost no budget, but the song and the video were a total hit and I followed the group around the world. In the middle of this, Marie Dimberg, Roxette’s manager, got in touch and wondered if I wanted to shoot the band for their album “Travelling”.

Per continues:

I thought it was fun to work with Fredrik right away. He’s a nice guy and he made sure we looked awesome in the pictures, hahaha. He has a feel for good light and a little fix, but not too much. He has the eye and there’s almost not a single picture that’s been published by Fredrik that isn’t good.

Fredrik laughs:

Thank you, I’ll send you money via Swish for the compliments.

About the photo session, Fredrik says:

We had lots of different things to do. When it came to picture four, Marie couldn’t take it anymore. Then I thought, damn it, it went wrong and I didn’t get any pictures at all. But it turned out that we still managed to take some pictures that still live on.

Per adds:

What Fredrik managed to capture with Roxette there and then were pictures of us that we hadn’t really done before, it was special in a way. Take this picture, for example. I have my black nails and yawn, Marie is standing in the background looking a bit uninterested. It’s a really lovely picture from that session.

In retrospect, everyone who was there that day agrees that something happened there and then. A special connection and trust were created, which led to new collaborations. Over the years, Fredrik has worked with Per and Marie solo as well as Roxette, PG Roxette and Gyllene Tider.

Per remembers:

When we made PG Roxette, we worked for two days. But we didn’t use anything from day two, because we had such a great first day with an incredibly good amount of material. It’s different when it’s just me. It’s easier. When I felt like I wanted to change pants, I just went and got another pair of pants. Or when Fredrik had an idea that I should have something that matched the curtain in the room, we solved it. It’s that simple.

Fredrik agrees:

That’s true, every session is unique. There is a big difference between working with one person or with a whole group, then the dynamics in the group become so important. I have been on jobs on other occasions where there may have been some fuss in the group before I came, and then it is so clearly noticeable. With Gyllene it has been a lot of fun, because there are five such different personalities who together become what is so special.

Fredrik tells Joakim what Marie Fredriksson has meant to their collaboration. How her elegance and power combined with humility led to a special relationship.

When I photographed Marie for what would be her last solo album at Grand Hotel, I took the picture of her standing in the window looking out towards the castle. It’s one of my absolute favourite pictures. It symbolizes both freedom and strength, how she carries both herself and me in that picture.

All interview text is written by Joakim S Ormsmarck for Tylösand Magazine in Swedish. Here it is a translation by RoxBlog.

Thanks a lot for helping out with the physical copy of the magazine, Chrissie Röhrs!

Interview with Per Gessle in Hallandsposten about the Roxette In Concert tour

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Jan-Owe Wikström did an interview with Per Gessle for Hallandsposten almost ten years after Roxette’s last concert in Halmstad. Per brings the Roxette band for two gigs at Brottet.

Then it was with Marie Fredriksson, now he performs with Lena Philipsson.

Lena has grown into the role in a fantastic way. Marie can never be replaced, but Lena really does it in her own way so we are not a cover band. In addition, Jonas (Isacsson) is back, who is very much Roxette’s guitar sound.

15,000 people saw the concert on July 22, 2015 at Örjans Vall, which would be Marie’s last with Roxette at home when the following year she was forced to step down due to health reasons and then tragically died on December 9, 2019 from the consequences of her illness.

To keep Roxette’s song collection alive, including four US number-ones, Per went on tour in 2018 under the name Per Gessle’s Roxette. But it was in connection with the recording of the duet album Sällskapssjuk that he realized that Lena Philipsson was the right person to take the place next to him on stage.

Since then, Roxette has had two concerts in South Africa, nine in Australia and ten in Europe before the tour reaches Sweden; Gothenburg on July 23 and 25, and Halmstad on July 26 and 27.

Out in Europe, Lena is a completely unknown name, but the fans have received her in a fantastic way. But here at home, Lena is a big name in her own right, so it will be very exciting to see her meet her home audience.

I mean, there’s a big difference between her today and the first gig in Cape Town, and that’s how it should be. Because it’s on stage that you grow together as a band and learn how everyone behaves, what roles they take. You can never work that into rehearsals, and it’s the same with the social side – that it works there too.

Then we have deliberately included some songs that Marie never sang live. “What’s She Like?”, which is very strong in the musical, is one that Roxette never played live before. Likewise “Vulnerable” – mostly because I thought it was boring to sing, but the audience loves it, hahaha.

During the journey, he has also received confirmation of how strong Roxette is as a band with sold-out concerts in most places.

Yes, we are reaching a new audience, which is fantastic. In January 2024 we had 10.4 million unique listeners a month on Spotify, now we have 17.8 million, which is almost a doubling with 70 million listens every month.

To Jan-Owe’s question what he thinks the reason behind is, Per replies:

On the one hand, it’s a treasure trove of songs that shouldn’t really be possible to fail with. On the other hand, we represent a kind of music that is becoming increasingly rare, because pop music is no longer made in the same way, with a bridge before the chorus or a key rise. And that benefits people like me – especially with the song catalogue that we can build on.

I saw a documentary about Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys who recently passed away. It would have been impossible for him to have a hit today, when most things are artificial and programmed with many songwriters for each song. And it will get worse with AI.

When Roxette reaches Sweden, it will be standard concerts, while in Europe it has been about festivals where Roxette has in many cases been the headliner.

It’s different to play at festivals. Partly because it’s a shorter set, and partly because the audience is there for many different artists, unlike when it’s pure Roxette concerts where everyone has come for us. So if you play a lesser-known song, some people go and buy beer.

Initially, the second Halmstad gig was the end of the tour, but it is already clear that there will be a continuation in the autumn with gigs in Linköping and Stockholm in Sweden, among other places in Europe.

Yes, for each gig, five new offers appear, so the schedule will be filled afterwards. Because if you want, this is just the beginning of the continuation…

Pics by Åsa Gessle

Per Gessle interview in Dagens Nyheter – “It’s truly amazing that everything I’ve done means so much to so many people. You should never take that for granted.”

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Early May, Christopher Garplind from Dagens Nyheter met Per Gessle at Hotel Tylösand to do an interview with him and he also followed Per and the Roxette gang to Munich. Read the original and more detailed article in Swedish HERE!

Christopher describes Hotel Tylösand, Leif’s Lounge, the reception and his hotel room as well, where he finds a book on the bedside table that contains song lyrics and illustrations by Per. In that book there is an interview in which he talks about his mother Elisabeth. She used to write fairy tales for Per which she illustrated. One story was about Ferdinand the ant who was about to be stepped on by a heel, but who just barely escaped. This story comes back at the end of this Dagens Nyheter interview.

It is Per’s wife, Åsa who meets Christopher at the reception the next day and she takes him to a room that is wallpapered with pictures of Dolly Parton. Christopher informs that even though it is only Per and him who are going to meet, Åsa has set out coffee, sandwiches and cakes for about ten people.

Per enters the room and greets Christopher. He looks as he has always looked for the past 20 years, Christopher thinks: slim, tanned and with that hairstyle that brings to mind both Noel Gallagher and a middle-aged woman employed in the public sector in Linköping. He smells good, but doesn’t want to reveal what perfume he uses because “then everyone will just buy the same one”.

The guys leave the sandwiches and pastries alone and have a double espresso each. Christopher says to Per that he has to tell Åsa that he is on a diet and can’t eat any of this. It feels really rude to just leave it. Per understands Christopher. He says he was overweight when he was a kid and it was really tough. Christopher is not exactly “overweight”, but the answer makes him think of something he read, that Per had gained so much weight just before the turn of the millennium that he refused to tour or be in any of Roxette’s music videos in connection with the release of the album Have A Nice Day. He asks Per if it was so, because he felt so ugly.

I haven’t really thought about it that way, that I “felt so ugly”, but I didn’t feel comfortable in myself. You see yourself all the time. When you are in public and working with videos and making different appearances, you have to feel good, both mentally and physically. I didn’t feel good, so I didn’t want to be in it.

It was Anton Corbijn who directed the music video of Stars. He finally persuaded Per to appear for a few seconds as a homeless man, covered in garbage.

We did the next video with Anton in Portofino. By then I had managed to lose eight kilos and was able to participate again.

Christopher is curious how PG could manage to lose weight and asks him for the best dieting tip.

It was mostly just about getting in shape. I’m a bit like that: if there is candy at home, I’ll eat it. It takes a huge amount of mental strength not to do that, and you don’t always have it. I still gain and lose weight, but I try to keep track.

Christopher asks Per if he is grateful every day that he still has hair. Per laughs. He is rather happy that he still has hair. Nobody wants a bald Per Gessle, Christopher adds. Per agrees, but he says it can happen, you can get ill. Christopher asks if Per would wear a wig then.

Ugh, what should I answer? I have no idea. Horrible thought.

The past year has been – as usual – hectic for Per. 2024 saw the premiere of both Sommartider, the biopic about Gyllene Tider, and the musical Joyride, which is based on Roxette songs. He released a solo album Sällskapssjuk, and has toured with Roxette in Australia and South Africa.

After the other half of Roxette, Marie Fredriksson, died in 2019 from a brain tumor that was discovered in 2002, Per has been thinking about how to manage the Roxette legacy. In 2021, he launched the project PG Roxette, but since 2025, it has only been Roxette that applies again – with Lena Philipsson on vocals.

I’ve been thinking for many years about trying to bring Roxette forward in some way. I haven’t really been able to decide how. It was terrible when Marie passed away, and also when our drummer Pelle Alsing passed away a few years ago. The whole idea of taking Roxette forward is based on keeping the old band as much as possible. But the token actually fell when I worked with Lena and when she sang on the song “Sällskapssjuk”, because she was so damn good.

Christopher thinks it’s Per’s band and he does what he wants with it, but Roxette is very much Per and Marie, and now someone else is standing there. Christopher is curious if that could be perceived as a bit unsentimental.

Sure, I can understand that some people think so. But at the same time, it’s my song catalogue. You could also turn the coin around and say: “I’ve spent 30 years of my life writing these songs, will I never get to play them again with another voice?” But I understand, I’ve also thought along those lines. What’s right and what’s wrong? But this catalogue exists, and it’s really my life’s work. Let’s try it and see how it feels, shall we? What harm can it do?

Christopher is curious if Per asked Marie’s family for permission, or whatever you want to call it, to do this thing.

Yes, absolutely.

Per stood and sang these songs a million times together with Marie on stages all over the world, so Christopher thinks it must feel strange that she is not there. He wants to know if Per feels sad sometimes.

No, not really. It’s been so long since we did it at the level we were at when we were at our best. Marie got ill in 2002, and after her first operation there wasn’t that much difference, she sang just like before. But her second operation changed her a lot, and after that she was never the same. When we started again in 2009, it wasn’t quite the same Marie anymore. There were problems with keys and with not remembering lyrics. She still had days when she was amazing. But at the end she had to sit down on stage. The Marie I want to keep in my head is from the big tours, “Joyride” and “Crash! Boom! Bang!”. It was magical. But what we’re doing now is something different. It’s not that we’re out there launching new music, but we’re doing, just like many other successful artists who have been around for decades, a kind of emotional journey back in time. We’re managing the Roxette legacy in the best possible way. We make it as close to the original as possible.

Christopher asks Per if there will be a Roxette album with Lena on vocals.

I don’t think so, I can’t imagine that. It would be fun to release a song or two. But that’s not what Roxette is about today, it’s about nurturing our catalogue. It’s a fantastic treasure trove of songs we’re sitting on.

Christopher informs that it’s not just Marie Fredriksson and drummer Pelle Alsing who have passed away in recent years. In the 2010s, Per’s mother Elisabeth, his sister Gunilla and brother Bengt also died at short intervals. Since then, he has been the only one left in his original family.

You become a different person when many people around you pass away. You are reminded that time passes. When Marie passed away and Pelle passed away, all my siblings and mother, the parameters of existence changed in a way.

Christopher starts talking about Per’s immediate family today that consists of his wife Åsa and their 27-year-old son Gabriel. He says that when Per became a father in 1997, there was a bit of a mini-drama after he said in an interview that he didn’t plan on changing a single diaper.

I’ve never changed a diaper. Because my wife always did it first.

When Per turned 40, he said that he was very spoiled and that he had never washed clothes.

I don’t think I’ve ever washed clothes. I’ve always lived in my own little bubble.

Christopher is curious if Åsa got a little irritated by this.

Hm, but you’ve met her, she’s the best person in the world. There has never been any conflict. Then you shouldn’t forget that we toured and toured, travelled and travelled, so we used a lot of laundry service at hotels.

To the question if they have any staff at home, Per replies:

Yes, we have help with cleaning. But I don’t want a lot of assistants, because I want to be at peace. I don’t want to be disturbed by people who are in the way and who want to talk to me about dentist appointments and such.

When Per and Christopher walk around the hotel, people turn around and behave very strangely. Christopher notices that Per seems unfazed by the attention.

I’m used to it. I know that as soon as I leave home I’m on public ground. If I go to the pastry shop and buy rolls for the studio, there’s always someone who wants to take a selfie. I almost always say yes in such situations, but I don’t always do it at one in the morning in restaurants. I usually have a curfew after 10 pm. I can get annoyed when people come up and just interrupt in the middle of a discussion to take a photo – wait until you see that we’ve finished talking! Often they also want to talk about themselves: “I’m also a musician, my parents got married to this song, my dad had this song as his favourite”. I can feel guilty that I’m not more interested in it, because I actually should. It’s truly amazing that everything I’ve done means so much to so many people. You should never take that for granted.

Christopher says that Per comes across as very likeable, and there is very little crap about him compared to others of his caliber. The only thing he can find on the internet, and which is hinted at in some biographies, is that he was completely obsessed with money and very stingy, but that’s it. Christopher’s prejudice that PG was zero percent worried during the ‘metoo-autumn’ in 2017 is confirmed by the fact that Per doesn’t seem to understand the question.

I don’t even remember when it was. That’s both a good and a bad thing about me: I’m so completely ignorant about things. It’s like when people were talking about the financial crisis in the early ’90s, I was like, “Wow, was there a financial crisis? I’ve been on the ‘Joyride’ tour, I didn’t notice a thing”. I don’t even know what year you’re talking about?

When Christopher says it started in 2017, Per asks:

OK. Was it Harvey Weinstein and that? No, I haven’t actually thought about it.

Christopher says that the image of Per is that he is very rich and very stingy. He asks Per if he thinks he is stingy.

No, I don’t feel like that at all. I feel like I am very generous.

Christopher mentions that in the biography Att vara Per Gessle from 2007, Gyllene Tider bassist Anders Herrlin says the following about the stinginess accusations surrounding Per, which often come to the surface when it comes to how Gyllene Tider’s money is distributed between the band members: “He is absolutely not stingy, but rather incredibly generous, but he is greedy. As if he is afraid of losing something he already has.”

When the band’s drummer Micke Syd Andersson got married in 2005, a year after Gyllene Tider’s reunion success and 25th anniversary the year before, he invited all the band members except Per and told Aftonbladet that it was a “conscious decision”.

It was annoying. I thought then and still think Micke was very unfair, and he knows I think that.

To the question how they solved that, Per replies:

We took a break for eight or nine years, then we got back together and toured again. Well, I really love the guys in Gyllene. I have constant contact with all of them. They are wonderful people and fantastic musicians. Of all the drummers out there, Micke is probably my favourite.

Christopher is curious that if Per loves them so much and they are childhood friends and all that, why can’t they just split those Gyllene Tider tours equally.

I can’t sit and talk to you about our financial arrangements in Dagens Nyheter, you understand that, right?

When Christopher asks Per if he is a billionaire, PG thinks for five seconds and replies “no”.

Another image of Per, as Christopher says, is that he only writes stupid, happy pop songs.

Hahaha, I’ve heard that many times. Those who think that haven’t listened to much of what I write. “Gå & fiska!”, for example, is not really a positive text. But people just think “Go and fish, tjoho!” It actually is about someone who is seriously depressed, but people don’t read the lyrics.

At this point, Åsa enters the room and Christopher is struck by how much she and Per – or “Pelle” as she calls him – seem so damn close. They kiss each other several times. Christopher apologizes that they haven’t eaten anything from what she prepared in the room. She says it doesn’t matter and that the people in the staff canteen will be happy. Christopher asks if she was upset that Per never changed a diaper.

No.

And never washed clothes.

No. Or made a bed. There are many. But we help each other. Per does a lot of things and I do other things. That’s how it is in life. Although cooking is the only thing I wish he did…

Per can only cook rice and pasta. When he is in Stockholm and Åsa is not in town, he goes to a restaurant at Karlaplan where there are two dishes he likes – fish soup and salmon sashimi. But he likes homemade food best, adds Åsa.

—

The next time Christopher and Per see each other is at the end of June in Munich. During the night before, Christopher watched the documentary Roxette Diaries which consists of videos that Åsa and Per filmed from 1989 to 1995. In one of the scenes, Marie Fredriksson, alone with just a piano, performs Spending My Time for 60,000 people in Johannesburg. She sings incredibly, Christopher thinks. It’s starting to feel strange that Christopher will soon be seeing a Roxette concert without her.

However, the audience has received Lena Philipsson unexpectedly well. There are certainly some posts on the band’s social media where hardcore fans declare that “this is not Roxette”, but in general the atmosphere is surprisingly positive, and so is Munich.

Backstage, the band eats and prepares for the gig while Per takes a nap. Christopher meets him in his dressing room half an hour before the show, where he warms up with a cup of tea with grated ginger and honey, which is “good for the throat”.

To the question what the future looks like and if there is Gyllene Tider in it, because statistically, they should come back again in 2032, Per replies:

Now it’s Roxette. Then I don’t really know. But we are starting to get old. So far it’s not a problem, but sometimes when I see really old people trying to play their songs, it doesn’t sound so fun anymore. I’ve stopped going to The Rolling Stones, because the last time I saw them it wasn’t good. And I have a hard time listening to Paul McCartney now.

Christopher asks Per if he has enough self-awareness to quit on time.

I hope so.

Christopher is almost shocked by the crowd reaction and that they sing along to every single line of the lyrics in Munich. They cry, scream, dance. No one is like Marie Fredriksson, but Lena’s voice suits the songs unexpectedly well, he thinks. After almost two hours, the show is over.

As usual, Åsa has spent most of the concert filming and taking photos for Per’s and Roxette’s social media. Afterwards, she hands out plectrums to the hardcore fans at the front and collects gifts for the band. Everyone seems happy with the gig.

The tour manager has set out buckets of ice-cold beer and a tray of cheese and cold cuts. Lena drinks a steamy glass of white wine and Christopher is ashamed that he is sweating the most of all even though he is the only one who hasn’t played.

Christopher asks Per if life sometimes feels unreal, because he has succeeded in something that people usually don’t, especially not if you are a guy from Halmstad. It’s like one in a million.

I recently picked up something from Billboard. There are 18 songwriters in the world who have written three or more US number-ones on their own. Of the 18, four were from Europe, and they were Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, George Michael and me. Then I thought, “Shit, what the hell is this? This is really sick!” Then I can really pinch my arm.

To Christopher’s question, if Per has ever thought that his life is a kind of “The Truman Show” just because everything has been so crazy, Per replies:

Well, maybe not that far. I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of this. But it… has been a nice life.

As a last question, Christopher asks Per if he has any illustrations of Ferdinand the ant left.

No, I wish I had some. But I can see it in my mind. I can see how he just manages to escape the heel. The heel is huge.

Thanks for this great and extensive interview, Christopher Garplind, Dagens Nyheter and for the photos in the article, Veronika Ljung-Nielsen!

All interview text is written by Christopher Garplind for Dagens Nyheter in Swedish. Here it is a translation by RoxBlog.