Per Gessle

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – February 2025

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström have started a new series on Nordic Rox. Before they get down to business, they talk about their winter. Per says he was abroad for Christmas. He is not really a fan of the Swedish and Scandinavian winter season, even though he was born there. Sven agrees and says if they start talking about it, they are going to spend ten minutes complaining about the weather. To cheer things up, the guys have got a new list to go through, the top 30 songs of the ’80s.

Per thinks the ’80s was a fantastic decade. Great hairdos, great clothes and great music. Sven adds, great shoulder pads on the record covers. Haha. They will go through the first five of these songs.

Speaking of freezing cold, they first take a trip to Finland and play Matkustaja by Egotrippi. PG thinks they are a great band. He guesses Egotrippi means ego trip. That’s as far as his Finnish goes. He can’t pronounce the title, but he really loves this song. He tries to pronounce it and Sven says he can’t correct him, because his Finnish is… Haha. For two countries that are so close to each other, the Finnish language is incomprehensible for Swedes. Egotrippi is actually one of the few words that you understand immediately.

The next song is from Norway, I Used To Be A Real Piece Of Shit by Sløtface. It’s just under two minutes, which is their favourite timing for a pop song, Sven says. Per says it’s not bad.

Run To You by Roxette is next from the Crash! Boom! Bang! album that has just been released as a 30th anniversary edition, Per informs.

Before the countdown starts, Ain’t No Saint by Peg Parnevik is played.

Per loves the ’80s. It was a fantastic decade, he thinks, especially when you look back at it now. Sven asks PG what made it special compared to the ’70s. Mr. G explains that music-wise the digital revolution happened. Suddenly you started to work with click tracks and drum machines instead of the old school stuff. Music changed a lot and everything else changed. If you look back at fashion, books…, everything was different. If you look back, Sven thinks the ’50s continued until The Beatles came on the scene in ’63 or so. The ’70s started in 1968-69. Sometimes decades go like this. When Sven hears the album Station To Station by David Bowie, it’s recorded in 1976 or 1975, but that sounds almost ’80s to him as well. Sven is curious if for Per as a songwriter there is an archetypical ’80s sound. It is the synthesizer for PG. It’s Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Thompson Twins, Depeche Mode, Simple Minds. There are so many examples of that style. But, of course, there was a parallel industry as well. Country music went on and the rock scene as well. So basically, the guys are going to have a little bit of this, a little bit of that on the list.

At position No. 30 they kick off with a Swedish monster hit from 1980, Vill ha dig. It became the breakthrough song of a band called Freestyle. Per says this song was all over the place and his first band, Gyllene Tider and Freestyle became sort of competitors. They shared the number one spots on the charts all the time with different singles. Per thinks this is a really brilliant track for its time. It’s just really catchy and it sounds really cool. Long live the ’80s, PG says. He adds that it was a hit even in 1981. It just went on and on and on. Big song for the band, one that you couldn’t escape in the early ’80s. It was all over the radio.

A song you could escape is the next one. Öresundstwist by Torsson, a southern Swedish cult band. Per says this song doesn’t sound like the ’80s at all, it sounds rather like the ’60s. It sounds very much like Torsson. They have their own universe, Sven says. It’s very lyric-driven and it’s really fascinating to listen to them according to Per. The song is about taking the boat between southern Sweden, Helsingborg and Denmark over the Öresund strait. If you have trouble checking out the lyrics, this is basically what it’s all about, Sven informs. And while doing so, you dance some twist on the boat as well, if Sven understands the lyrics correctly. The band is still active. They are touring and they are still very popular, Sven says. PG adds „and they still sound the same”. Sven is pretty sure this is the American radio debut for Torsson.

No. 28 is Blodspengar by a great band called Japop, led by Janne Anderson on lead guitar. They made a couple of albums in the early ’80s. This is very typical of how the power pop scene sounded in Sweden in the early ’80s. Spilling over from the late ’70s new wave. This is like The Greg Kihn Band sort of style. Per thinks it’s a great, really nice pop song. Sven is curious if Per saw Japop live. He did. They were actually signed to the same record label as Gyllene Tider were in those days. Janne is a great guitar player and great singer as well. It was a trio and it’s a shame that they didn’t become bigger. They were produced by Dan Sundquist from Reeperbahn, also an incredibly cool band.

Speaking of power pop, the guys have Mikael Rickfors coming up next. Tender Turns Tuff is a great song from 1981. Mikael Rickfors became the lead singer of the English band The Hollies in the ’70s. He replaced Allan Clarke. They were pretty successful in the ’70s, then Mikael returned home to Sweden in the ’80s and made some amazing solo albums. He worked a bit with Robert Palmer. This song, the title track from the Tender Turns Tuff album, was really big. Per remembers it was all over the place. It’s also a bit new wave-ish, spilling over into the ’80s. Mikael Rickfors and his songwriting partner Hasse Huss wrote a song, Yeah, Yeah, the last track on the Cyndi Lauper album She’s So Unusual in 1983. It was one of the best selling albums in the States in 1983. They have been very successful as songwriters. They were a really good team. Hasse Huss was writing the lyrics and Mikael was writing the music. Sven says that there is a bonus version of the Tender Turns Tuff album and on that extended version there is a track called Blue Fun, which was remixed by Robert Palmer. It sounds really cool. He did a lot of interesting stuff.

The final ’80s song of the day is Ängeln i rummet by one of Sweden’s most successful female artists during the ’80s, Eva Dahlgren. She is still around and she is still amazing, Per says. This was a really big song for her, released in 1989. Wonderful vocals, really atmospheric according to Sven. It might also be the first time being played on American radio.

The list continues in the next show. On this episode the guys still play Soul Free by Atomic Swing from 1994 and Younger by Seinabo Sey from her album Pretend.

Elvis, I Love You by Albin Lee Meldau is next. Per says this is the sound of Gothenburg, Sweden. Sven thinks it’s a brilliant song and informs that PG recorded a song with Albin Lee on Per’s latest album. They did a duet together, which has been a big hit in Sweden, Per says. „Very nice! Thank you very much, Albin Lee!”

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!

Per Gessle shows his Ferrari collection on Antikrundan

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In the January 16th episode of Antikrundan, SVT, there was a 4-minute-long reportage with Per Gessle. Antikrundan is the Swedish version of the original BBC format Antiques Roadshow. The show visits different locations in Sweden and lets people bring their antiques to be valued by experts. The show is hosted by Anne Lundberg.

Watch it HERE!

The recordings took place in August 2024 at Hotel Tylösand when Anne visited Per in Halmstad. Per’s part starts 23:40 into the program. After greeting Anne outside, with a view to the sea, they enter the hotel and walk into the area where The Joyride Car Collection is exhibited. Anne explains Per is a collector of both art and musical instruments, but today it’s about something else. Per enthusiastically says they are going to talk about cars. He thinks it smells so good in there, it smells like cars. If you also love cars, you should know how important it is to maintain your vehicle with the help of an auto repair mechanic.

Anne is curious how Per’s interest in cars started. He thinks it was when he was a kid and watched Formula 1 with Ronnie Peterson and Jackie Stewart. Then he got completely hooked on Ferrari when he saw The Persuaders! with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. Roger Moore drove an Aston Martin, but the Ferrari Dino Tony Curtis was driving was Per’s dream car. He is not the type who has to drive his cars so fast at all costs. He loves looking at them and he loves the romance around it. It’s Italy, la dolce vita. He thinks older cars in particular are fantastic, but they are so incredibly expensive and difficult to find. If you have a classic car that you want to customize, consider a car wrapping service.

Anne wants to know what the oldest car in the collection is. Per shows the one from 1962. It was bought new by Ragnar Åhlén, who started Åhlén & Holm which later became Tempo and then Åhléns, a chain of Swedish department stores. Per says this car is a 250 GTE. Anne asks PG how he knows that it is the one that Ragnar Åhlén had. Mr. G explains that there is a fantastic sign inside. He allows Anne to sit in the car and she finds the sign that says Åhlén & Holm AB, Ringvägen 100, Stockholm. Considering that the car is 60 years old, it is in fantastic condition in every detail, Anne says. Per says there are a few flaws though, a little patina that is. Anne says they like it like that in Antikrundan.

The next car is the Dino. Per asks Anne if she has seen anything more beautiful. He draws Anne’s attention to the taillights. PG loves them. Anne likes the shape of the car and says it could have been a super exclusive piece of furniture. It’s from 1971. Per lets Anne sit in the Dino. Anne says she has never sat in a car like this, it’s the first time. She hits her head while getting into the car and they are both laughing. Anne notes that you must not be too tall, if you have a car like this. She says Per probably didn’t know it when he was sitting at home watching The Persuaders! that one day he would own a car like this. Per says it’s fantastic. It’s the classic Rosso Corsa. Anne says it’s the color that people associate with Ferrari. Per confirms. Anne has heard that Per even got his own color. It’s Gessle gray (Gessle-grå). He points at the car next to them to show the color. It’s a ’60s color called Grigio Ferro. Many of their cars are in this color, so at the factory they call them Gessle gray (Gessle-grå). Per says they have learnt the Swedish word. And if you encounter any issues with your car while driving, there are mobile auto repair shops that can get you back on the road in no time.

They jump into the Gessle gray Ferrari and Anne asks Per if there are still any dream cars left when he has such a fantastic collection. PG says not really, but of course, there are cars that you would like to have. He loves Ferrari California Spyders from the late ’50s, but they are almost unobtainable. They are extremely expensive and there aren’t that many of them. But it’s always fun to have a dream or two left, Per adds. You have to keep on dreaming. Car owners who keep their vehicles inside a garage are advised to hire a garage door repair technician to maintain or repair their garage door. This will help secure the cars inside. Those who park their vehicles on a parking lot should look for a secure, well-lit space. If any of the lights in the parking area is not working, it must be fixed or replaced immediately by a parking lot light repair contractor.

Stills are from the program.

Per Gessle to release The Lonely Boys demos!

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Per Gessle continues the tradition of releasing music in connection with his birthday on 12th January, and in 2025, he offers something truly special.

Mats Olsson, writer, reporter and a very good friend of mine, wrote an amazing book called “De ensamma pojkarna” (translates into “The Lonely Boys”) about a striving young Swedish rock group in the ’60s. Someone came up with the brilliant idea that Nisse Hellberg (from one of my favourite Swedish bands) Wilmer X and yours truly should try to write a “soundtrack” to the book.

Three of my songs (“Adam & Eve” + “Apple In The Mud” + “Keep The Radio On (This Is The Perfect Song)” were born on the road with Roxette. We were on our “Crash! Boom! Bang!” tour and these songs were written in April 1995 in Santiago, Chile.

“Lonely Boys” and “Stay (At Home, At Work, At Play)” were born in June 1995 while “Genius Gone Wrong” goes way back to 1984.

I recorded my six demos together with MP Persson and Micke Syd during two hectic days in July 1995 at the Tits&Ass Studio in Halmstad.

By the way, there’s another song by me on the “real” Lonely Boys album (“I Wanna Be With You”) which made it to the record only because “Stay (At Home, At Work, At Play)” didn’t really fit in. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings.

The “I Wanna Be With You” demo was made in November 1994 and is not included on the vinyl maxi EP but stands loud and proud, just like the other six tracks, in a brand new mix by MP on all streaming services for your listening pleasure. Have fun!

These fantastic power pop songs are now being released in a refined form with completely new mixes. 6 of them are released as a 12″ vinyl in limited edition on 10th January.

Order a limited signed copy by Per Gessle HERE!

The Per Gessle Archives – The Lonely Boys – Demo Sessions 1995

SIDE A

1 Lonely Boys (T&A Demo July 4, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
2 Apple In The Mud (T&A Demo July 4, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
3 Keep The Radio On (This Is The Perfect Song) (T&A Demo July 5, 1995 – 2024 Mix)

SIDE B

1 Adam & Eve (T&A Demo July 4, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
2 Genius Gone Wrong (T&A Demo July 5, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
3 Stay (At Home, At Work, At Play) (T&A Demo July 5, 1995 – 2024 Mix)

Produced by Per Gessle

Recorded at T&A Studios, Halmstad July 4-5, 1995

Engineer: Mats Persson

Mixed by Mats Persson at T&A Studios, Halmstad August 2024

Played by

Micke Syd Andersson: drums
Per Gessle: electric guitars + piano + harmonica + synthesizer + vocals
Mats Persson: electric guitars + bass guitar

Words + Music by Per Gessle

Published by Jimmy Fun Music

Mastering: Mats Persson, T&A Studios Halmstad

Design: Pär Wickholm, Wickholm Formavd., Stockholm

Photo by Åsa Gessle

The digital edition contains the 1994 demo of I Wanna Be With You in a 2024 mix as well. Tracklist:

1 Lonely Boys (T&A Demo July 4, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
2 Apple In The Mud (T&A Demo July 4, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
3 Keep The Radio On (This Is The Perfect Song) (T&A Demo July 5, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
4 Adam & Eve (T&A Demo July 4, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
5 Genius Gone Wrong (T&A Demo July 5, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
6 Stay (At Home, At Work, At Play) (T&A Demo July 5, 1995 – 2024 Mix)
7 I Wanna Be With You (T&A Demo Nov 2, 1994 – 2024 Mix)

Listen to it on Spotify, YouTube, Deezer, Apple Music or any other streaming platform!

Interview with Per Gessle in Svenska Dagbladet – “Marie always made my songs better”

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Elin Liljero Eriksson did an interview with Per for Svenska Dagbladet. Elin and Per met in the Cornelis room at Södra Teatern in Stockholm.

It has been a busy year for Per. In addition to the feature film about Gyllene Tider and a musical with Roxette’s songs at Malmö Opera, he has turned 65 and released his first album of original material in over eight years – the duet album Sällskapssjuk. Now he is preparing for a world tour with Roxette next year, together with Lena Philipsson. He is really longing to go on tour again.

How his most successful project would be managed after Marie Fredriksson passed away in 2019 has not been a matter of course. Per explains that at first he didn’t want to continue with Roxette. Then he felt that this is over 30 years of his life and he has written almost all the material, songs that he wants to live on. Roxette has also been streamed more than ever in recent years. When he then made a single with Lena for his latest album, it felt right to ask her. But they haven’t started a new Roxette, Lena is hired to manage the Roxette catalogue.

PG is shocked at how many tickets they are selling for the new Roxette tour. There has been skepticism from some fans, but there are a lot of people who think it will be fun to hear the songs again.

Per wrote the lyrics of Kärleken är evig, Lena’s song that ended up at the second place in Melodifestivalen 1986. About writing songs for other artists, PG says he never liked it. Also if you write together with others, it usually means a lot of compromises that don’t make anyone happy, unless it becomes a hit. But that’s not really why Per is doing that. He is at his best when he gets to do things his own way, which is reminiscent of his upbringing in Halmstad.

I was a loner during my school years. I lived in my little bubble, listened to an extremely lot of music and was quite shy. But I was the one who got to sing “Staffan var en stalledräng” in third grade. I can’t believe I dared it, because it was incredibly unlike me. But there was something in me even then, that I wanted to be a pop star.

Per’s mother was a teacher of porcelain painting, his father was a plumber. They had a piano which was sometimes played by Per’s sister, but no deeper interest in music can be traced in the family, except to a violin-playing relative in the 1800s.

I don’t know where it comes from, but I’ve noticed that I have a completely different musicality than the fantastic musicians I’ve had the privilege of working with all these years. To this day, I can’t sit down at a piano and play my songs. I can play them wrong in the most ridiculous places. But if you ask Roxette producer Clarence Öfwerman to play anything from The Beatles, for example, he’ll play it even though he has never done it before. What I have is that sometimes I hear something in music that they don’t.

Elin wants to know if Per hears melodies.

Yes, I don’t know how they get to me. I have no idea how to write a hit. I’ve never had a formula for it. But I’m so glad I love commercial pop music, it’s in my DNA. That’s why there has been a lot of that kind of music. The melodies are the interesting part.

Elin is curious if Per has ever had complexes about not being a typically trained musician. Mr. G thinks „complex” is perhaps not the right word, but he has always felt inferior. Already on Gyllene Tider’s early tours, MP had to go on stage and tune Per’s guitar, because Per couldn’t. But when it was tuned, PG rolled on.

About Marie Per says:

Marie always made my songs better, that’s why I needed her. If she could have written those songs herself, she would have dumped me in the nearest trash can. But she couldn’t. We complemented each other very well.

Marie joining Roxette was not a given.

She was much bigger than I was at the time. No one around her, including the record company and producer Lasse Lindbom, wanted her to do anything with me. She did this against everyone’s will.

To the question how that could happen Per replies:

On the one hand, we had a fantastically pleasant relationship, but above all we were united in the desire to play abroad. But from Marie’s side, it was always the feeling of “we’ll see what happens”. Therefore, it was important for me to deliver. So I wrote the “Look Sharp!” album that was full of goodies. She liked the material for it very much, and I noticed that she sang in a different way when I could have a say. There was a sexiness in songs like “Dressed For Success” and “Dangerous” – a completely different Marie than the one who sang ” Ännu doftar kärlek”.

Look Sharp! was the start of a global Roxette hype that led to intense touring for several years. Elin says that despite the fact that both Per and Marie had partners, there were often rumors that they were a couple.

No, I have never had a relationship with Marie. We had a very intense relationship through Roxette, it was like our child. But after the Crash tour in the mid-1990s, everything changed, because Marie had a child. Then it became a different focus in her life, which was perfectly fine.

Per says he doesn’t really feel at home in the music industry anymore. It’s not because it is worse or better. That’s because it’s different from how it was when he was growing up. That’s why he still likes album covers. If you are 15 years old today, you don’t care about that.

Elin informs about the many projects in Per’s life. In addition to Gyllene Tider and Roxette, he has released several solo albums, runs Hotel Tylösand together with his wife, where he also has the photo gallery Tres Hombres Art and a solid Ferrari collection. He has a house and studio in Halmstad, in addition to his two floors on Strandvägen in Stockholm where he lives. Financially, he could have sat back a long time ago, but Per Gessle can hardly handle free Sundays. He says then it is impossible to get hold of anyone, the offices are closed and everyone is hungover. He wants access to things. Per says you can try to use Sundays as a contemplation day, but every seventh day is a bit too often.

Elin is curious what Per does when he contemplates. Mr. G says he walks and thinks a lot. Åsa likes to have the TV on in the mornings, which is a big schism in their family. Per is easily stressed by too much information, and if it is negative, which it often is these days, he can get quite low. Silence is a way for him to survive.

I never have music on unless I’m actively listening to it. Not in the car either. If it’s a nice car, I want to listen to the engine.

Regarding losing many around him in recent years, Per says:

It has obviously been very tough and has probably affected me more than I think. You are reminded of the impermanence of life.

Elin asks Per if he often thinks about death.

No. The most annoying thing about aging is that it’s so easy to look back. Besides that, it’s a very young world we live in, it’s not quite made for my age. 40 years ago I thought it was great, now it’s something I have to fight against. But if my ambition had been to only do bigger and bigger things, I would have gone crazy. Because what am I supposed to do with it? If I come up with an idea, I implement it. If I feel like it, I write a song. There will probably be a day when I feel like I’m done, but I’m not quite there yet.

Read the original interview in Swedish by Elin Liljero Eriksson and check out the photos by Rickard L Eriksson HERE on Svenska Dagbladet!

Rickard also shared the photos on his Instagram.

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – December 2024 – CBB30 Special

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström are celebrating the 30th anniversary of Crash! Boom! Bang! in the December episode of Nordic Rox. The album came out in 1994. Sven asks Per how it feels, because he is celebrating something almost every year. PG says that’s the way it goes. It feels good. Roxette had an eight-year span when they were at their prime. The Roxette heydays were between 1988 and 1995. Then in 1995, Marie got her first child and everything changed from there. Crash! Boom! Bang! is the last big album in that era. It was recorded in London, on the Isle of Capri in Italy and in Stockholm. It took forever to make, Mr. G adds. There are lots of songs and it’s got some nice stuff in there, he thinks.

Sven says it’s coming with a bonus CD as well with some demos and he promises an interesting flashback to 1994. But before that, they kick off with Driving One Of Your Cars by Lisa Miskovsky. Per thinks it’s a great track. It was one of Lisa’s earliest singles, but it’s still a great song. It has stood the test of time.

Ahead Of My Time is played by Teddybears featuring Daddy Boastin’. It’s taken from the Soft Machine album. Sven thinks it’s a cool band. Per agrees. Great productions, great producers, and they have been producing so many other artists as well. They always appear with the bear heads on stage. Something for the new line-up of Roxette to be inspired with, Sven suggests. Per says why not, then they are laughing.

Final Gørl by Sløtface from Norway is next. The song is from their latest album Film Buff. Sven thinks they are a great band. Sven and Per played some songs from them in previous shows.

Then comes Are You Still Having Fun? by Eagle-Eye Cherry. It’s a great song, PG thinks. The guys are having fun and Sven says they are going to have even more fun now, because now it’s time for the Crash! Boom! Bang! special.

The album came out in spring 1994, after about 12 months of recording and preparations and songwriting. Songwriting took even longer, Per says. They started recording CBB in 1993. They just came off the big Joyride tour and they started working immediately on this album. Sven thinks that if you compare it with the Joyride album, Per was in a different frame of mind when he started writing for this one. Mr. G says it’s true in a way. When they recorded Joyride, they had a breakthrough with the Look Sharp! album. Per wanted Joyride to be a super mainstream, catchy album. Basically, every song on the Joyride album was written to be a single. But it was a different ballgame when he started writing Crash! Boom! Bang!, because they had been touring for over a year and they were on top of their game. PG felt a little bit more relaxed. They started using other Swedish musicians and also experimenting a lot in the studio and trying things out in a different way. Maybe CBB didn’t become as mainstream as Joyride. Looking back at it, Per thinks there are a couple of tracks that you could have thrown away in the waste paper basket even then. Nevertheless, the highlights for Mr. G are really, really high in Roxette history.

Sven says the Joyride album was written to be smash hits all over the place. When they presented Crash! Boom! Bang!, it was a 15-track album and almost an hour’s playing time. Per explains that the vinyl was basically gone. The CD was there, so you could extend the album’s playing time. Those days they had these open budgets, so you just went on and recorded and recorded. They did so much stuff. When they eventually played what they had done for their record label, they loved it, but they said the classic words, „we can’t hear a single”. Per was really pissed off by that, because he thought they had so many great tracks. Especially, he thought that Roxette had made giant steps forward, artistically at least. And Marie was singing really great. Songs like What’s She Like?, Run To You and Love Is All are great tracks for Per and for Marie as well. But the record label didn’t agree. So PG was really pissed off and he went home and wrote another song. That turned out to be Sleeping In My Car, which became the first single. That was written out of frustration, in furious anger, but it turned out nice. Per always loved Marie singing that type of songs. It’s not really her cup of tea, she was never really a power pop girl, but when she sang songs like that, she was always the best.

Here they play Sleeping In My Car, the single that paved the way for the Crash! Boom! Bang! album.

The CD version of the anniversary release has a bonus CD with quite a lot of demos written for the album. 23 demos. It was basically all the songs that Per wrote for the project. He looked back into his archives and it’s more songs than he remembered. Sven was a bit surprised to find out that this upcoming song, She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, was written for the Crash! Boom! Bang! album. It was recorded by Per’s power pop band Gyllene Tider and it turned up on the compilation album Don’t Bore Us – Get To The Chorus!. Per says he wrote the song together with Mats Persson from Gyllene Tider, who also co-wrote Listen To Your Heart and Spending My Time. They wrote the song for Crash, but they didn’t record it. They had so many songs, these typical power pop, guitar driven songs. Per was basically the only one in the band who really loved that kind of music. And of course, since he was the writer, he presented these songs, many of them, for Marie and their producer Clarence Öfwerman, but it wasn’t really their cup of tea. So lots of these songs were leftovers. Then they recorded it eventually for the first compilation album that Roxette did in 1995, called Don’t Bore Us – Get To The Chorus!. It became a single, but that was years later. Sven says, if they asked him – nobody asked him at the time –, he would have taken out some of the slower numbers and replaced it with She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Per says, when you are in a band, you have to compromise. Just like in your marriage. Haha. Sven was a bit surprised that this was recorded in December 1992, so when they recorded material for the Crash! Boom! Bang! album, they considered those sort of power pop numbers. PG explains that when you make an album and you spend a year in the studio, time goes by and you write new stuff all the time. At the end of the day, you want everyone to agree on what you are recording. That’s also how you get a good vibe in the studio and what’s the best for the band. So sometimes you have to kill your darlings. On every album that Per has been involved with, if it’s Roxette or with other bands, it’s always compromises. There are always songs that he felt like this is a much better song, it should be on the album, but it became a B-side instead. Sven says it’s because you want everyone to be on the bandwagon as well. Sven adds that Per is never short of songs when he is recording an album. Per smiles and says no, because he keeps himself busy. Now they go back in time to a demo recorded in December 1992, probably shortly after it was written. We can hear Per and MP and a drum machine. This is how it sounded when it was written in 1992. She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Silly little demo, Per says. Charming stuff, the guys think.

They guys are digging deeper into this demo bonus CD with another track that never was recorded by Roxette, but eventually became a single by Belinda Carlisle. Per wrote Always Breaking My Heart also in 1992 for Roxette’s Crash! Boom! Bang! album, but they never recorded it. He kept it and a couple of years later he got an invitation to produce and write a couple of songs for Belinda Carlisle, which was amazing. She was one of Per’s favourites. He loves The Go-Go’s and he was really honored by the request. PG wrote a song for Belinda called Liberty, which she didn’t like, so they never recorded it. Then this song, Always Breaking My Heart, came to mind, and Per felt like this sounds like an old The Go-Go’s song. Belinda liked that one, and the A&R guy who worked with her, loved it too. So they decided to record Always Breaking My Heart. Then Mr. G wrote another song called Love Doesn’t Live Here, which also turned up on that album of hers. ABMH was actually written for Roxette to begin with, so what they have here now is Per’s acoustic demo from Christmas 1992. Both She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Always Breaking My Heart were written around the same time. Per explains that they stopped touring, the Joyride tour ended in summer 1992, and they released the Tourism album with Roxette. One of their biggest songs was on that album called How Do You Do! in summer 1992. As soon as that tour was over, Per started to focus on writing. Autumn 1992 was a big writing time for him. Sven asks PG if he remembers where he was at that time, December 1992, music-wise, things that inspired him. Per says it’s far away. The grunge scene just started to happen, so of course he listened a lot to Nirvana and Oasis. But as always, the ’60s and ’70s stuff, the glam rock thing, all those things are in his DNA. Every time a new band came along that he really liked, it didn’t really change his life that much, because he is still a child of You Really Got Me by The Kinks.

Sven thinks that the best moments of the ’90s, guitar, pop, rock, is like a confirmation of all the things Per loved about the British Invasion. And also the new wave thing in the late ’70s, Per adds. Technology moved forward, it sounds different, it sounds harder and rougher, and better, for that matter. You start to listen to the same things with new ears, so to speak. Sven says in this case, we have to imagine the distorted guitars and the crashing drums, because it’s Per in troubadour mode. There is just an acoustic guitar, a tambourine and a little piano on this demo. This is how it was written. Per says that recently – that means the last decade, haha –, when he makes demos, he makes them just on an acoustic guitar or just a piano, to get the vibe of the song and the vibe of the lyrics. When he wrote the songs for Joyride, he basically produced the demos. Roxette producer Clarence Öfwerman didn’t like that Per came to him with a sort of finished product, because he wanted to produce it, which makes sense. So Per gave that up eventually. This is the other side of the spectrum. Sometimes it depends a little bit on what kind of music you are working with. If you are going to hire an outside producer, it’s better to just show a little bit of what you are after, lyric-wise, melody-wise and chord-wise and then let the producer do the rest of the work or at least suggest something and you do it together with him or her.

Here they play the 1992 demo of Always Breaking My Heart.

There is another leftover that never made it to the album back in the days, but for a while Per thought of this one as a single. PG confirms, he always loved this track, Crazy About You. It was written for the Crash album and they had a little problem with it. It sounded really fresh, it was something really new for Roxette to do a song like this. Then they did another take, this is the second version actually, this is a little bit faster than the first one. In those days you had to re-record everything to change the tempo, not just press a button. Haha. Per always felt that this could be a contender for becoming a single, but at the end of the day, they had lots of tracks on this album, so this became a leftover. Per doesn’t know if it became a B-side or if it came out on something else, but it wasn’t on the album. It found its way into the extended version of Crash! Boom! Bang!. This four-minute-long song wraps up the CBB special. Sven says there was a heavy competition to get on the album. Per thinks it’s a nice song. He doesn’t know how good or bad it is, but at the end of the day, you try to make the best possible mix of ballads and mid-tempo songs and up-tempo songs on the album, so this was a leftover. Life sucks. Haha. Life sucks, but you can always enjoy some fine wine, which is a bridge over to the next song, I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer by The Cardigans from Malmö.

Painted By Numbers by The Sounds is next from 2006, from the album Dying To Say This To You.

The show ends with this and the guys thank the listeners for joining them. Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom is played as the last track, as usual.

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

Thanks for your support, Sven!