Fredrik Eliasson did an interview with Per and Lena on Musikplats Stockholm, Swedish Radio. You can listen to it HERE from 4:52 into the program.
Fredrik asked them about the Roxette In Concert tour and Bad Blood, their new single.
To the first question of how it is being on tour Lena replied it feels really fun. It’s the third leg they are doing, so they are starting to get a little tighter and they have gotten to know each other and play together. It’s just fun.
Per says they started in South Africa, Australia and then they played in Europe and now they are continuing in Europe. It’s absolutely fantastic to meet the incredible audiences everywhere. You have to pinch your arm, he adds.
Fredrik is curious about what has been the coolest thing about being on tour and meeting the Roxette fans again. Per says it has been a difficult decision whether to let Roxette roll on or not. He has been thinking about it for many years, but it was actually only when he was working with Lena on his Swedish duet album that came out last year, that in the studio he felt that Lena’s capacity was magical and that she could actually handle singing these songs. So they took it step by step and talked about it and tested it out acoustically at home in Per’s office. And now they are on a big world tour. It’s awesome. It’s a fantastic treasure trove of songs and for Per it also feels wonderful of course, because he wrote almost all of these songs and it’s fantastic to play them again.
Fredrik turns to Lena and mentions that it seems there has been a very warm reception. He asks Lena to describe her experience of meeting the Roxette audience. Lena says it’s been something completely different from what she usually works with. A completely different repertoire, a completely different way of thinking about when she is going to step on stage, that she is going to blend into a band that already existed. Actually, it’s Per’s project, Per’s songs, and it should seem like she has been singing these songs her whole life, even though she hasn’t. She tried to be careful and she had a plan for how she was going to let the songs become a part of her, her mind and her body. She is really happy about the great response and she feels a little proud that it works so well. She says she is herself, it’s her style and her way of being when she is on stage. And when she feels that she has received some kind of approval, then she gives even more of herself.
Regarding paying tribute to Marie during the concerts, Lena says it’s important to her that people understand that she respects the situation and Marie, Roxette and all the fans. She wanted to do it herself. It was her own suggestion that she should mention Marie on stage and everyone is very touched by it and likes it, so it feels right.
Fredrik wants to know what it is like to perform these songs live. Lena says there are so many hits that Per has written and the audience sings along and loves them. The songs are quite massive and tricky to sing. They are a bit demanding, which she also thinks has felt fun. It’s a real challenge for her. They are melodious and it takes a lot of effort, but that is also what is fun. There are a lot of strong hits here.
Per says he wrote basically all the songs for Marie. The songs that he sang with Roxette are the kind of songs that Marie didn’t want to sing. Haha. The Look was called He’s Got The Look and Marie was supposed to sing it, but she thought it didn’t fit her. So she thought Per should sing it instead. PG says when you have a singer like Marie and her caliber, of course you, as a songwriter can write songs from a different angle, in a different way too. There are many songs, e.g. Queen Of Rain, Perfect Day, It Must Have Been Love, they are quite difficult songs to sing and Per can’t really sing them. Lena, on the other hand, can handle them very well, so it’s fantastic.
Fredrik asks Per what it means to him to have found the right one to work together with. PG says it was a yes or no decision in the end: should we put the lid on it and put it away forever, or should we let it live on? It’s not about Lena and Per starting a new Roxette or making new records under the Roxette name. They take care of the Roxette song catalogue live. That is the idea. Per thinks it’s fantastic to play the songs again and get to know the audience and meet them again. It’s the 40th anniversary of Roxette next year. Not bad. Mr. G says he can actually recognize some of the audience too, some fans standing outside the hotel and stuff. They were there twenty years ago too. Haha.
Bad Blood is the title of the new single released on Friday. Fredrik asks Per to tell him about the song. It’s an uptempo guitar song and it’s released under their own names, not under the Roxette name. Per realized it in the studio that Lena could sing this one and she did a fantastic job of course. It became a lovely duet.
Lena says there is guitar all around in this song that really sends it all over the place. She thinks it has a fantastic production. It has a live feeling, it’s raw and it’s like a real jaw-dropper.
Per says it’s not something you would expect from Lena and Per, but it’s fun.
Here they listen to the song and Fredrik mentions that Bad Blood is made together with Alex Shield. Per says Alex is the mastermind behind this production. He is very talented.
Fredrik is curious what is happening with this song now. It’s not played live on tour, but it lives a separate life alongside Roxette. Per says it’s a side project. He is used to many different things happening at the same time. On tour they play the Roxette catalogue.
The tour reaches Avicii Arena in Stockholm in the beginning of December. Fredrik asks Lena and Per how it will be doing the shows in Sweden after all the other countries. Lena says it’s going to be great fun. They were in Sweden last summer in Halmstad and in Gothenburg and they got a fantastic response. It’s fun to come home to Sweden. People there know who she is. It’s not like that abroad. At home it’s a completely different thing, which she thinks is much fun.
Fredrik thinks there will be something different in the show when they are at home. Per says, nothing more than that they talk in Swedish in between the songs. He laughs. They do the same thing in every country. It’s just that certain songs might work differently in different countries. Some songs are bigger in certain countries than in other countries and vice versa. For example, How Do You Do! is probably Roxette’s biggest song in Germany, it was No. 1 for twelve weeks in the German charts back then. But if they play it in the US, it doesn’t work the same way. It’s quite natural that it’s like that. But in Sweden everything they play has been big songs, so it’s fantastic.
Fredrik says it was fun to have Lena and Per on the show.
Stills are from THIS video
Listen to the single on any streaming platform (e.g. Spotify 