Interview

Grunden Media Podcast interview with Per Gessle

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Carl-Magnus Eriksson and Jakob Olsson from Grunden Media Podcast interviewed Per Gessle the other day. You can listen to the podcast in Swedish HERE.

The guys ask Per to introduce himself to the listeners. He says he is a guy from Halmstad and is making music since he was a teen, so he has been making music for over 40 years now with Gyllene Tider, Roxette and as a solo artist.

To the question how his working week looks like he replies it’s a bit different now. There are no concerts, so he is writing a lot and there is a studio where he is trying out different ideas. He explains he usually tours in blocks, so when he is on tour, then he is free for a half year or a year maybe until there is a next tour and then he is writing a lot.

Carl-Magnus and Jakob ask Per about his latest single, Mamma / Pappa. Per says he was dealing with another project, he was writing in English, but then suddenly he realized that it’s Mother’s Day soon, so maybe he should write a song about a mom. It started a bit with his own mom, but it’s also about someone else. Most of his songs are starting with his own feelings, then his imagination soars and it becomes something different in the end. Anyway, he finished the song and recorded it with Helena Josefsson. He thought it became a good song and he also thought he would write one about a dad to have a balance. He thinks it became even better. Others also thought they were damn good songs, so he released them in 2 weeks digitally, then also on vinyl.

The guys ask Per if his parents were role models to him when he was young, in the heydays of Gyllene Tider. Mr. G says his father died in 1978 before Gyllene Tider broke through. His mother always supported and encouraged him. She was the one who bought Per’s first guitar. He tells they had a piano at home and both his sister and brother played the piano. His mom passed away in 2013.

Talking about his first guitar, the guys mention that they know it from Niklas Strömstedt’s Gessle enligt Gessle documentary that it was a Bjärton nylon-string guitar. Per confirms it and says it was nice and very expensive. There was another guitar at home, but it was hard to tune it properly and press down the strings. So he thinks his mom thought she should buy something which can be played properly. He still has that guitar in Halmstad and also plays it once in a while. It still sounds fantastic. Per tells he has guitars on display at Hotel Tylösand, but he also has some at home in Halmstad and in Stockholm. There are guitars in a warehouse too and those are used when he is on tour. His guitar technician takes care of them. He doesn’t like to sell guitars, he rather keeps them and buys new ones too.

They guys ask Per if he misses playing with Gyllene Tider. Per says last year they recorded an album in France and went on a big tour. It was nice. He likes playing with Gyllene Tider and anyway he likes playing in a band. In a gang that plays the same song at the same time. Haha. They guys say Anders Herrlin and Micke Syd are among the best musicians in Swedish pop history. Per says Micke is a super-duper drummer and Anders is a fantastic bassist, but when they play together, 1+1 makes 3 or even 4. They are super tight. Anders was there in the heydays of Roxette and also toured with them in the ’90s. He played the bass in a different style vs. when he plays with Micke.

Per says one of the rewards of his job – both writing and playing music – is that you touch so many people. Many say that they feel like the song is about them, they recognize themsleves in a lyric maybe. Mr. G thinks it’s fantastic. He remembers when he got his first fan mail in the ’70s, in 1976 or 1977. There was a radio program called Bandet går where you could send in recordings and Per sent in a song, Ser du alla människor, which was 6 minutes long. It was quite horrible he thinks, but they played it on the radio. Then he got a mail from a girl who thought the song was fantastic, she recognized herself in the text. Per was totally shocked that something he did himself could touch another person so much. After all these years, one could easily say and think that you can take it for granted, but it’s not like that. He thinks he stilll has that fan mail. He lived at his mom back then and he has boxes with a lot of stuff from those times.

Carl-Magnus says he was born in 1975. He asks Per what he was doing before 1975. Per says in his childhood he spent a lot of time on his own. His family moved several times, so probably that was a reason for that. Already at an early age he was intrested in pop music. He was collecting records and listened to all chart shows on the radio. He learned English via English music magazines he bought, e.g. Melody Maker, Record Mirror. He was handing out newspapers at the weekends and was selling Christmas magazines, he earned his money with that to be able to buy the records. He tried to buy a single each week. The guys ask him which was his first record. Per says his first LP was a The Kinks album, The Kink Kontroversy. He bought it from his brother who needed money for cigarette.

The guys ask how the idea of Flickorna på TV2 came to him. Mr. G says he wrote the song together with Mats Persson. He can’t really remember. There was TV2 and there were those nice girls. He wrote it for GT’s first LP on which all the lyrics are a bit odd, e.g. (Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän, Fån telefon, Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly. Flickorna på TV2 was a song they changed the whole composition to in the studio, so they got a kind of groove in the song that wasn’t there in the beginning. There are rehearsal studio demos of it before they found the real sound to it. The guys ask about this part of the intro: “Master 17223, take 8”. Per says it’s from a recording that went wrong. They were at EMI Studios in Stockholm where they were also working with English stuff, so this snippet was from another record. They found it cool and kept it.

About Hotel Tylösand Per says he had no experience in the hotel business, except for living in hotels, but he thought it would be stupid not to buy it since it was so close to his hometown. It’s very unique with its nice beach. They bought it in 1995, rebuilt it, but it’s not him who is managing the hotel. It’s 100 years old this year and there is a nice video about it on YouTube.

To the question what he thinks when he sees old videos of himself he replies it’s fun. His generation got to be part of a wonderful era in pop music. ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, ‘00s was a golden era before everything became digitalized. The music industry became so big it also became a big business. It wasn’t like that when Per started. Back then, young people established record companies and dealt with exciting music, e.g. Stiff Records, Atlantic Records. When he thinks about the old video of himself in Måndagsbörsen in the ’80s, it was fun to be there.

The guys ask what he would be if not a musician. Per says he doesn’t really know. He ended up being a musician already at the age of 19-20. At high school he was at an architect office. He always liked architecture, so that could have been fun. Now he is just doodling in his notebooks when working in the studio. He is bad at constructing things.

The guys ask Per about The Beatles. He says The Beatles created everything they are doing now in different ways. Everything they did was new, how they were writing songs, producing and playing them, how they looked, their album covers. He never saw them perform live. They toured Sweden in the beginning of the ‘60s. But he saw Paul McCartney live of course.

About Ramones Per says the awesome thing about them is their lovely hybrid of punk and surf music. There is The Beach Boys style surf music that they played much faster in a way. It’s very simple pop music with a fantastic attitude and Per loves the whole Ramones concept including how they looked with the same hairdo and outfit. He also loves that era in pop music, the ‘70s. Before punk and new wave happened, everything felt so important in pop music and professional, then with the punk there was a revolution and anyone could start a band or play the bass or the guitar or sing. When they started with GT, they learned everything on the way. Progressive music in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Genesis had long songs, they were advanced and professional. The Ramones represented the opposite which Per liked a lot.

To the question how it was singing in Måndagsbörsen in 1981 Per replies he can barely remember, but it was fun. He remembers that Dag Vag had a hit song then, Pop opp i topp and they performed it together with Gyllene Tider. Thore Skogman joined them too. He then invited GT to his home somewhere near the Norwegian border and they had lunch there. Per says he was a very nice person.

The guys are talking about how it was working together with Nisse Hellberg. Mr. G says it was fun, he is a highly talented, great guy. It was an exciting cooperation. They did a soundtrack to Mats Olsson’s book, De ensamma pojkarna. They pretended to be a ‘60s band, The Lonely Boys.

Carl-Magnus and Jakob ask who Mr. G would work together with. He says it’s fun to work with other voices, because he often feels limited with his own voice. That’s how Roxette started. Marie could sing his songs much better than Per himself. He also works a lot with Helena Josefsson. If he can dream away, it would be cool to work together with Sia or Pink for example.

The guys ask if he misses Marie Fredriksson. Of course he misses her, she was one of his best friends for so many years. It’s terrible that she is not there anymore. It’s hard to accept and understand it. He thinks of her almost every day.

The guys are talking about the song Per released in February, Around The Corner and Carl-Magnus and Jakob are curious how it was to sing those lyrics. Per says when he wrote it, it wasn’t about Marie, however, when he finished it, he understood that it was in a way about Marie and about the feeling that you have to move on. He recorded a simple demo of it that felt so strong that he thought they should work on it a bit more. Helena came to the studio and was singing and then Per sent what they had done to Clarence and he added his keyboards to it. Then the song was produced and he released it. Per says he finished writing the song before he went to the studio. He is working quite fast so it took maybe an afternoon to write it. He always tries to catch the same temperature in the music and the text. When he writes the text, he likes it when it’s lying around for maybe a day or two before he gets back to it. Then he corrects it or changes things in it. When he is writing, things are just flowing out. When he is working on a song for too long, it means it’s not good.

Carl-Magnus and Jakob ask what Per’s favourite Marie Fredriksson song is. There are many, he says. She didn’t write so many songs, but they are very good ones. From her Swedish songs Per likes Den ständiga resan the most. It’s a fantastic song. From the Roxette songs she wrote, Watercolours In The Rain is fantastic. Per wrote the text to it, but Marie wrote the music.

Mr. G says it would be fun to make more soundtrack music. Making music to Small Apartments, a Jonas Åkerlund movie some years ago was an exciting project. It’s instrumental music, which is totally different to making songs with lyrics. Here the guys are talking about Uno Svenningsson and his son who makes ambient music. Per says he grew up in an era where real instruments were played, while today’s generation is different. But ambient music can also fit movies.

Regarding which song he is the most proud of, Mr. G says when he hears a song on the radio or in the department store, he thinks “shit, it’s a good song. Oh shit, it’s a Roxette song”. He thinks The Look became damn good, something you never heard before. Tycker om när du tar på mej has a very nice text. He likes the whole Mazarin album a lot, because that was the first time he worked together with Christoffer Lundquist in his studio and also the first time he worked with Helena Josefsson. The album became different vs. what he was doing before. He likes all the songs on it.

To the question which hairdo he thinks was his best over the times he replied he hopes the best is yet to come. Haha.

The guys ask Per what he is listening to on Spotify right now. He checks it while he is sitting in front of his computer. He is listening to songs people recommended to him, so now it’s old jazz, e.g. Art Pepper and old Van Morrison albums. He also likes The Chainsmokers as modern music, but he is listening to everything possible. He makes playlists. The more new music he listens to the more he feels eager to listen to old music. He usually finds something in new music he likes, but he thinks it was made more for him several years ago. If he is listening to Blinding Lights from The Weeknd for example, he thinks it sounds cool, but it also sounds like the ’80s, so he is eager to listen to some ’80s music after hearing it.

Regarding F1 and racing Per says he likes watching the race. Occasionally he is out on a racing track to drive and for that you need a standard driving license. He explains there is a bunch of technicians who tell you how to drive and what to do there. Every year he travels to see at least one F1 race live. It’s much fun. The guys tell they saw Per has many Ferraris. Per confirms and says it’s like with the guitars and laughs. He adds he likes the design of them. He doesn’t know the maximum speed of his cars, he never drives too fast.

To the question if he has ever thought about making a movie from his songs like Elton John or Queen did, he replied he thinks something like that is coming in the future. Maybe some kind of musical. It feels like a natural development of the hit catalogue he has. It would be fun and exciting, but it has to be good. It’s easier said than done. He thinks Bohemian Rhapsody is super good.

Carl-Magnus and Jakob ask what’s next. Per tells he plans to record more songs in autumn, so he is writing during summer. There is no tour booked. Of course he wants to tour, but he doesn’t know how and in what context.

The guys ask Per about Spännande ostar. It was Marie, Lasse Lindbom, Mats Persson and Per in 1983 or 1984 and they played acoustic songs.

Carl-Magnus and Jakob shoot some quick questions at the end of the interview.

  1. Vinyl or Spotify? Vinyl, because it smells good.
  2. Tour or studio? He loves both, so he can’t choose.
  3. Gyllene Tider or Sommartider? Gyllene Tider.
  4. Yellow Submarine or Come Together? Come Together.
  5. Min tjej och jag or Låt denna trumslagarpojke sjunga!? Min tjej och jag.
  6. Ferrari or black McLaren Senna? Ferrari.
  7. He can’t reply to the question what he would ask from Helena Josefsson, but tells he is to meet her next day.
Pic by Fredrik Etoall

13-year-old Gry Forssell interviews Marie Fredriksson in 1987

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Gry Forssell was the speaker on Swedish Radio’s Sommar & Vinter i P1 program today. Gry is one of Sweden’s most popular program leaders. Among many other things, she talked about her great experience related to Marie Fredriksson. LISTEN to the program from 34:28 to 36:40 to hear it.

Marie was on a Club tour when her Efter stormen album came out in 1987 and she also visited Luleå where Gry grew up. There was a program called Himalaya on Swedish Radio. Gry’s mom worked there and her friend was the producer. Gry was there in the radio a lot of times with her mom. She was 13 when one day the producer asked if she wanted to interview Marie Fredriksson. Of course she wanted!

After Gry welcomed Marie to Luleå and she thanked for it and said it was nice to be there, Gry asked her how old she was when she decided to be a singer, an artist. Marie replied:

I was 6 years old. I already knew it at 6 or 7 that I wanted to be a singer or an actress. And I’ve been fighting for that since then actually.

Gry also asked how one can become a famous singer and whether it has to do anything with luck or you also have to be good. Marie told:

Of course you have to be able to sing, but you also have to have self confidence. The best you can do is that you sing as much as possible. Sing in front of your friends. When I was a child, I was singing a lot in front of the mirror. I was miming and acted as if I was on a popular TV program or in a big movie. I was fantasizing a lot about that.

Gry smiles and says Marie replied so patiently to her silly questions. Lovely!

Still is from Jacobs stege 1987.

Interview with Helena von Zweigbergk – “I’ve never met anyone who has had the strength of Marie Fredriksson”

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24.hu in Hungary did an e-mail interview with Helena von Zweigbergk in connection with the Hungarian edition of Marie Fredriksson’s biography (Listen To My Heart – Hallgass a szívemre) and published it yesterday, on Marie’s birthday.

The interview has a nice intro. Referring to the book, it says that the positive attitude to life and the spiritual power shines through the biography. By reading it, we can understand how Marie was able to defeat cancer and win almost two decades so she could see her children grow up and even be on stage again, even though years ago it seemed utterly unlikely.

Journalist Bence Inkei’s first question to Helena is if she stayed in touch with Maire after finishing the book in 2015. Helena says she visited Marie many times in her home. They had coffee and ate her favourite cinnamon rolls while they were talking and laughing a lot. And of course they were crying too. They became very good friends while they were working on the book. Afterwards, unfortunately, they couldn’t meet as often as they would have liked, as Helena had to work and Marie lived far away from her. But they stayed in a very good relationship.

According to 24.hu, the end of the book seemed pretty optimistic: it was spring, Marie was preparing for Roxette’s summer tour, but from the epilogue it turns out that the band stopped touring not long after, because of Marie’s condition. They ask Helena if it was unexpected that Marie’s condition got worse. Helena doesn’t really know. She says that for Marie, touring was a huge effort already back then. All the stress, the tight tour schedule, the travelling would have worn out anyone who was in a condition like her. She had constant problems with her legs, she could only perform while sitting. Everyone knew how hard it was. She loved her fans and being on stage, but it was too exhausting for her by then.

24.hu is curious about how Marie spent her life after publishing the book. Helena tells she spent it at rest. She loved being at home and living by her own rules. So whenever she could, she was at home. She loved her garden and spending her time with her family. She could hardly walk and that caused her a lot of sadness. On the other hand, it was a relief that she was no longer under any pressure.

To the question if Marie had any unfinished plans Helena replies that Marie was a very creative person who could express herself in many ways. She talked about writing a book of poems and writing even more new music. She also wanted to write something about her mother’s life, to express her love for her and tell her story.

24.hu asks if Marie’s traumatic childhood due to the tragedy that happened in her family helped her to fight against cancer for so long. According to Helena it probably helped. She has never met anyone who has had the strength of Marie. She seemed very shy in a way, but she was as stubborn as a mule and had the power of a tiger. Neither as a child nor as an adult was she pampered. She always knew she had to fight for what she wanted to achieve.

Based on the book, it’s not entirely clear for 24.hu whether Per and Marie were real friends or just co-workers. Helena thinks they were good friends. They made this incredible journey together and had known each other for a very long time. As Helena saw it, their relationship was pretty close, but it’s also true that outside of working together, they didn’t meet too often. They lived far away from each other and Marie had to live a very calm life to be able to go on tour and get enough rest.

One of the most shocking part of the book for Bence Inkei was that a tabloid provided false info about Marie’s condition, but they could get out of it without any consequences. Helena confirms that there were no legal consequences. Marie might have been able to get them punished, but then they would have had to go through that hell again and that would have occupied their thoughts. That would have placed a heavy burden on the family when they were going through a difficult period anyway.

24.hu asks if it is a coincidence that ABBA appears only once in the book. If there was any rivalry between Roxette and them. Helena doesn’t think so. They were popular in different times and in different styles. They respected each other.

According to 24.hu, Roxette still has a very strong and active fan base in Hungary. They ask Helena where she sees the band has the most fans. Helena many times wondered how much love Marie and Roxette had received from all over the world. For example, when Helena and Marie had a book signing session together in a store in Stockholm, a South African family was the first in line. They travelled just to meet Marie and ask her for an autograph. Helena knows Roxette has a big fan base in South America and of course in Hungary too.

Marie described herself as a kind of “rock and roll personality”. As a last question, 24.hu asks how Helena saw it. Helena tells Marie loved this attitude. She didn’t want to look kind and harmless. She loved wearing black leather stuff and partied a lot before her illness in real rock and roll style. There was some kind of raw power in her voice through which she could express her true self.

You can order the Hungarian edition of Marie’s biography HERE.

Interview with Per Gessle in Nyhetsmorgon on TV4

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There was a pre-recorded interview with Per Gessle this morning in Nyhetsmorgon on TV4. While program leader Jenny Alversjö introduced the interview Anders Pihlblad did with Mr. G, there were several Roxette photos shown in the background. Jenny says Marie passed away almost 3 months ago, way too early. She mentions Per was devastated and the day after he gathered his thoughts and finished a song, a comfort song, how he calls it.

 

 

 

In the interview you can hear and see snippets from Per’s new song, Around The Corner (The Comfort Song) and its lyric video.

Per says this song was lying around for a while and he finished it the day after. His mother-in-law also died a couple of days after Marie. It was a really hard time and he finished the song actually for himself. He wanted to get it out of the system. That’s how he works. One needs to get rid of things. He expresses himself through his music and lyrics.

It became a comfort song in a way. Per realized it’s a really strong song when he recorded it with Helena and Mats. He doesn’t mean it’s an especially good song, maybe it is, he doesn’t know, but he saw it touched Helena and Mats deeply. So they thought it should be released. He knows there are a lot of people in the Roxette gang, all the fans, all the friends, the whole world were affected by what happened. Almost all people go through this when they lose someone close to them sometime in life. Everyone needs this comfort. Per’s way to get through this was writing.

 

Anders says there are 2 Roxettes. One before Marie’s illness and the one after it. 2 totally different challenges. He asks Per what he was thinking when Marie got ill, how to go on with his career and if he thought they could go on with Roxette. Per explained he didn’t think they could, because it felt that Marie was in really bad shape, so it wasn’t in the cards to continue with Roxette. The first thing he did after Marie got ill was Mazarin, then Gyllene Tider in 2004, then Son of a Plumber, then En händig man, so all his other stuff. So it was really surprising that Marie wanted to make a comeback. Per thinks even Marie didn’t count on it, that she would come back. She came to visit him in Amsterdam where Per played on his European tour. Anders says he talked to a Dutch girl who was there at the concert and said there was a surprise. Per laughs and says Marie and her husband, Micke came to visit him and he asked Marie if she wanted to come up on stage so they would play an old Roxette song. She hadn’t been on stage for 7 years and she said she doesn’t want to do that. But Per knew she was easy to convince if they give it some more time, so the question remained hanging in the air and in the end Marie said OK, let’s rehearse and see how it feels. One could see she really wanted to do it. So they rehearsed and Marie said let’s try it. For the first extra song Per invited Marie up on stage and there was only Marie and Per on stage. Mr. G thinks they played Listen to Your Heart and maybe It Must Have Been Love too, he can’t remember. Per says the audience died of course and he had never seen so many people crying. It was incredible. It was the first thing Marie did and then a few weeks later she called Per if he could write a new Roxette album. That’s what eventually became Charm School. Then there were 2 big tours, maybe with 300 concerts.

 

Anders asks Per how important he thinks it was for Marie to realize that she managed to do it and that it became such a success. Per thinks it was super important for Marie, because she loved music more than anything else. She loved being on stage and she enormously missed the communication with her fans, with their fans. So she wanted to do it at all costs. Her doctor advised she shouldn’t do that, because touring is exhausting with all the travelling, the waiting, the flying, the time zones and so on. But she wanted to do that. Per told her whatever they do, they do it based on Marie’s conditions. If she wants three days between the gigs, that’s how they will do it. Per thought it was amazing that Marie wanted to do it and that they could go on.

Anders says he saw an interview with Marie that was done by Niklas Strömstedt and there she said Per was a big support to her during that period. He asks Per what he thinks about it. Per smiles, drinks a little water and says he doesn’t know. He hopes so, but it’s hard to answer this question. When someone gets ill, you want to help as much as you can, but it’s always hard to help someone without stepping too much into their private lives. People have families and you don’t know how to behave. This is how he felt about his family too. Sometimes you feel that you go one step too close and they want you to leave them alone. They want to take care of their illness in their own private way. So it’s hard to know. But Per also saw that interview in Niklas’ show and he was of course happy to hear that Marie thought so.

 

Anders says Marie and Per had many common memories from Roxette times. He is curious about the greatest ones that Per will remember forever. Mr. G says there are too many. He thinks it’s kind of a fairy tale what they have been through. The possibilities, the chances, the odds for them to succeed, coming from Sweden those days and in this industry were less than minimal. It’s fantastic, all the success they have achieved. But if he skips all the golden records, chart positions and such things, he remembers those days when they were on stage in front of 50,000 people in Chile, in Sydney or wherever and looked into each other’s eyes. And then Per knows Marie thinks ”how the hell did this happen, Per?” and he thinks the same. You see the rolling ocean of people in front of you and they all love what you are doing. Such things are fantastic. But of course there are many more.

 

Anders realized Roxette has extremely loyal fans. He read what they were writing and asks Per how much of that has reached him. Per says he was of course devastated when Marie passed away, but he was also happy to see the response she got from all around the world. From many other artists, producers, radio people and fans, all the people. There are hundreds of thousands of greetings coming in and it’s awesome that Marie gets that appreciation. Per says they definitely have the best fans in the world. They have always been super loyal and followed them in all times. It’s been a long journey.

And here the interview ends with the flame of the candle going out in the lyric video. All in all it was a very touching interview. One can see it’s still hard to talk about what happened and it needs time to find comfort. Per says they have the best fans in the world. What I must add: and we have chosen the best idols in the world. Undoubtedly.

Stills are from the interview.

Per Gessle interview on P4 Extra – ”There were so many Maries”

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Swedish Radio P4 Extra did an interview with Per Gessle on 25th January, the day when the tribute concert was broadcast on TV. You can listen to it HERE. It starts at 34:10 and lasts until 54:38.

The program leader, Svjetlana Pastuhovic asks Per about the tribute event and if it was like a farewell. Per says it felt like a farewell, in a weird way. It was a strange evening. It was fantastic and tough at the same time. The hardest all the artists thought at the rehearsals was to see all those old videos between the songs for the first time. But later when there was the recording they rather closed themselves into their professional bubbles, so it became a bit easier. Per and Marie have been friends since the end of the ’70s and they did this fantastic journey of Roxette together. Those videos and pics made them remember Marie’s greatness. When you do such a concert it’s even more concrete and of course you get under its effect.

Here you can hear It Must Have Been Love from the tribute event. Only the first part that Per was singing alone, playing his guitar, accompanied by Christoffer. The program leader asks Mr. G how it was to play this song. Per says it was OK. He played it in this arrangement earlier too, so it wasn’t really new. But this is Marie’s song. He wrote it for Marie. One can hear it’s a hard work for him to sing it, but for Marie it was a piece of cake. She was singing it magnificently. Svjetlana asks what IMHBL means to Per. He says it is one of Marie’s signature songs. When you hear it you immediately think of Marie. It’s important in Roxette’s history, the Pretty Woman movie, how it all happened. All their songs have their own history, but this one is maybe their biggest ever. Then comes Listen To Your Heart and The Look.

The program leader asks what Per thinks was Marie’s secret of having an effect on so many people. Per doesn’t really know, but he says there were so many Maries. She wrote so many songs, she was a fantastic songwriter. She wrote and sang about things everyone could relate to. She was a talented artist on stage too, one of the best Per has ever seen. She owned the stage and the crowds even in huge football stadiums with 50-60000 people in the audience. That requires a special personality. And one of course one can’t forget about her amazing voice. She was a very complete artist, but at the same time she stayed a small town girl. All this was in her DNA and Per thinks people felt that.

Svjetlana shares her memory of a concert where she went with her mother. It was at Brottet, in Halmstad. Then she asks about how it was to work with Marie. Per repeats that there were so many Maries. She has always been very ambitious, mainly at the beginning. Mr. G tells the story that they printed T-shirts with the text ”Today Sweden, tomorrow the world” when they were recording their first album. They had a common dream. From day 1 they wanted to conquer the world. Everyone wanted Marie to concentrate on her solo career, but she wanted to work with Per. They were very good friends and had much fun together. They were a team where 1 + 1 makes 3. Per had the capacity to write all those songs and Marie had the capacity to sing them. And the better Marie was singing, the better songs Per was writing. They triggered each other. The last album before Marie got ill was Room Service (recorded in 2000) and until then everything worked like this. Later it became different of course, she was good in another way. The comeback she did in 2009 and lasted until 2016 was absolutely incredible. The doctors advised her not to tour, but she wanted to. She was longing for the stage and meeting her fans, as well as making a new Roxette album.

Here they listen to Den ständiga resan and then they talk about the fact that Per mentioned Marie was like a sister to him. Per says many thought over the years that they were a couple, but they never were. They were very close friends and it was more like a sister-brother relationship between them. But when you are working together so intensively, the friendship changes with time. When they were on tour constantly, it wasn’t Marie who Per called first when they finally got home. This is how a good marriage or a good friendship works according to Mr. G.

The program leader asks if they liked fame. Per says they could do another program about fame. Svjetlana is happy to invite him for another program where this would be the topic. Haha. One wants to achieve success with his music and at the same time you have this pop star dream. There are many negative things around when you are famous. For example, you go out and you always have to take selfies with people. It’s a special life, but it’s OK. Per thinks those who want to become famous don’t know what it is all about. But once you become famous, you can’t rewind the tape. Svjetlana asks if Per regrets it. He says absolutely not, but it affects your life all the time. In 1991 they did 1800 interviews in 7 months. But this is how the music industry works. Marie disliked all those promotional trips. It was very tough for her. Per tried to understand that this is how the industry works, so they need to do that to be able to compete with other bands. Marie didn’t like it, but she was a pro. They did all those many TV shows, back then it was playback almost all of them. You can find them on YouTube.

Many of Roxette’s songs are still played on the radio. Svjetlana asks how it feels for Per. He says he wrote all these songs, they are his babies and of course he would like to perform them still. He is very proud of them. But he also knows the soul in those songs was Marie. He tells he was touring with his own band in 2018 and played a lot of Roxette songs. It worked, but it was a different thing. One has to accept that Marie is not there anymore and it will never be the same as it was, but life goes on in a way.

They finish the interview with Things Will Never Be The Same which Per asked to be played.