Roxette to perform 6 songs in Warsaw

According to roxette.pl Facebook fan page user – Krzysztof Charchuta, Polsat TV broadcasted a new interview with Per Gessle in a showbiz programme “Sie kreci” yesterday. Per Gessle said that Roxette would perform 6 songs in Warsaw and he named 5 of them: “Joyride”, “It must have been love”, “The look”, “Listen to your heart”, “Sleeping in my car”. Unfortunately, he did not want to reveal the 6th song’s title.

At the moment it is still not possible to watch the programme online. The programme will be available on ipla.pl service on Wednesday, December 22nd

Update: Here is the photo from the interview. Per said that they would sing 6 biggest hits, so I do not see a possibility to hear “She’s got nothing on (but the radio)” in Warsaw.

Interview with Magnus Börjeson: “We just want to have fun on stage.”

Kirsten and Judith met Magnus Börjeson a few hours before the concert in Halmstad to talk about his career as musician and how he sees Roxette at the moment. We picked him up at the station and sat down at the station café to chat. It was actually us who wanted to know more about him, but he started asking about us:

Magnus: So where are you from? Germany?

Judith: I come from Spain, live in Austria.

Kirsten: Germany.

M: So when you are not Roxette fans, what are you doing for a living?

J: I work as project manager in a bank.

M: And you?

K: I am a journalist.

M: For a newspaper..?

K: Yes, for a local newspaper, sports mainly.

M: Where is that?

K: North of Frankfurt.

J: What are you doing, when you don’t work with Roxette or Per?

M: I do music, that’s all I do. Haha! In different shapes and kinds, I do a lot of music for films and TV commercials, that’s what I’ve done the last couple of years.

J: Could you explain us how did you get into music?

M: I started playing when I was a kid with my neighbour, we played in his basement. Then I had a band at school. I had a lot of bands, I had a band called Beagle in the early 90ies, we had two albums out, that’s the first time we really had a record deal.

K: I saw the videos from that time, they are funny.

M: Yeah, we did a lot of videos. It was the age of the video. And yes, they were fun. I had a lot of hair then.

K: It looks better now anyway.

M: haha, thank you! I think so too. That was like my first real major thing. We signed with Polar, which was ABBA’s record company. We were at ABBA’s manager’s to sign the deal, everything was very intense. It was really fun for a couple of years. Then it wasn’t fun anymore, so we quit.

K: Can you really make a living from music?

M: yes, I do. I’ve done since then. It’s a lot of work; I’m into a lot of things. But I cannot imagine doing anything else, I have always wanted to do this since I started playing, so I couldn’t think of anything else to do. That would be horrible.

J: How many instruments do you play?

M: I play bass and guitar, and some keyboards. I started playing drums when I was a kid, that was my first instrument.

 

K: Do you still play drums?
M: I know how to play, but you know, when you haven’t played for a while, you get very bad. But give me six months and I think I would manage.

J: So you mentioned you don’t do anything else but music, meaning you also compose your own stuff?

M: yes, that’s what I do when I am not touring or doing something with other artists. I compose a lot of music for films.

J: Do you prefer to play live or studio?

M: Well, both. I love to play live, I think it’s funny, you can show off a bit, be a rock musician, haha! But I work a lot in the studio as well, I have my own little studio at home, so I work there every day and I enjoy that immensely too.

K: You mentioned music for films, can you tell us about this film you presented in Cannes?

M: We’ve been working long on this project. We first made a short film, which you can find on YouTube. It was about six drummers breaking into an apartment and starting to play songs. We did that in 2000, with a couple of friends of mine who made short movies at that time. And then a French production company suggested we should make a feature film about this. So we started about four years ago and we just finished before Cannes, where we presented it. It’s called “Music for one apartment and six drummers” and it’s going to have its premiere in Sweden and France this December.

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Clarence Öfwerman: “When Christoffer joined us, everything became fun again”

Kirsten and Judith met Clarence Öfwerman before the show in Munich on Saturday. In the following interview you will find information about the Night of the Proms, Clarence’s musical roots and family and much more..

Kirsten: So we heard the Olympia Halle is not standing anymore since yesterday.

C: Hm. Maybe not haha! It was fantastic.

J: Even better than Frankfurt?

C: Maybe the same, but the crowd was a bit wilder yesterday. Second and third in Frankfurt were excellent too.  The first wasn’t that good. Stuttgart was the best so far, and the 2nd in Munich.

K: We are going to top it today. The balloons are ready to be used.

C: Balloons! We saw some of them yesterday as well, it’s great you are doing this.

J: It’s actually just 1 week left of NOTP, how do you feel about that?

C: Yeah, Dortmund next Sunday is the last one. It’s kind of sad, we’d like to go on forever.

K: Christoffer mentioned last week it’s quite long time away from your families.

C: Yes, that’s true, but at least we had the family come down to us a couple of times in between, so I think it’s ok. All in all it’s great, when you get into it it’s wonderful to be on tour.

J: What are you going to do through Christmas?

C: I will be home with my family and Santa Clause..

K/J: ..and Kalle Anka..

C: Yeah! Do you know that? Haha! Well yeah, it’s typical Swedish. Specially if you have kids.

K: How did you start making music, playing instruments? Your family is quite musical, too?

C: My father did kind of the same things that I do, he played piano, jazz, and got into producing Swedish artists and later from all around the world. He always said to me “don’t become a musician, it’s very difficult to make a living on it”, he thought I should study economy, because he actually wanted to do that but never succeeded. He once produced an album with Toots Thielemans and he came down to Rotterdam and they hung out one night together, which was great!

But I started to play in bands when I was a teenager anyway. I started playing guitar, then I met a guy who was a lot better than me playing guitar, so I switched to piano. I think that was around 73, 74. You weren’t even born then I think!

Then I started to play with different people in Sweden, as a session musician in the studio, later I started to produce some albums. Then I met Per in 86, and from then on it’s been Roxette all the way.

J: How did you meet Per?

C: I met him once a couple of years earlier, when I played with Ulf Lundell on his tour. We were in Halmstad and Ulf gave a birthday party after the show, the Gyllene Tider guys joined us, and then we were introduced. Anders and Göran and I became friends.

The idea to produce Per’s third solo came actually from Kjell Andersson at EMI. He told Per “Why not try Clarence”, because I did some productions before for EMI, like 2 or 3 albums, so I was the new guy around.

I actually didn’t like his previous solo albums, I hadn’t listened to them very much. I liked the early Gyllene Tider, and Marie. Marie was involved in the first song, “Neverending Love”, so we did that one just to try and see what happens. It was actually Pelle who told me to go for it and take this production job, because I wasn’t much into this Per Gessle type of music.

J: And you brought Jonas and Tommy along.

C: Yes, I had known them for a long time, so I always wanted to have them as a band in the album. So I told Per, I wanted Pelle, Jonas and Tommy. Per himself wanted Tommy as well, but he preferred other guys on drums and guitar. So we reached a compromise, and we kept Tommy to record “Neverending love”, which was a success. Then for the album Jonas and Pelle joined, as well as Alar Suurna as engineer.

J: Were you also oin tour with Rock Runt Riket?

C: Yes, in 87, with Ratata and Eva Dahlgren. Each of us, Jonas, Pelle and myself played with two bands each. I played with Roxette and Ratata. Pelle with Roxette and Eva Dahlgren. Jonas with Ratata and Eva Dahlgren. Jonas couldn’t play with three bands, and since Roxette was the newest band for him, he went for the other two bands.

J: What can you tell us about this tour?

C: Each artist played a bit longer than one hour. We also had a support act, Orup, who became successful after that. Then Eva Dahlgren, Ratata and Roxette played. It was about ten minutes break between the acts, so after Ratata I had to go and change my clothes and make me ready for Roxette. It was kind of strange.

J: The pictures from that time are also kind of…

C: Strange? Yeah, that’s true. 80ies. Specially Per and Marie looked strange. Eva looked very different to now.

K: It’s interesting you’ve all been in the same band for such a long time.

C: Yes, it’s very unusual. But it’s very good as well not to have new people coming and going. Christoffer joined in 96, so it’s also a very long time. The band changed a lot when he joined, to the better, of course. He is an amazing guy, he can play anything.

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