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.