Mix Megapol

Per Gessle on Lotta Bromé’s show at Mix Megapol

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Per Gessle was a guest on Lotta Bromé’s show at Mix Megapol last Friday. John Lundvik and Daniel Paris were on the same program and them 4 talked about Per’s upcoming album, duets, the GT movie and the signs of spring among other fun things. You can listen to the show HERE.

When Lotta welcomes her guests and asks who wants to talk about their week, Daniel is shocked. He says it’s huge, because he has never heard his name in the same sentence as Per Gessle. The only time was when they said, „Daniel, please stop calling Per Gessle”. Haha. He had a stalker period where he called up celebrities. Lotta asks Per how it feels that they have brought a stalker here today when Per is on the show. PG says he is in shock. Haha.

Lotta asks Per how he feels and Mr. G replies he feels great, he loves Fridays. Lotta agrees that it’s perhaps the best day of the week, especially now that Per releases new music. She says they will listen to it in a moment.

Lotta turns to the other two guys and they talk about Semmelchips, because Daniel brought it to the studio. Per refuses to even taste it. He says it’s not for him. He smelled them and it was horrible. Lotta asks him how much of a gourmet he is. PG says he is a pretty basic type of person. So he likes pasta and ketchup and instant macaroni, Lotta says. Mr. G says maybe not so much ketchup, but pasta and instant macaroni, there are days when he eats such stuff. John is trying to sort out that Per Gessle is basic. They are laughing. John has three kids, so they eat a lot of pasta and meatballs.

Space travel pops up as a topic. Lotta is curious if Per is longing for travelling in space. PG smiles and says he isn’t, he stays in Halmstad. Haha.

While Daniel is still starstruck by Per, Lotta starts talking about Per’s upcoming album, a record with many duets. Mr. G says wanted to try something new. At his age, he tries to find a new angle in every project he does. He had a lot of songs that he thought would work well as duets, so that became the angle. Not all the songs became duets, but there will be seven or eight duets on this record. The album title is Sällskapssjuk. Lotta thinks it’s such a great title, she loves it. She says Cher released a Christmas album with duets last year, but she never met anyone who sang along. Lotta is curious how it was with Per’s duets. Mr. G says it was the opposite for him. He met everyone in Halmstad and they were together in the studio and had dinner then. He had a good time with everyone. Lotta wants to know how he chose who to work with. Per says the first thing, of course, was that he liked their voices. The second was that it would work reasonably well with keys and such, purely in terms of arrangement. Some songs he had to re-work a bit to make it work, but it has been very nice all the way. Lotta asks if Per could reveal any more duet partners. Per says he could if he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to. Haha. Lotta says she will ask that question again before Per leaves, so Mr. G should be prepared for what he will answer then, because he can’t say the same answer twice. PG says he can use another language.

Lotta asks John about duets. He says one of his big moments in life was when in 2010 he had to write a duet for the wedding of Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel. [The song is When You Tell The World You’re Mine. /PP] He is a real sucker for duets. Lotta asks him if he is on Per’s new album. John laughs and says he can’t say anything. Lotta says he can’t answer the same when she asks this question again. Haha. Lotta assumes Daniel is not Per’s upcoming album of duets. Daniel says he doesn’t kiss and tell or sing and tell on the radio. He likes the title of the album Sällskapssjuk. It’s with great humor, because it’s called Sällskapssjuk and then there are a lot of guest artists.

Lotta asks Daniel how sociable he is. Daniel says he can have very introverted periods where he just wants to be devoted to himself and then he has periods where he is really extroverted, his emotions burst out and he wants to hang out with people.

Lotta is wondering if anyone was surprised when Per called them and wanted to do a duet with them. PG says he didn’t ring, but sent an email and a text and stuff like that. Daniel laughs and says they probably thought they were AI-hacked and they could have asked Per to send them a picture of the daily paper to get proof it’s not AI.

Lotta says John has a bottle of his new wine with him, named after him, Pour Toi John Lundvik. She asks John to open it so everyone can taste it.

 

Lotta starts talking about Melodifestivalen with John. He was the winner a couple of years ago and he says he tries not to be that involved sometimes, but he automatically gets into it every Saturday. When he won, it was a door opener on many levels. Lotta turns to Per and says he was also involved, but not as an artist. He helped write the lyrics to Kärleken är evig. And Lasse Lindbom participated with Per’s song, För dina bruna ögons skull. Per laughs and says that became the last song that year. Lotta is wondering if Per ever feels like he wants to be there. Per’s answer is a clear no. It’s not really his cup of tea. In fact, he hasn’t seen any of the Melodifestivalen episodes in the last ten years. Lotta is surprised, but she says Per saw Madonna at least, as they were talking about concerts before. He was at the concert for twenty minutes or so, then he left. Lotta asks John if it happened to him too. John says he never left a concert, but he has friends who did exactly the same as Per. Lotta says she and Daniel stayed, but people left, because Madonna was really late. Daniel thinks that’s why people left. It was a working day the next day.

Lotta is getting back to Melodifestivalen and asks Per if he knows about Fröken Snusk. Per has no idea about her. Also doesn’t know about Gunilla Persson. John says he was in Fort Boyard, on the TV show “Fångarna på fortet” and they competed with Gunilla at the same time. She was nice to talk with. She was also nice to John the other day when he posted a cover of Whitney Houston on Instagram. Then she spread it further and John thought it was very nice. Gunilla Persson is Sweden’s kindest and most misunderstood person, Daniel thinks. This woman has a heart of gold, he thinks. Lotta says she has met another person who had been with Gunilla at the Fort and who had slightly different types of stories related to that. Daniel defends Gunilla and he thinks in Sweden, people are a little too hard on her.

Lotta plays Too Late For Love, song of John Lundvik that was the winner 5 years ago at Melodifestivalen. John says it’s still fun to hear it, however, when you have a hit, it’s a little love and hate. He is looking at Per. For example, he thinks of Lionel Richie when he sings Hello. It might not be fun for him to sing it every night, but he still loves it somehow. Lotta asks Per how he feels about this. He has a lot of hits. Lotta is wondering if there are any songs Per got tired of and never intend to perform again. Per says he thinks a bit like what John says, that you have to respect that it’s actually music that a lot of people like. When you stand on a stage and play Sommartider with Gyllene Tider, it might not be the most fun musically, but the communication create with this song is priceless. He thinks all artists feel the same way.

Now that John mentioned Lionel Richie, Lotta asks if he was in the movie that both John and Per recommended on Netflix. Yes, it’s a documentary about the recording of We Are The World in the happy ’80s. Lotta asks what is so special about this docu, because there are several who say don’t miss this. Per thinks it’s a very cool movie. It was a cool decade with very cool shoulder pads in the jackets and high hairstyles. John says you get an insight in that room, the reason why he sings today. It’s the absolute elite in that room and everyone went there after a party. Daniel thought this was a Julia Roberts movie. Haha. Lotta asks Daniel about Britney Spears. He says he has just read her book for the seventeenth time and he sees new shades all the time. Daniel asks Per what he thinks about Britney Spears. Per says he doesn’t think anything about Britney Spears. She was damn cool when she broke through. She had very good songs that Max Martin put together at the time. Daniel’s reaction is „did you all hear? Per Gessle approves of Britney.”

Lotta starts talking about Per’s upcoming movie about Gyllene Tider. Per says it’s not his movie. Haha. Lotta asks if PG is happy with the actor who plays him. Per is really happy with him. He is Valdemar Wahlbeck. He has the same ridiculous dialect that Per has, so that helps, Mr. G says. Lotta adds he is Peter Wahlbeck’s son. Per says he is super talented. Lotta goes on and says there is a Parnevik boy who will play Micke Syd on drums. Phoenix Parnevik. Lancelot Hedman Graaf plays Anders Herrlin, Sweden’s most handsome guy in 1981. Lotta asks when the movie will be finished. It’s still in cutting phase, so it will premiere at the cinema in July. Lotta is wondering how Per will feel when he sees it. Per doesn’t really know what he got himself into with this one. Haha. Lotta asks whether Per has approved the script or he has given free hand. It’s not a biography, PG explains, but it’s based on a true story with some artistic freedom taken. But it will be fun, Per thinks.

Now Lotta and the guys are talking about the signs of spring. For Daniel, the biggest sign of spring is that many of his old friends have started contacting him. Haha. John has broken down after this answer, so Lotta gets down to Per. Mr. G says it’s a little hard to top Daniel’s answer, but for him it’s that the Formula One season starts. He is crazy about Formula One and it starts in Bahrain next weekend. There are test days this weekend. It’s a fantastic thing according to Per. Lotta asks him if he is going there, to Bahrain. Per won’t go there, but he tries to go to at least one race a year. Lotta asks where he has planned to go this season. Per doesn’t really know, but he would love to go to Las Vegas. But it’s not until November. Lotta says that dude, the one who is supposed to be the best has switched teams, if she knows it right. Per asks if she means Lewis Hamilton. He will switch teams next year. It will be exciting.

John’s spring sign is left for last. John says he is now talking as a father, so the spring sign for him is when the gravel is swept away, because the kids are out skateboarding and riding bikes.

Here Lotta plays a new song, Misstag by Miss Li. She is curious if any of the three guys would put this song on their playlists. John would add it to his playlist, he thinks it’s cool and it would be great to hear it live. It would be sweaty. It’s almost like a rap. Daniel likes Miss Li a lot, he thinks she is very talented. Lotta says that the texts of all Miss Li songs work even when they are translated into English. It’s really special. Per agrees that it’s special, but it isn’t really his cup of tea. But he can hear the charm of this one. But it probably wouldn’t end up on his playlist. He has a lot more older songs on it. Daniel says he likes it, Per likes it too, although it’s not his kind of music. You can still like things. Not everything is for everyone. We have to respect that. But we love Per Gessle, Daniel says. They are laughing.

Lotta asks Per if Miss Li is one of his duet partners. Mr. G says, unfortunately, he can’t answer that. As Per said earlier that he would reply to Lotta’s question in another language, Lotta asks him in English, then Per says „sorry, I don’t understand”. Haha.

Lotta asks the guys what they are going to do today. Jan Lundvik, what are you going to do today? They are taking it easy. Lotta turns to Per and asks him in English if he is making some international phone calls. Per answers yes, of course. He says, jokes aside, he is going to take it easy this weekend. He will do Nyhetsmorgon on Sunday morning.

Lotta thanks everyone for coming and the guys say goodbye.

Pic from Janne Innanfors’s Instagram

Per Gessle on “Halv tre med Lotta Bromé” on Mix Megapol

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Per Gessle was Lotta Bromé’s guest on radio Mix Megapol on 18th October. You can listen to the interview HERE.

Lotta welcomes Per in the studio and mentions that it was exactly a year ago when Per was on this show, October 2022. She finds it fun that PG always releases new music in October. Per laughs and says it’s a coincidence of course. He releases music all the time. Lotta knows it and says she was sitting here in the studio all Easter waiting for Per to come, because he promised to come back then when he was on the show last time. She had eggs and stuff, but PG didn’t come. Per laughs and says something came in the way. Lotta says it was Gyllene Tider. She asks how the tour was.

Per says it was fantastic. The GT tour was magical and Gyllene Tider is a wonderful little pop band. They have always been touring regularly with odd intervals. These days, it feels like there is almost no one left who makes that kind of music anymore. So all of a sudden, they kind of represent a bygone era. They felt it for the first time this year. It didn’t feel like that at all when they toured in 2019. Lotta asks if it was a farewell tour again this summer. PG says it wasn’t. He doesn’t think you should paint yourself into a corner. Only Micke thinks so. Per laughs. So Lotta is curious if another GT tour is coming. Per doesn’t know, but it’s always fun to play together with the guys.

Lotta thinks GT has a very mixed audience. PG confirms it. It’s mostly those who have been there before, but it’s a fantastic mix of all sorts and they have been lucky enough to have managed to build up a song catalogue that is still attractive to a lot of people.

Lotta says it must be fun to get to a younger audience as well and that there are people who only now discover the music that has been around for so long for us. Per confirms it’s cool. The case is that the majority of those who listen to almost all music he makes, it’s music that they have gotten married to, they have divorced, they have graduated and stuff like that. There is so much going on in their lives and the music represents so many life events. It becomes a kind of soundtrack to everything that people have been through. It’s cool to be a part of it.

Lotta asks Per if he himself should pick one GT song that meant the most to him, what song would that be. PG finds it difficult to pick one and Lotta says he can’t cheat and say a Roxette or PG Roxette or Per solo song. It has to be a GT song. So after thinking, Per says a song that was some sort of a stepping stone to something new is Det är över nu. It was the first time that they really sounded the way they always wanted to sound. They got a new producer and it was recorded in 1995. Per had been out for 7 years with Roxette and got more routine through Roxette, so that all of a sudden when GT got back together in 1995, they sounded damn good.

After they play Det är över nu on the radio, Lotta mentions that Per will be on stage tonight. PG explains that there will be a tribute concert to Pugh Rogefeldt at Cirkus. It’s Per, Tomas Ledin, First Aid Kit and other artists on stage. Lotta asks Per why Pugh meant so much to him. Mr. G says Pugh has been with him his whole life. Pugh’s first concert Per saw was when he was 14, in Halmstad’s folk park. Pugh played there with his band Rainrock. Per remembers that Pugh had a bandana on his head and a long ponytail and after a few songs he took off this scarf and then they saw he was completely bald. He looked like Kojak. The Halmstad audience had never seen anything like that before, so they were shocked. Afterwards PG and his friends went to the Esso Motor Hotel where the band lived. They waited for the band there at the reception. Lotta asks if they dared to say hi to the band. PG says they didn’t dare to talk to them. Lotta asks if Per had the chance to tell Pugh about this when they met. PG says he did.

The first time Per and Pugh met was when Gyllene Tider recorded their second LP. It came out in 1981 and Pugh came to the studio to read the stanza “mina damer och herrar, det är gyllene tider för rock’n’roll”, the intro to the song Gyllene Tider för rock’n’roll. It’s unbelievably big for the guys in GT that he did it. Then he went on tour with Gyllene Tider in 2004, on the biggest GT tour. Pugh was a special guest.

Lotta says people always talk about Pugh as the father of Swedish rock. His first album was Ja, dä ä dä! and he wrote lyrics in Swedish. PG says not only that he wrote in Swedish, but he actually created his own language. The second record was called Pughish and there he sings in his own language. Per has always been interested in lyrics and he thinks there are similarities between Pugh’s lyrics and John Lennon’s lyrics. There are these nonsense, odd lyrics, e.g. I Am The Walrus. That’s very attractive to Per. Especially Pugh’s early records, which are a little more fuzzy and a little more unstructured are incredibly attractive to PG.

He chose to cover Vandrar i ett regn. It came out on a live record called Ett steg till in 1975. That was recorded at Halmstad Theatre – among other places – where Per saw Pugh and Rainrock and Janne Lucas and Ola Magnell.

Lotta says Pugh was truly an idol. Per says he had great vibes and he looked cool. Mr. G says he made a video for Vandrar i ett regn and Ebba, who directed this video, has managed to find a lot of cool pictures of Pugh from the past. He looked damn cool.

Lotta says Per doesn’t wear a bandana. Per laughs and says he doesn’t have any. Too much hair to put under, Lotta says. Per laughs and then they play Vandrar i ett regn.

Lotta asks when was the last time Per met Pugh. Mr. G says he met Pugh in person at his last concert. He performed at Cirkus in Stockholm in 2019. Per was there with Clarence Öfwerman, Roxette’s producer. They were sitting in the first row of the gallery and at one song Pugh went out into the audience and sang the song. He caught sight of Per, walked up to him and then he hugged Mr. G. It made Per so happy, because they never had that kind of a relationship, but he just hugged PG. He was happy to see Per.

When Mr. G had recorded Vandrar i ett regn, it ended up with Pugh, so he listened to it and thought it was great that Per recorded it. It was only a couple of days before he passed away, so it also feels great that he got to hear it and Per got a response to it.

Lotta is curious how often Per makes covers. It’s not that often. However, PG likes covers as an artist, because you can use them to tell a little about where you are coming from. They did that with Gyllene Tider early on. They played, for example, ABBA’s S.O.S., Mott The Hoople, The Beatles, a bit of everything by Tom Petty. Roxette played a bit of Blondie and a bit of The Birds. One of Per’s favourite records is David Bowie’s Pin-Ups album, which is a fantastic collection of Bowie’s ’60s favourites. Lotta adds that Bryan Ferry has done some great covers too. Per agrees.

So, Per thinks covers are fun, but he doesn’t make covers that often. You have to prioritize your own songs.

Lotta wants to know how many times Per was asked to be on Så mycket bättre. [It’s a Swedish TV reality show in which participating musicians perform their own version of well-known songs by other artists. /PP] Many times, Per replies. Lotta is curious why Per doesn’t take part in it. Per says from what he understands, you have to go away for 6 weeks and live with other artists. It sounds like a nightmare. They are laughing. Lotta says that Per is touring a lot and asks if it is OK to live with the guys in GT then. PG says it’s true he is away on tour a lot, but there are no cameras all the time.

Lotta says the last time they also talked about getting older and people passing away. Then Per also talked about the importance of nurturing relationships. PG says you have to make the most of what you have. He says you start to become like your parents, throwing out clichés like this about how you should behave when you get old. Per laughs. Lotta says she is very happy that Per came here today and nurtures their relationship. Haha.

Last time Per was on the show he had many things coming up. There was the PG Roxette album, the Gyllene Tider record, then a tour. PG says there will be a lot of stuff happening next year as well that he can’t really reveal yet, but he thinks he will have to do it before Easter. Haha.

What he can tell is that a Gyllene Tider movie will premiere next summer. The shootings end this week. Then next autumn the Roxette musical will premiere in Malmö.

Lotta asks Per about contemporary music. She is curious if Per heard anything lately that he liked. There aren’t too many new songs that Per gets hooked on, but there are occasional artists who are exciting. Weyes Blood, for example. He says now he is like his parents again and laughs. Mr. G says when he really needs to listen to music, he often goes back to the music he grew up with. He doesn’t need a new Joni Mitchell, because he has Joni Mitchell and he doesn’t need a new Tom Petty, because he has Tom Petty. He knows so much music and he has such a huge music collection that it’s enough for him. So it’s not that easy to knock on his door and get in with a new song.

Lotta asks Per to pick an old song they should play then. PG chooses American Girl by Tom Petty.

Lotta says it’s always a pleasure to see Per and a warm welcome back at Easter or even earlier. Per thanks for it and says he’ll be glad to come back.

Stills are from THIS video.

Per Gessle and Anders Herrlin about Gyllene Tider on Gry Forssell med vänner, Mix Megapol

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Per Gessle and Anders Herrlin were guests of Gry Forssell med vänner on Swedish radio Mix Megapol on 31st May. You can listen to the morning show podcast HERE and listen to the 25-minute-long chat from 30:47 into the recording.

Gry welcomes Per and Anders in the studio after introducing Gyllene Tider’s history in short. Gry asks the guys how they are doing. Per says, all good, it’s Wednesday. Gry asks Per what it means to him. PG says it means that it’s the middle of the week. Gry suggests they should celebrate Wednesday just because it’s the middle of the week. Mr. G says it’s hump day (lillördag). Gry says weekend is getting closer. Per says he is the kind of guy who likes Mondays and Tuesdays, when everyone is back, you can reach anyone and get things started. Anders thinks the same, he says Mondays are the best. The program leaders are laughing. Per says they are from Halmstad. One of the program leader guys says it’s nice to hear that Per states Wednesday is hump day, because they had a long debate in the studio. Gry thinks Thursday is the new hump day. Per says „but you are from Gothenburg”. Haha. Gry says she lived there, but she is from Luleå.

Gry asks the guys how it feels that summer is approaching. Per says it feels amazing. It’s always a pleasure to play with this great little pop band that doesn’t grow on trees anymore. They stand for some rather old-fashioned kind of pop music. Gry says they kickstart every morning at 6 and Leva livet is a kind of kickstart song to get the day going. It’s a song where Per sings he is 21. That’s a completely different period of life. She is curious how GT as a band still manage to get that feeling so many years later. Per thinks life goes on and you become a different person over the years. He wrote Leva livet on his 21st birthday. What a damn birthday party it could have been, the guys are kidding him. They ask Anders if he was there too. Anders says he wasn’t invited. Haha.

Gry plays a little mash-up of Gyllene Tider song snippets here, a little look back on GT hits. Per says they will also play new songs on tour. They start rehearsing next weekend. PG thinks it’s going to be a lot of fun and like he said earlier, it’s a great band and it’s always fun to hang out and play together. The new album, Hux Flux is very upbeat and very energetic, so it will be fun to sink their teeth into some of those songs.

During the whole morning show different GT songs are played. Here Gry plays Dagar att dansa, the latest single. Per says it’s a nice song and Anders plays the bass damn well. Anders adds that Per sings very well. Haha.

After the song is played, Gry asks Anders how it feels. Anders says it feels fantastic. One of the program leaders asks the guys where the band name, Gyllene Tider comes from. Anders says it was from an article Mats Olsson wrote back then for Expressen. Per says they were already called Gyllene Tider when Mats wrote that article. They gave the name after an instrumental song with that title. Anders says he changed his mind. They are laughing. PG says Anders wasn’t even in the band at the time. Gry says there is another song now also called Gyllene Tider that came out a couple of weeks ago. Per corrects her that the title is Gyllene Tider igen.

Here comes the dilemma of the day (a part of the show). It’s about a 23-year-old girl, Sofia who has been dating a man for a year now. The relationship is kept secret from her family, but she feels that she should talk about it. The real dilemma is that the man is her mother’s friend. He is 50 years old. Her mother guessed that she met someone, but not that it is her friend. It’s strange when the man is visiting them, because they have to pretend that everything is as usual. The girl is afraid that her mother will be angry and disappointed because it is him. This man and her mother also have a past, they were together before the girl was born. The guys are thinking and say maybe it’s the girl’s father. Gry says it can’t be. At least she shopes so. She asks what Sofia should do. Jakob, one of the program leaders thinks it’s nothing to build on in this relationship. The man is 50, the girl is 23. He would advise to say goodbye to each other, but later if love conquers, he wishes good luck in that case. Gry says she read that Ulf Lundell’s girlfriend is 33 years old. Jakob says it’s a different case here, since the man was together with Sofia’s mother too. Per says he thinks she should sell her story to Netflix. Haha. It could be a good movie. Or a song. Anders says he has never heard such a story before, but if you meet and fall in love with someone like this, then it must mean something. So in the end the guys think Sofia should follow her heart. Later in this discussion Per throws in one of GT’s song titles, Kärleken är inte blind (Men ganska närsynt) (Love is not blind, but quite nearsighted). Haha.

Gry comes up with the idea of reading a tale about Gyllene Tider, hux flux (all of a sudden). She starts and when she stops, the guys have to finish the sentences. According to Wikipedia, Gyllene Tider is a band that was originally active between 1978 and 1985, but after that, they had several reunions and hux flux when per Gessle reads it, he thinks… PG says „that’s pretty much true”. Gry goes on. The last time Anders Herrlin put his bass on the shelf it was… Anders says „yesterday”. Haha. Gry goes on. But all of a sudden he felt… Anders says „I play a little more”. Gry goes on. The last time Per Gessle was in this studio, he revealed that he has never bathed in Tylösand and he is a man of principles. But the last time he surprised himself, it was when he… PG says „got here on time to the studio this morning”. Gry goes on. Karolina Widerström has seen a lot of films, but maybe she didn’t know that Anders Herrlin produces a lot of music for films. Anders never thought he would write film music, but… Anders says „he did it”. Gry goes on. Yesterday, the storyteller here in the studio drew attention to the mystery of actually owning ugly panties and the most uncomfortable that Per Gessle ever wore was… PG says „probably MP’s old slippers”. Anders laughs it’s good that it wasn’t his underpants. Gry goes on. Singer Dea Norberg, who was on tour with Roxette, but will also be on this summer’s GT tour, says that she wants to go on a horse ride with Per and Anders this summer. Per feels… PG says „Good God! Is that true?” Gry goes on. She is looking forward to it and she is going to make it happen. Gyllene Tider had a big farewell tour, there would be no more tours, but all of a sudden… Anders says „they are back again”. PG says „Micke Syd changed his mind”. With this, the short and intense GT tale ends.

Gry mentions that there will be a GT movie. She asks what the guys can tell about it. The shooting starts in August this year. It won’t be like a documentary, but a feature film about 5 small town teenage guys who, against all odds, succeed in making it. It’s about GT, but it’s not like a documentary about the success story, but it’s about when they started the band and when they broke through. The program leaders ask who will play the roles of the band members. Per says they can’t share the info. Anders says they are not allowed to say anything, but today he is going to meet the guy who plays him.

It’s much fun. Mr. G says the script is very cool, full of laughs and cries. Gry is curious how much the guys are involved in the project. Per says they are very much involved. It actually starts with Per and the time he met MP and they formed a band and then everything else happened. The movie should be out in summer 2024.

Gry gets back to Anders and film music. Anders says he has always been interested in that. It’s very difficult to enter this world, but he had worked with Anders Bagge and he got a foot in. Then he asked Anders and his partner with whom he worked together if they want to help him. So that’s the way it is. So now Anders is making film music every day. It’s his job. Per says: „What a guy!” Haha. Gry says PG also has quite a few side projects besides Gyllene Tider. She asks how it is going with Roxette. Per asks if Gry means PG Roxette. He says they released a new EP a couple of weeks ago. Gry says they talked about it earlier this morning. They have a program point where they try to guess what the most googled term in the last 24 hours is. Jakob guessed that it was Marie Fredriksson, who would have turned 65 yesterday. She was number one on the list of what people have googled the most. It was actually over 20,000 searches. Gry also mentions that SVT broadcast the 2020 tribute concert yesterday and asks if the guys watched it and how it felt. Anders says it was a terrible experience doing that, because there was so much pressure. Seeing all the pictures of Marie when she was young and in her peak. Then they were unprepared seeing all these films that were shown in the background. It came as a shock. You are used to being on stage and conveying energy of joy and all that. But this was like hell. It was very strange, they sat and cried. It was tough. Per adds that it was pretty close after she had passed away. That was a very tough day.

Talking about icons and singers who are unfortunately no longer with us, Gry mentions Tina Turner and she says both Anders and Per met her. She asks the guys to talk about this. Anders says he has a story about Tina. „Tina as I call her.” It was probably somewhere in Germany with Roxette, maybe in Hamburg. Tina would come and see them at the concert. Everyone was very excited. They were up on stage playing and all of a sudden Tina was standing by Anders side. And then she disappeared. After they finished playing, everyone went backstage and asked „what did she say? What did she say?” The organizer said she only said one thing, „I like the bass player”. Haha.

Per also met Tina, but he says he doesn’t have such a lovely story as Anders. He was in her home and had a dinner there. Tina invited them for dinner once in Cologne. She lived there back then. They were 12-14 people there. It was in connection with Roxette’s Crash! Boom! Bang! album. Per remembers that Tina had tons of golden records up on the walls. He thought that was a bit cheesy. Haha. Gry asks Per where he keeps his golden records. PG says not at home. They have a small Roxette and Gyllene Tider museum at Hotel Tylösand, where you can see those records.

Here they play Gyllene Tider igen. Gry asks what the guys could tell about the song. Per says it’s short, but it’s nice.

The last program point while the guys are still in the studio is 5 seconds. It’s a game. Per and Anders have to say 3 things in 5 seconds, replying to a question. Round 1, question to Per: Say 3 things in 5 seconds you do on hump day! PG says „sleep, wake up and eat breakfast”. Round 1, question to Anders: Say 3 things you would like to gild! Anders says „my body, my wife’s body, my son’s body”. Round 2, question to Per: 3 things that are punk. PG says „Anders Herrlin, MP Persson, Göran Fritzon”. Round 2, question to Anders: 3 things that happen on the subway. Anders says „dirt, dirt, dirt”. The program leaders say it’s only one thing, unfortunately. Anders says no, it’s not at all. These are different dirts. Round 3, question to Per: Say 3 Ferrari sounds! Mr. G says „bass, mid-range, treble”. Round 3, question to Anders: Say 3 things that sound like German! Here they start laughing and the 5 seconds are over. So Per wins, but he says Anders got much tougher questions.

The conversation ends with info about the summer tour that premieres on 7th July in Halmstad. Gry says to search in google where to buy tickets. Per says there will be 17 shows in Sweden, 2 in Finland an 1 in Norway. One of the program leader guys asks if there is any gig in Denmark. Per says no, they can come to Skåne. Haha.

Gry thanks the guys for joining. Per says it’s always a pleasure.

   

   

Still’s are from Gry Forssells stories.

Per Gessle on Gry Forssell med vänner, Mix Megapol

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Per Gessle was a guest of Gry Forssell med vänner on Swedish radio Mix Megapol on 30th November. You can listen to the morning show HERE and listen to the 20-minute-long chat from 20:10 into the program.

Gry welcomes Per in the studio by saying he has done everything from tear-jerking ballads in Swedish to international dance music. PG thanks for the warm welcome and to the question how he is, he replies he feels absolutely wonderful and it’s so much fun to be there. He mentions the radio has a nice Christmas tree. Gry explains they play Christmas music now all the way until Christmas to get into the right mood. She thinks it might be considered a bit of a jumpstart with Christmas decorations, but now after the First Sunday of Advent… Per thinks it’s totally fine. Gry is curious if Per has already decorated and the answer is a strict no. Then Gry asks if he will decorate and the answer is no again. Gry asks if Per is the Grinch. Haha. Per says he is bad at that sort of thing, but he thinks it’s kind of cozy. Gry is shocked how someone can make Christmas music and not be a Christmas decorator. She thinks it’s cheating. Per agrees and informs he wrote his new Christmas single in June. Haha.

One of the program leader guys says he found Sweden’s strangest word. It’s „nja”, the mix of „ja” (yes) and „nej” (no). He is wondering how it can be a word, both no and yes at the same time. Per thinks it’s typical Swedish.

Gry asks Per what he is thinking about today. Mr. G replies that it is so early. When he woke up this morning he was wondering what planet he was on. He tells he is not a morning person, but it got better over the years. Gry is curious whether Per stays in bed after waking up or gets up immediately. PG says he is up right away, otherwise it may get a bit too cozy. Haha.

Gry tells the listeners that they will play Per’s new Christmas song, but first she wants to hear about It Must Have Been Love, if it’s true that it’s a Christmas song. PG tells it was written as a Christmas song in 1987. They tried to get abroad with Roxette, also to Germany for example, but they said they couldn’t play anything from Roxette on the radio. They suggested that he should write a Christmas song to make it maybe a little easier then. So he wrote It Must Have Been Love and played it for them, but they didn’t like it at all. So it was released in Sweden only and became quite big at Christmas 1987. Then it was forgotten and later it appeared in Pretty Woman in 1990 and the rest is history.

After playing IMHBL, Gry tells sometimes you have to be happy that a song comes to an end because her colleague asks stupid questions. He asked Per about Gyllene Tider and reggae. Gry apologizes for the question and they are laughing. Per says they tried to make some kind of reggae version of Flickorna på TV2 and När vi två blir en, but it didn’t go too well. It was a bit of Halmstad reggae.

Here Gry reads a listener’s letter who asks for advice. She is 26 and has been going out with a guy since months, but she hasn’t told him about her past that she was a drug addict. The guy made it clear he hates drugs. She asks advice whether she should tell it to the guy or wait with it. Gry and Co. are discussing the topic and think the girl should tell her boyfriend about her past. Per thinks so too and also thinks it sounds like a quite tough relationship. They discuss that the guy thinks how can someone be so stupid to take drugs, but the girl also thinks it’s stupid, because she has stopped taking drugs. So they actually think the same. Attitude towards things is not really that simple that you can judge like that. Per thinks he shouldn’t be a hobby psychologist.

Gry tells it’s completely impossible to find scandals around Per Gessle. She doesn’t know whether Per is not involved in any or he is just hiding them very well. Per says he is very good at keeping his scandals a secret. One scandal Gry heard about, she says. Per says, „shit, what’s her name?” Haha. Gry says her name is Tylösand. She heard that Per has never bathed in Tylösand. PG says it’s true. Gry can’t believe it. Per says he has never gone down and dipped his toes in. He explains it’s because his father and grandfather were plumbers and they worked in Frösakull, so when he was a child in the ’60s and ’70s he was hanging out and bathed there. He had no close relationship with Tylösand. He was around 19, 20, 21 years old when he went down there and went to the nightclub to fool around a bit. It’s also the case that Gyllene Tider became big when he was 21 and after that it wasn’t really possible to just go down to the beach.

Gry asks Per about PG Roxette’s Christmas songs. The B side of the single was a song he wrote in 2013 for a musical that never happened. So it was lying around and matured a bit. It’s a very nice ballad, but then he thought he would write an uptempo song just out of the blue and that’s the one that became a single. Gry is curious how Per got the Christmas inspiration in the middle of summer. Per says you don’t need anything special, just to put on Santa’s hat at home. They are laughing. It’s just that you think and try to write something that is a little bit festive and lovely. Gry thinks it’s sweet that Per thinks about the single as an A side and B side thing, even if he also released it digitally. Per says it’s a sign that he is getting very old.

Gry asks Per what his first vinyl was. It was an LP by The Kinks, The Kink Kontroversy. He bought it in secret from his brother who needed money for cigarette.

The guys also talk about the happy news that Gyllene Tider goes on tour next summer. It’s called Hux Flux. They ask Per if we can expect new songs as well. PG says absolutely, there is a brand new LP already recorded. It will come out in spring and it’s also called Hux Flux. Gry says she doesn’t want Per to get her wrong, but all those who bought tickets and went on their farewell tour and stood at the front and cried and said, „now we’re part of something historic”… Do they ask for their money back now? Haha. Per says no, he hopes they had a nice evening. Mr. G says it’s an interesting discussion, though. What actually happened is that the pandemic came. It was Micke Syd at the time who thought they should do their last tour in 2019. And then when the pandemic happened, all of a sudden it felt like they might come up with something, do something more together and it started then with Per writing a bunch of songs for the band and they recorded them. It turned out to be a damn good record. Now they are going on tour again.

Here they play Wish You The Best For Xmas by PG Roxette.

Gry asks Per to tell a true and a false happening from his life. They will try to find out which one is true. Per says he has prepared a bit ambitiously for this, so instead of a statement he asks the question whether Gyllene Tider has ever been called Roxette or not. Per continues with a little explanation that in 1985 Gyllene Tider was over. It took 9 years until 1996 before the first comeback happened and the last album that Gyllene Tider recorded was in English. It was called The Heartland Café. This album was released in the US and Gyllene Tider was marketed under the name Roxette. True or false? The radio gang finds this question exciting. In 1985 they took a break, then in 1996 they came back. Per says it was with those songs, Juni, juli, augusti and Gå & fiska! Someone thinks it’s true, someone thinks it’s false. Someone thinks it was such a detailed story that it must be true. Per tells in the end that it’s true. Gyllene Tider’s English name was Roxette back then. Gry asks how come she didn’t know about it. Per says because she doesn’t read books about him. They are laughing. Per says Marie and he started Roxette one year later. The idea for the name came from a band Gyllene Tider listened to a lot, Dr. Feelgood, an English pub rock band. They have a song called Roxette that they all loved, so they took their name from that song.

Gry and Co. thank Per for coming to the show and hanging out with them. They wish Mr. G a nice Christmas break. Per wishes the same and thanks for inviting him and for the good sandwiches. Gry wishes Per a nice Christmas in Halmstad and asks him to come back to them before the GT tour.

Still is from Per’s Xmas single teaser video.

Per Gessle on “Halv tre med Lotta Bromé” on Mix Megapol

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Per Gessle was Lotta Bromé’s guest on radio Mix Megapol on 26th October. You can listen to the interview HERE.

Before Per was on air, the radio played The Look by Roxette and När vi två blir en by Gyllene Tider.

Lotta welcomes Per on the show and he thanks for that. Lotta asks Per how he is doing. Mr. G replies he is actually very well. Lotta asks why and Per laughs, because it’s a weekday. Lotta is curious if PG has any fun things to do now that he is in Stockholm. Mr. G thinks there are only fun things around him and a lot is happening right now. Gyllene Tider ticket sales and tour and a new album and everything possible.

Lotta asks Per how he is functioning. Whether he is always in a hurry or he is one of those who have ADHD or if it’s just that he is a very creative being. Per thinks he is a combination of all that. He usually says that he probably has all the letter combinations except I and Q. [They are laughing.]

Lotta is curious if Per was good at school. He was quite uninterested in school. He liked art and drawing and English and Swedish. Lotta finds it strange that Per hasn’t mentioned music. PG says he wasn’t that interested, music teaching was quite boring in his time. He doesn’t know how it goes nowadays, but back then there were a lot of theory things.

So the question is, when he found music in his life. It came very early thanks to his 7-year-older brother who had a massive record collection. Already as a 6-7-8-year-old, he was completely engaged in the pop universe. Lotta asks if Per’s brother had a good taste. He had very broad and good taste that Per thinks he has carried with him. It was everything from Hepstars to Led Zeppelin. So Lotta thinks it was PG’s brother who laid the foundation for Per’s chords. Per agrees. It’s his brother’s record collection that he dug into until he got his own back then.

Lotta wants to know how many records Per has in his collection. Mr. G has gotten rid of a lot since then, but he has maybe a couple of thousand LPs left. A lot of singles too. He split the collection and keeps the vinyls in Halmstad, while the CDs are in Stockholm. He has a record player in both places. He is also using Spotify, but he likes to buy vinyls for the sake of the cover. He loves record covers and the smell of vinyl records. Holding the record and listening to it is magical. Lotta says her 16-year-old daughter started collecting vinyls, using amplifiers and speakers and stuff. Per can identify with that. You think about all the music you grew up with. Aladdin Sane by David Bowie or Sticky Fingers by the Stones or Sgt. Pepper. Without the cover it’s just empty. Album covers are like the face of the music.

Lotta says Per asked her not to invite him for too early on the radio show, because he is old. Now it’s afternoon and she asks Per if he has already woken up. PG has woken up.

They get down to Gyllene Tider and Per tells it was hysterical back in the days. It was crazy in 1980-81. He lived with his mother, his father had passed away by then and his siblings, 7 and 14 years older had already moved out. Lotta is curious what Per’s mother thought of the people standing outside their door the whole time. Mr. G says she took it pretty well, until people started stealing the laundry that was hung on the dash and the number plate of the car. Then she thought it was time for Per to get his own apartment. So he found one. He had a very close relationship with his mother. She was very supportive [Per says the word „supportive” in English], as it’s called in Halland. It was Per’s father who thought you should get a real job instead of fooling around with 3 chords. He had a real job, he was a plumber.

Per’s family members passed away in 3 years and it was tough of course, it always is, everyone knows that when you lose your relatives. But that happened when Per was quite mature himself and as a man you can handle it in a different way than when you are small. It was harder when his father passed away when he was only 19. It was difficult in a way, but there isn’t much to do. You go through that and you learn to live with it. The older you get, the more human people disappear around you, so you learn to deal with it in a way, even if it’s difficult.

Lotta remembers that Per once said that when relatives disappear, you get different values. She is curious what values he thought of. Per can’t remember he said that, but he thinks that when you lose friends and relatives, you become thoughtful. You think through what you are doing. This pandemic was a shock to the system that lasted for years. Per thinks people changed a lot, how they travel and stuff like that. Also one of the reasons for a Gyllene Tider comeback is because they have realized that, perhaps, you should value things and value things in a different way. Value relationships, for example.

Lotta plays Tittar på dig när du dansar and asks Per to tell something about it. He hasn’t heard it in a long time, but he recorded it in Nashville. Using flute and mandolin. Lotta asks if those were real instruments. Absolutely yes, Per replies, ”oh my god, it’s Nashville!”. Lotta says there are other projects when Per is not using real instruments, but rather technical stuff. She thinks of Mono Mind. Per likes switching between his projects, jumping between different things. You do an acoustic tour, then you want to do something electrical next month. Then Gyllene Tider. GT is very organic. It’s played hardcore.

Lotta asks when the tour starts. It starts on 7th July in Halmstad next summer. To the question how many gigs there will be Per replies you never know with this little band. Right now there are probably 15, 16, 17, 18 booked. Two extras were added today. Lotta asks Per how many times they said it’s over. Mr. G says they didn’t really say that more than once, in 2019. And that’s what they meant back then. The decision was initiated by Micke Syd, who thought they should stop when they were at their peak and alive, but as Per said before, the pandemic came and he started thinking again. He started writing songs that had that clear Gyllene Tider feel to them and presented them to the band. All of a sudden everyone wanted to be back on the train. On tour they will of course play the old goodies, but he hopes they will play something new as well, because the new record feels fantastic. Although you won’t be able to listen to it until next spring. Lotta asks Per if he comes back on the show when the date for the album release is decided. They kind of agree on meeting at 3 pm on Maundy Thursday.

Lotta is curious about this new project, PG Roxette. Per tells that a new album is coming out on Friday. It’s called Pop-Up Dynamo! and it’s actually a continuation of Roxette. After a lot of tossing and turning, he decided to go on with that train as well. It wasn’t an obvious decision, but time passed and he felt that he wanted to. Continuing that journey mostly comes from the fact that he would like to continue playing the Roxette songs live. He wrote almost all of these songs and he doesn’t want to put the lid on. He also has to say that he is not trying and has never tried to replace Marie in any way. There are these two fantastic girls who were backing vocalists on Roxette tours for many years. It’s Dea Norberg and Helena Josefsson who came forward when they were needed.

Lotta has just looked at the dates and realized that Marie passed away shortly after Per’s family members passed away, so it must have been quite tough years. Of course it was tough, Per says and then their fantastic drummer Pelle Alsing also passed away not long after. So it was tough.

Lotta says that Marie wrote it in her biography that the last tour they went on was the best rehabilitation. Per says Marie was absolutely fantastic, because she never gave up. He remembers when in the spring of 2016 Marie wanted to meet him in her home and said she couldn’t continue. They had a big summer tour booked and had sold several hundred thousand tickets in Europe. She said she couldn’t do it anymore, but she actually toured from 2009 to 2016. They did several hundreds of concerts together. She did that because she was so strong and she wanted to do that. She was just amazing. Lotta notices that it’s still hard for Per to talk about it. Mr. G says it’s tough indeed. She was a special person.

Lotta tells that Marie’s family has decided to put a part of her wardrobe on auction and the money will go to Stockholm’s City Mission in full. Lotta thinks she would have liked that. Per absolutely agrees.

From the new album Lotta plays Watch Me Come Undone. It has this wonderful ’80s style, Per says. This whole album is a cousin to the ’80s and ’90s records that they did with Roxette. Look Sharp! and Joyride.

Lotta is curious if PG Roxette will tour next autumn. Per thinks it’s not a bad idea. Nothing planned yet, but it’s in his plans to go out and play Roxette songs. Lotta says he should release this one in Spanish as well as they did before. Per hopes he doesn’t have to do that. Lotta says she heard Per was so lazy or didn’t want to sing in Spanish that he gave all the songs to Marie to sing. Per explains it was a ballad record and so he chose the ballads that Marie sang and he escaped.

Lotta wants to know how many ballads there are on the new Gyllene Tider album. Per thinks and says there are no ballads on the album at all. It’s full speed from A to Z, just like how it should be.

Lotta asks how much music Per has in his head and how it can be enough for this many projects all the time. Mr. G doesn’t really know the answer. He is writing all the time, so it gets more and more and as long as it’s fun, he won’t stop. He says that if you are motivated and having fun, it’s music, it’s not a job. He is not the kind of person who gets up every day and sits down at the piano or writes a song. He just writes when he feels like it. Per usually says that he writes as little as possible.

Lotta and PG agree again on meeting at Easter. They wish merry Xmas to each other and happy new year. And with this, the show ends.

Stills are from PG Roxette’s The idea behind the album video.