Musikplats Stockholm

Interview with Per Gessle on Musikplats Stockholm

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Per Gessle was contacted by Fredrik Eliasson at Musikplats Stockholm on Swedish Radio and they talked via phone on the 23rd August show. Listen to the conversation HERE! It starts at 1:42:52 into the program.

Fredrik greets Per and congratulates him on his new song, Nyper mig i armen that became song of the week when it was released. Per thanks for that. Fredrik asks Per what it was like doing this song with Albin Lee Meldau. PG says it was fantastic. He had seen him and heard him, but he had never met Albin Lee before. When Per wrote this song for his upcoming duet album that will be released in autumn, he immediately thought of Albin Lee, so he contacted him and Albin Lee came to Halmstad. They had a great day in the studio and a good dinner. They shot the video for the song in Per’s garden in Halmstad. It was nice.

Per thinks his new album is a wonderful project. He was working with different female and male singers on it. It’s lovely.

Fredrik is curious what it has meant to Per to do these collaborations with Molly Hammar and Lena Philipsson among others. PG says he has always liked working with other voices. With Marie Fredriksson, Helena Josefsson and others. It’s mostly fun from the songwriting point of view. It’s fun to see what happens to a song when someone else sings it. When someone else interprets it. It’s a challenge and it’s exciting to do something that you don’t do every day.

Fredrik mentions the bridging generations, getting input from, for example, Albin Lee and Molly. He wants to know what has been the most educational for Per during these collaborations. Per says it’s fun to have some young blood. There are also some slightly older partners on the upcoming album, so it’s a mix. Fredrik thinks it must be cool to mix like that. PG confirms, it’s great fun. When you have a song and someone else sings it, all of a sudden it changes the energy, it changes temperature, because it’s interpreted in a completely new way. Per finds it cool and interesting as a songwriter.

Fredrik informs that there is a lot going on around Per. On 6th September, Joyride – The Musical, a Roxette musical premieres at Malmö Opera. He asks Per how it feels to him. PG says he is there at the rehearsals every now and then and it’s a fantastic journey to be a part of. It sounds wonderful. Last week he heard how it sounded with the orchestra and the band and it was magical. This week it’s costume rehearsal. He is incredibly happy to be part of this.

The premiere is in Malmö and the musical will be played there until spring. Fredrik asks Mr. G if they will take the musical to Stockholm as well. They certainly will. The whole idea of ??the musical is to take it all around the world. That is their ambition.

Fredrik asks Per what he thinks about his song catalogue in this context. What strikes Per musically is that much of his music fits very well in this context. It’s pretty grand music. It’s old-fashioned pop music that he writes, there is a lot of modulation, big themes, the ending. There are new musical parts all the time. Today’s pop music is very form-oriented. Other musicians write in a different way. Per’s music fits the format with a large orchestra, many voices and a good band. It’s great to be a part of it.

Speaking of Roxette, Fredrik says Per is going on a world tour with Lena Philipsson. PG says he has been thinking for many years what to do with the Roxette catalogue. Then when he was working with Lena, he thought she would be great to sing Roxette songs. They talked about it and did some testing. It sounded absolutely magical, Per thinks. Lena is a wonderful singer. Not as old as PG, but she has been around for quite some time.

This is not about forming a new Roxette or starting a new band. It’s about going out on tour and playing the Roxette catalogue from back in the days. It’s very exciting. They have brought the original Roxette band together. It will sound amazing. They start in Cape Town, South Africa at the end of February and continue in Australia. Then they will see what happens next. The demand is huge, Fredrik adds, for Roxette’s music live on stage. Per says ticket sales have been going great, so they are a bit overwhelmed by that. PG does notice that Roxette’s music is being played. When Marie passed away, there were only two ways to go. Either you shut down Roxette or you try to find ways to continue. He feels the same what Fredrik says, that there is a lot of interest. Then he feels, why not go out and play a little. He has written all these songs, so it would be fun to play them live for people. They will see how it goes, but it feels like a really fun project too.

Fredrik thanks Per for joining the show and they say goodbye to each other.

It Must Have Been Love comes as the next song.

Photo from Fredrik Eliasson’s Instagram from February 2024.

Per Gessle about Mono Mind on Musikplats Stockholm

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After Per Gessle got back from the US to Sweden this week, Fredrik Eliasson from Swedish Radio P4 Stockholm immediately did an interview with him to be broadcast yesterday on Musikplats Stockholm. Listen to it HERE!

The interview was about Mono Mind and before it was on air, they played I Found My Soul At Marvingate. Cool to hear it on the radio!

Fredrik introduced Mono Mind as Mr. G’s secret project that got out of the closet recently. Then he welcomed Per as Dr. Robot and Per said in a slightly changed voice that ”yes, I’m here” (trying to imitate Dr. Robot’s voice, but it didn’t work well without the computer distortion, haha). Fredrik wished a belated happy birthday to Per and asked how it was to celebrate his 60th. Per said it was quite intense for 2 days with a very few people. He said his wife is very social and he is the opposite, so he just sat in a dark corner and it went fine. Haha.

The guys talked about Mono Mind’s debut album that it was released on Per’s birthday. Mr. G shared the info that he started releasing singles in 2017 and the first single was Save Me A Place. He said no one knew he was behind the project and the song suddenly became No. 1 on the dance charts in the US and kept the position for 6 weeks. It was much fun to achieve this at his age and with an anonymous project.

Per talked about the characters and that he wanted to change his voice and how it worked in the studio when he was sitting there with Christoffer Lundquist for weeks. It’s not vocoder or any other gadget you can hear, but they created the new voice on the computer themselves. Each song took appr. 2.5 days to create. It was very exciting.

Per said the idea was to create some kind of modern pop music and pop music nowadays is made on laptops. So he wanted to try to mix it with his classic songwriting and it has become a new chapter in his career. Fredrik asked Per about Nashville where he went rather acoustic and Per said Mono Mind started already before Nashville.

Before they played Down by the Riverside, Per said it’s one of his favourite songs. He thinks Dr. Robot’s voice is the best on this one.

The guys then talked about Helena Josefsson. Per said she has a fantastic voice and it fits Dr. Robot’s voice very well and it brightens up all songs.

Per said Mono Mind is still like a playhouse for him. The album was released on 12th January and on 11th he was thinking shit, if it was really a good idea to reveal this project. What if people don’t like it? He would be a bit sad. And what if people like it? How to go on with it? And then there were questions if he goes on tour with Mono Mind. But how to do it? It can be something similar to how Daft Punk or Pet Shop Boys tour, but who knows. The only sure thing is that Per wants to continue working with Mono Mind and develop the whole project, the characters and their stories. One can do anything with such characters.

Per talked about the market for this type of music. He said there are a lot of competitors out there and you need much luck to succeed. He can’t see the same journey with Mono Mind as they had with Roxette, but it’s much fun to record and talk about it anyway. Fredrik jokes with ”are there any exchange students around?”. Haha.

As a last question, Fredrik asked Per which song he is the most satisfied with on Mind Control. Mr. G was thinking for a while, then he said In Control. They had some magical hours when they recorded that song. He likes its construction, the changes in it that don’t usually happen in dance music. There is a kind of progressive rock 1972 in it, Barclay James Harvest style. He thinks it’s magnificent music coming from him and laughs. After the interview they played In Control.