Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – October 2023

Per Gessle and Sven Lindström offer a Lisa Miskovsky special on the October episode of Nordic Rox. PG thinks she is a great singer with a wonderful voice and she is a wonderful artist. She released her first album in 2001. Still going strong. Sven adds she is a great songwriter too.

Before the special starts, the guys talk about The Cardigans, a Swedish band that wasn’t from Malmö, but they moved to Malmö. Love Fool was a big hit in the States, but now the guys play a song from the Life album called Carnival. Swedish indie from 1995.

Ooh I Like It! by The Creeps is the next song. It’s produced by Clarence Öfwerman, who produced Roxette. Sven says it sounds really good. The band is from Älmhult, the town that made IKEA famous. Marit Bergman is next with her beautiful This Is The Year from 2002.

The guys are moving in the direction of Per Gessle and play the latest single, Vandrar i ett regn. It’s to celebrate the Swedish legend, Pugh Rogefeldt. Sven mentions they did a Nordic Rox special with Pugh. Per says he passed away unfortunately in May this year. Per says he was part of a tribute concert, an homage to him, and he released a single with one of Pugh’s songs from 1975. Sven says it’s from a live album and he doesn’t think there was a studio version. It was only released live and it was sort of a ’50s pastiche. Per adds he always loved that song. He was actually there at the show where it was recorded when he was 16 years old. The double album became a big hit for Pugh. When Per recorded the song himself, he removed all these ’50s influences. He made it into a little bit more like his style instead. Sven thinks it’s a great move. It became something else, a wonderful pop track with Per’s guitarist Ola’s slide guitar there as well. Per is sure a lot of people of course don’t understand the song, because it’s in Swedish, but it’s got all those typical elements of Pugh’s wonderful lyrics. He had his own style. Sven says he is called the founding father of Swedish rock music, and not only because of the music, but also the lyrics. PG says he was the first one to do rock music in Swedish. In a credible way, Sven adds. Per is very happy to be able to participate and to pay some tribute to him.

Electric by the fabulous band Melody Club is next. They are from Sven’s hometown, Växjö. Great stuff coming out of that town, Sven says. The guys are laughing.

Sven and Per move on to the Lisa Miskovsky special. Per says she is a great singer and she is from the North. Her father was from the old Czechoslovakia and her mother was from Finland. She had made a debut album in 2001, which was an instant success. Sven adds she started writing songs at an early age, but she was super talented in many other ways. She was really close to become a member of the Swedish national team in snowboard. And she played hockey, Per adds. But the songwriting and the singing eventually got the upper hand. In 2001 she made her first single Driving One Of Your Cars. Mr. G says it’s very special. It sounds exactly like how pop music sounded in 2001. Sven agrees.

Cool track coming up next, Lady Stardust from Lisa’s second album Fallingwater. Sven doesn’t know how it did internationally. He is not really sure about Lisa’s international career actually. Per thinks it went so-so. This was a really big album in Sweden. She started working with Joakim Berg from the band Kent who co-wrote songs with her and also co-produced. That made a big difference style-wise. This is a really cool album and Lady Stardust was a big, big song on the radio. Sven remembers you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. Big radio track.

Sven says it’s starting to heat up now, because they are moving out to the international big hit scene. Per says, what was interesting was that Lisa Miskovsky had this song called Another Shape Of My Heart, which eventually turned out to be Shape Of My Heart by the Backstreet Boys. Sven explains that Lisa made a demo of this song and it got in the hands of Max Martin. PG says Max Martin was producing and writing for Backstreet Boys at the time. In the Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sven adds. Sven doesn’t know if you can say that he kept half of Lisa’s ideas. Per says he doesn’t know, he wasn’t there. Haha. Sven says he wasn’t there either. Max Martin added some magic to it and just to let you know what the difference is, the guys play Another Shape Of My Heart, the Lisa Miskovsky version, and then the Shape Of My Heart version by Backstreet Boys.

Sven asks Per if he has ever written something similar to a boy band tune. Per says not that he knows of. Sven is curious about how it is for Per as a songwriter what started in the boy band era that there were multiple songwriters working together. Sometimes you can see up to 5 or even 10 songwriters. PG says it’s a different thing, he comes from a different generation. He is used to working alone or with one partner. But nowadays you do everything on the computer and you send your files to each other and people add things all the time. So it’s a different ball game. New times, new methods.

One more track is played by Lisa Miskovsky, also from the Fallingwater album. It was Lisa’s second album. A Brand New Day is Per’s favorite Lisa Miskovsky track. He thinks she sings beautifully on this one. It’s co-written by Lisa herself and Joakim Berg from Kent. A wonderful track from 2003. This wraps up the Lisa Miskovsky special. The guys mention once again that she is a great songwriter, performer, singer, hockey player and snowboarder.

The guys have an ace up their sleeves in the shape of Bob Hund. A wonderful band, according to Per. They play Tralala lilla molntuss. PG can’t translate it. Sven says if you think it’s a bit difficult to understand Thomas Öberg, the singer’s lyrics, don’t feel too depressed, because he is coming from Helsingborg in the South of Sweden, and a lot of Swedes have actually a bit trouble hearing what he says.

Mando Diao’s The Band is next and Toys And Flavors by The Hellacopters is the last song, from the album High Visibility released in 2000.

Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – September 2023

Per Gessle and Sven Lindström recorded the next episode of Nordic Rox in Halmstad. They are featuring one of Per’s favourite bands from the ’60s, a Stockholm based band called Ola & The Janglers. Sven says here comes the 10,000 dollar question: what does jangler mean? PG hasn’t got a clue, but he thinks it sounds cool. Sven agrees. He says they know the „jingle jangle morning” that Dylan had in his lyric and he also thinks he saw some definition that the jangler was some person who was useless in doing something. Sven: „You know, he’s been jangling with this forever.” PG: „Like you.” Sven: „Haha. Exactly. Another version pointed out a guy like you, and that was the dark web version that a jangler was someone who kicked another guy in the balls.” PG: „Alright. Thank you very much.” Sven says that since they are from Sweden, they don’t actually have a clue, they just accept that the band is called Ola & The Janglers.

The guys start off with one of their favourite artists who is on repeat playing on Nordic Rox. It’s Adiam Dymott and the track is from her self-titled album from 2009 and it’s called Pizza.

Swedish ’90s pop, Fishtank by This Perfect Day comes next. It’s a great song, Per thinks, taken from their album C-60 from 1997. Sven asks Per what C-60 makes him think of. PG replies cassettes, of course.

The latest and greatest single from First Aid Kit called Turning Onto You is next. It’s taken from their latest album Palomino.

Before the guys sink their teeth into Ola & The Janglers, they take a look at Gyllene Tider and play Sunday Driver, Yea. The English lyrics to a song that Per wrote for his Swedish band. PG explains that the album is in Swedish, but one song was originally in English, so he decided to make an English version as well. Waking up the power pop monster that’s been dormant for a couple of years, Sven says. As they mentioned on the last show, the band has been on a successful tour around Sweden for 6-7 weeks, winding up doing some festivals in Finland and a big show in Norway as well.

Chris Craft No 9 by The Shanes comes next. The Shanes is a ’60s band from the northern part of Sweden. Sven thinks that this is one of the best original Swedish pop songs that came out in the ’60s. Mr. G thinks it still sounds good. Sven says no wonder, because it was recorded at the Abbey Road Studios. Per thinks it’s cool.

Endeavor by Timo Räisänen, a great indie track from the mid noughties is played next.

Speaking about cool bands, Ola & The Janglers from Stockholm, Sweden are today’s featured artist. The guys play 4 tracks from them that sort of paint a picture of what they were all about. Per says he liked this band a lot when he was a kid and he actually had their first album, Surprise Surprise. It was based on this old Rolling Stones song called Surprise Surprise. It was Ola & The Janglers’ first hit record in Sweden. It brought them into the Tio i topp show (Top10 show). That made them instant pop stars in Sweden in 1965. They were a great live band as well and had a very distinctive sound, because they had this Hammond organ, which was great. Johannes Olsson was an amazing player and they sounded really good. Most of the stuff they did was original material, but at the same time, many of their hits were cover versions. But they had a really, really gifted songwriter in the guitarist Claes af Geijerstam. He eventually became the front of house guy for ABBA. When ABBA did their world tours in the late ’70s, he was the front of house guy. And to add even more credentials, he won the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden with another guy called Göran Fristorp in 1973. Sven says Per didn’t ask for that kind of information, but he got it anyway. Per says we could have lived without that. Haha. Here they play Surprise Surprise.

The second Ola & The Janglers song was written by Claes af Geijerstam. It’s a 1966 track called Bird’s Eye View Of You. Sven asks Per if he can remember listening to his transistor radio when this came on the air. PG can remember it, he definitely heard this song on the radio when he was young. This is from an album called Limelight and he had that album and loved it. It’s a really cool one, he thinks. Sven says the singer, Ola Håkansson was really original. He could sound a bit punky in the rocker numbers, but also being rather sweet in the ballads. He had this Mick Jagger style, Per adds. You could tell that he was influenced by Jagger. He went on to be the lead guy of the band called Secret Service in the ’80s. Eventually he became a record executive in charge of the TEN record label, which hosts, for instance, Sara Larsson these days. He worked a lot with Robyn as well. He never lost his magic hit touch, he is one of the big guys in the Swedish music industry.

The guys stick to 1966 when Ola & The Janglers were fresh out of school. Sven says Per claims 1966 is the best pop year ever. PG confirms and adds 1971 as well. Sven says he is not totally convinced. He claims 1965 is a contender, but they don’t go into that debate right now. Haha.

Ola & The Janglers made two albums in 1966. The second album was Patterns. It’s a great album too, Per thinks. They did a magnificent version of a Jackie DeShannon song. They actually did a couple of Jackie DeShannon songs, but this is Per’s favourite, Come And Stay With Me. A great track. You just get reminded what an amazing songwriter and artist Jackie DeShannon was. Per adds that when you hear this band, it’s a great little pop band. Johannes Olsson who played the Hammond organ made this great sound. It reminds you a little bit of The Zombies. Speaking of The Zombies, Ola & The Janglers did a version of She’s Not There very early on. They were heavily inspired by them. Sven likes the guitar sound here. By late 1965, the guitarist and songwriter Claes af Geijerstam had entered the band. He replaced the original guitarist. Sven thinks he does a really great guitar solo on this track. Per agrees. The ’60s guitar style is all over the place as well, so it just became a really, really good pop band.

Sven says 1966 was a great year for pop music and a very young Per Gessle who was glued to the transistor radio. Haha. The guys wind up the Ola & The Janglers tribute with a song from their first album written by guitar player Claes af Geijerstam. This one was a big hit, the first number one single they had in Sweden. Love Was On Your Mind is a beautiful little pop tune, Sven thinks. Per mentions that the band had an American hit in 1969. They did a cover version of Let’s Dance by Chris Montez and it peaked at No. 92 on the Billboard chart. One of the first Swedish artists entering the Billboard Hot 100.

Garage rock explosion delivered by The Peepshows in the shape of Cheap Thrills comes next. Then it’s Power Man And Astro Girl by Kristjan Eastman. Snack by Sydkraft from Halmstad, Sweden is played next. A short lived new wave band active in the late ’70s. The song title translates to something between hot air and pure bullshit.

Slowing things down a little bit, the guys play a beautiful cover of Broder Daniel’s Shoreline by Anna Ternheim. The Cat by True Lies, a band from Malmö is next and that wraps up this episode of Nordic Rox.

Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – August 2023

In the middle of Gyllene Tider’s Hux Flux tour, Per Gessle and Sven Lindström sat together in Halmstad to record the August episode of Nordic Rox.

Per asks Sven how he is doing. Sven replies he is fine, but he can hear Per is a bit hoarse. It’s because he is touring at the moment, singing four or five times a week, so at his age this happens. Working hard, Sven says. Mr. G says it’s cool, it’s been a great tour. Sven informs that he was there in Malmö and he also saw the premiere in Halmstad and Per seems to be in top shape with the band. PG says it’s a great little band.

Mr. G says he always tells the crowd that this is the 8th summer tour they are doing with Gyllene Tider, his Swedish band and it’s the 5th comeback tour. They disbanded in the mid ’80s and had 5 comeback tours since then. Sven asks Per what he thinks, why they are still so popular. Per says quite a lot of their songs have become sort of classics in Sweden. It’s the back catalogue they are playing. They released a new album a month ago, which is going fine. It’s just that people prefer the old stuff, which PG can understand. It’s the same thing when he goes to watch his old heroes, e.g. McCartney or the Stones or Springsteen. He wants to hear his favourite songs from the past. He doesn’t want to hear the new album.

Sven says he saw Nick Lowe in Malmö half a year ago and somewhere in the middle of the show, he said „I’m now going to say the most dreaded words in show business: and here’s a new song”. The guys are laughing. Per says it’s like that and it’s a bit unfortunate, because for him as a writer, he is always trying to look forward and trying to be living in the now thing. But Gyllene Tider in particular, when it comes to that band, it has become very much a nostalgic act. Which is fine, he is not complaining.

Sven says GT has a new song in English. Per explains he wrote this song in English and when they recorded the new album, he translated it into Swedish. So it’s on the album in Swedish, but they did a version with the English lyrics as well, just for fun. They put it on the B side on a vinyl single. The guys play Sunday Driver Yea.

The next song is He’s Peculiar by Vibeke Saugestad, power pop queen of Norway. Great track, Sven thinks. He says he checked out a few of Vibeke’s albums. Per’s bandmate in Roxette, Magnus Börjeson was playing with her and producing her. PG thinks she is very good.

Then comes Staffan Hellstrand’s beautiful song, Lilla fågelblå, which translates into tiny bluebird. Staffan was on the same label as Per, on EMI. Sven thinks the Swedish garage rock band, The Nomads was playing with him on this one, which made the whole thing a bit edgier than it had been before. Per thinks it’s a great song.

Getting back to Sunday Driver Yea and the new album of GT, Sven mentions that every time Per buys a new guitar, he writes a new song. Per confirms. He doesn’t really buy that many guitars anymore, but every time you pick up a new guitar, you start to play in a different manner. You find new things on an instrument. He bought an old Gretsch guitar, this sort of square guitar of Bo Diddley style and he plugged it into his little amplifier in his office and out came these guitar riffs. Out of nowhere, it just happened. Sven thought with that guitar, it was destined to become a Bo Diddley beat, but it went the other direction. It went to a punk rock thing instead, Per says. He doesn’t know why. It’s just the way it goes.

Sven says GT is going to finish off their tour in the upcoming weeks with a majestic gig in Gothenburg on 5th August. Per says they are playing at the Ullevi football stadium there and it’s the fourth time they play there. It’s a big venue.

Making a soft transition to the next song, Sven mentions that the next song is by Tages, a group from Gothenburg. Per thinks Tages was probably the best Swedish band in the ’60s.

They wrote their own material most of the time and they were a great band. Every Raindrop Means A Lot is a brilliant song even today, PG thinks. Sven says they looked rather cool. He thinks they went over to London to Canopy Street to get their gear. They really had a sharp mod look to them. PG agrees. Sven says Tages is probably the worst group name in the pop world in Sweden in the ’60s. It’s an old Swedish name dated by far already then. But he thinks they chose this for ironic purposes, because nobody else would come up with a name like that. Per thinks maybe someone in the band had Tages as a second name. Sven says they have to check that out. Anyway, the song is brilliant Swedish pop from 1967.

The next track is Say Lou Lou’s latest single, which is a cover of the old Kate Bush song, You’re The One.

Here comes this episode’s special. The guys feature Teddybears with four songs. Sven asks Per what his relation with Teddybears is. PG says he didn’t really know anything about them until they had their first hits. He knows they started in the early ’90s, but it was later on that he heard about them, the Punkrocker song. They have an album called Rock ‘n’ Roll Highschool, which Per thought was really cool. Sven explains that that was the album they broke through in 2000. It was actually their third album. Sven says neither he, nor Per is into the metal world or too much in the hardcore punk world, but he just checked them out a bit and it’s interesting to see how they are described. They started out as a grindcore band in 1991. Sven says then you question yourself, what’s a grindcore band. Per says he hasn’t got a clue. It’s an extreme form of hardcore punk and metal with a connection to both death metal and crust punk, Sven informs. The guys don’t get any wiser by this info though. Haha. The Teddybears made two albums in the early ’90s as this kind of grindcore band until somebody came up with a brilliant idea that maybe they should change style. Then they got a very distinct sound to them when they had their breakthrough with Punkrocker and all those songs that the guys are going to listen to, Cobrastyle and Rocket Scientist. These sounded very typical Teddybears. It’s a bit hard to describe the style. It’s rock and it’s also a bit of pop. There is a bit of electronica to it too. And it’s an interesting, very individual, personal style. Great productions as well, PG adds. So here comes Punkrocker, the song that dominated the Swedish airwaves in the early noughties.

The next song is only 14 years old. Get Mama A House is a brilliant track from 2009, Per thinks. Great single and typical of the Teddybears late style, Sven thinks. They got their inspiration from Jamaica. But they have influences from and you could hear Devo a lot, Per adds. Sven agrees, you can hear all these electronic sounds. Almost like toy sounds. Per always loves these productions. He finds them cool. The weirder sounds of the new wave stuff, Sven says. When the band performs, they hide themselves behind gigantic bear masks. They look really cool. Per doesn’t really know how they look for real, but it doesn’t really matter. The brothers Jokke and Klas Ålund are in the band. Per knows Klas produced Swedish singer Robyn and he also worked with Britney Spears.

Get Mama A House is featuring Desmond Forster. One of many collaborations of Teddybears. They always seem to collaborate with a lot of interesting artists. On the album called Devil’s Music in 2010, they worked with The Flaming Lips and The B-52s. Rocket Scientist, the opening track on that album they did with American rapper Eve. This could be their best song for Per. It’s a brilliant, very cool track.

The 4th and final song on this episode’s special is Cobrastyle. Proof that things can only get better, especially if you are talking about Teddybears. The song features Jamaican dancehall musician, Mad Cobra. Sven asks Per how is that for an artist’s name. PG finds it cool. Sven jokes, „your name is Per Gessle. His name is Mad Cobra.” PG says „he wins”. Haha. Mr. G says this song pops up here and there. You hear it in different movies, commercials, computer games. It’s just a timeless style and it’s really cool and very original.

Sven says they forgot to mention that Iggy Pop did the vocals on the American version of Punkrocker. How is that for punk rock royalty!

The special is over and the song the guys play next is I’m Kingfisher’s The Pain Of Happiness. Then comes Kaleidoscope Dream by The Northern Belle.

The last song on the show is Wailing Wall by Todd Rundgren. Per says the big question is, how on earth Todd Rundgren wound up on Nordic Rox. It’s not easy, Sven says, but if your name is Todd and your last name is Rundgren (pronounced in the English way) or Rundgren as Sven would say in Swedish, then it’s easier, because Todd’s father is of Swedish descent. This makes it easier to slip into the Nordic Rox playlist. Wailing Wall is a beautiful song.

The guys thank everyone for listening, then Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – July 2023

In the July episode of Nordic Rox, Per Gessle and Sven Lindström welcome listeners on the show from Per’s beautiful garden on the Swedish West Coast, waiting for the summer to kick in. Sven says it looks good after having a prolonged winter for 12 months or something. Per says it feels like that indeed.

Today’s featured artist is Amanda Jenssen. Per thinks she is amazing. She started out in 2007. She participated in this talent show called Idol and wound up in 2nd place. Sven thinks it’s quite symptomatic that she didn’t win. How good of an artist you really are, coming from a talent show? Sven asks Per about it. PG says you can’t really judge everyone, but he thinks it might be good not to win to have your own career and go from there. He guesses it’s a big and very good experience to be part of it. But still, it’s really hard to judge. The whole idea is sort of strange to begin with. But that’s another discussion, Per says. Sven says Amanda survived the eventual talent show trap and carved out a nice career for herself. Short though, it’s like she has taken a slight break in the last few years. The guys focus on the three albums she did from 2008 to 2012, and they picked 4 great songs. But before that, here comes an intro that Per might recognize, haha. Dangerous by Roxette from Sweden. Sven says the song was a US No.1 if he is not misinformed. Per says he is, because it was No.2. Sven says yeah, it was indeed. PG says they were like Amanda Jenssen, they were runner-up. But it was close, Sven says, haha.

The next song played is Kaleidoscope Dream by The Northern Belle, a wonderful band from Norway. Good Morning Midnight by Backyard Babies is next, then Sarah Klang’s new single, Mercedes is on. It’s a great song, Per thinks. It sounds really special. Sarah loves to drown in echo. To echo her voice and it creates this sort of hypnotic sound, which Per really likes a lot. She has a wonderful voice as well. The guys also play Electric by Melody Club. Both of them think it’s a good one. Hang With Me by the mighty Robyn is next from the album Body Talk Pt. 2.

The Amanda Jenssen Special begins here. The year after she was No.2 on Idol in 2007, she produced her first single and debut album, Killing My Darlings. And the first single was Do You Love Me? Per thinks it’s a great track. An instant hit for PG. There is something about her voice that Sven totally loves. He says it’s a bit… not hoarse, but… Per helps Sven out: „sexy”. Sven says it’s probably the word he was looking for. Per says he could see it on Sven’s face. Haha. Amanda wrote songs herself and she wrote in partnership with Pär Wiksten, who Per recognized from The Wannadies. This track is written by Vincent Pontare, who is an artist in his own right and the guys played him a lot of times before. He is a great writer as well and producer, PG says.

Coming up next is Dry My Soul, a track from Amanda’s third album, Hymns For The Haunted released in 2012. Sven loves this track. Per thinks it’s a good one. She’s got this very special voice and it just hits you as soon as you listen to it. Sven informs that she actually got pneumonia as a child on both lungs and that unfortunately left her with only 30% of lung capacity. Which is impossible to tell when you hear her sing. She sounds really powerful, PG thinks.

The guys slow things down a bit after this. They play a song by Amanda herself. Per thinks she is a great writer as well. She did this song called Illusionist, also from the Hymns For The Haunted album in 2012. It’s produced by Pär Wiksten. He was probably in another room when she recorded this, because there are no guitars in the beginning at least. They are a good team, Sven thinks. He loves The Wannadies, their attitude, pop-rock with great melodies. For Per, Illusionist is the stand-out track on that album.

In 2009, Amanda recorded her second album, Happyland and again partnered up with Pär Wiksten and they wrote the title track together. Pär produced most of the album. Happyland is a song the guys have been playing here on Nordic Rox quite a lot. Sven says there is a strange, wonderful atmosphere to this song. Per also thinks it’s very cool. Great production.

The Amanda Jenssen special is over. The guys go down to Malmö and play Gloria by Follin. Then comes The Sweetest Tune by Darling West. Ola & The Janglers is next with Not In My Life. A lovely sound from the ’60s. Per thinks this song was pretty influenced by The Zombies. Sven agrees. They must have listened to She’s Not There. PG thought about Time Of The Season. This song is from an album called Patterns, which Per had when he was a little kid. He still loves that album. It sounds really cool.

This wraps up the July episode of Nordic Rox. The guys thank everyone for listening, then Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – June 2023

In May it was only Sven Lindström on Nordic Rox, but for the June episode, Per Gessle got back on track and joined him.

The guys focus on one of the biggest legends in Swedish rock history, Pugh Rogefeldt, who unfortunately passed away a couple of weeks ago. Sven says he left a mark on Swedish music and changed it more or less forever. Per agrees. Pugh was probably the first Swedish rock act to sing in Swedish. Nobody did that. Everyone in Europe thought that they had to write in English. Except in France, PG adds. Haha. In Sweden, in the ’60s, all those bands that were big, were either singing Middle of the Road songs in Swedish or they were doing rock and pop music based on Brit pop from the ’60s. Pugh Rogefeldt was the one in 1969 who did an album in Swedish. It took everyone by surprise and it earned him a Grammy. The first three or four albums he did were truly amazing, Mr. G says. Pugh actually influenced him a lot and lots of his peers too. Sven says Pugh made a massive impression on the scene. The guys will play 4 Rogefeldt songs and talk about them in a little while, but before that, they play some fasten-your-seatbelts songs.

Our Own Revolution by Brainpool is the opener. Per says it’s a sadly missed band. Sven adds they were discovered and signed by Per. Mr. G says oh yeah, he forgot about that. It happened once upon a time in the ’90s when he had a publishing company. Per says they were great writers and a great band. He thinks they did three or four albums. Christoffer Lundquist is on bass guitar here. Later he became Per’s producer and also lead guitar player in Roxette. He started out as a bass player. A very cool guy according to Sven.

Driving One Of Your Cars by Lisa Miskovsky is next. A great track according to Sven and Per. Then comes Just Kids by Lowland Circus.

The next song is (Do You Get) Excited? by Roxette. It’s one of the tracks from the massively successful Joyride album from 1991. Those were the days, the guys say. PG says Sven had hair those days. They are laughing. (Do You Get) Excited? is one of Per’s favourite songs from the album. He loves the sound of it. There are great guitar parts by Jonas Isacsson and Marie, of course, is singing the shit out of this song. Sven is curious if Per remembers writing and recording it. PG can’t really remember, but he says they had a big argument, because there is lots of modulations in this song. Per was really into modulations at the time and so he tried to use that in the arrangement of the song a lot. It’s got a little Led Zeppelin riffs, combined with a little drum machine here and there, it’s pretty special.

Broder Daniel’s Underground comes next. A lovely song, Mr. G thinks. Then it’s the Darkest Hour’s turn by Astrid S.

The guys get down to the Pugh Rogefeldt session. Sven says he was 22 years old when he made his debut album. He came from a small town and he was the father of two children. He didn’t expect anything, he didn’t really think anyone would listen to the album. PG says Pugh was lucky in a way, because there was a Swedish producer, Anders Burman, who had a record label called Metronome and he discovered him and put him together with two guys, Janne Carlsson on drums, who came from Hansson & Karlsson. Sven states that Hansson & Karlsson made the song Tax Free that Jimi Hendrix found about and recorded as well. To continue the story, Per says then there was this bass and guitar player called Georg Wadenius, who eventually became a member of Blood, Sweat & Tears three years later. So there is a slight American connection there, Sven says. PG says that Janne Carlsson on drums, Georg Wadenius on guitar and bass and Pugh on everything else, it was a great trio and great songs, unique songs. Like Per said earlier, Pugh was the first one to write in Swedish and he even created his own language on the second album. So three or four songs on that album are in his own language. Weird but nice, Mr. G says. Sven says Pugh was a very creative guy. He didn’t expect anything to happen, but as the months passed in 1969, more and more influential people in the radio and in the newspapers started to discover him. Then suddenly he became declared a complete genius. He said that it took him half a year to come down from that. He was elevated up to the stratosphere. Here the guys play the first Pugh song and it’s from his debut album. Här kommer natten was his breakthrough song. Per thinks it’s very good.

Sven says what happened after this album came out was that Pugh basically opened the door single-handedly for rock artists to express themselves in Swedish. And suddenly, from having been deemed impossible, everyone started to discover that Swedish was not that bad. PG thinks it’s cool. He did a couple of albums after this first one of course, which were very successful as well, and the second one was called Pughish. Pugh sort of invented his own language and that was the first album Per heard from him. It was the same for Sven. Per says he was about ten or eleven years old back then, maybe twelve. It’s a tremendous album. Then Pugh did an album called Hollywood, which was probably his bigger success up until the Bolla och Rulla album came in 1974. Sven says that was more of a straight ahead rock album and it was really successful. After that a couple of Swedish artists went on tour and recorded a Pugh song called Vandrar i ett regn (walking in the rain). The backing vocals on this are half crazy. It’s typically Pugh as well. Mr. G says it’s an homage to the Doo Wop ’50s style of music. This live recording is really special for Per, because he was at the show where they recorded it. They played in Per’s hometown and Pugh was a superstar at the time. PG was in the 8th row and just mesmerized by this concert. He really loves this double LP, Ett steg till.

After this live recording from 1974 is played, Sven says he and Per are celebrating Pugh Rogefeldt, the father of rock music with Swedish lyrics in Sweden. Per thinks that the most famous of Pugh’s songs is coming up next. Små lätta moln is also taken from the 1969 debut album. It has been covered by a lot of people, even though it’s a pretty strange song, but it’s beautiful. Sven agrees. He says Pugh is singing it with this original twist. Nobody sounded like him before that. Playful and inventive he was. PG says Pugh has got this very high-pitched voice, using falsettos and he is just doing his own thing. It’s a trademark sound, Mr. G thinks. Sven wants to know if there is anything Per as a songwriter picked up from Pugh that he is aware of. Mr. G says Pugh is a pretty unorthodox writer. He is not following any rules at all. Per was more rooted in the classic songwriting style when he started out, but he was influenced by Pugh for sure. Especially when it came to writing lyrics. Per started writing lyrics in Swedish and Pugh was definitely one guy to look up to. So if Per should say he was influenced by Pugh, it’s more about the lyrics than the music. Små lätta moln is translating into tiny light clouds, the guys say.

The last Pugh song Sven and Per play is from 1974. Per says it’s from a very raw album called Bolla och Rulla, which is a sloppy Swedish translation of rock ‘n’ roll. Sven says it’s also the typical Pugh attitude, twisting the words. By this time he had a good band. Both Per and Sven saw this tour in the summer of 1974. Per adds that Pugh toured Sweden all the time. He remembers going to this show as well and it was really good. The lead guitar player was actually his younger brother, Ingemar. He had a great Les Paul Special and it sounded amazing. Sven says to top it all off, the bassist was Roger Pettersson. He performed this show that Sven saw in a denim skirt. Per says he had that in Halmstad too. Sven says he always thought that Roger lost a bet or something, so he had to perform in that. But then he realized that it was a stage outfit. Per says he looked cool. At the time, it was the glam rock days, anything went. So it was cool. The song the guys play is the opening track on this album, and it’s called Hog farm. It’s about a hippie commune from the States that came to Sweden. Per says it was lots of scandals and drugs and minors and this and that.

Lambretta’s Bimbo is played. Ifrån mej själv by Dundertåget is the next one. Such a great one, Per loves it.

The guys thank everyone for listening, then as usual, Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom is closing the show.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!