Nyhetsmorgon

Per Gessle and Molly Hammar on Nyhetsmorgon

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Per was Jenny Alversjö’s guest on Nyhetsmorgon, TV4 this morning. Molly Hammar joined them via Zoom. Watch the interview HERE!

Jenny informs that Per is back with a new single, Beredd. On Friday we got a taste of what’s to come this autumn, because PG will release a new album, Sällskapssjuk. On Beredd we don’t only hear Per’s beautiful voice, but also Molly Hammar’s, Jenny adds.

Here they play a short part of the video to Beredd.

Jenny welcomes Per and asks how it feels to release this song. Mr. G says it feels great. There are only very positive reactions and it’s wonderful to have Molly in this. Per is very happy. Jenny understands that and she says now he works in Swedish again. PG says he has also done some Gyllene Tider in between, but it’s been seven years since he made his Nashville records that were in Swedish.

Jenny says Per is always active. Now this is the first taste from the album Sällskapssjuk, which will be out this fall. Jenny is curious if there is any special reason why the first single is released now. Mr. G says it’s mostly because he wanted to release different duets before the album is out and this way he needed some leadtime. The next single comes in May.

Jenny wants to know more about the background. Why Molly? Because that’s pretty much the only thing they can talk about now, since Per is so secretive about the other collaborations.

PG tells Jenny that he wrote a lot of songs and felt it would be fun to have a different angle this time, to do duets and work with different male and female singers that he likes very much. So he called around and found a bunch of singers that he likes. It’s been an incredibly fun project.

Jenny asks if it was difficult to find these partners. Per says it was easier than he thought. PG says you want to work with people you like, but who have something to add. When you write a song and another personality comes in, things happen with the song both lyrically and musically, so it’s important to find the right one. He thinks it has turned out very nice in this case.

Jenny says it sounds like no one refused to collaborate. Per confirms that and says smiling that it’s unbelievable.

Jenny asks how Per has chosen Molly. Mr. G says Molly is a favourite. She is an absolutely magical singer. She has this magnet, when you hear her voice, you can’t stop listening to her. Jenny says Per mentioned Molly could sing a phone book. PG says she is the classic one who could do that. She is a bit like Adele, she has that kind of voice. You can’t help, but listen to it. So Per is glad she wanted to join him.

That’s a nice compliment according to Jenny. Here they call Molly via Zoom. She is in London. They greet each other and Molly thanks Per for the compliments. Per asks Molly how she is. She feels great, and asks if she doesn’t look fresh. PG says she does look fresh despite that it’s Sunday morning.

Jenny says Molly looks splendid and asks her about how it feels to hear what Per has just told about her. Molly says it’s huge. When Per called her, it was a very big deal for her. Because Per is a legend and a fantastic musician. When they got to meet and then hung out in the studio, then she started liking him as much as a person too. Molly thinks it’s fun that you can be a legend and be incredibly nice at the same time. So she is very happy.

Jenny asks Molly what she thought when she heard the song for the first time. Molly says she loved it right away. She thinks that it’s a classic fine, cross-generational pop song, because it’s a theme that everyone can relate to.

Jenny is curious about how they did the recordings, if they were in Stockholm or in Halmstad.

Per says they met in Stockholm and tested some keys and such. Then Molly came down to Halmstad. The whole album was recorded in Halmstad, by the way, with lots of local musicians. So Molly came down to Halmstad and they had a good day in the studio and a very nice dinner in the evening in Tylösand. Molly confirms it was super nice.

Jenny asks Molly how important she thinks it is to hang around when creating together. Molly thinks it’s important to have a lot of fun together when making music. Otherwise it just gets weird and she doesn’t think this magic could happen then. You have to have fun and laugh together.

Jenny says they would have loved to see Molly in the Nyhetsmorgon studio, but she is in London. She is curious what Molly is doing there. Molly is running around writing songs and she has a great time. Jenny says she should come to the studio when she gets home. Molly says it would be her pleasure.

Jenny says it’s great that they could have her on the show this way. She knows Molly has a lot to do, so they will let her go now and wish her to have a nice time. Molly thanks for that and says goodbye to both Jenny and Per.

Jenny says Per has been in the business for a very long time, but she wants to know if Per has learned anything from this collaboration. PG says it’s hard to say that you learn something, but as he said before, songs grow and change when you work with other people. And as everyone knows, he has worked a lot with duets in Roxette. He wrote so many songs for Marie that changed and raised the quality of the songs simply because of her voice and her personality. And it’s the same here. All these people he has worked with have changed his songs. It’s not like he sat down with seven or eight people and wrote new music together. It’s his songs and his lyrics that they come in and sing to. So there is a big difference here.

Jenny thinks that many people, including her, will forever associate Per with Marie, of course, even if he does duets with other artists. She asks Per what it was like working with others. Per says it’s always exciting. Before you go into the studio and you have a song, it might not feel right. The keys might not fit or there might be too much modulation for it to work. When he chose certain singers, he listened to what kind of voice they have and in theory he tried, this person fits this song, that person fits that song. And some have not worked at all. Then he already knows in advance that it won’t work. Jenny asks if there were a lot of singers on Per’s list to revise, if he had to revise Molly. Per says no, it was simple with Molly.

Jenny can imagine that when Per and Marie worked together, they must have known each other inside and out, so Per rarely got to revise things there. Per says no, but he was listening to the Roxette catalogue and sometimes he heard some strange key changes to lower and higher, so that they can both sing. You can do such technical tricks. The songs Marie sings herself, they are in her register what she enjoyed the most.

Jenny can imagine that there might be an extra reminder of Marie when Per has collaborations and someone else is at the microphone. Per says not really. It’s been so long since Marie and Per have worked together. It was a lovely era in his life that he preserves. But he doesn’t think too much about it now. But the loss is still there, definitely.

Jenny says she knows that Marie wrote some of the music on the new album. Per says it’s actually a song that is not a duet, but he sings it himself. Marie and he wrote it together in the ’80s. Per wrote the lyrics and Marie and Per wrote the music. So it is also a bit special. It was written long before Roxette, when Marie and Per hung out in his attic apartment in Halmstad in the early ’80s and watched Dallas and Dynasty and stuff like that in the evenings. Jenny finds it lovely and she can see Marie and Per in front of her like that.

Jenny wants to know how Per finds such a song. If it was on paper or they recorded it on cassette. Per says it was on cassette and there have been a few demos on it over the years. It has been a little too good to throw away, but it has never found its rightful place.

Jenny asks Per if he has an overview of everything they have worked on. Per says he doesn’t. A few things have appeared in recent years that he has forgotten about, but they are somewhere on cassettes and strange minidiscs. There has been a lot of technology over the years. It’s such a long time.

Jenny asks if the song that Marie co-wrote is also a duet. Per says it’s not a duet, he sings it himself.

The album will be released this fall. Jenny asks Per about the title, Sällskapssjuk. PG says he wrote a song called Sällskapssjuk and he thought it’s a good title when you have a lot of duets. He also thought it was a nice expression, a nice word.

Jenny says Per mentioned before that he worked on the album in Halmstad, he recorded it there. So some of the songs are probably very organically recorded. Per confirms it. He has worked a lot with local musicians to try to find a new angle, a new sound on the record. Everything is a bit homegrown. It’s hard to explain music, but it’s very organic. There is a lot of lap steel and there is a lot of violin. It’s good.

Jenny wants to know how Per finds inspiration again and again. Mr. G says he doesn’t really look for inspiration, but it pops up from time to time. He is not the kind of person who goes and sits down to play the piano and guitar and writes every day. He usually says that he writes as little as possible. Because when he has something on his mind, he becomes very focused and it goes quite quickly. So Jenny says this means Per doesn’t really like sitting and writing like that. Per says he doesn’t like it at all. He has to do it only sometimes. It’s something that has to come out in some way.

Jenny asks how it is to record in Sweden and elsewhere. There must be a big difference between Sweden and the rest of the world. Per has experienced both. PG says there really isn’t that much of a difference. It’s a completely different thing to work in the studio and to be on stage, of course. This communication that you work with when you have an audience in front of you, it’s fantastic. Many people always ask if it’s fun to play Sommartider or The Look, which you have played a thousand times. When you have an audience in front of you that gives so much back, it’s clear that you love to play your hits. That’s why you work, so to say. Jenny says it must be amazing to see those songs live on through different generations too. What a gift!

The album is coming this autumn, there will be more duets. The next single comes out in May. Jenny asks who will be Per’s partner in that, but Mr. G doesn’t reveal. Jenny asks for a hint. Per says it’s a fantastic male or female singer. Haha.

Jenny thanks Per for coming and hopes to see him again in spring. Per says it’s always fun to be here.

Stills are from Nyhetsmorgon.

Per Gessle on Nyhetsmorgon

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Per Gessle was one of the guests on Nyhetsmorgon, TV4 this morning. He entered the studio after Jubël (Sebastian Atas and Victor Sjöström), a Swedish duo originating from Halmstad performed their song, Someone. Per mentions how good they are and shows thumbs up to them. Program leader Jenny Alversjö asks Mr. G if they worked together and Per tells that for example, in 2018 they wrote music together for Name You Beautiful, the official song for the World Table Tennis Championship in Halmstad.

Jenny asks Per about Christmas. PG says it was calm of course. It’s been a quite long, boring time for everyone, Per thinks. Then Jenny tells there was the Late Night Concert on TV4 in December and it came as a consolation in the darkness when we needed it most. Per tells it was fantastic. They’ve been sitting isolated for such a long time and couldn’t play and even if there was of course no audience for this event, it was fun to rehearse and meet the band. It was fun to play in an acoustic arrangement, he thinks it’s always special. It was like finding new ways for the songs and certain songs fit this intimate format, e.g. Tycker om när du tar på mig or Listen To Your Heart. He tried to pick songs from Roxette, Gyllene Tider and his solo career. It was exciting for him.

Jenny asks how it works not to strip down something that is the core of the song. Per says the core things in his songs are most often the lyrics and the melody, so this way one can even put these elements more into focus.

Here they show some parts of the concert and Jenny tells it was incredibly nice. She asks Per how he picked the songs for this event. For this concert Per says he tested 10-15 songs, maybe more and he simply chose the ones that felt best. One can feel it that some songs just don’t work in a toned-down version. The Look, for example, would have been quite meaningless to be played there.

Jenny tells Per has Billboard No. 1 songs and sold millions of albums and she is curious about Mr. G’s relationship to music today. Per says it’s quite unchanged. Music has always been his thing and he has never thought of music as his job.

Jenny asks Per about his plans whether he is thinking about new things or planning to work with his already existing catalogue in the way we could see him at the Late Night Concert. Mr. G says partly this and that. He thinks he has always had a very good setup: Gyllene Tider, which is a certain type of power pop, Roxette, which is a totally different style also productionwise, his solo stuff, which is more lyric-based, more of a singer songwriter style and Mono Mind, which is also a totally different music. He used to say there are different things on the same tree and it fits him very well, so he can do diverse things.

Jenny asks Per whether he had done everything he wanted to do or there is still something he dreams about. Mr. G says he has no special dream, he just wants to keep going with all what he is doing and wants to see what happens, be curious and test things.

Jenny asks how Per finds inspiration and where his creativity comes from. Per says it’s his way to express himself. He expresses his personality and creativity through music and texts, so it comes by itself in a way. Many think that he ”goes to work” at 9 and plays the piano and the guitar for 6 hours, but it doesn’t work for him like that. He writes down just what he must write down and it’s when he has something that must come out. It can be a melody or an idea or a text.

Jenny asks Per about the secret of being a hitmaker and if he feels it when he writes a song that it would become a hit. Per says it’s been long since the last time he wrote a hit. Pop music has changed so much and he sticks to his roots, so he is not a modern hitmaker anymore. He says there are so many things that have to work for a song to become a hit. It’s not just the song itself, but it’s also about timing, cooperations, luck and a thousand other things that should work at the same time. Regarding certain songs, e.g. The Look, when they recorded it in the studio in the 80’s it felt that it was very special, but that it would become No. 1 in 30 countries, you never know in advance. It Must Have Been Love was a very good ballad and then it became part of the movie, Pretty Woman and it became such a monster hit. Coincidence also plays a big role, Per says.

Jenny mentions Marie passed away more than a year ago and is curious how it is to play Roxette songs without Marie. Per says it’s terrible that Marie is not there anymore, but he feels that the music lives on and he sees that all around the world. He still wants to play these songs, they are such a big part of his life, more than 30 years of Roxette. He doesn’t want to close that door, but it will be different and he will never replace Marie. Jenny asks Per about griefing and missing Marie. Mr. G says it’s a constant feeling. You can never call her or talk to her again. Now Pelle Alsing, their drummer also passed away before Christmas and it also feels incomprehensible. It’s tough.

Jenny says she also knows Per is working in the studio now and is curious what the future brings. Mr. G says he is recording an English pop album and it sounds a bit like Roxette’s origins. It’s a bit difficult to write uptempo pop songs at his age even if he wrote so many of such songs before. He simply took the challange to write an awesome pop record. Jenny thinks it’s very exciting and Per agrees. He has no clue when the album is out, but he plans to release it this year. When it’s ready.

Stills are from the interview.

Per Gessle on Nyhetsmorgon

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Per Gessle appeared on Nyhetsmorgon, TV4 this morning. You can watch the program HERE! He talked about his success on Billboard, his new solo album, as well as Marie and Bag of Trix.

Program leader Anna Brolin welcomes Per and introduces him as one of the biggest hitmakers of all time. She asks Per how he is doing. Mr. G says he is fine, a bit croaky, but it’s not the program leader’s fault, he jokes.

Anna asks Per if he follows the elections in the US since he has many friends and colleagues there. They shortly discuss a lot is going on in the US now and the corona situation is worrying. Anna mentions that Per got on a unique list in the US. He is one of 18 sole songwriters who had more than two No. 1 songs on Billboard Hot 100. They check the list of all the great songwriters on the screen and Anna is surprised that the number next to Per’s name is 3, because they had four No. 1 songs. Per tells Listen To Your Heart was also No. 1, but there he wasn’t a sole songwriter. He wrote it together with Mats MP Persson. Per is impressed that Anna can enumerate the other 3 songs. They laugh. Anna asks Mr. G which is his favourite from these 3 No. 1 hits. Per picks The Look, because it’s a crazy pop song that is still special and unique in a way. The song’s construction and half nonsense text is contagious in some way. But he loves It Must Have Been Love too, of course. It’s a magnificent song thanks to Marie and she turned it into a firework of film music with her voice. They watch a part of the IMHBL video and Anna says it’s a big song and it’s special to see Marie. She asks Per how it is for him. Mr. G says it’s almost a year ago that Marie passed away. There is emptiness. They had a very long friendship, they met at the end of the 70’s. They played in separate bands, but they shared the rehearsal studio outside Halmstad. Then they lived ”together” during whole their adult life. They had an awesome journey together.

They get back to the list of 18 and Anna asks if there is anyone on the list who inspires Per. Mr. G says all others are rubbish on the list. They laugh and of course he jokes. He says just look at those names: Paul Simon (Jesus Christ!), Paul McCartney (he grew up with The Beatles), Michael Jackson… It’s a fantastic list. Per says the one who inspired him and Gyllene Tider the most was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Tom Petty’s songwriting style and his band made them want to be Halmstad’s Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. They’ve been trying for 40 years, he laughs. He was very much inspired by The Beatles as well and by singer songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon. He likes their music too.

Then Anna asks Per about his new album. Mr. G says it’s a Swedish solo album, Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig. It came to life due to the pandemic. He was isolated in Halmstad this summer and thought he would go to the studio and record something. He had the ambition to play most of the instruments himself. Anna asks if it went fine. PG says it was OK, but he realized he needs some help, so he invited some local musicians to help him with bass, drums and saxophone. It became a cool album. The material on it is his old songs. He went back to the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s and found many Swedish songs he never recorded before or gave them to other artists. Songs he still felt are relevant. Per mentions Tända en sticka till which was released on his first solo album and says it has a warm love text, but he was 23-24 years old when he wrote it. Now that he sings it at the age of 61 it gives another angle to the text. One looks back at that young age and becomes melancholic and sentimental, which is not there in the 1983 version. And some songs change their identity while time goes by.

They watch a short part of the lyric video to Du kommer så nära (du blir alldeles suddig), a duet with Uno Svenningsson. Per says Helena Josefsson also sings on this one, as well as on other songs. She often sings with Per and that’s very lovely. Per thinks Uno has a fantastic voice. Anna asks why he chose Uno and Per says because he is a lovely person. He called Per this summer and asked if they could meet and have dinner together. Per said of course, but first he should come and sing on a song in the studio. He did it and it turned out to be very nice. Uno greets Per via a video message shown on the screen. He sends sunny greetings from the West coast. He thanks Per for the cooperation and says it was cool to be at MP’s studio in Halmstad and sing a little on one of Per’s nice songs. He says he is looking very much forward to Per’s new album and wishes him god luck and that he takes care of himself. Uno has a very special voice and Per says he has a special voice too, so it’s a little strange when they are singing together.

Per tells he started writing songs at the age of 15-16, so of course there are a lot of songs in his archives, the tree is growing. He doesn’t know how many songs he wrote, but someone said it’s 800 or 900 of them are registered at STIM.

Anna asks Per about the Roxette release as well. Mr. G tells he started digging in the vaults in spring and found many Roxette songs that disappeared because they were released e.g. only on CD or maybe on LP as well. Now in the times of streaming services they are not there anymore. He also found acoustic songs, a lot of demos from the 80’s when Marie and he started working on their first Roxette album. He also found unreleased songs from different albums and a Spanish song that wasn’t released before. Per says they were very big in South America and Spain.

Anna asks Per what is on his agenda. Per says artists can’t play concerts like before and technicians and crews are also affected by this. It’s a very strange time in the music business. Mr. G shares that he is working on a new English album and says he always tries to have an ongoing project.

Stills are from Nyhetsmorgon.

Interview with Per Gessle in Nyhetsmorgon on TV4

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There was a pre-recorded interview with Per Gessle this morning in Nyhetsmorgon on TV4. While program leader Jenny Alversjö introduced the interview Anders Pihlblad did with Mr. G, there were several Roxette photos shown in the background. Jenny says Marie passed away almost 3 months ago, way too early. She mentions Per was devastated and the day after he gathered his thoughts and finished a song, a comfort song, how he calls it.

 

 

 

In the interview you can hear and see snippets from Per’s new song, Around The Corner (The Comfort Song) and its lyric video.

Per says this song was lying around for a while and he finished it the day after. His mother-in-law also died a couple of days after Marie. It was a really hard time and he finished the song actually for himself. He wanted to get it out of the system. That’s how he works. One needs to get rid of things. He expresses himself through his music and lyrics.

It became a comfort song in a way. Per realized it’s a really strong song when he recorded it with Helena and Mats. He doesn’t mean it’s an especially good song, maybe it is, he doesn’t know, but he saw it touched Helena and Mats deeply. So they thought it should be released. He knows there are a lot of people in the Roxette gang, all the fans, all the friends, the whole world were affected by what happened. Almost all people go through this when they lose someone close to them sometime in life. Everyone needs this comfort. Per’s way to get through this was writing.

 

Anders says there are 2 Roxettes. One before Marie’s illness and the one after it. 2 totally different challenges. He asks Per what he was thinking when Marie got ill, how to go on with his career and if he thought they could go on with Roxette. Per explained he didn’t think they could, because it felt that Marie was in really bad shape, so it wasn’t in the cards to continue with Roxette. The first thing he did after Marie got ill was Mazarin, then Gyllene Tider in 2004, then Son of a Plumber, then En händig man, so all his other stuff. So it was really surprising that Marie wanted to make a comeback. Per thinks even Marie didn’t count on it, that she would come back. She came to visit him in Amsterdam where Per played on his European tour. Anders says he talked to a Dutch girl who was there at the concert and said there was a surprise. Per laughs and says Marie and her husband, Micke came to visit him and he asked Marie if she wanted to come up on stage so they would play an old Roxette song. She hadn’t been on stage for 7 years and she said she doesn’t want to do that. But Per knew she was easy to convince if they give it some more time, so the question remained hanging in the air and in the end Marie said OK, let’s rehearse and see how it feels. One could see she really wanted to do it. So they rehearsed and Marie said let’s try it. For the first extra song Per invited Marie up on stage and there was only Marie and Per on stage. Mr. G thinks they played Listen to Your Heart and maybe It Must Have Been Love too, he can’t remember. Per says the audience died of course and he had never seen so many people crying. It was incredible. It was the first thing Marie did and then a few weeks later she called Per if he could write a new Roxette album. That’s what eventually became Charm School. Then there were 2 big tours, maybe with 300 concerts.

 

Anders asks Per how important he thinks it was for Marie to realize that she managed to do it and that it became such a success. Per thinks it was super important for Marie, because she loved music more than anything else. She loved being on stage and she enormously missed the communication with her fans, with their fans. So she wanted to do it at all costs. Her doctor advised she shouldn’t do that, because touring is exhausting with all the travelling, the waiting, the flying, the time zones and so on. But she wanted to do that. Per told her whatever they do, they do it based on Marie’s conditions. If she wants three days between the gigs, that’s how they will do it. Per thought it was amazing that Marie wanted to do it and that they could go on.

Anders says he saw an interview with Marie that was done by Niklas Strömstedt and there she said Per was a big support to her during that period. He asks Per what he thinks about it. Per smiles, drinks a little water and says he doesn’t know. He hopes so, but it’s hard to answer this question. When someone gets ill, you want to help as much as you can, but it’s always hard to help someone without stepping too much into their private lives. People have families and you don’t know how to behave. This is how he felt about his family too. Sometimes you feel that you go one step too close and they want you to leave them alone. They want to take care of their illness in their own private way. So it’s hard to know. But Per also saw that interview in Niklas’ show and he was of course happy to hear that Marie thought so.

 

Anders says Marie and Per had many common memories from Roxette times. He is curious about the greatest ones that Per will remember forever. Mr. G says there are too many. He thinks it’s kind of a fairy tale what they have been through. The possibilities, the chances, the odds for them to succeed, coming from Sweden those days and in this industry were less than minimal. It’s fantastic, all the success they have achieved. But if he skips all the golden records, chart positions and such things, he remembers those days when they were on stage in front of 50,000 people in Chile, in Sydney or wherever and looked into each other’s eyes. And then Per knows Marie thinks ”how the hell did this happen, Per?” and he thinks the same. You see the rolling ocean of people in front of you and they all love what you are doing. Such things are fantastic. But of course there are many more.

 

Anders realized Roxette has extremely loyal fans. He read what they were writing and asks Per how much of that has reached him. Per says he was of course devastated when Marie passed away, but he was also happy to see the response she got from all around the world. From many other artists, producers, radio people and fans, all the people. There are hundreds of thousands of greetings coming in and it’s awesome that Marie gets that appreciation. Per says they definitely have the best fans in the world. They have always been super loyal and followed them in all times. It’s been a long journey.

And here the interview ends with the flame of the candle going out in the lyric video. All in all it was a very touching interview. One can see it’s still hard to talk about what happened and it needs time to find comfort. Per says they have the best fans in the world. What I must add: and we have chosen the best idols in the world. Undoubtedly.

Stills are from the interview.

Per Gessle and Micke Syd Andersson on TV4 about the GT farewell tour

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Per and Micke Syd appeared as guests on TV4’s Nyhetsmorgon and were interviewed by Jenny Strömstedt about the upcoming Gyllene Tider farewell tour. Watch it HERE!

When Jenny welcomed the guys, she noticed that they were wearing black clothes and asked if it is kind of grieving the ending of the band. Per and Micke Syd said nah, they are tough. Haha. Micke Syd said they were Sweden’s kindest pop band in the 80’s, so they are working on becoming tough.

Jenny asked what the fans think about the fact that it’s going to be Gyllene Tider’s last tour. Per replied that there are a lot of reactions. Micke Syd started singing Här kommer alla känslorna, but Per told him it’s not a GT song. Micke Syd said but it fits. Mr. G continued answering that GT means so much to a lot of people and it’s awesome. Micke Syd joined in and said fans say for example that their songs are the soundtrack to their lives. They grew up with Gyllene Tider. Per said it’s mainly their 80’s songs that he wrote when he was 19-22 years old. Back then he wouldn’t have thought they would be on a 40th anniversary farewell tour.

Then a short part of Parkliv tour film was shown and after that Micke Syd told the story that even if they beeped out the sound when Per told the phone number of Micke Syd’s mum’s hairdresser salon in the film, fans could read Mr. G’s lips and Micke’s mum got angry by constantly getting tons of calls after that. Jenny asked what the fans wanted. Micke Syd said ”talking to me” and Per joked ”having their hair cut”. Haha. Jenny asked how it worked with the fans back then. Both Micke and Per said they all lived with their parents and it was quite strange when fans were hanging around their houses. They were stealing washed clothes for example. Per said when he turned 21 he got 3400 mails, so his mum’s house was full of them. They also mentioned they had to check in at hotels on different names,picking different names each time. But of course, over the years it got calmer and the guys in GT also grew up and could handle it better. Jenny said that everyone tells about GT that they are like everyday people and so nice. The guys agree that they are nice.

Jenny mentioned that back in the days there were 2 big bands, Gyllene Tider and Noice in Sweden. They talked about the differences and Per said Noice was a big town band, while GT was a small town band. Micke Syd said this fact also determined that they had different mentality.

Per told that the band broke up in 1985 and since then they have always been doing something together on project basis. Like in 1996 or 2004 or 2013. The guys said they have a unique sound and when they play together it’s fantastic. They can’t put their finger on what it is about that uniqueness, but it’s like them 5 become 1 then. Per said when he plays GT songs with other musicians, they don’t sound like Gyllene Tider at all. There is a special style they have in GT and it shows up only when they 5 are playing together.

Jenny asked what the roles are in the band and if Per is the boss. Per said nah, he comes always as the last. Micke Syd told things are changing, but there are of course things that haven’t changed in the band. They also talked about how they play a song from 1980 these days. Micke Syd said they become young again on the inside despite the fact that he will soon turn 60. Per’s reaction to that was ”60?! Shit!” Haha. Jenny asked if it is the same feeling to sing about love now, when they are a little bit older. Per said when you sing a song you also act. Of course, when there is a song you wrote when you were 19 and sing it when you are suddenly not 19 anymore the song becomes different, it gets another meaning.

Per said GT is loved by so many people and one can’t take that for granted. It’s awesome to look back on their 40 years history. Micke Syd said there are so many memories related to their songs one can also see that on fans’ faces on the concerts.

At the end of the interview Jenny asked the most important question, if the guys can guarantee that this will really be a last time they go on tour again. Micke Syd nodded and Per replied ”it feels like that”. Jenny said it was quite a diplomatic answer.