Thanks to Heidi Janse Van Rensburg of Roxette South Africa.
South Africa
Sun City press conference: over 50,000 people saw Roxette in South Africa
On news of the band returning to the country for a series of shows, fans quickly flocked to ticketing offices to make sure they got to see one of the world’s most loved bands on South African soil. The response was overwhelmingly positive, prompting organisers to add more dates to the tour. The result? Seven sold out shows in South Africa alone. Ahead of the show, the band’s Per Gessle said they really weren’t expecting such a response.
Watch an interview with Per Gessle
With the industry moving into a digital environment with fans downloading albums and using social media as a means to find out more about their favourite stars, Gessle says he too has embraced the new media craze.
I have a 13 year old son. If you told him I was interested in new media, he would probably laugh in your face. It all comes down to the fact that I always wanted to be in control of my music. I remember in the old days in the 80s when you had fan clubs. It was always terrible because there was always someone else running them. There was no money involved, nobody wanted to be involved. It’s just so easy using Facebook for instance. I have my iPhone and a take pictures. It’s just a fantastic thing for a fan to see that level of access.
Journalist: “I feel like I should hug you”; Per Gessle: “Please, do!”
Swedish pop group Roxette’s fans showed their undying support when the dates for the South African leg of the Charm School tour were announced, making sure every show was sold out. Top Billing caught up with Per Gessel, the male part of this well loved duo and a award winning musician in his own right. We find out about his and partner Marie Frederikson’s love for Cape Town and what his favorite Roxette song is. Watch this episode to find out the inside scoop, like how hit single, It must have been love was originally written as a Christmas song.
Anyone who knows how to watch the whole episode?
Source: Topbilling.com
Interview with Per Gessle on Roxette.co.za
Harno from South Africa had the chance to interview Per – check it out!
South African press: Roxette still dressed for success
Roxette’s Per Gessle opens up about the band’s past, his life-long love of music, singer Marie Fredriksson’s near-fatal brain tumour, and writing hit records.
People love our songs, they seem to be part of people’s lives – which is just amazing. The songs I write are based on the music I listened to when I was very young – music from the ’60s, ’70s – so everything I do is basically melody oriented. I think also it has helped that we’re not American, we’re not English so we’ve always been a little bit offside. We’re a Swedish band with a Swedish manager, a Swedish producer, so we’ve done everything outside the global music industry and I think that’s really helped us out. There have been times when people have said: ‘You have to move to New York or LA, or at least move to London’, but we’ve never wanted to do that.
We always listen to our gut feeling. It was the same when I wrote the new album, ‘Charm School’. My ambition was not to write a best-selling album. I just wanted to write a great album for Marie – these are the songs I want her to sing. If it works commercially, then hallelujah. If it doesn’t, we’ve still done a great album.
When we perform, we’re one of those bands who don’t use computers, vocals on tape, or click tracks or whatever – it’s just 100 percent live, like when we started out. For us that’s so much more fun – sometimes a song goes too fast, sometimes it goes too slow – and every show is unique. We try to make it interesting and enjoyable for ourselves.
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