Studio Ett

Per Gessle interview on Studio Ett about “Joyride – The Musical”

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Studio Ett, news magazine on Swedish Radio P1, did a phone interview with Per Gessle after he saw one of the final rehearsals of Joyride – The Musical on 3rd September. Listen to it HERE!

The program leaders welcome Per Gessle on the show. He is joining via phone from Halmstad. Per was in Malmö yesterday (on 3rd September) to see one of the final rehearsals. The program leaders are curious what it was like to see and hear Roxette songs in musical form. Mr. G says it was the first time he got to see it together with an audience and it was absolutely fantastic. It’s a strange experience, of course, but it’s awesome. It’s a new chapter in the book in a way. It’s amazing.

To the question in what way it is a strange experience, Per replies it’s awesome, it’s so big. There are almost 300 people who worked full time on this musical in Malmö. It’s a huge production and there are costumes, there is a 45-piece orchestra and everything is larger than life. Then they play these Roxette songs for 2.5 hours. It’s absolutely magical.

Per is asked if it was obvious to say yes to the musical. He says it wasn’t. They have been talking about it since 2015, actually. They got the first request then and he has been to various showcases in London and everywhere. Different companies, different producers presented different ideas, but they have all been turned down, because the script has never been good enough. Then they heard about Jane Fallon’s book, Got You Back and all of a sudden it felt like it could work with their music. It’s a cool story and it simply fits the music. Per doesn’t think the music itself has any major problems to fix so it works in a musical context. There are very big emotions and big melodies and there are a lot of ups and downs. So it fits the musical format very well.

As Per saw the show yesterday in Malmö with a lot of people, but there are many who of course haven’t seen it yet, the program leader asks him to describe it. Mr. G says that so far there were three rehearsals with invited audiences, e.g musical school children and others, but the actual premiere is on Friday. It’s magnificent. It’s a large venue for 1,400 people, it’s a fairly large theatre. It’s a fantastic production that has a huge orchestra and an enormously talented cast. There are many singers and dancers. You have to go and have a look yourself, he suggests.

The program leader says Roxette was Per and Marie Fredriksson, who passed away five years ago and is missed. She wasn’t really a musical girl, so the program leader is curious what Per thinks Marie would have thought about this musical. Per says Marie liked the musical idea. He thinks Marie would have thought this was great fun, because it keeps the Roxette spirit and the Roxette catalogue is shown to new audiences. Per thinks you should welcome such things. He thinks it’s the same they did with the Gyllene Tider movie that premiered this summer. You reach a new group of people, a new generation all the time with your music, so he thinks Marie would have thought this was amazing.

Speaking of the GT movie, it’s very much Per Gessle right now. Musical, film, Roxette tour with Lena Philipsson by his side next year, new solo album in October. Per turned 65 in January and the program leader asks him if this is how he picks up the pace. Per laughs and says he is retired now. He says he ended up on the cover of a pensioners’ magazine. He was shocked. Getting back to the question, it just happened. The movie and the musical were not really meant to come out with such a short interval, but it has become so. Per tries to keep up as much as he can. He likes his work and he loves working with all these projects. It’s incredibly exciting stuff, both the film and the musical and the solo album, which is mostly duets in Swedish, coming in October. It’s very exciting. Then the whole adventure with Lena Philipsson next year will also be a completely new blank page of what it will be. So he tries to keep up as best as he can.

Roxette has sold close to a hundred million records. It’s almost hard to take in. They have had enormous success. The program leader asks Per how often it comes to his mind when, for example, he was packing food boxes in Halmstad and his teacher came by and said „I knew this is where you would end up”. Per laughs and says it was like that. He says he came from a fairly simple childhood and very much lived in the middle of his little bubble all his life until he met MP and started a band in the late ’70s. It became Gyllene Tider. We all have our own destiny and lines to follow, so he tried to keep up as best as he could. It has been fantastic.

The program leader asks Per what of everything he does he would most like this teacher to see and hear. Per says, nothing, he didn’t like him. Per doesn’t think about it, it doesn’t matter anymore. There are so many adversities that you face, especially when you are young. It becomes a driving force. You have to show yourself that you can handle things. Per has always been quite a determined and ambitious type. It was one of many things that got him going.

The program leader mentions that as Per says, he loves to work and he loves his job, but a large part of his job was Marie Fredriksson. She wants to know how much Per misses her in everyday life and now that Joyride – The Musical is premiering. Mr. G says it’s been a long time since Marie passed away, but he thinks about her every day. Especially now, when so many Roxette-related things are going on. She is there in spirit somehow. The whole musical is an homage to her in a way, it’s also written in the program. It’s clear that she is felt. Per has to say that it’s highly emotional for him to sit in the theatre and hear all these songs. You kind of travel back to a lot of events, tours and things that they worked on over the years. It’s a common journey that’s completely unique, so it’s clear that Marie is there all the time.

The program leader asks what the strongest memory is that Per gets from watching this musical and hearing their songs. It’s above all the big Marie ballads, It Must Have Been Love, Spending My Time, Queen Of Rain, the songs that she represents. Every time you hear these songs, she sits next to them. It’s magical. Then there are some of her songs that are in the musical as well, songs that she has written, so it’s not just Per’s stuff. It’s amazing, Per thinks. He adds that he thinks a lot of people will like this, because it’s strong and a lot of people have a very big relationship with Roxette, especially with Marie.

The program leader says there are many people who have a relationship with Roxette all over the world. She is curious if Per thinks many people will go to Malmö to see the show. Mr. G says he actually knows that that is the case. Someone at Malmö Opera said that 45 percent of all tickets sold are bought by people who have never been to Malmö Opera before. It must mean that Roxette is a strong magnet.

Here the interview ends by thanking Per for joining Studio Ett.

Per Gessle and Valdemar Wahlbeck on Swedish Radio

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Per Gessle and Valdemar Wahlbeck were guests on Studio Ett, Swedish Radio on 18th July. You can listen to the interview HERE!

The reporter welcomes the guys and asks them how it was when they met for the very first time and who was more nervous. Per can’t remember, so he turns to Valdemar and asks where they met. Valdemar says it was at Hotel Tylösand. Now Per remembers Valdemar came with his notebook and asked him a lot of questions. Valdemar says he had like 20 questions and thought they could go through them. It went well, the guys say. The reporter says it was a good starting point.

Valdemar is 21 years old. The reporter is curious what he knew about Gyllene Tider when he got involved with the film. Valdemar says that as a Halmstad local, you grow up with Gyllene Tider. His father has been playing a lot of Gyllene Tider at home, the records were either hanging on the wall or in the record box. And then you also sing Sommartider a number of times during summer breaks.

The reporter saw the movie a few weeks ago and she says the applause afterwards was massive. Here she plays music journalist Per Sinding-Larsen’s words, who says Gyllene Tider is part of music history and talks about the probable influences they had, e.g Sven-Ingvars and Owe Thörnqvist. The reporter asks Per what he thinks about it. PG thinks there might be some truth in that, but they didn’t listen very much to Sven-Ingvars or Owe Thörnqvist. For Per, it was rather Povel Ramel who was very influential. Valdemar thinks he was fantastic. Then it was ’60s pop that Per grew up with and when Gyllene Tider started, it was exactly the end of the ’70s. It was just when punk and new wave music started happening. The Ramones, Blondie, Buzzcocks and all that. So they gained some kind of self-confidence that it was OK not to be terribly good. It was different a few years earlier with progressive music, e.g. Emerson, Laker & Palmer and Yes. Everyone could play punk music and it suited Per very well, as he couldn’t play. The reporter is surprised, but PG says he learned along the way. He learned to play acoustic guitar to Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne and such songs on nylon string guitar. Then he changed to electric guitar and learned The Kinks’ riffs.

Valdemar says the movie itself is very much about music and together with Clarence Öfwerman and Christoffer Lundquist they dove themselves deep into Gyllene Tider songs. They geeked out on all the songs and Valdemar geeked out on Per’s voice. There is this genuine tightness and fantastic feeling which is not found in much other music.

The reporter remembers listening to Per’s solo debut album in the ’80s, before Gyllene Tider and she wants to know what Per’s ambitions were back then. Per corrects the reporter and says that his first solo album came out in 1983 and by then they had already made three Gyllene Tider LPs. 1981 was their biggest year. In 1982 came Sommartider and in 1983 Per’s first solo record came out. He made that record because everyone else in the band did the compulsory military service. He had a year off since he didn’t do the service, because he looked terrible in green. Valdemar laughs. Per simply made a singer-songwriter record, a more grown-up album. He was 24 years old, he was an old man already then. Haha. Marie Fredriksson also sang some songs on that album.

According to the reporter it’s funny that Per says he didn’t look good in green. She doesn’t know if Per was just joking, but that part was also fun in the movie. There it felt like Per was a pretty vain guy at that point, so it made her wonder how much of the film is true. Per must say it’s very realistic. There are characters that didn’t exist or things that didn’t happen the same way they are in the movie, but the story, the anecdotes and the events that are in the film actually happened. Almost all of them. What doesn’t quite match the chronology, for example, is a love story when Per meets his girlfriend who is now his wife. In real life it happened in 1984, but the movie ended in 1982. But all the tough, positive and fun things that are in the movie, they happened in real life too.

This is Valdemar’s breakthrough and the reporter is curious how he has found Per Gessle in himself. Valdemar says he listened to Gyllene Tider a lot and to start with, both he and Per are smalltown people, so they have a lot in common. Especially when you come from the same city and have the same dialect. He has some older friends through his father, a few people who were there around in Halmstad at that time. So he carried a lot of things already. Then he talked a little with Per. For Valdemar it feels a bit like they have done it together in a way. He received a little help and he has been able to ask. The whole thing started by recording the songs. There you find much more feeling already in the music. Then, a few months later, it was shooting the movie. By then you would have read all the biographies, listened to even more songs, checked out that era and different clothes and influences that they had.

Per says he was quite negative that there would be a film made about Gyllene Tider. When he was contacted, he thought they were going to make a film about Gyllene Tider’s 40-year career. A great tribute to what they have achieved. But the movie is not about that. The film ends in 1982 when Sommartider was released. Per told Per Simonsson, the director, that he should try to capture this Life on Seacrow Island (Vi på Saltkråkan) feeling. By that PG meant that they should gain empathy and become positive, so those who watch the movie would like these guys in the band. Then it could be an awesome movie. The film starts with Per doing the tests for military service. It is very much his childhood and his teenage years that is reflected. Then the film ends in 1982. So it’s a different kind of film than what people might think. Per finds it exciting and says that the guys who play Gyllene Tider are magically good. It’s incredible. Valdemar says it’s a fun cast, they got on well very quickly. Per says it looks like they had so much fun. Valdemar confirms it was much fun to stand there together and play these songs that you have been singing since you were little. And that it worked and fit. It was really fun.

The reporter says both Per and Valdemar are from Halmstad and while she is sitting here listening to and looking at them, she feels they have many similarities. Per says Valdemar is his avatar. They are laughing.

The reporter says, for those who are not from Halmstad, it seems that their voices are quite similar. She is curious if this is how Valdemar talks anyway. Valdemar says he hasn’t made anything up. He turns to Per and says Per is from Söndrum, so he has the Söndrum dialect. Per says he doesn’t have that at all, he comes from Furet. Haha. Valdemar is a bit more from the countryside, Holm.

The reporter asks Per if the film brings a comeback as well. Per asks if she thinks he needs to come back. The reporter says she meant Gyllene Tider. PG says that Gyllene Tider actually toured last year, so they have absolutely no plans. This autumn he releases a Swedish solo record and next year it’s Roxette with Lena Philipsson. The tour premieres in South Africa on 26th February, then they go to Australia and probably to more countries. Valdemar asks Per if there are any tickets left. Per says Valdemar can come along. Haha.

Valdemar sings in the movie. He says it took a long time for him to find this voice. The reporter asks him if there will be more singing by him. Valdemar laughs and says if it goes well on Spotify, we will see. Per says that the entire soundtrack record is available on Spotify. Valdemar thinks it’s amazing. It’s almost unreal to listen to yourself, your own voice on Spotify. He says it’s almost his own voice, it’s a mix of Per’s and his. Per says it’s Valdemar who sings. The reporter asks PG if Valdemar can sing. Mr. G thinks Valdemar sings really great. Sometimes he tries to sing a little too much like Per in Gyllene Tider. Valdemar agrees. Per says Valdemar has a very good singing voice and he is such a modern artist. He goes to the Ballet Academy, he is a musical singer, he is amazing at it and he knows everything. Per knew absolutely nothing when he started.

The reporter asks the guys what they hope the film will lead to. PG thinks the best scenario is if young people watch it and get the feeling and understand that it’s really cool to start a band and play music and do stuff together, and not just sit and stare at their iPhones all the time. Valdemar thinks it would be much fun if a band culture would grow out of this. The guys say the movie has received a fantastic response so far, a lot of people who see it think it’s fantastic. Valdemar says it really makes him happy to hear that.

The reporter thanks both to the real and to the movie screen Per Gessle for coming to the show.

HERE you can see some more photos by Henrik Martinell / Swedish Radio

Radio interview with Per Gessle about Marie Fredriksson – ”I’ve always thought she is a sister to me, it has always been so.”

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Studio Ett on Swedish radio did an interview with Per Gessle after last night’s ”En kväll för Marie Fredriksson” event at Stora Teatern in Göteborg. You can judge by Per’s voice and reactions that he is still very much under the effect of what happened. Both last night and on 9th December.

It was the first time last night that he stood on stage without Marie since she has passed away. Per says it was quite long ago when he played together with Marie, in 2016. Yesterday the whole event was a really strong experience. It was fantastic being part of it, but at the same time it was tough. He says Marie was a fantastic person and he remembered the ’80s and ’90s when Roxette had their heydays. One forgets it over the years when so many things are happening. Their whole journey is unbelievable. They met at the end of the ’70s. Per was busy with Gyllene Tider, Marie had her solo career, but they shared this dream of succeeding abroad and they did and had this fantastic journey together.

The program leader says not everyone understands how big they are in e.g. Australia or South America. She asks what kind of reactions he got from there during the past month. Per says the response was tough, but fantastic. It shows how much Marie meant and still means to the people all around the world. The program leader says there was someone from Brazil in the audience last night. Per says he knows it, but there were many other hardcore fans too. There is a gang that follows everything they are doing. They live their lives via them in a way and he finds it fantastic.

The program leader asks Per how he looks back at the times when they broke through in the US. Per says it was an awesome time, the music industry and radio were totally different. They come from the pop world that has its roots in the ’60s and ’70s. They had the capacity and luck to follow up their first hit song, The Look with several others. Besides Marie singing so fantastically, she was also a fab performer on stage. When they started touring around the world, she was so good and they had a good band too, so they could also deliver on stage. A lot of artists can make records, but can’t go and perform live. It was a huge strength of Marie.

Studio Ett then asks about Per and Marie’s friendship. Per says they had a long journey together and over the years their friendship went through changes of course. They were friends from the beginning, they shared a dream, wrote songs together, played the guitar and the piano, they were singing, they shared the rehearsal studio while playing in separate bands, Per in GT, Marie in Strul. Then they went on tours and it became an intense, but rather professional friendship year in, year out with Roxette, so when they came home from a tour, maybe the first one whom he called wasn’t Marie. But they have always been very close to each other. He has always thought Marie is a sister to him, it has always been so.

Per says after last night’s event it’s very tough today. Everyone was very moved. It felt like a farewell yesterday. It was fantastic to do this, but it was tough for all of them on stage. He thinks it will be an awesome TV program. The band was a hybrid of Roxette’s bands and Marie’s solo band, consisting of fab musicians.

The program leader asks how much of Gun-Marie from Östra Ljungby was still in Marie as a successful world star. Per says there was still very much of Gun-Marie in her. She was very private. They did all this journey because they love pop music and singing and playing and writing. So why they were on TV, for example, was not because they wanted to be there, but it all came with their success. To the question how much is left in Per of Per Håkan who once worked at Bingo-Livs Mr. G replied while laughing that it’s hard to say, but he is a big part of him still. At least he thinks so.

To the question how he will go on with his songs he wrote for Roxette Per replies he doesn’t know yet, it’s a good question. During all his adult life he was writing songs for Roxette, so he wants to go on with them in a way, but he doesn’t know how.

It’s hard for Mr. G to tell what Marie would have said about last night’s event. Per thinks it was very touching, but he doesn’t know what Marie would have thought. Still the whole thing seems to be unreal.

To the question which of Marie’s songs are his favourites Per replies there are so many. One of Marie’s absolute finest lyrics is Den ständiga resan. It’s a very strong text and a very nice song. Over the years Per wrote tons of songs, while Marie was writing much less, but when she wrote something it was incredibly good. She has a fantastic song catalogue.