Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – September 2024

Per Gessle and Sven Lindström count down from 10 to 6 on Sirius XM in the third part of their ’70s countdown in the September episode of Nordic Rox.

Per asks Sven how he is doing. Sven is fine. He asks Per how his summer was and PG says it was excellent. No touring for him this year, so he has been really lazy in the sun. Sven is joking that it is Per’s favourite position. Mr. G confirms, that’s where he belongs.

The guys are up to play music that defined the Swedish ’70s, goodies that have never been played on American radio before.

Sven and Per kick off the show Only Summer by Green & Granstrom. Sven informs that it’s a rather interesting cooperation between a guy from Malmö, Sweden, called Lars Brundin, songwriter, also photographer and a friend in the States called Jimmy Granstrom, who has been working with one of Lars’ tracks and written an English lyric to that. So that’s Only Summer and it was recorded in the States. So it’s a bit of a Swedish-American partnership there.

Late To The Party by Anna Lille is next, a new song from Norway by a 20-year-old singer. It’s a good track.

Shimmy Shimmy Style by Teddybears comes next. The guys are guessing it was released maybe 10 years ago. [It was released in 2018. /PP] Per loves the Teddybears. They have done some great songs. They are a pretty cool band, Sven thinks. They should produce more music, new music. He is always eager to hear more music from them. So if this message reaches them, back to the studio. Per says they are probably lazy in the sun. Haha. Sven says summer is over, boys. Get back to work! Haha.

The guys take another trip to Norway. and play Tired Old Dog by Sløtface.

Then comes Sällskapssjuk featuring Per Gessle and singer Lena Philipsson. Per says it’s an impossible word to say in English. He has some English friends and he tried to translate that phrase for them, but that word doesn’t exist in English. Sven says it means that you are really longing to be with someone. You are longing for company, Per says. It’s a great phrase in Sweden. Sven says that the immediate translation would be company sick, but that would take the focus away. This single was released a month or two ago and it’s also the title for the upcoming album. Per has recorded an album with lots of duets, and Lena is one of them. She is a great singer, and she is also going to be lead singer on the upcoming Roxette tour, starting in South Africa and Australia next year. Sven thinks that must be terribly interesting and exciting. Per confirms it is. He brought together the old Roxette band. They unfortunately lost Marie and also Pelle, the drummer, but the rest of them are coming with PG, and Lena is doing the vocals. They are going to play the old Roxette catalogue. It’s going to be cool, Mr. G thinks.

The guys get down to the mission of this episode, to dig deep into the Swedish ’70s, to songs that they think define that decade. At No. 10 there is an amazing song called Livet är en fest (Life is a party) by Nationalteatern. It was a big hit in 1974. Sven thinks it’s a fantastic album, very unusual also for the time, because they were like a prog band, a progressive leftist band. They didn’t sound like any other band. Per agrees. They were like a theatre. They went to schools, played performances. They had some really wonderful songs. This soundtrack to this particular show became a big thing. Per thinks it was a No. 1 album in Sweden. Sven confirms. It became a classic. They had a bit of a punk ethos to them. They started out like actors and then they learned to play to reach out to teenagers. Then they became better and better, but still had that sort of half amateurish thing, which is making them unique. According to PG, it sounds great. The sound of this record is really cool. It still is.

No. 9 is a classic Swedish artist. The song they play is from his debut album released in 1975. He is called Ulf Lundell, a big artist in Sweden. He is still around and touring once in a while. He was really big in the ’80s, especially. His debut album sounds like the mid-70s a lot. Sven agrees. The track is called Då kommer jag och värmer dej (I’ll come and keep you warm) and it is sort of a blues pop song. Quite cool. Ulf Lundell made a major breakthrough on the Swedish scene, both musically and culturally in general. He published his first book, Jack, about growing up in the ’60s. It was a big success. He came from nowhere and just boom, entered like that.

No. 8 is a song from 1977, so there is a bit of a punk influence here as well. The guys are talking about Magnus Uggla, who had his big breakthrough with this album and this song. He came from the glam rock scene. It was a sucker for Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter and Bowie and that kind of stuff. He moved into the scene with one foot in glam rock and the other one in punk, the new wave scene. The title for this album, his third album, was Va ska man ta livet av sig för när man ändå inte får höra snacket efteråt (What’s the use of committing suicide when you can’t hear the talk afterwards). Haha. It’s a great one, Per thinks. The song they play was really big. It was everywhere in the late of ’77 and it was super controversial as well, because he was singing about going out, getting girls and trying to get girls laid. He wrote about it in a way that was really to the point with no further ado. There were a lot of controversial debates about if one can really write such songs. Per remembers that. He was a punk guy, but he was from a nobility family, so that was also a question mark, if you can really be a punk if you are upper class. Varning på stan is played.

The guys are ready to move forward to something completely different, as they say in Monty Python. Ted Gärdestad, who was a very young singer-songwriter in the early ’70s, had a big breakthrough when he was 15, in 1972. His first two albums were produced by Björn and Benny from ABBA and they were really wonderful songs. His brother wrote the lyrics and Ted himself wrote the music. You can still hear his songs all the time, even today. His music has just transferred over generations. It still moves a lot of people. The song they play is Per’s favourite song on this. It’s called Come Give Me Love. The girl singers you hear are Agnetha and Frida from ABBA, singing the chorus. Despite the English title, the Swedish lessons continue. It’s a taste of Ted Gärdestad at his best in 1973. Per thinks this amazing song has a wonderful sound.

The final song from the ’70s on this show is from the end of the decade, autumn of 1979. It’s a band that Per is totally in control over, everything that happened, because it’s Gyllene Tider, Mr. G’s power pop group. Per says this is a song from their first album recorded in 1979 and it became their first No. 1 single in the early months of 1980. It kicked the doors open for the major breakthrough and changed everything for all of them. It was a double A side single. The record label wasn’t really sure about which song they should promote. It was also the era of all this dance stuff that was typical of the late ’70s. The other song was more of a dance record and this was like a homemade sort of reggae style. Sven says they were heavily influenced by the new wave movement. Blondie, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Ramones. PG adds Tom Petty. They loved the new wave and really loved proper songs and going back to the ’60s and ’70s as well. The whole attitude they had… they were like 18, 19, 20 years old. Sven says the 20-year-old Per Gessle sat down writing a lyric that made this one stand out, definitely on the radio. PG says it’s about checking out the girls on TV. The ones who present the show. You had the hostess those days in between the programs. It’s TV2. Sweden at that time had two channels. Sven explains the double meaning of part of the lyrics. What Per says basically is to put on TV2 and put on the girls on TV2. Per says it was a little game with the words. A little bit of innuendo, Sven says. And it made it happen, PG says. Sven says now the listeners are totally aware of what this song is all about and they play Flickorna på TV2 (The girls on TV2).

Next month the guys are back with the top five. Per promises it’s going to be sensational.

The next song on the show is a track about Elvis by Albin Lee Meldau. PG says he is a great guy and a fantastic singer. He is like a troubadour, singer-songwriter. Per has seen shows with him, just him and an acoustic guitar, which are amazing. He is actually touring in Europe right now and Mr. G is sure he is going to be big. Elvis, I Love You is a taster of an upcoming album in English, something to look out for. He is also Per’s partner in his duet album project. Per has made a single with him as well. He is wonderful, PG thinks.

Sweet Jackie by Sugarplum Fairy is wrapping up this Nordic Rox episode. Per thinks it’s a great song. Sven thinks the chorus is beautiful.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos, 2019

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – August 2024

Per Gessle and Sven Lindström are back to Sirius XM with the second part of their ’70s countdown on the August episode of Nordic Rox.

Before the guys get down to those 5 great songs from the ’70s, they stay in present tense and play Fire In Cairo, a new track by The Hellacopters. A wonderful song according to PG.

The next one is Black Hole by Edith Backlund. Per loves this song. It came out appr. 10 years ago. Then comes Send Her My Love by Robert Pehrsson’s Humbucker. Sven thinks it’s a great band name and Per agrees it’s a wonderful one, but he doesn’t know anything about Robert Pehrsson and his Humbucker. It sounds great, Mr. G likes it. Sven found this song on a list of Swedish garage rock.

The guys start talking about Gyllene Tider – Per says he knows those guys, haha. It’s Per’s power pop band from Halmstad. PG says they started off in 1978 and in 1979 they had their breakthrough. Sven says they made a major impact in Sweden in 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 and around 1983 they were ready to conquer the world. Per says he did his first solo album in 1983 while the other guys in the band did their military service. The band had a comeback and they made an English album called The Heartland Café that came out in 1984. It’s not the best album in the world, PG says, but what’s interesting is that there is one track that was pretty popular called Break Another Heart. That was the first time where Per worked with Marie Fredriksson who he eventually formed Roxette with. Sven says it was released in the States and they used the name Roxette, so this is actually a teaser of what would become Roxette five years later. Per confirms, the first version of Roxette was actually these five guys. The album came out on Capitol Records in 1984. It sold about 225 copies, Sven adds. The guys are laughing. It didn’t sell that much. Per remembers going to Los Angeles and he went to Tower Records on Sunset and they had their own little section next to Roxy Music. PG thought it was so cool. Then the band split up and he started Roxette with Marie instead. It was a good idea, Mr. G says. Sven says if you are a record and vinyl nerd, which they grew up with of course, the bass player in Roxette, Magnus Börjeson had a band called Beagle in the early ’90s. They were really happy about that name, because that put them between The Beach Boys and The Beatles. Haha. Per thinks it’s brilliant.

Yours To Keep by Paola is next. Per thinks it’s a nice one; the Teddybears is involved in that song. Then comes Where The Wolf Bane Blooms by The Nomads, a superb garage rock band from Sweden. The song is from their debut album.

Here comes the ’70s list from No. 15 to No. 11. Sven warns the listeners, because if they are sensitive to sweetness and sugar, they should watch out. A super sugary track called Moviestar is next by Harpo, produced by Bengt Palmers, one of the biggest producers in Sweden in the old days. He produced Hooked On A Feeling, for instance, and he was really big, producing lots of artists for EMI Records in the ’70s. Moviestar was an enormous hit in 1975 and it was also an extremely big song in Germany. Harpo is still touring in Germany once in a while, Per adds. He says you couldn’t escape this one in the ’70s if you were in Sweden or in Germany. Per asks the listeners to fasten their seatbelts.

Sven says they got the reason to return to Bengt Palmers later on in the shows, because you can’t escape him.

No. 14 is a guy called Magnus Lindberg. He used to play in a band called Landslaget, before he became his own sort of singer-songwriter, eventually becoming a little bit more new wavish. He did two albums in the ’70s. They were pretty acoustic and very good. He’s got a wonderful voice according to Per. He writes his own songs as well. The guys picked Månsken Peggie (Moonlight Peggie). PG thinks it’s a beautiful song. It came out in the late ’70s.

No. 13 is a band of ’60s pop veterans, Secret Service. They consisted of lots of people from the band Ola & The Janglers from the ’60s and some veterans in the industry. The band had their own distinctive sound and original songs as well. Not bad in Per’s book. PG says it was pretty rare in the ’70s to have international success for Swedish artists. ABBA was probably the only exception. They probably woke Secret Service up to the idea. They became enormous in France and this is their breakthrough song, Oh Susie from 1979.

Now the guys go to the north of Sweden and play a wonderful, typical ’70s mix of modern music and old traditional Swedish folk music. Gammal jämtländsk brudmarsch (A wedding march from the county of Jämtland /in the north of Sweden/) was a big hit. It was an instrumental track by a girl playing the organ called Merit Hemmingson. It was a big one on the radio in the ’70s, produced by Bengt Palmers, who also produced Moviestar by Harpo we just heard. Sven says, he was back earlier than they expected. Haha. Sven thinks it’s an interesting mix of musical styles. Per says the first time he heard it, he loved it and he was just a kid. He still loves it. Sven thinks it might be the first time Merit is played on American radio.

This brings the guys up to new wavish sounds from mid Sweden. A band called Eldkvarn is next. They had a big breakthrough in the ’70s and they are still around on and off. They closed down the factory a couple of years ago, then they came back again. They have been really big and have their own distinctive sound as well. The songs are written by vocalist Plura Jonsson. Their current tour, a sort of new farewell tour is named Det är aldrig försent att lägga av (It’s never too late to quit). The guys are laughing. Per finds it a good tour name. When Eldkvarn started out in the mid ’70s, they were not called Eldkvarn (Fire mill), but Piska mig hårt (Whip me hard) instead. It probably caused some controversy, Sven thinks. Per has never listened to them that much. In the ’80s-’90s he listened to them a bit, but this is new music to him. It’s taken from their 1979 album where they totally change musical style from slightly progressive ’70s rock, Sven says. Per thinks it sounds like Elvis Costello & The Attractions came into their lives. Sven thinks that there is life for Eldkvarn before this year’s model and there is another life after. They took up their amps to eight or something and started speeding up the tempo. It’s not bad, Per likes it. So they play the title track from their album Pojkar, pojkar, pojkar (Boys, boys, boys), wrapping up the ’70s countdown on this show.

The guys take a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. Here is She Owns The Streets by The Raveonettes. Sven thinks it’s a cool band. Per adds it’s one of their favourite bands.

The amazing sound of I Go For The Cheap Ones by Heavy Tiger is next. They are a female band from Stockholm. Per heard they haven’t been doing anything since 2019, but they are an amazing group and they are missed. Sven says they should come back, the world needs Heavy Tiger.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Pic by Patrícia Peres, Book Fair 2014, Gothenburg

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – July 2024

After doing the ’60s countdown, Per Gessle and Sven Lindström came back to Sirius XM in July and started a ’70s countdown for Nordic Rox. They listed their favourite Swedish and Scandinavian songs from the ’70s from 20 to 16 in this episode.

The guys are talking about another decade. Per says there were so many things happening on the Swedish music scene in the ’70s, so they are going to go through a couple of songs that they like. Then he adds that to tell the truth, they even included a couple of songs that they didn’t like. Haha. Sven says they are very open-minded and inclusive here on Nordic Rox.

Before getting down to the list, they kick off with a track by a band that made an album 30 years ago, and Sven thinks Per is familiar with it. PG says it’s Roxette and the album is called Crash! Boom! Bang! It was recorded in the isle of Capri in Italy. The song they play from CBB is Run To You. Sven asks Per what he remembers about this one. Mr. G remembers they spent like six weeks in Capri making the core of the album in 1993. It was good fun. INXS had just been in the studio when they arrived, so they inherited a lot of the INXS wine bottles. Haha. They had a great time and it was a very creative period in their lives. Marie just had her first child, so she had a family with her. They did some great stuff on that album. Sleeping In My Car, for example. Sven says a jubilee version of the album is coming out. Per confirms it’s coming out just before Christmas, the 30th anniversary release. Sven says they will get back to that one.

A new single from one of the guys’ favourite constellations comes next. It’s Say Lou Lou’s Above Love. Sven thinks it’s a great one, PG says it has a French touch to it. Sven saw all these French singers, Françoise Hardy, Brigitte Bardot. They made some cool ’60s pop songs with fussy guitars and that sort of touch is here as well.

Then comes Borderline by The Soundtrack Of Our Lives from the album Origin Vol. 1. There never was an Origin Vol. 2, but for some reason it was named Vol. 1. Per thinks the band has a classic sound, and it sounds like it’s really familiar, but at the same time, it stands out. They have a very distinctive sound. Every song you hear from their catalogue sounds like The Soundtrack Of Our Lives.

Nordic Rox continues with a new single by Noak Hellsing from Stockholm. The song is All Day. PG says he has never heard of Noak Hellsing before. He must be very young and very new. Sven says Per is right on both points. Mr. G thinks it’s a good song, Sven agrees.

Shimmy Shimmy Style by the Teddybears is next.

Then the guys are leaving the modern age and going back to the ’70s. Track No. 20 is by a guy called Ola Magnell. Per says Ola was a singer-songwriter in the early ’70s and he had a couple of so-so hits, but then he went on tour with another Swedish guy that was a little bit bigger than him called Pugh Rogefeldt. The song they play is a live recording from a live album coming out in 1974. Per was there at the recording of that album in his hometown, Halmstad. Mr. G was 15 years old at the time. He remembers it being an amazing show in a pretty small theatre in Halmstad. There were like 800 people or so. It was a sensational evening for a 15-year-old kid. Sven remembers Pugh, he was probably the biggest rock star in Sweden in 1974. Sven saw Pugh and Rainrock in his hometown at the disco called Barbarella. The bass player came out on stage in a jeans skirt and that was rather cool. Back to Ola, the guys play his breakthrough song Påtalåten. It’s done with the Pugh band and it’s a live version from 1974. Per thinks it’s really, really cool and hopes the listeners like it. Per thinks it’s a great song. It’s got this sort of country flavour combined with some Swedish folk music. The rhythm is really wonderful. Sven thinks that sort of mix sounds incredibly Swedish. A lot of people were looking back to folk music in the ’70s.

Speaking about that, one of Per’s favourite singers, Monica Törnell is up on position No. 19. Mr. G has had the pleasure of working with Monica a couple of times, singing together. She’s got a really amazing voice, Per thinks. She had a breakthrough in 1972. There was a Swedish singer-songwriter called Cornelis Vreeswijk, who unfortunately is not with us anymore. He found her and he got her a record deal. Monica made an album which was basically a lot of covers translated into Swedish. It’s really an outstanding album, because her voice is so outstanding, PG thinks. It’s the elite of the Swedish session musicians at the time playing. It sounds really cool with standup bass and amazing piano playing. Per just loves this song. The original, I Really Loved Harold was written by Melanie. It’s called Förut (när jag var liten) in Swedish. Sven asks Per if this was something that mesmerized him when he was a teenager. PG listened to this album a lot and this is his favourite track. Sven thinks Monica sounds like some kind of mythical figure living far up in the woods. Per loves her voice.

The guys travel to Hollywood, somewhere in Los Angeles in 1971. Gram Parsons And The Flying Burrito Brothers. The next song sounds like that at least. It’s a guy called Basse Wickman and it’s taken from his first album in 1976. Out On The Road is not a big hit, but both Sven and Per always loved Basse. Per says he’s got this amazing, velvety voice and he made some amazing albums. Actually, PG has never heard the debut album before, so this is a new one to him. Sven says it’s actually quite obscure. For some reason, he never really made it, but Sven thinks they have a couple of tracks that they are going to revisit on the ’80s list when they get there. Per agrees and says Basse had his peak in the ’80s. Now comes some sort of Swedish country rock. It didn’t make the charts in Sweden at all, but it sounds lovely, Per thinks.

No. 17 on the list is a group called Dag Vag. Sven says it’s some sort of slight new wave reggae. Mr. G says it’s more like ska music, like The Specials from England. Dag Vag was really outstanding in the ’70s on the Swedish music scene and made it big, Per says. Sven says they were a bit older than the new wave movement. He means they came from the hippie movement, more or less. Per agrees, but they used this punk new wave attitude to come through and they did it very well. They brought along Kenny Håkansson on guitar from the prog rock group Kebnekajse. He is an amazing guitar player. Everyone in the band had really weird names, alter egos. Per can’t remember the name of Kenny. Sven thinks he was called the Silver Surfer, but he is not sure. Dag Vag means a „vague day” in English, it doesn’t make sense. Sven says „if it doesn’t make you any wiser, you can trust us, we’re not wiser either.” And the song is called Dimma, which means „fog”. It’s probably the first time this song is played in the US.

The guys think they did a great job on this list, as always. Now they are moving to the late ’70s, 1979. There was a group called Factory, that was enormously big in Sweden. Per says, first of all, most of the songs from the ’70s they played are in Swedish, because it was a big thing in the ’70s to work in Swedish. In the ’60s nobody did that at all. But in the ’70s everyone changed. Pugh was probably the first one. So, Efter plugget (after school) by Factory was a huge hit in 1979. If you listen to it now, you can trace the influences by Supertramp a lot. Per remembers when he was a kid, this song was all over the place. Sven says it was rock disco, a sort of danceable rock music. It was the same time as Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? by Rod Stewart. That sort of style. Or Miss You by The Rolling Stones. This one was all over the airwaves in 1979, you couldn’t escape it, for good or for bad. People tried to dance to it. Sven remembers girls from that time looking slightly bored. At least when they (the guys) came up on the dance floor. Per says probably that was the reason why they looked bored. Haha.

This wraps up the ’70s list for July.

Nordic Rox continues with Nowhere Blue, an indie duo from Stockholm with a new track called Keep On Running Off.

Do You Love Me by Amanda Jenssen is next. Amanda is one of the guys’ favourites and the song is from her debut album Killing My Darlings, 2008. Per thinks it’s a wonderful song. Sven thinks she is an amazing artist and an amazing singer.

The beautiful sound of Doojiman & The Exploders is next and their wonderful Yeah Yeah Yeah, Per says. Garage rock in its prime from Sweden, taken from the album Sweden’s Newest Hit Makers, Sven adds. PG thinks it’s such a great title. Sven says it makes you think of how they marketed The Rolling Stones in the States back in 1964: England’s Newest Hitmakers.

The guys are ready to leave, they have to go. Studio time is up. They will be back with five more songs taken from the Swedish ’70s in the next show.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle in the “Ramones i Sverige” book

Sven Lindström – together with Jan Lagerström, Petter Lönegård and Kjell Magnusson – wrote a book about the Ramones, Ramones i Sverige, the story of all of Ramone’s 19 gigs in Sweden, what they meant and what happened, told by those who were there. Among the many eyewitnesses there is Per Gessle, who also added his thoughts. The book is 240 pages long and loaded with both setlists and awesome photos, many of which have never been shown before.

It is worth reading the whole book if you are into Ramones. It’s written the way you are used to when it comes to Sven Lindström’s books. His perfectionism shines through when it comes to details.

Per Gessle’s part:

– The first record was a bomb in your life, it immediately became your favourite record – for me it was Ramone’s debut album and Station To Station by David Bowie that was the best that year [1976]. It was like climbing inside a popcorn machine, you got completely thrilled. Really good songs and that distinctive sound, that incredible simplicity. It’s really home-made and spot-on, like a continuation of that three-chord pop you loved in the ’60s – like Wild Thing by The Troggs – and which the Ramones pulled further into absurdity, stuck in that amphetamine tempo and with this brutally incredible sound. I was completely knocked out by the amazing simplicity. It was so life-affirming – and so it felt like a giant stinking fart in the middle of Selling England By The Pound.

– I’d probably put Ramone’s first record second on my list of life-changing LPs. But the closest we in Gyllene Tider got to the Ramones was that we used them as references in the studio: “We need to get a little more Ramones over this song,” which meant a little more energy and the tempo going up. What I have taken with me is that pop music is damn fun. I read a book about Leonard Cohen, where he said that music must be fun, even if you write heavy lyrics.

– I understand that they didn’t leave behind their typical Ramones sound on the first records. Otherwise, it is incredibly common to want to do it. When artists find what is unique to themselves, they often want to leave it behind after a while, to move on to something new and unexpected. But then they often lose what is so special and usually it doesn’t turn out as well.

– The music was fantastic and band members as individuals were at least equally cool as The Rolling Stones in 1971 – which was a great image as a rock band. The Beatles were never as cool as the Stones was in 1971. And then came David Bowie, Marc Bolan and the New York Dolls – however, their image was much better than their music. But in Ramones’ case, it all worked out. Clear and distinct image and fantastic music. And all that nazi stuff people were saying at the time it was just nonsense, a rash of that time – as soon as you didn’t sing about the Pyramid of Cheops, people pulled their ears back. Ramones were so much ahead of their time in so many ways, a very modern band and even in Progg Sweden of the ’70s there was no place for it.

– No other bands had such a strong image as the result of the fact that they so consistently created such a complete and clear entirety. No one remembers what the Buzzcocks looked like, but everyone can see the Ramones in front of them. Not even their friends at CBGB, such as Blondie, Patti Smith Group and Television had such a distinct look… they pretty much looked like everyone else. But the Ramones created a visual brand, just like Bowie. The Sex Pistols followed, but the Ramones went much further than everyone else.

– I wonder if Blondie didn’t take a little influence from the Ramones for their third record Parallel Lines, which was their big breakthrough and where for the first time they have a unified band look with all the guys in the band in black suits, white shirts and ties and Debbie in white dress. After all, it helped them sell the Blondie concept.

– I only had the first and second LPs on Sire – I must have bought them on import. Glad To See You Go, Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment and Pinhead were favourites from Leave Home. Rocket To Russia I didn’t buy in autumn 1977 – I was probably completely engulfed by Low and Heroes by David Bowie, Marquee Moon by Television, L.A.M.F. by Johnny Thunder’s Heartbreakers, American Stars ‘n Bars by Neil Young and Little Queen by Heart at the time. At the end of the ’70s you listened to everything possible, it was one big blissful mess.

– You read Larm, Mats Olsson in Expressen and the English music magazines New Musical Express and Melody Maker. I don’t remember when I heard the record, but it felt like the Ramones were cool, because they didn’t just have nice fuzzy guitars – they wrote such awesome songs too. And that’s what I liked about the Sex Pistols’ first singles too – they were such good pop songs, like Ever Fallen In Love by the Buzzcocks, Gary Gilmore’s Eyes by The Adverts and New Rose by The Damned.

– In retrospect, you hear those surf and early ’60s influences in their music, so it’s only logical that they set out on California Sun. But you didn’t think about that at the time, it was just fun and you were completely happy listening to their music. I think it was Kjell Andersson at our record company EMI who thought that Gyllene Tider could do California Sun in Swedish and call it Tylö Sun, which of course could not be resisted. I had heard the song by both The Rivieras and Ramones. Covers weren’t so ugly in the ’70s, but felt like a good way to show where you came from. We did both SOS by ABBA and, of course, Skicka ett vykort, älskling, which was our version of Send Me A Postcard by Shocking Blue.

Find the book HERE or in Swedish book / music stores!

Listen to Per Gessle’s I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend – Tribute To The Ramones single HERE!

 

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – June 2024

Per Gessle and Sven Lindström do the final countdown of their favourite Swedish and Scandinavian songs from the ’60s in the June episode of Nordic Rox. Now they list the Top 5 songs. Per says it’s a wonderful chart, he is really proud of it.

The guys say they also have some new material just released, pop-rock sounds from the Nordic countries. But first, they go back to the Swedish ’90s and check out a band called Gyllene Tider. Per says he has heard about them. Haha. Sven explains this is Per Gessle’s Swedish power pop group. They started in the late ’70s. The song they play is from 1994, 1995 maybe. PG wrote it while touring with Roxette. He wrote it in a backstage area in Tokyo, Japan, because Gyllene Tider was supposed to release a compilation album of all their hits and they needed some new tracks. So he wrote this one for the band and when he returned from Asia, he recorded it and it became a big song for them. Sven confirms it was a massive hit and totally right with the times. It paved the way for the Gyllene Tider comeback. They had been sleeping for a couple of years. Per says GT broke up in the mid ’80s and then he started to focus on Roxette for many years. Then Gyllene Tider made a comeback in 1996, mainly because of this song and also because of the old hits that had become very popular again with the new generation growing up. Timeless pop, you know what it’s like. Sven knows exactly what it sounds like, they are going to play it now. Det är över nu, translating to „it’s over now”. Strange title for a song to open a show, Sven thinks, but there you go, that’s Nordic Rox for you. Benjamin Button, Per says. Haha.

The next song they play is The Golden Age by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour from their debut album called Fruit. It’s one of Sven’s favourite bands from Denmark in the noughties.

Coming next is Crystal Heart by Kye Kepler. Per asks Sven if he knows anything about Mr. Kepler. Sven says he seems to be an interesting guy. His real name is Max Borglowe. He seems to be a multi-instrumentalist and a producer. He is also a 3D artist and when he is not making guitar pedals, he is busy writing songs and getting atmospheric synthesizer sounds together. Busy guy.

Coming up next another band that Per has got some association with, Eskobar. They were a special guest on Roxette’s final European tour in 2015. They were opening up for Roxette at 33, 34 shows all over Europe. Per thinks it’s a great band, he always liked them a lot. The song they play is a collaboration with Heather Nova, Someone New. Sven says it was a big hit for them. Heather Nova, interestingly enough, was born in 1967 in the Caribbean, where her parents sailed around on their own sailboat. She grew up there in the ’70s and part of the ’80s. Whereas Eskobar, they grew up in a suburb outside of Stockholm. That’s the way life goes.

Live Again by Goldielocks, a Finnish band of which the guys don’t know that much, but they like the song. They are going to see if they can research and check them out in future shows.

Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John is next. Per thinks it’s a wonderful song from 2006. Sven says it was a major hit in America. Slightly underground growing. It’s still played today, especially here on Nordic Rox. This song features whistling and Per is not a stranger to whistling. Mr. G says he was always a big whistler. He whistled on the Joyride track and some other songs. He can’t do it anymore, though, because he changed his teeth. It’s part of history, Sven says. Yeah, so Per needs sample sounds. Sven informs that when the Joyride album or single came out, the vinyl version had a sort of writing by the label saying, „was it really necessary to whistle?”. Sven asks Per to share the story behind that. Mr. G says it was one of their agents who didn’t like Per’s whistling. He said, „was it really necessary to whistle?” and they all thought that was hilarious, because that was like the big hook in that song. So when they pressed the vinyl single, they engraved „was it really necessary to whistle?” just where the label starts. You could do those things with vinyls. Sven thinks the agent would probably have said the same thing about Young Folks. Per agrees.

Now the final five songs on the ’60s list are coming. It’s been really tricky to pick out the top five spots, Per thinks, because there are so many favourites of theirs. No. 5 is Ola & The Janglers from Stockholm with a song called Alex Is The Man, from the album Limelight, written by guitar player Claes af Geijerstam in 1966, which was a great year for pop music. Sven laughs. Per explains they always have this argument about which is the best year in pop music: 1966 or 1965 or the outsider, 1971. Sven says, as most people would agree, 1965, of course. Per says, no, no, no, no, no. Haha. The discussion is ongoing.

The next band on the list is from Stockholm called the Mascots. It’s one of the guys’ favourite groups. They had a song called Words Enough To Tell You. Per thinks it’s a great band and they have great songs. A Sad Boy, is their best song according to PG. He thinks it’s really beautiful. Sven agrees. It’s a melancholy minor song tune. And it’s on an album called Your Mascots. The song is from 1965. Not a bad year for pop music, Per says. Haha. This argument will never end.

The guys stay in Stockholm for the third band, maybe the biggest of all the Swedish ’60s band, the Hep Stars. Per says the band is featuring Benny Andersson on keyboards. He was one of the founders of ABBA. He wrote this song, Sunny Girl. If you have a screen available, you can see the album cover, Sven says. Up there in the left corner is a very young Benny Andersson. Sven what better song to follow a song called A Sad Boy than a Sunny Girl, Sven laughs. Per says you can actually hear the trademarks of Benny Andersson’s songwriting here, which he sort of developed, of course, when the ABBA thing happened in the ’70s. He’s got this wonderful knack of putting a great melody together. And it’s not like what you expect all the time. He does his own thing. Sven says Benny’s keyboard gives this song the baroque pop feeling to it. Sven thinks Sunny Girl was another level of Swedish pop songwriting back then. This song is from 1966, which is a great year of pop music, Per insists. He had this as a vinyl single.

No. 2 on the list is a band that wasn’t really a pop band. Sven is pretty sure, this is their first time on American radio. They were more like an easy listening dance band. But they had a knack of writing songs that got them accepted by the pop crowd as well. Yeah, they had so many hits. Per personally never liked to listen to them, because they didn’t have long hair. That was so important in the ’60s. You wanted all the bands to look really cool and have this attitude. This band, Sven-Ingvars, didn’t have that at all, but they had their own sound. They wrote their own songs. And they truly deserved the runner-up position on this chart, PG thinks. Apart from the long hair, another thing that made them a bit suspicious among the young pop listeners was that the parents liked them as well, Sven says. Per reacts „yeah, terrible”. Sven thinks the song is very charming. Something that might get lost here, because they come from a part of Sweden called Värmland, which is very close to Norway and they have this wonderful Swedish accent. The dialect is very special and they used it a lot when they were singing as well. To their advantage. And this song is called Börja om från början, translating to „begin from the beginning” or „start from scratch”. It’s a breakup song, basically and it’s from 1965.

Before the guys reveal their No. 1, Per says they don’t really have that much in common with Sven. But one thing they have in common is that they consider Tages to be the best band of the ’60s in Sweden. Sven says they had two singers, as they mentioned that before in the last show. Tommy Blom was the major singer. He was the most good-looking, but maybe not the best singer. But he was good, Per says. They had a great bass player in Göran Lagerberg, who was a great singer as well. He also was a great composer, he was the main songwriter. Tommy Blom was singing the verse and Göran Lagerberg came in singing the chorus. Per thinks it’s brilliant. They were produced by Anders Henriksson, a great producer in the ’60s and ’70s. This 1967 song, Every Raindrop Means A Lot is one of the highlights of Swedish pop music from the ’60s, for sure. It’s a masterpiece, a well-deserved number one. The guys hope the listeners agree.

Sven and Per play some more music. The Wannadies is a band from Skellefteå, slightly in the middle north of Sweden. Per considers it the north, but he is from the south. PG says everything above Stockholm is the north. Sven agrees. Stockholm is north as well for those who come from the south. Hit is taken from an album called Bagsy Me. Sven asks „why did the ’90s end?” Every song should sound like this, he thinks. Per thinks it’s a great song, he likes it.

Doing It Again Baby by Girl In Red is next. Then Broken Promise Land by Weeping Willows is wrapping up this episode of Nordic Rox.

The guys thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!