Sven Lindström

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – April 2024

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström recorded their April episode of Nordic Rox in March. The guys are having a good time, because it’s spring and they continue with their new special that contains their favourite Swedish and Scandinavian songs from the ’60s. They think the first episode was a great success, at least it felt like it, for them at least. They haven’t heard any comments from the audience yet, but they are sure they will come. This time they are going to count down from No. 15 to No. 11.

Before that, the guys kick off with something completely different. They start off with one of their favourite bands from Sweden ever, The Hives. Such a great band, Per says. Luckily for everyone, they are back in action again with their new album, The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons. They are also touring everywhere now. The song played is Countdown To Shutdown.

The next song is He’s Peculiar by Norwegian power-pop star Vibeke. Per thinks she is amazing. She has lots of great songs.

Then comes Walking On Air by PG Roxette. Sven is curious about the story behind the song. Per tells him it’s the opening track of the PG Roxette album that came out in the fall of 2022, Pop-Up Dynamo! It was the first song that PG wrote for the album. Actually, he got a request to write a song for the Top Gun: Maverick movie, for a particular scene, which eventually they didn’t use. So they obviously didn’t use Per’s song either. But anyway, it became the kick-off for this album. It’s really cool, Per thinks. It’s like the missing link between Roxette’s Look Sharp! and Joyride sound-wise. The bridge between the ’80s and ’90s, so that’s why it sounds like it does. Sven thinks it’s a cool track. Per is really glad that Sven likes it.

Before the guys get down to their list of ’60s highlights, they play two more tracks. The band Hello Saferide is first. Per says, when Annika Norlin is working in English, she calls herself Hello Saferide. She has been doing some great tracks over the years. Sven says, this song is from 2008 or 2009. So it’s pretty old, PG reacts. It’s on a compilation album by the indie label Razzia Records and the track is called I Was Definitely Made For These Times.

The next track is the wonderful sound of The Hellacopter’s new single The Electric Index Eel. Sven thinks it’s good to hear them again. Per agrees and adds that this one came out in November last year. It sounds really fresh to his ears.

The best of Swedish music from the ’60s is coming. Per explains that what they are trying to do here is to focus a little bit on Scandinavian acts, especially Swedish acts from the ’60s who wrote their own material. So many bands and artists in those days were doing cover versions of American and English hits, but there were a few exceptions. Sven says, you can’t avoid a guy called Benny Andersson when you speak about original Swedish music. PG adds that he came out in the ’60s, before he formed ABBA with Björn Ulvaeus. He had this Hep Stars band. He wasn’t the original keyboard player there, but he became the second keyboard player and he changed the band forever. He was such a great writer. At position No. 15, the guys play Wedding, one of Hep Stars’ greatest songs. Sven loves this one from 1966. By then, it seemed like Benny could just write hits that went immediately up to the No. 1 position on the Swedish chart. Per agrees. 1966, by the way, is a great year in pop music, Mr. G says. Sven says they always debate about whether 1965 or 1966 is the best year. Per thinks 1966 is by far the best. Sven says it’s not a bad year. So we listen to the song, taken from one of Hep Stars’ best-selling albums, recorded and released in 1966. We hear Benny Andersson, future ABBA member, on the keyboards. Per thinks it’s a great track and it was released on Olga Records, an independent Swedish label.

Sven says, now it’s time to play some music in Swedish. Basically, everyone who was a pop star sang in English in the ’60s, because The Beatles did, but there were a few exceptions that actually sounded like a pop band, but sang in Swedish. Per says, this particular band Sven is talking about is Sven-Ingvars. They came from Värmland. Hillbilly, Sven says, but Per doesn’t want to say that. What made them stand out a bit, in a negative way, for Per, when he was a kid, was that they didn’t have long hair. They looked a little bit like how you were supposed to look. A sort of late ’50s look, Sven adds. For PG it felt like they weren’t really hip. They had people writing their music within the band. They were really great writers and great performers as well and they made some outstanding singles. Sven says they had a wonderful singer, Sven-Erik Magnusson. Mr. G adds, he sang with this dialect that made him stand out a bit. Those in the South thought it was a little bit so-so. Sven thought it was really charming. He adds that Värmland is close to Norway, up there in mid-Sweden and they have these people there who love to watch racing cars out on the gravel roads, in the woods. You wouldn’t expect a superb pop band to come out of the woods. Per says, in the ’60s, they had so many hits and they continued over the decades, up until Sven-Erik unfortunately died. Then the front position of Sven-Ingvars was taken by his son, Oscar and they continued up to this day. They are very successful and they are touring a lot. So this position on the chart is very well deserved. Sven says they are a class act for more than 60 years. And this track the guys play is from 1965 and it’s called Säg inte nej, säg kanske, which you can translate into Don’t say no, say maybe.

The next Swedish city is Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast. It’s the second song by Tages the guys play on this list. Per says, Tages is his favourite band from the ’60s. He thinks they are outstanding. Great writers, great singers, great players. They promoted themselves as the Swedish Beatles and PG can understand that. They were like a head bigger than most of the other bands. Sven says the song they play is from November 1966. Per inserts, 1966 is such a great year for pop music. Haha. Sven says there is a funny story behind this song, because it originated when the band was touring in Scandinavia. Their record label was Platina Records, another independent label. They really struck gold with Tages. The band played Denmark when their record company phoned them up on the road and said, hey, you guys, we need to print the sleeve for your new single. What’s it called? And they didn’t have a title. They didn’t even have a song. The band was unsure of what to record until (Sven is reading from the Wikipedia site here) they were sitting at the bar and guitarist Danne Larsson spotted an ad for Mac Baren Tobacco. Per remembers that tobacco, it was tobacco for the pipes. Sven confirms. And boom, the band had the title. The song is called Miss Mac Baren. Now all they lacked was a song, so they wrote one. They wrote it on the tour bus on the way to the recording session. According to Per, they did a wonderful job, because it’s such a great track. One of their best tracks. Sven thinks it’s pure hit and went straight up to No. 1 on the Swedish chart, he believes. PG was seven years old in 1966 and he has this song on a single, because he has loved that song ever since he was a kid. He still loves it.

The guys are moving up to Stockholm and back to 1965. Per says, that’s a good year too. They are heading for No. 12 on this chart with a band called The Mascots. Per says, they had some great songs as well. They sound very much like Mercy in style, with lots of harmonies. You can hear a little bit of Peter & Gordon in there as well.  They wrote their own songs, that’s why they are on this list. Words Enough To Tell You is a beautiful pop track that stood out in the Swedish ’60s. Per doesn’t know if this was a big hit. Sven doesn’t think so. There was a pop magazine called Bildjournalen in Sweden and they sometimes released a flexi single next to the magazine, on a sort of plastic. Sven remembers buying this one and it was rather hard to play it on his player. Per is curious how it worked. Sven says he used the vinyl single underneath it. He put the flexi disc on top of it. Per remembers this, his brother had such things. It was cool. You bought a magazine and you got two or four tracks for free. Sven says, that’s hard currency when you are 10 years old. Haha. Sven never gets tired of hearing this song and he still misses the feel of the flexi disc.

No. 11 on the list of classic ’60s moments in Scandinavia is a band from the north of Sweden called The Shanes. They had lots of hits. They did lots of covers, but this particular song that the guys picked is called Chris-Craft No. 9 was written by the main songwriter, Kit Sundqvist, who was playing the keyboards. There is a great guitar riff. Sven asks Per if he knows what a Chris-Craft is. He knows, it’s a boat. The band was from Kiruna. That’s really far up. That’s as far as you can go, basically, in Sweden. The song was recorded in the Abbey Road studio in London, The Beatles studio. PG didn’t know that. Sven guesses, when they started out in the early ’60s, sitting up there in Kiruna and when The Beatles came around and they realized that they wanted to be a pop band, they wouldn’t even dream of one day recording in the Abbey Road studio. Per thinks it’s really cool and it’s pretty rare that they have these acts from the far north making it big. Sweden is, by the way, a very narrow country, he explains. If you fly from the south to the very north, it’s a three-hour flight. It’s a very long country. So there is a big difference between the south and the north.

The guys will continue the chart in the next show, but they move into some more modern sounds now, the next song is just 15 years old. My Life Is Shit But I Am Funky by Konie. Per thinks it’s a cool one, he hasn’t heard it before, so he thanks Sven for bringing Konie into his life. Sven said, this sounds like basically a rough demo recorded at home. Per noticed that there was another guy involved, Joakim Åhlund was part of the production team. He is a great producer. He has been all over the place. He produced The Teddybears, for instance. A trademark of quality.

In The Dust by Atomic Swing is next. It’s one of the singles taken from their magnificent debut album. Per says Sven has a soft spot for Atomic Swing. He confirms, and says he still thinks they sound like nothing else really. They have their own brand. Per likes them too.

Then comes the beautiful sound of Tove Styrke and her song Start Walking from her recent album Hard. Per noticed that this song was produced by Lost Boy who also produced Kylie Minogue. He is a big producer in Europe, also a trademark of quality.

Sven moves on with a new track from Alberta Cross. Per doesn’t know anything about Alberta Cross. He asks whether it is a he or a she or an animal. Sven says it’s a band led by a Swedish singer, Petter Ericson Stakee. They have been based in the States and Sven thinks they are in England right now. He is not really sure. They moved 10, 15 years ago and have been working the live circuit and recording. So Far Out Of Reach is a track from late 2023.

The guys play one more song, All Day Long by The Royal Concept from Sweden. It’s their new single.

That brings the guys to the end of this show. All day long they have been sitting here talking about Swedish music from the ’60s. Per thinks it’s good fun. The ’60s was a very special time, the ’60s and the ’70s. He thinks they should do something similar with the ’70s. Sven thinks it’s a good idea. They will get back to that. He tells the listeners, you will never get rid of these lists. You have to live with this for the next year or so. Haha.

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 – March 2024

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström started a new special in the March episode of Nordic Rox. The guys met in Halmstad to record this session on a wonderful grey day. Per says it’s been a very long winter here. Sven describes that it looks like the Berlin Wall outside there, but it’s the sky in 50 shades of grey.

The new special contains their favourite Swedish and Scandinavian songs from the ’60s. In this show, they play the first five of those 20. It’s going to be mainly English speaking songs, but also some Swedish versions. They try to concentrate on those few Scandinavian artists who wrote their own material in the ’60s. There wasn’t that many. Most Swedish pop music in those days were covers from English and American artists, but there were a few exceptions. Per looks forward to this chart.

Before they start the countdown, they go to the mid-Swedish town, Örebro and check out a very, very talented guy called Ludwig Hart. Per says he is very interesting. He has been around for a couple of years now and he is getting better and better. The song they want to play is Less I Try and it’s very inspired by classic American rock music, radio friendly. Per loves this track. Sven says Ludwig is a new Nordic Rox favourite and Per confirms again that it’s a great song. [There was probably a little hiccup at the editing room at Sirius XM, because the song played instead is Walk by Naâman, who is a French reggae singer. /PP]

The next song is Freak Show by Grass Show from 1997. It’s the opening track on their debut album with an interesting title, Something Smells Good In Stinkville. Per finds the album title very good. It gets five out of five from him. The guys play the brand new single of Say Lou Lou. Sven asks Per if he can pronounce its title. Hecan: Wong Kar-wai and he says it probably means something. Sven informs it’s named after the Hong Kong film director and script writer of the same name. Per says Sven is so talented. Sven laughs and says he can read, he didn’t really know that. Per thinks it’s a good song.

Another Nordic Rox favourite is coming. The next band they play is called Roxette. Sven asks Per if he knows anything about them. Per has heard about them. Haha. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio) is the song Sven picked. That was a single from the Charm School album back in 2011. Per says it’s a wonderful song to perform live. Sven thinks it’s a great pop track. Per says it becomes like a six minute guitar bonanza in the end. Sven says you really don’t hear that when you hear this sort of pop version, but there is something happening with Christoffer, the guitarist when he hears this song. Per says they played this song a lot with Roxette, but he also played it a lot on his own solo tours and it’s always a great one to play. People love it. The band is getting the chance to stretch out a bit. It’s cool. Per is glad that Sven picked this one. Sven says that’s a promising song title and let’s see if it delivers. Here they play it. Pure and shameless pop music written by Per Gessle, Sven says.

Now the guys get down to their Top20 songs from Swedish and Scandinavian artists from the ’60s. Per says they concentrated on original material. In those days, so many artists were doing covers of English and American hits in a Swedish style. But there were a few exceptions who wrote their own material. Sven and PG kick off with a song that could meander on forever. In the original version it’s 7 minutes and 15 seconds long, so Sven says they are probably not going to play that whole track. It’s by the duo Hansson & Karlsson and the song is called Tax Free. It’s got an interesting story to it. Per says Hansson & Karlsson were a jazz fusion, pop-rock, progressive thing, doing instrumental music based on Bo Hansson’s Hammond organ and John Karlsson’s drums. This particular song wasn’t a hit record at all, but it became a major track in Swedish music history, because Jimi Hendrix recorded it. He played it so many times live. So there are endless versions of Tax Free by Jimi Hendrix on Spotify, for instance. Per thinks it’s just a beautiful, haunting melody in there and it sums up this era in pop music so well. Sven says it was also quite a big thing among the pop aficionados back then, because in the ’60s, Sweden was like an isolated little island and nobody really thought they could break through in England or in the US. But when Jimi Hendrix came and grabbed this song and played it, that was quite an achievement. PG adds that the duo broke up, but Bo Hansson, the organ player became pretty successful on his own. He wrote music for Lord Of The Rings, which was a big album in the UK in the ’70s.

Next on the chart, number 19, is from the Swedish version of the Eurovision Song Contest in the ’60s. In those days, of course, there was a full orchestra and a band playing live in the TV studio and there were some really interesting songs. Per thinks this one makes you smile a bit, a song from the year of Sgt. Pepper, 1967. It’s Gå och göm dej, Åke Tråk by Mona Wessman. The title translates into „you can go away and hide you, boring old sod”. Sven explains Åke is a surname in Swedish and tråk is a boring old sod. Per adds it’s written by Peter Himmelstrand who was a journalist. He also wrote a lot of songs and especially his lyrics were always funny. Per thinks it’s a wonderful little song that has stood the test of time, if you are into this kind of thing, which Per is. Sven says it’s one leg into the easy listening genre and the rest is a bit pop. He thinks it’s an amazing track. Hard act to follow.

The next song is by Hootenanny Singers. They were a folk-inspired band in the 60’s and included Björn Ulvaeus, who eventually became part of ABBA. Björn was singing and writing on his own a lot before he started meeting Benny Andersson. The guys picked a song called No Time from 1966. Per says it was a great year in pop music. Sven says it was almost as good as 1965. The guys are laughing. Sven says the Hootenanny Singers was like a Swedish version of the Seekers or The Kingston Trio. Benny was in Hepstars, which was a pure pop band. They met during this time and realized that they had a lot of things in common. Per says they were really talented, both of them, as songwriters. And what PG guesses both Björn and Benny realized early on was that they weren’t that great lead singers. Sven agrees. Mr. G says they needed some brilliant singers and they found Frida and Agneta, of course. The guys play No Time. Björn Ulvaeus wrote the song and sang the lead vocals here. You couldn’t really guess that this would lead into Mamma Mia or Dancing Queen, Sven says. Per agrees, but he thinks it’s a good song anyway. They were a very successful band. They had lots of hits, like Greensleeves and stuff like that. Folk-inspired music was very popular in those days, deeply loved by the Swedish audience for 10 plus years.

The guys move on to another instrumental, a surf band from Gothenburg, Sweden, The Spotnicks. Per says it was before his time, so he doesn’t remember them that much. Sven either. They are from 1962, 1963 and they were really big in Gothenburg and in Japan. Big in Japan. Per adds they had space uniforms on. There was a trend in international music those days. The Ventures and all those bands that played instrumental songs, had instrumental hits. Per thinks The Spotnicks fit in quite well. One of their early hits was Amapola, which turns out to be a Spanish song from the ’20s. Per says one of the rules they had was that it should only be original material in this chart, but they made an exception here because it’s really old. Sven says they also made an exception because they had such a cool stage outfit with the space dresses.

The next band is also from Gothenburg, a beautiful city on the Swedish west coast, the second biggest city in Sweden. Sven says they are Tages, one of the bands that came up 25 minutes after The Beatles had performed live in Sweden. The guys are laughing. Per thinks Tages is his favourite Swedish band from the ’60s. Sven thinks they were very original and consistent. PG adds there were great writers in the band, great musicians and they had also the possibility to work with a really outstanding producer, Anders Henriksson. Per thinks Tages eventually went to London as well to record there. And buy their clothes at Carnaby Street, Sven adds, they were extremely well-dressed. The song played is I Should Be Glad from 1964. Sven says to him it sounds a bit like the early Mercy era with The Beatles playing minor songs with acoustic guitars. You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, Per says. It’s a great little track, according to Sven, and wonderful timing as well, Ramones style, 2 minutes 17 seconds. And it’s on the number 16 spot on the countdown.

That brings an end to this 1960s special of Swedish classics for today, but the guys got 15 more to go. Until then, they play some wonderful ’90s sound. Hey Princess by Popsicle is next. Then comes Winter Saga by Gaeya & Anders Rane, a brand new version of an ’80s Swedish classic. The title translates into Winter Story. An interesting track according to Sven. He thinks this version is more subdued.

A Danish artist, MØ is next with her work on Spaceman, a song from 1996 by Babylon Zoo. Sven has almost had forgotten this track. According to PG, it was a great one. It was No. 1 in England and a big hit in Scandinavia as well. Per doesn’t know if it reached the American airwaves, but it was a great song. MØ used that chorus and wrote some other stuff around it. It came out in 2022.

With this, the show ends and the guys say goodbye. 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 – January 2024

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström wish you a happy new year with the January episode of Nordic Rox. PG is curious if Sven had a great New Year’s Eve. Sven thinks so and wants to know if Per had a great one. Mr. G says he can’t remember his NYE, but it was probably good. Haha. Obviously, they had recorded this show much before.

The guys chose to kick off Nordic Rox 2024 with a trip to their brothers in Denmark. Danish band The Raveonettes has it’s special this time. It’s one of Per’s personal favourite band, he thinks they are really cool. Sven thinks they had a base in the States for a couple of years and were produced by pop legend Richard Gottehrer. Per adds Richard produced so many amazing records over the years, e.g. The Go-Go’s debut album and also My Boyfriend’s Back by The Angels. [Here Per sings a line: My boyfriend’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble.] That’s a wonderful song, he thinks. Richard formed a record label Sire Records with Seymour Stein. He also produced I Want Candy by The Strangeloves. Sven says they are going to end up talking more about Richard Gottehrer than they speak about The Raveonettes and that’s an insult, so they are going to restrain themselves and get the show started.

The first track on the program is a brand new song, All Day Long from a Swedish band, The Royal Concept. The next one is Unseen Footage From A Forthcoming Funeral by Nicole Sabouné. A good and long song title it is, according to Per. It’s written by Nicole and Ola Salo from The Ark. A good track.

Then comes Fool by Roxette. Sven jokes that Per is sitting right beside him trying to remember this song. Mr. G laughs and says it’s from the Room Service album, which they recorded in 2000 at the old ABBA studio in Stockholm, the Polar Studios that doesn’t exist anymore. It was the last album they did before Marie got ill in 2002. Per remembers it fondly. It was a great album, a fun album to make. Still sounds good today, Sven adds. PG says they worked with an amazing engineer and a mixing guy called Ronny Lahti, who he has been working with so many times ever since. He is still around and he is just doing amazing work all the time. He made this album sound terrific, Per thinks.

Before The Raveonettes special is coming up, there comes a favourite track of Per. The guys play the Deportees who made a song together with Sarah Klang, who is one of PG’s favourite Swedish singers. This song, Lost You For A While is just amazing according to Mr. G. It’s fom the Deportees’ latest album People Are A Foreign Country. The band is from the north of Sweden, but they are… Sven finishes the sentence: „they are good anyway”. Per laughs: „You said that, I didn’t”. The guys are laughing.

The next song is Dead Of Night by the Dead Express from the album Brain Damage from 2019. It sounds amazing according to Mr. G. Garage rock always makes you get your vibes together, Sven says.

Now the guys get down to The Raveonettes. A great little band, according to PG, quite heavily influenced by The Jesus and Mary Chain. You hear that once in a while. Per thinks they are really cool and they have done some great songs. They kicked off in the early noughties. Sven and Per play one of the tracks from the first album called Whip It On, just to give a taste of what to expect. Attack Of The Ghost Riders.

The second Raveonettes song is Per’s favourite, She Owns The Streets. It’s from a later album called Observator, released in 2012. Mr. G shares the info if you don’t know it, The Raveonettes is a duo consisting of Sune Rose Wagner on vocals and guitar and Sharon Foo on vocals and guitar. One guy and one girl. Sven says they have an amazing background. They were recording stuff and then they heard about the Rolling Stone editor David Fricke that he was going to visit a Danish music festival and they decided to go there to play the festival in order for him to see them and possibly write about them, which he did. That sort of opened a few doors for them. They got Richard Gottehrer, the pop legend to produce them. Per thinks it’s a great band and he longs for listening to She Owns The Streets. Sven says it’s a slightly different area they are moving into, some hazy, wonderful pop dreamy stuff. Per loves that song. It sounds like a mix between the surf sound and Link Wray. They could be in any Quentin Tarantino movie. Sven agrees and says they could as well cover for The Everly Brothers if they got sick and somebody had to go on the road to replace them, especially in this upcoming song Here Comes Mary. It’s taken from their second full length album called Pretty In Black. It came out rather early in their career, in 2005. Per thinks it’s a great album produced by Richard Gottehrer. It’s amazingly Everly Brothers sound alike, the harmonies are sort of similar.

The last song from The Raveonettes is from an album Per can’t pronounce, Pe’ahi. That’s Hawaiian for you, Sven says. It’s a big surf break also called Jaws, the Jaws beach, Sven informs. He has been there, just looking, not surfing. He did surf on Hawaii 10 years ago or so, but that was absolute beginner’s surf. Per asks Sven if he was on the water. Sven says yes and laughs, because Per looks so impressed. PG laughs too and says he is stunned and shocked. PG thinks this last song, Endless Sleeper is a good example of what The Raveonettes is about. It’s sort of darkish, Doorsish combined with surf music. A very interesting and creative combination. The intro always makes Sven think of Break On Through by The Doors.

After The Raveonettes special Per sneaks in another song of his. It’s just because it was just released. This is the B side of a vinyl single that PG made a couple of weeks ago. It was an homage to a very big Swedish artist called Pugh Rogefeldt, who unfortunately died a couple of months ago. The B side is in English, so that’s why he thought it was cool to play it on Nordic Rox. It’s a song he always liked. Per recorded it the first time in 2006. It was released 2007 in Swedish, but then PG did an additional version a couple of years ago in English. The single is available on Spotify and everywhere, but Per’s intention was to make a vinyl single anyway. He likes vinyl singles. Sven says they are still having a market, but if you are going to buy a vinyl album today, you really have to fork it up. Per agrees, it’s very expensive, but it’s worth it. Mr. G belongs to that generation who really miss the album sleeves. The face of the music is the cover, don’t forget that. Sven says they are sitting in Per’s library and there are some vinyl albums here, but he doubts that it’s all of Per’s collection. PG says it’s most of his collection. He got rid of a couple of thousands albums a couple of years ago. Gifts from record labels and friends and stuff, records that didn’t really mean anything to him. So he kept only the stuff that he really likes, which is about 1500-2000 albums. Sven asks Per if they are going to follow him down into his grave. Per laughs and says most likely, he thinks so. Then, like in 3000 years, they are going to dig up the grave and find the vinyl albums and Per’s teeth. Sven says it’s an interesting thought. The guys are laughing. The song they play is If I Knew Then (What I Know Now).

The next song is Bang-A-Boomerang by ABBA, then comes Primitiv by Wilmer X, Nothing Out There by Alberta Cross and Shoreline, a great song by Broder Daniel from Gothenburg.

That wraps up Nordic Rox and the guys say goodbye. Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Still is from a Sirius XM video recording a couple of years ago.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – December 2023

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström say hi in the December episode of Nordic Rox from Per’s garage. They are in garage rock mood. Sven says the difference between normal garage and rock garage is that here they are surrounded by Ferraris. Per laughs and asks Sven what kind of car he drives. Sven drives a more humble car, a Volkswagen. He doesn’t know if he can get paid for mentioning the brand name on radio, because this is a commercial free station. PG says Volkswagen is pretty good, his first car was a Volkswagen back in the ’70s. An orange Passat. Sven says he saw some pictures.

Getting back to the garage rock topic, Sven says they are celebrating the return of The Hives. Per thinks they are an excellent band. The guys will have a closer look at their new album, The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons and play a few songs from that one. It’s the first album in 11 years so it’s a blast, but before that they play some other good looking music. They start off with Planet Earth Through A Stethoscope by Ebbot Lundberg from his new EP.

The next song is Joyride by Roxette and then comes Young, Handsome & Fast by Teddybears. After these songs, Sven and Per talk about the Roxette musical. Per says they just announced that there will be an opening of the Roxette musical called Joyride – The Musical in September 2024. Sven is curious if Per can say anything already now about what to expect. PG says it’s a musical based on a book written by an amazing English writer called Jane Fallon. The book is called Got You Back. It’s a feel-good sort of musical and Per is very proud to be part of it. It’s a great legacy of the Roxette songs. Mr. G feels very optimistic and positive about the whole thing. It’s been in the can for a couple of years actually, he says. Lots of people have approached them over the years to do musicals, but it always ended with they didn’t like the script. But this time around, since it’s based on this book and the book is really cool, it just fits the whole thing. PG: „I think. I hope. I wish.” He laughs. It premieres in September 2024 in Malmö, Sweden. Sven says there is gonna be a rush of Roxette fans entering Malmö. Per says it’s gonna be 74 shows in Malmö and after that they move to Stockholm probably and then of course they try to go international. Mamma Mia needs some competition, the guys are laughing.

The next track is Conquer Or Suffer by Nicole Sabouné from her Must Exist album. Let The Good Times In by The Royal Concept is next. Normal Bias by Love People is also played. A brand new, excellent track, Sven thinks.

The guys are ready to go deep down into the garage. To The Hives’ new album. But before playing anything from that album, they kick off with an older track to get you in the right mood. Sven asks Per if he remembers hearing The Hives for the first time. The first song PG heard from them was Hate To Say I Told You So. It was just amazing. Since Per is an MC5 fan, it can’t go wrong. What really sort of knocked you out is when you saw The Hives live, PG adds. Pelle Almqvist is just an amazing performer and the band looks really cool. They are one-of-a-kind. Still are. They took everything a bit further than anyone else you’ve seen or heard, Sven adds. As soon as they got strong material they got some hits and they got some really great records. And they made it basically everywhere in the world where anyone remotely is interested in rock’n’roll. They guys kick off with Walk, Idiot Walk from the Tyrannosaurus Hives album released in 2004.

Taking a look at the new album, The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons, Sven is wondering who Randy Fitzsimmons is. Per doesn’t know, but if you check out the copyrights of The Hives records, he has written all the songs, so he must be someone. Or maybe it’s just fake. The guys are laughing. Sven says he is rumored as well according to The Hives mythology to have started the band. He is a mysterious, fantasy figure we could guess, but if we had a closer look at today’s songwriters of The Hives, Per realized that there were four Fitzsimmons, four persons with Fitzsimmons as the last name. It’s 11 years since the last album they made, so things change in a decade. It’s still a riddle surrounded by a mystery wrapped up in an enigma, this Randy Fitzsimmons, Sven says. Per thinks it’s a great album. Talking about the music, it’s very much The Hives. Raw, funny, direct and inventive as well. Trapdoor Solution is a one minute and three seconds long song. That makes you think of Ramones. Close to the edge. Per thinks it’s a fun track and it sums up The Hives in the modern age.

Before the guys continue with the second part of The Hives special, they take a short break with some mellow sounds from Gothenburg, Sweden. Midnight Prayer by Bad Cash Quartet is next, a track from 2003.

Digging deeper into the new album of The Hives, Per says his favourite song from the album comes now. It’s called Countdown To Shutdown. Great bass playing, a great song and a great attitude. The countdown to shutdown has begun, which means the guys keep quiet and listen to the song.

Per asks Sven if he is still alive. Sven says he is getting electrocuted by The Hives. A fantastic title is coming up, Rigor Mortis Radio. Per thinks it’s a very cool song from the new album. The Hives are actually touring South America and next summer they will be touring the States supporting Green Day and Foo Fighters. They are busier than ever. They are gonna play the big stadiums, so check them out if you can because they are one of the best bands ever on stage in Per’s opinion. Sven believes PG is right. They are really getting it together in the studio as well, but it is something else to see them live.

The next song is a giant step for Nordic Rox, a lesser step for the rest of humankind, Sven says. They give a Swedish lesson and play a song in Swedish by a great guy who is unfortunately not with us anymore, Magnus Lindberg. Magnus was a prominent figure in the late ’70s. He transferred himself to a new wave artist, like many others, but he was more of a singer-songwriter originally, with a little bit of a country touch. The song the guys play is from 1981. It’s the title track from the album called Röda läppar, which translates into Red Lips. That’s all the help you’re going to get for the Swedish lesson and from now on, you’ll be on your own with Magnus Lindberg, Sven says.

The next song is Belly Shots by Sarah Klang from her recent album Mercedes. Per finds it wonderful and thinks she is amazing. Sven thinks she is a very cool, great, rather new artist and Mercedes is a great album.

Now the guys go quite a distance from Sarah and play a song Ain’t Coming Home by The Sewergrooves from the album Revelation Time. It’s a really great, gross stumper, Sven thinks. Godspell by The Cardigans is next from the Super Extra Gravity album. With this the show ends and the guys say goodbye.

Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – November 2023

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström recorded this episode of Nordic Rox on a sunny day in Halmstad. Sven says it’s like an eternal summer, this summer refused to go anywhere. PG says it disappeared in July though. It was raining for 4 weeks. Sven forgot about it, but now they think the weather is great.

The guys decided to combine the good looking music thing with some Swedish lessons and dedicate this show to a band from Stockholm, Reeperbahn. They are from the late ’70s, early ’80s. A great, very influential band. They were singing in Swedish and they came out of the punk thing like everyone in the late ’70s more or less did. Then they added some pop stuff and a bit of harder rock as well. It was like a mix between the new wave thing and Talking Heads, Television, that American sort of wave style.

But before getting down to Reeperbahn, Sven wants to kick off Nordic Rox with one of his absolute favourite tunes by a band called Roxette. Per says Sven embarrasses him and he is curious why Sven likes this coming song. Sven thinks it’s a power pop masterpiece and his advice to Per is „don’t write anything else, just keep on writing this song over and over again”. They are talking about She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Per says it’s a pretty unusual track, because the guys who play on it are actually his old Swedish band. So it sounds a little bit more like Gyllene Tider than it sounds like Roxette. Sven agrees and says PG seemed to be on fire back then. He came back with Gyllene Tider in 1996. Mr. G shares the detail that the song starts off with his brand new Harley-Davidson engine getting started up.

Holiday Inn by Adiam Dymott is next. Then comes (I’m Gonna) Kick You Out by the Caesars from 1998. Sven thinks it’s really cool, some ’90s stuff there and a bit of garage rock from the ’60s. Per likes this band a lot too, they have some great songs. One of them is Jerk It Out, PG adds. You can go back in their catalogue and find one diamond after the other, Sven says.

Sven thinks it’s time to check out Lambretta. Per thinks that Bimbo by Lambretta is an amazing piece of pop music. It’s co-written by Max Martin before he became this huge LA producer and writer. He did a lot of cool stuff in Sweden and this is one of Per’s favourite tracks. Hardcore pop, Sven thinks.

Then comes I Waited For You by Daniel Norgren. A wonderful track according to Sven.

Here starts the Reeperbahn special. Per thinks it’s a very cool band from Stockholm. He remembers they made an EP in 1980, which was the same year when Gyllene Tider released their debut album. GT just got a recording deal with EMI Records and Per listened to this EP from Reeperbahn and it sounded so much better than GT did. The guys are laughing. The sound and the whole vibe of the record was just amazing, Per thinks. For a couple of years, PG thought they were really outstanding. Sven agrees. They had a rather short career and really made an impression when they came out. The guys start with one of Reeperbahn’s early tracks called Lycklig. Sven asks Per to translate the title. It’s pretty simple to translate that into „happy”. The first two albums the band made, the bass player and songwriter Dan Sundquist was still in the band. He wrote most of the songs together with lead singer and guitarist Olle Ljungström. When Dan left the group after two albums, it became a slightly different band. Dan went on to become a very successful producer in his own right. He still is very active and still he’s got a lot of Grammys and stuff like that in Sweden. The guys play Lycklig and Sven says, a still impressed Per Gessle is glued to the radio. They are laughing.

Sven and PG talk about the band name. It obviously comes from this famous notorious street in Hamburg, Germany. Where Sven spent his youth, Per says. Haha. Sven wishes he did, because The Beatles went there in August 1960. He can’t remember the exact date, but that was their first gig outside England. It was at The Star-Club. That was where legend was made. Sven thinks that without The Beatles, the band wouldn’t have named themselves Reeperbahn. Per thinks so too. The next song is from their second album, Venuspassagen. The track is called Kalla kriget, which translates to the Cold War. Sven says there is a slight improvement in sound. He remembers when this album came out, he thought it sounded fabulous. It does, Per agrees. Sven is not sure about it, but he thinks they produced themselves, Dan Sundquist probably already then being quite handy in the studio. PG says, this was a time in pop music in Sweden where you could really hear the difference if you compared Swedish recordings to English recordings, before the digital era, so to speak. Most of the stuff made in Sweden sounded shit, very dull. Not counting ABBA, because ABBA always sounded great, but they were in a different league. Some bands like Ebba Grön, they had this great album with the song 800°C on it and it sounded amazing. And this album, Venuspassagen, sounded truly amazing as well. These are exceptions from the rule. Sven likes the whole Venuspassagen album. It’s terrific and varied. The quirky new wave stuff combined with straight ahead power pop.

Per introduces the next song from 1980, which was the first song that he heard from Reeperbahn. It’s called Inget, which means „nothing”. Here you can hear the influence from The Clash, the London Calling album. It sounds great and it’s a great pop track.

The guys are approaching the end of this magic moment, because they got the final track here by Reeperbahn in today’s special. They picked only songs from the first era of the band, when Dan Sundquist was still a member. This is actually the final single while he was a part of the band. It’s from 1982. They made a collection of the singles, sort of a greatest hits album. Per says Dansar was the single to promote the compilation album. The title means „dancing”. Sven finds it interesting that Per came out on the scene with Gyllene Tider basically around the same time as Reeperbahn did. They were both part of the Swedish new wave. Sven is curious if Per remembers thinking of Reeperbahn as fierce competition. PG says GT were hillbillies, they came from a small town on the West Coast and Reeperbahn were from Stockholm, so they were much hipper than GT. Mr. G remembers they were on the same show on TV, but it was a different planet. Nevertheless, he liked them a lot. Sven says they were too cool for school. The guys play Dansar, the final track before Dan Sundquist left the band and they started slightly moving downhill. This was the peak, but then they made two more albums before disappearing from this stage.

The guys continue with some more Swedish stuff. Per says, here is a great guy called Magnus Lindberg with a song called Röda läppar, which translates into „red lips”.

Vulture Feet by Sahara Hotnights is next. Then it’s The Wannadies’ turn with Skin. The wrap-up track is Fare Thee Well, a beautiful song by Susanne Sundfør from Norway. She is an amazing artist, Per thinks. She started out as a singer-songwriter and has done so many different things, jazz stuff and working with Röyksopp, techno stuff as well. She has an amazing voice.

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

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!