ROXETTE.RO - from fans, for fans

Rep: We are still here at “Godmorgon Sverige” with Per Gessle who comes back from a trip in South America, where he has started the big tour, and on Sunday you have a show at Grand Arena in Carpe town in South Africa.

Per: Yes, Sir!

Rep: How is the star life at the age of 50?

Per: It is quite good, in fact… it is very quiet. Today we have a show, then the second day we travel, then we have a show again, we always try or almost always try to have a free day between the shows.

Rep: So you don't make changes, something, to give up a concert or something else...

Per: No, we try to keep all of them. 

Rep: We said we would talk about how it would have been if Roxette hadn't had such a success and hadn't been popular in the USA, here their career started. But I have read that you have achieved another guitar, you had had another one before.

 

Per: Well, I was quite poor in ’84 – ’85, I didn't have a very good economic situation, me and my girlfriend, nobody was interested in my music, I had been successful before, but not that time. In fact, the first Roxette album that came in 1986, ”Pearls of Passion”, was my 3rd CD in Swedish that had been refused, or the most of the songs from the album, then I translated them into English. Most of the songs, like “Soul Deep” and “So Far Away”, exist in Swedish, too. But this is it, sometimes it goes well in the music life, other times it goes bad. 

 

Rep: Already in ’89, at 3 years after the first album had appeared, Roxette had already sold many albums, and you were considered the richest Swede who was 30 years old. Did it happen quickly?

 

Per: Yes, if you listen to the newspapers...

 

Rep: Many wonder which influence this has on life, the fact of being rich... Can you say something about that?

 

Per: Aa, it is difficult to say. For me it was easy because I could do what I wanted, I could have the job that I liked. Important is to like what you do, I think it is also that fact that I don't have to think too much how to save money to be enough till the end of the month. I can spend my time how I want. This is the only thing, in fact. 

 

Rep: It is a real big thing to spend your time how you want. 

 

Per: It's true. It is important to do what you want every month.

 

Rep: You and Marie Fredriksson have started a new tour. There were not too many that believed that this would happen. Marie got sick, what influence has it had on you? 

 

Per: It is difficult to say because it was incredibly hard, of course, but the most difficult it has been for her family and for herself... Both she and her family were very touched by this. I don't know how to explain… my father had also cancer in the ’70 and it was very difficult for us, as well. But in this case it is difficult to understand what had happened to her, Marie has felt quite bad, she had 1 of 20 chances to survive, so it was very difficult for her. If you had asked me 5 – 6 years ago if Roxette would start to play again, my answer would have been ”no, I don't think so”. But her recover has happened quite slowly and it happened that Roxette came back on stage. And this happened in Amsterdam 2009, when she came to the concert.

 

Rep: But now you have suceeded to gather tens of thousands people, do you think about how it would have been 5 years ago? 

 

Per: It happens and it would have always happened for Roxette, when me and Marie play on  afootball stadium somewhere like in Uruguay in front of 50,000 – 60,000 people, then we look at each other and we think the same, we wonder: is it real that we are here in front of such a huge audience? The litthe hobby band from Halmstad… I can say that nowadays we don't make music to fight to come into Top 10 or something, or to make the best CD in the world or to do that and that, we play for an audience that wants to listen to us and who likes us as a group, we don't feel such a big pressure, like climbing up into charts… we just play for fun. It is wonderful to get rid of this competition feeling or carieer feeling, these things are not the same now, especially when you are 50, anyway, not for me. 

 

Rep: So now you are not fighting to be number one on the list, as the other groups do...  

 

Per: I think this is the idea, and it is even a blast that we can play again to entertain the people. 

 

Rep: How long will the tour last?

 

Per: (laughs) I don't know exactly how long the tour will be, probabily until next year, we will see how old we feel (laughs).

 

Rep: When do you play in Sweden?

 

Per: 24th of July in Göteborg, 3rd of November at Globen and 4th of November at Malmö Arena. Not bad, right?

 

Rep: It is fantastic how much you can remember at your age!

 

Per: Thanks for that J 

 

Rep: You have lived the artist life already since the age of 20. Gyllene Tider appeared over night. 1979 came out the first hit, didn't it? December ’79? January ’80?

 

Per: Yes, somewhere there.

 

Rep: It was something that sounded like that: (Flickorna på tv2) I remember I was in the 8th class at school and all teen-age girls fell deeply in love with Gyllene Tider and this was not really funny for us, the boys, as we liked them... J

 

Per: Yes, it was a nice period of time, we had had 6 hits before we got number 1, anyway it was super! Every day was an adventure, every recording was fantastic, of course. You can learn a lot and we were a quite good pop band. I was the worst musician in the band and I still am that, I think. We were a quite competent pop band and most of the songs were quiet simple. 

 

Rep: What did you feel when you got 18 and suddenly, a star? 

 

Per: You learn and you get used to the situation, I was living alone, with my mother..at the beginning of the '80s, and when she put wet clothes outside in the garden to get dry, mine used to disappear, the fans took them, as well as the car antenna, the car numbers, the letters disappeared, too, like this it happened 10 years in a row. We had to think about that and this has formed me when I was 20. 

 

Rep: What can you say about …ufff, now we've got rid of that!

 

Per: Well, as we said before, I have concentrated a lot on music, this has always been the most important for me, to write and record albums, I have spent my time with that. The rest is on the 3rd place, somewhere. So this didn't mean so much for me. 

 

Rep: Are you kidding? 

 

Per: It really didn't mean… And I didn't try to make myself well-known through my music, I just tried to write better and better songs, already since Gyllene Tider time.

 

Rep: When you were 10 years old, you had already had a collection of 100 albums, so a pop nerd…

 

Per: Yes, I can say…

 

Rep: So this is you, a pop nerd...

 

Per: My son, who is 14, is crazy about computers and he sits hours after hours and plays games, with his headphones on his ears, exactly as I used to stay when I was like him, but I was listening to music and I was analysing all the artists of that time – Kings, David Bowie, I grew up alone when I was a child, just me and my records.

 

Rep: Do you remember how you reacted when you heard this song for the first time? (The Monkeys – I’m a Believer)

 

Per: Yes, super music!

 

Rep: Yes, it is true, but how important is this song for you?

 

Per: Yes, I remember when all songs were very different and all day long you could listen to McKings with “Strawberry Fields” and there were many others that meant a lot, even this one …

 

Rep: It is The Monkeys with “I’m a Believer”. I wanted to ask you what way you follow when you write, which is the source?

 

Per: I don't know that, it is difficult to explain, I cannot say that exactly this song means a lot, but the style is very much like my style, it is my way to develop myself in my career, I can say that my heart is full of music from the ’60s – ’70s. In time I have started to write different types of songs as they were needed. And finally, in fact, the melody is the most important for me, to have a good refrain, a good intro, something to attract you.

 

Rep: So you feel very confortable, you feel in your world with a song like this one we have already listened to. 

 

Per: Absolutely.

 

Rep: When you have got a success with Gyllene Tider… I have here an interview since 1981 where you said that you knew everything, charts and everything regarding music, as you used to read that magazine... NME (New Musical Express) and you were thinking how to do to enter a list (charts). 

 

Per: Exactly.

 

Rep: Did you think how it would have been to be in a chart?

 

Per:  But before we came on a list, I had sent a letter to this English magazine, I think I have written in Swedish...something like this: why don't you write anything about the wonderful Swedish band, Gyllene Tider?

 

Rep: And nobody knew who you were!

 

Per: Yes! And they have published what I had written. And at "comments" they wrote that I was an idiot from Sweden who couldn't write a message in English. But anyway, I was in the newspaper. It was fantastic, anyway, to appear on these charts later. In principle, it is exciting to be in Daily Music Industry together with David Bowie or Ray Davies, who I met at one show, artists whose fan I was…

 

Rep: So you are still a fan of some artists…tell us which of them appeared in New Music Express and if there is any of them that you kept in touch with.

 

Per: No, nobody didn't have any contact with me, but I met many of them many times. But I didn't write e-mails to any of them. 

 

Rep: But probably it will happen, as your career never ends. On Sunday you will play in South Africa, then many others in different locations. How does it feel?

 

Per: Very good, incredibly, as I said. It is great when so much people come all the time and the songs are great, the audience is very loud. We have a great band that has a lot of positive energy.

 

Rep: Thank you for being here today.

 

Per: Thank you, too. It's always a pleasure. 

 

Watch the whole interview in Swedish HERE - source: SVT