ROXETTE.RO - from fans, for fans

Anna Mannheimer meets Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson from Roxette.

Anna: Hi, I would like to go to Per Gessle, I have a meeting with him, I had his address here in the bag, somewhere…

Taxi driver: No, you don’t need that; I can manage without it… Soooo, Per Gessle, Roxette… They are very well known; also in Romania they are very popular. 

Anna: Really?? So you listen to them there…

Taxi driver: Yes, of course, I heard them many times!

Anna: Do you have any favourite song?

Taxi driver: Flickorna på teve 2... (sings) But I can’t sing the song, unfortunately...

Anna: Does it happen that Per goes out alone in the night and comes home by taxi?

Taxi driver: Not very often, but it happened, he came home with us. And it was not very late in the night.

Anna: And did you get good extra money from him?

Taxi driver: Yes, I got good money, but it was not him that paid, it was his friends. But he is very nice, I think.

Anna: Sooo, here he lives.

Taxi driver: Yes, here.

SOURCE: SVT - Watch the interview in Swedish HERE 

Anna: OK, thank you very much. I say like Per: my colleagues will pay the trip J

Taxi driver: OK! It will solve by itself.

Anna: Thank you very much.

 Anna: Ok, now we are at Per’s house, where the joyride starts. Let’s see! Oh, shit! You can’t see too much in the garden…let’s see! Oh, they have a camera here… we will see if Marie only reads and learns and Per just thinks about money or they play a nice song, who knows…ok? Let’s ring the bell! (…) Hi, Per, it’s Anna Mannheimer, can we come in? Can you see me now? Is he not at home?

Per: Hello…

Anna: Hi, it’s Anna Mannheimer, can we come in?  

Per: No, I will come out instead!

Anna: OK, he comes out, Per Gessle comes out. (…) Hi, why can’t we be here, at your house?

Per: Why not at YOUR house?

Anna: MY house? But I don’t live in Halmstad. Where shall we go now?

Per: To the hotel.

Anna: Hotel? Ok…  Otherwise I was thinking that we could be at your houseee…

Per: It is the fact a place with many summer houses, a place where people have also caravans and sleep there in the summer.  

Anna: Yes, it is true.

Per: Here we say “hello” to everybody that we meet.

Anna: Yes, I do that also: hellooo! You, which car are we going by now?

Per: This is my wife’s car, in fact, as she took my car, too.

Anna: But you have a Ferrari, right?

Per: Yes, but that one I cannot drive here.

Anna: I was thinking that you drive faster J You, where are you driving now, on this road?

Per: We are going to Tylösand Hotel.

Anna: Mmm, is it also a part of you?

Per: Yes, it became something like that.

Anna: As you come there like to your home.

Per: Exactly. That is my second house.

Anna: But I am little nervous… Shouldn’t you and Marie be together now and repeat songs, what you will sing on promotion tours… what is Marie doing?

Per: I don’t have any clue what she is doing, but I suppose she is boxing…

Anna and Marie:

Marie: After my second child, I felt the need to do something for myself and it feels great to be at this place.

Anna: I thought you are so little and vulnerable, but you are very strong.

Marie: But this is not very difficult.

Anna: Really?

Anna and Per:

Anna: Soo, here is your hotel.

Per: Yes, it looks ugly, but very beautiful in fact.

Anna: Have you met girls here…to dance with?

Per: You can do it there, the place called Leif’s Lounge now, there was a place called Natti Natti, there I used to spend the money I had for one week.

Anna: Aha, there you spent the money for a week!

Per: Yes.

Anna: It is exciting. But shall we goooo….

Per: I know her! (pointing at a girl)

Anna: Do you??

Per: Yes, you know all in Halmstad.

Anna: Who is she?

Per: She is called Yvonne.

Anna: How do you know her??

Per: Because she is my employee! (laughs)

Anna: Oh My… Are you thinking to buy the whole Halmstad now?

Per: Yes, I was thinking about that, I will do that little by little. And then to sell it at Mass. (laughs)

Anna: Really?

Per: It is my idea…

Anna: But Kim Basinger also has bought her home town.

Per: She did?

Anna: Yes, and then it went to bankruptcy and now the town doesn’t exist anymore!

Per: (laughs)

Anna: I can feel it’s heavy on your shoulders that you administrate Halmstad!

Anna and Marie:

Anna: Now you are a pop star… I am impressed to meet you and I was little nervous before: oh, I will meet Marie! Sooo …who is the most famous person you have met?

Marie: Ohhh, if I think a bit, it was when we were invited to eat dinner at Tina Turner’s house, it was a great experience. We sat and talked the whole evening and it was very nice, a real experience, because she is a legend and an extraordinary woman.

Anna: But do you have an idol who you have met?

Marie: I had the chance to greet Joni Mitchell when she got a reward. But I couldn’t stay with her too long, I just have her image as idol. I didn’t dare to talk too much to her.

Anna: So you mean that Marie Fredriksson didn’t dare to talk to her idol, why not?

Marie: I was too shy, I had her image since I was little, I grew up with her…nooo, I didn’t dare. I was too shy in fact.

Anna: Yes, probably you are right…

Anna and Per:

Anna: Have you ever felt fed up with everything to say: no, I don’t get up today!

Per: No, I don’t think that it functions like that, I don’t function like that. If you get fed up, it is like being blocked somewhere, you think it is too boring. You know, you are always on tour, always somewhere.

Anna: I have heard about a scandal in rock’n’roll…

Per: It is not me, it is Marie who has that all the time.

Anna: Can you talk about that?

Per: Yes…. I am calm, but she is… uuufff

Anna: But is there any scandal?

Per: No, it is quite quiet now. When we are out on tour, it feels like we are in a wheel chair.

Anna: Wheel chair, haha!

Anna and Marie:

Anna: Have you ever thrown yourself over the audience?

Marie: (laughs) No, I have never done that, but I was near to do that once, as the first row was very near and the people were staring at me, prepared to catch me and it felt like they said: c’mon, trust us! But I didn’t jump, I think that the bodyguards would have been very scared.

Anna: But you have to do it, if you really want to be a rock star.

Marie: Yes, for sure. Perhaps I will try that in the future. I will remember that on our next tour.

Anna and Marie are boxing.

Anna: I cannot resist more to be boxed!

Anna: How does it feel to be so rich like you are?

Marie: It feels comfortable, of course, but … it is cool to be able to go somewhere on Christmas and but clothes and other things, but it is not always like this, you have money, but you cannot get everything for money.

Anna: But which comfortable things can you buy, well, it is clear that you cannot buy health and love, but it must be something that you can say: this thing I can really afford.

Marie: Well, there are many things, for example flowers, I am very good at buying flowers, I love flowers, they are really expensive, I have noticed. People can by flowers on a special occasion, but I want to buy flowers for fun. It feels great.

Anna: Sometimes I think that if you are rich, you can afford to eat oyster and French goose liver, you can eat everything that is good if you have money.

Marie: Nooo, I hate oyster.

Anna: Do you?

Marie: They are disgusting.

Anna: But you miss one thing: you never buy lottery tickets and stay and scratch them.

Marie: Oh, yeah. It is very cool in fact.

Anna: Really?

Marie: I am good to buy it by myself, but my mother-in-low buys lottery tickets and if it happens that I get the highest price and 3 TV-sets show the same image…

Anna: Have you done that?

Marie: Nooo…

Anna: Not me either, I would send a friend to do that. And anyway, it wouldn’t have been very nice that Marie Fredriksson sits and scratches for millions…

Marie: Not at all!

Anna and Per:

Per: Please sit down, we can share it.

Anna: ok

Per: This piano I have bought…it was in the studio in Halmstad and I wrote on it Listen to Your Heart and It Must Have Been Love, for example. And…you can say another song that you think could be written on this piano.

Anna: The Look.

Per: No. That was written on something else. What shall we play? Listen to Your Heart!

Anna: Listen to your heart!

Per: Now you can sing (laughs)

Anna: I can play!  Help me, Per!

Per: I don’t know this!

Anna: It became a bit different. (…) Now it starts! (…) You came to my side!

Per: YOU came to my side!

Anna: Does it happen that you take your guitar to a party and start to play some old songs?

Per: (laughs) No, I have never done that, I have never been able to play like that. I am very bad at that, like playing Bad Moon Rising, I cannot do that. I am very bad! I mean…as a musician, I am very bad, I believe that by myself.

Anna: So you cannot play, you cannot sing…

Per: But I write good!

Anna: Yes, you do, you write good texts. Do you read many texts from the others and watch them and…?

Per: Not so much as I should, but I try to read a lot in English and write a lot so that I can learn to spell correctly and such things. But to write texts means to find your own language in fact. When I was in Gyllene Tider, the texts were quite important, like Flickorna på TV2, Ska vi älska, ska vi älska till body holly and Billy... So that time I could create my own language, that represents myself.

Anna: So it was difficult to translate them later.

Per: Yes, but not really to translate… Then when I started to write in English, I had to find my own language in English. It is much more difficult.

Anna sings It Must Have Been Love.

Anna: No, I can’t.

Per: You cannot compete with Marie, Marie sings differently, she transmits the feelings in another way. It is very exciting.

Anna: But do you train on songs?

Per: No, I have never trained on anything.

Anna: You don’t train on pronounciation?

Per: No (laughs). I am not that kind.

Anna and Marie:

Anna: I think about the fact that your husband is married to a woman that is both rich and well-known. How does it feel?

Marie: It feels great, Micke is…

Anna: Because it can be difficult for men!

Marie: Yes, but he has talent as a singer, he is a musician, he writes songs, he has a lot of self confidence. And it feels great to have help, now when the children are little and I am on tour a lot. It functions very well.

Anna: How long have you been together?

Marie: For 7 years, we got married in 1994.

Anna: I get a bit jealous on you as I had read, before your album “Den Ständiga Resan”, that you were unhappy and alone and something like this…and then there has appeared a man, you got married, you got 2 kids… What happened? What did you do??

Marie: I don’t know, it happened like that, it was luck!

Anna: And after that, you look so damn in love with each other…

Marie: Yes…

Anna: In pictures and…

Marie: We really are! (laughs)

Anna: A lot of love and all these! You show all these to your little children! Perhaps it is boring for children…

Marie: Well, from this point of view, it is a bit boring to be parents to little children, but…

Anna: So it was…well, when you met him, you said: now it is time!

Marie: (laughs) Yes, you can say like that.  How does it feel?

Anna: I don’t know, I didn’t have such experiences… Then you said: we must have children!

Marie: Yes, directly.

Anna: Now you have 2 children.

Marie: Yes.

Anna: How did they change your life?

Marie: Totally. It is enormous to get kids. You cannot believe it before you see the image.

Anna: How old were you?

Marie: I was 35. So the image that they brought was completely different, it was not at all how you could imagine before. It was much better and more difficult.

Anna and Per:

Per: I was 38 when Gabriel was born. It was a good time for me, a time when Roxette had a little break; it was simply time for something else in life. There was another quality of life, in a way.

Anna: Have you changed any diaper?

Per: I am very good at that, in fact.

Anna: Really? You change them?!

Per: Mmmm

Anna: Aren’t you a bit ashamed after you have seen a lot of disgusting things by changing diapers?

Per: I have never said that. It is because I have trained a lot.

Anna: You don’t have any feeling?

Per: But I am bad at changing diapers, in fact (laughs).

Anna: Are you?

Per: Yes, I can’t manage that at all. I don’t do it very often.  Not every day!

Anna: How many diapers have you changed until now?

Per: (laughs) I don’t know!

Anna: Can you count them on the fingers of 2 hands?

Per: No, I don’t think so.

Anna: Can you count only on the fingers of one hand?

Per: I can…

Anna: (astonished)

Per: It is enough, isn’t it?

Anna: You have changed 5 diapers…

Per: Not so many, in fact…

Anna: Isn’t it an old tradition to learn how to change diapers?

Per: Yes, but what is it so special with that?

Anna: But it is like that, to share everything, even if it is disgusting, even to change diapers, to take your part of shit!

Per: It is not that, I don’t think it is disgusting, it is just because I didn’t get used to it.

Anna: I am a bit…so… are you little spoiled?

Per: Yeah, I am very spoiled indeed.

Anna: You are! Had you lived alone before you moved with Åsa, have you taken care of yourself??

Per: Yes, of course, I have lived alone a few weeks (laughs). Noo, I have lived alone few years before Åsa moved to me.

Anna: But you had lived at home…

Per: I am very good at ironing!

Anna: CAN you do that?? Can you?!?! But do you do any house work now?

Per: No, not now, not so much. Say something and I will answer!

Anna: But your shirt, your coat…they are ironed…

Per: Dry cleaner…

Anna: You leave all your clothes at dry cleaner?

Per: No, only those that need it. For example this shirt has a special colour.

Anna: But you can wash this colour with an usual washing machine. But do you wash…

Per: Well, all clothes go to dry cleaner! I can wait there naked! (laughs)

Anna: But do you wash …how do you wash…You don’t wash your clothes by yourself!

Per: No, I have never washed, I haven’t done it, really.

Anna: Do you never think about how it is done, what happened when you always find clean clothes in your wardrobe?

Per: You mean how they bring it back?

Anna: I mean when you throw away the dirty shirt and it comes back clean?

Per: But this is how it should be: you throw away the dirty one and it comes back to the wardrobe completely clean!

Anna: You don’t have a clue about how they do it!

Per: But it happens like this, I don’t know exactly how it is done. I have never thought about it. 

Anna: You are really very spoiled!! But when you lived alone, did you have a huge basket for dirty clothes and your mamma came and controlled and helped you?? And controlled if you had something in the fridge?

Per: No, I left them at laundry and they came back the second day.

Anna: But what about food, how do you prepare food, Per?

Per: I don’t remember, it was long time ago… (laughs)

Anna: Do you eat regularly?

Per: Yes, I do that. But I am not so good at cooking either, in fact. But now you have to try some shrimp.

Anna: So you mean that you will not be able to manage yourself if you…

Per: I have a hotel…

Anna: Yes, but think if you hadn’t had money, if you had been an usual poor guy, then you must have been able to manage yourself, otherwise it doesn’t work.

Per: I have good friends… I always manage myself. (laughs)

Anna and Marie:

Anna: When did you feel: now I will kill Per Gessle!

Marie: I have never felt it (laughs). He never comes in time! I got used to him.

Anna and Per:

Per: I don’t remember when I was in time the last time! All know that Gessle is late.

Anna: But you, Per Håkan Gessle, why can’t you come in time?

Per: It is because my clocks function wrongly. (laughs)

Anna and Marie:

Anna: Is he never tired of this and thinks: “now she is playing a ballad or reads in hotel rooms…” ??

Marie: (laughs) Nooo…

Anna and Per:

Per: But she is not very angry, she is a girl. She is different. (laughs)

Anna: In which way do you think that she is a girl?

Per: Yes, but she is more like a girl than I am. It is nice.

Anna: Sometimes I think that you are seen differently in Roxette. Marie is the one who is “fooled” or… the serious one and you are the pop star… did you feel that you are seen differently from this point of view?

Per: Not now, but at the beginning it was a bit like this in mass media, or it was indeed the fact that Marie had her solo career. So this happened when Roxette was built up… while I was the old guy from Gyllene Tider, 25 – 26 years old. I think it is a bit truth in this.

Anna and Marie:

Marie: In fact, I decided this by myself to go together with Per and build up Roxette, it was something that we decided that time.

Anna: But were there not many who thought that it was not good?

Marie: Yes, it is true, many thought that I would finish with my solo career and I would finish singing in Swedish, but I have never done that.

Anna and Per:

Per: I think that the best thing with Marie is that she is the one who brings the feminist feeling into the band, you know, when you work in this branch it is very possible to have a guy image, but Marie has brought it on another route.

Per: Now it is time for you to go…

Anna: Ok, but I can follow you in the garden for a cup of coffee…

Per: Nooo, it is quite late now. Next time…

Anna: Ok, no cup of coffee, nothing?

Per: No, thanks.

Anna: Perhaps I can follow you in the garage and watch..

Per: No, another time! See you!

Anna: Ok, are you afraid of the girls on TV2, Per?

SOURCE: SVT - Watch the interview in Swedish HERE