The Daily Roxette

Head over to roxette.se and take a gander at the brand new playlist Per has made. Rick Springfield is a given of course!

MELBOURNE - With just 90 minutes before showtime, I had the great honor of sitting down with Per Gessle back stage at Rod Laver Arena for Roxette's second Melbourne concert. We discussed all topics from Travelling to Charm School to the exciting soon-to-be-announced North American Tour and everything inbetween. Enough talk: enjoy this exclusive Daily Roxette interview.

TDR: OK, so first up, let's talk about Travelling. We've had Tourism 2, 2rism, T2 and now Travelling, how did you finally decide on a title?

PG: My idea was to call it Tourism 2, I thought it sort of made sense because the whole idea with the album was sort of the same (as Tourism) sort of a sequel, but it was actually our record company which didn't like the idea because they said people are gonna get confused and they'll mix it up with Tourism number one, personally, I didn't get that. So then we said, OK, how about T2? But then they said no because a title with a number wasn't good and I said how about the Adele's record 21... and they didn't answer that one (laughs). At the end of the day, Marie and I fooled around with different ideas and I came up with this Travelling thing because it's like, Roxette is travelling at the moment so we decided we liked it even more and chose that instead of having these quarrels all the time... But we kept the same subtitle “songs from studios, stages, hotel rooms and other strange places”. For some reason, some people find things complicated...

TDR: The concept reminded me of the KISS live album(s) Alive, they have Alive 2, Alive 3, Alive 4, sort of a continuing legacy...

PG: ...yeah and I think that's a cool thing. It's like Bat out of Hell...

TDR: ...same as Welcome 2 My Nightmare by Alice Cooper...

PG: ...yeah, for me, I always thought that was a smart commercial move... but obviously I was wrong (laughs) ...but like I said, instead of having a big fight about it, we just decided to use something else and yeah, I guess it was a little confusing for those reading on the websites etc.

TDR: OK, so I'm guessing you're not going to reveal too much about the new album, but what can you tell me and talk me through the structure, how many new songs and so on?

PG: There are quite a lot of new songs, more than we were supposed to have. We came up with certain ideas, I revealed a couple of titles the other day, but I can reveal some more, for instance there is a version of "Perfect Excuse" from Party Crasher sung by Marie, which is a very cool version and it's there because basically, I always wanted to hear Marie sing that song, 'cause it's a beautiful song. On my album it's me singing the verse and Helena is doing the chorus and this is just Marie and Helena singing it, it's very slow and very different to the original...

TDR: ...so you don't sing on that song now at all?

Today is the day that Per Gessle turns 53 years young! 

I'm sure all our readers will join us in wishing him all the best on his special day.

Happy Birthday, Mr G, from the TDR team - Hope you have a great day!

As Per Gessle revealed today on Facebook, the songs he's recently written and recorded for a "soundtrack" are for Jonas Åkerlund's new movie "Small Apartments." Read the message by the man himself:

Yes Box Alright! I've done the soundtrack, based on the Son of a Plumber vibe, for Jonas Åkerlund's new movie "Small Apartments". The music has been recorded at the AGM Studio and as expected the mighty Mr Lundquist & Mr Ofwerman have been the cornerstones. The film? Well, it's a "dark comedy" (based on the S.A. novel) starring Matt Lucas, Billy Crystal, James Caan and Peter Stormare in the leading parts. And yes, it's a wonderful movie. And yes, there will be a soundtrack. And yes, we have to release it on vinyl as well. I'm really proud to be part of this. Cheers, P. (P.S. Jonas is God.)

The novel this movie is based upon was written by American writer Chris Millis in 2001. He has adapted the screenplay and is the executive producer of the movie. Here's the blurb for the book:

Small Apartments is the offbeat tale of an obese, slovenly peeping tom, his odd brother, his pothead neighbour, and their quest to hide the body of an unfortunate landlord. The story is accented along the way by murder, strange fingernail collections and the occasional blast from a treasured alphorn.

Behind-the-scenes photos of the shooting of the movie are available on Chris Millis' website and the complete cast is available on the Internet Movie Database.

Another soundtrack Per Gessle has contributed to in the past was that for the 2008 movie "Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In)". In this movie, you can hear parts of the still officially unreleased song "Kvar i min bil (Left in My Car)".

OSLO - Sunday November 27 on Norwegian TV2 Per Gessle will be the guest on a show called "Reisen til popstjernen" ("Meeting a popstar") The Norwegian artist Ingrid Bjørnov has met Per Gessle in Stockholm to talk about music and songwriting, trying to discover the key to his success. The show will air 21:45 - 22.45. Other artists she has met include, among others, Nik Kershaw, Espen Lind, Maria Mena and Timbuktu.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Make sure you click on the jump to read Paul's exclusive interview with Per and a particularly well-written comment from Tholmes1138. Note also the addition of a link to a reader's full account of the show.]

LONDON – After a long 17 year wait, Roxette finally brought their epic World Tour to the UK last night.  Wembley Arena was packed to the rafters with about 12,000 fans who, in this reporters opinion, were full of energy and sang along to all of the songs.  

The setlist was, as expected, identical to previous concerts in the re-launched tour (minus "Soul Deep" within "......Radio") and both Per and Marie were in top shape, so we won't cover much on the actual show. However, Chris did an amazing, frenzied version of "God Save The Queen" as the "Joyride" intro.

For a more complete report and review, Brandon Veevers, one of our readers who won a slot at the Meet & Greet, filed this report afterwards for a UK entertainment site.

The Meet and Greet, organised through this newspaper in conjunction with d&d Management and Live Nation, was a great success.  The fans that were lucky enough to win our contest were each able to have one item signed by Marie and Per. One such item was a rare blue vinyl edition of Marie's "Ännu doftar kärlek."  Marie was clearly very surprised when she saw this!  

The Daily Roxette also managed to grab some time with Per for an interview and to answer some questions put to him by you, the readers of TDR!

Photos of the show and Meet & Greet to follow...

(Click read more for the exclusive pre-show interview with Per.)

Over 100 questions have now been received.  Apologies, but I will not be able to add any more questions to the pile.  Thank you so much to everyone who has submitted a question - it should make for a very interesting interview. Watch this space! - Paul

LONDON – Well, your luck is in!  During Roxette's upcoming visit to London, The Daily Roxette will be interviewing Per and we'd like to open the opportunity up to you, our readers, to have any of your long-time burning questions answered.

Obviously, we won't be able to ask every single question that gets submitted (Per, unfortunately, doesn't have the whole day to spend with us), but we will pick the best ones and put them to Mr G!

Email your questions to paul@dailyroxette.com by Wednesday, 9 November.  And please, keep your questions clean!

STOCKHOLM – The Original Album Series sets of Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson were released in Sweden this week by EMI Svenska. Gyllene Tider's reported box is missing for now, and The Daily Roxette is looking into that.

The Per Gessle box contains his five original albums: Per Gessle (1983), Scener [Scenes] (1985), The World According to Gessle (1997), Mazarin (2003) and En händig man [A Handy Man] (2007). The albums have been remastered, according to a poster, and the first two contain all the singles as bonus tracks. The CDs come in miniature LP sleeves which are really nice, apart from the fact that the first two original albums now miss the bonus tracks on the sleeve. There are no booklets.

Marie Fredriksson's box (see previous article) contains Het vind [Hot Wind] (1984), Den sjunde vågen [The Seventh Wave] (1985), ...efter stormen [...After the Storm] (1987), Den ständiga resan [The Eternal Journey] (1992) and I en tid som vår [In a Time Like Ours] (1996). Marie's first two albums also contain bonus tracks.

Update: Per Gessle's two first albums are not remastered when TDR has made a track to track comparison.

According to our sources, Per has cancelled all his interviews before tomorrow's concert in Finland due to a sore throat.

UPDATE: Per has posted a message on Roxette's Facebook page:

Howdy! I'm much better today than yesterday in CH. However, due to the fact that I rather give 100% in Opp Nox & Big L & others tomorrow than to talk an extra hour to the media I thought it was a good idea to save my voice and skip all interviews for now. I'll do them later. That's all, boys & gals. P.

On Monday, Roxette is due to have a concert in Tallinn, Estonia. The Tallinn concert's original date was in March, but the gig was cancelled at the last minute due to Marie's illness and moved to July 18.

STOCKHOLM – As part of what EMI is calling an "Original Album Series," Marie Fredriksson's previously remastered solo albums will be released in Sweden on August 8 as five CDs contained within one eco-friendly package. The cover art (shown to the left) includes the retro "Capitol Full Dimensional Stereo" logo that dates back to the glory days of vinyl LPs.

The set is comprised of Het Vind, Den Sjunde Vågen, Efter Stormen, Den Ständiga Resan and I En Tid Som Vår.

A spokesman for EMI Svenska told The Daily Roxette that other artists in the series will include Per Gessle, Gyllene Tider, Björn Skifs and Wilmer X and that these other releases will also occur around the same time.

All of these releases will have the CDs packaged within the same cardboard sleeve that has multiple folds, and an attractive price point. CDOn.com has just listed the package at 159 SEK (17.50 €) while Ginza.se has it for 149. CDOn ships within the European Union while Ginza ships to Sweden, Denmark and Finland only.

Marie's albums were previously released as a box set called Kärlekens Guld (Love's Gold) and each of the albums was remastered at that time. Missing from this release will be the live Äntligen CD that was included as a bonus disc in the box set.

Additional reporting by Daniel Alvedahl.