HALMSTAD - Per Gessle

Age: 45.

Family: Wife Åsa; Gabriel, 6.

Lives: House in Sandhamn, apartment in Stockholm.

Car(s): Predilection for the Italian ones.

Hobbies: Art, racing.



What is the most important record in history?

In the big picture, probably “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley. But for me, I think it was “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” by The Beatles, which was the flip side of “Yesterday.” John Lennon’s voice changed my universe. And for God’s sake, don’t forget the guitar riff in the same song. Help me, that’s great!



First album you bought?

“The Kink Kontroversy” by The Kinks for five kronor (from my brother who needed money to buy cigarettes in secret…)



What record purchase are you most ashamed about?

Never regret a record purchase! I have both Peter Holm and Metallica in my collection.



What is your biggest concert experience?

Pugh & Rainrock at Folkets Park, in Halmstad 1974 I think. Pugh had just shaved off all his hair…. “Bolla och rulla” was the album. Then there are of course a lot of other goodies. Motörhead in London 1977, U2 with BB King in Melbourne 1989, Paul Simon here and there, Tom Petty is the best of all sometimes, Rolling Stones last year at Cirkus in Stockholm. I wept three times… And Hep Stars in Karsefors 1966. “Surfin’ Bird” was great.



Which is the best party album before going out?

Anything by Sweet. Glamrock is extraordinarily underrated!



What’s the best album to have in a car?

Right now I have The Beatles’ “White Album”, but I like mixing it with R.E.M.



Your worst memory from Återtåget?

My slipped disc that almost ruined it all for us. It was at its worst in Lysekil. Ugh!



What do you remember from the Gyllene Tider hysteria during the 80s?

Ugly Esso Motor Hotels! It was obviously very much fun, we never understood how it happened that we got so popular. But usually we stayed on our own, we were pretty insecure back then, we were very young.



What’s the best song on “Finn 5 fel!”?

There are several that I’m very fond of: “Nere på gatan,” “Jag borde förstås vetat bättre,” “Ordinärt mirakel,” and “Varje gång det regnar.” I like all the songs of course… otherwise they wouldn’t have been recorded! But the band really has really impressed me. They all have become “specialists” in their individual field lately. It sounds incredibly cool.



What’s your worst vacation memory?

I was very disappointed with Mauritius this winter. It didn’t suit us at all. Thankfully, I had a happy guitar with me so I wrote some songs to “Finn 5 fel!” there.


Read more…

STOCKHOLM, SKANSEN (UPDATED) - Gyllene Tider will perform in tonight’s episode of “Allsång på Skansen,” shown live on SVT 1 at 20:00 CET, as TDR reported earlier. The Daily Roxette’s reporter, Robert Thorselius, was on site. With elbow-to-elbow crowds, the audience record of about 32,000 is believed to have been broken.

  At the rehearsals, Gyllene Tider performed “En sten vid en sjö i en skog” and “Sommartider”. After “Sommartider,” rain broke out. Naturally these were the songs they performed during the show.

  After the show went off the air, Gyllene Tider continued by playing “Flickorna på TV2” and “(Hon vill ha) Puls” before a screaming audience.

  Update July 7: The audience record wasn’t broken, but 24,000 souls showed up in the pouring rain, the record was set in beaming sun, so Skansen is more than satisfied with the attendance.

• Article in Expressen
• Article in Aftonbladet

HALMSTAD - Micke ”Syd” Andersson

Age: 43.

Family: Helena, Dennis 15, Eddie 11, Emil 14 and Louise 11.

Lives: An apartment in Södermalm in Stockholm, summerhouse in Haverdal.

Car: Citroên Berlingo

Hobbies: The family, different exercises.





The first record you bought?

“Wig Wam Bam” by Sweet.



Which record purchase are you most ashamed of?

A few symphonic rock records I bought in my teens, and when I listened to them a while ago, they stood out as big question marks in my record history.



What’s your biggest concert experience?

Springsteen at Ullevi ’81, Bonnie Raitt at Konserthuset in Stockholm, and Joni Mitchell at the same place.



What’s the best record to have in your car?

Songs that feel like they’re made for cars – like “Solsken” from “Finn 5 fel!”.



Your best Återtåget memory?

When I saw the thousands of bikes outside of Sofiero in Helsingborg and I realized they were all there to see us. Then of course I’ll never forget Stockholm stadium and the last gig at Brottet.



Your worst Återtåget memory?

The first gig at Brottet… because we had a “discussion” during the afternoon sound check that resulted in me leaving and staying to myself before the gig. It wasn’t our best gig that tour, if you catch my drift.



Which Gyllene Tider-song do you refuse to play today?

Most of the songs from “The Heartland Café”.



What ring signal do you have on your cell phone?

I change it frequently, but I liked the old monophonic ring signals better. The phones are too damn noisy these days.



What web site do you want to promote?

Yogayoga.nu.



What’s your worst vacation memory?

When Helena and I got stuck in New York on our first trip together, and our luggage went back to Stockholm.


Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Swedish financial industry newspaper Dagens Industri (Today’s Industry), writes this week that Gyllene Tider’s summer tour will generate a turnover in excess of 150 million kronor (€16,339,000). Experts in the business claim that Per Gessle will get a third of the turnover himself. 420,000 tickets have been sold to date.

  EMA Telstar does not want to talk about how the money will be divided or how much profit this will generate. “That’s a trade secret and I don’t discuss that with the media” Leif “Blixten” Henriksson says to DI.

HALMSTAD - Gyllene Tider have been rehearsing in Halmstad for a while now. Before they go to Stockholm to continue rehearsing and to take part in the Allsång på Skansen television program, the band will perform a few songs tonight at Leif’s Lounge, Hotel Tylösand.


  The performance is scheduled at around 22:00 CET. Leif’s Lounge’s standard cover charge of 100 SEK will apply; minimum age is 23 years old.

  A similar “sneak preview” occured at Beach Club, next to Leif’s, just before the Återtåget tour in 1996.


  Update July 3:
  The five members entered the stage at around a quarter to eleven and played for about 45 minutes. Classics like “Sjömän”, “Det hjärta som brinner”, “Ljudet av ett annat hjärta”, “Leva livet”, “Sommartider” and new tracks from “Finn 5 fel!” such as “Solsken”, “Tuffa tider”, “En sten vid en sjö i en skog” and “Ta mej… nu är jag din” could be heard last night at Leif’s Lounge.

• Gyllene Tider official website
• Article in Göteborgs Posten
• Article in Hallandsposten
• Article in Expressen I
• Article in Expressen II
• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

A remake of the Roxette-classic “Fading Like a Flower,” performed by Mysterio, is currently at #7 on the Austrian DJ-playlist and appears to still be rising.

  Mysterio is a dancebeat act formed by Austrian DJ and producer Steve Twain and singer Karin Janda.

 Driving beats and a strong use of vocals mark the six remix versions on the Maxi-CD released May 10th in Germany on the Beatwerk Records label, and in Japan on Quake Records. It’s also included on a compilation CD – “Trance Voices, Volume 11” – released by Polystar in Germany.

• MusicLine.de (Can listen to track snippets here)
• Austrian DJ Chart
• Beatwerk Records (Click on “Acts & Artists”)

STOCKHOLM - A sold out Ullevi; 120,000 copies sold of “Finn Fem Fel” in 23 days; 412,000 sold tickets to see Gyllene Tider this summer. But success also has a negative side. “My head feels really tired right now,” said Per Gessle to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.


  Per confesses that it’s really tiring to write, record an album, go on tour.. and then start the process again. “I don’t think I will do this again,” he said to reporter Ronnie Sandahl. “It is simply too stressful to get involved in such big projects every year,” explained Per. “It was possible to release an album every year and be constantly on tour, but now this doesn’t work anymore.”


  The pressure for Gyllene Tider’s tour is really big as Ullevi is sold out, Stockholm’s stadium will be full twice and 412,000 tickets have already been sold. But the shows won’t be cancelled as Per explains that even if he is very tired right now, he feels a great energy “because it’s very fun to play with Gyllene Tider.”


  Per plans to go on a vacation after the tour and doesn’t think he will get involved in anything else in the near future. “It will take some time till the next project. I have to find time to start to write songs again. I have to give myself time to gather new strength so that what I do has substance,” he said.


  Crashroxer contributed to this article

• Aftonbladet’s article

ÖSTRA LJUNGBY - The social democratic party in Marie Fredriksson’s home town Östra Ljungby proposes that a street should be named after their only world-famous celebrity so far. The non-socialists are against the proposal.

  “It’s not about Marie Fredriksson. It’s about the fundamental rule of not naming after living people,” says cultural board’s chairman Jan Lindberg. “Also, there’s no ’vacant’ street right now.”

  Rune Persson, one of the members behind the proposal, has a different opinion. “It’s always a good time for Östra Ljungby to highlight Marie Fredriksson. It doesn’t have to be a street or a market place. It can as well be a school or some institution.”

  The board had a long discussion on the issue, but didn’t make a decision yet.

• Helsingborgs Dagblad article (in Swedish)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet decides to start a new record store on the Internet. They are looking in the direction of Apple’s iTunes. Aftonbladet’s site will be named Poplife.

  Initially the site will contain 100,000 songs by Elvis, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Gyllene Tider, David Bowie and Magnus Uggla, to name a few. By the end of December Aftonbladet counts on having more than half a million songs for sale. Poplife will be open for Windows users to start with, Mac users will follow.

  The songs will cost 15 kronor (€1.65) to download and the songs will be in Windows Media Format which will allow the user to burn them on three CDs. The site opens this Friday.

  Apple launched the European version of their iTunes Music Store earlier this week. The store is available for customers in Germany, France and the UK. The songs cost €0.99 (£0.79 in the UK). An EU-wide iTunes Music Store is expected to be opened in October.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)
• Poplife
• iTunes Music Store

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Gyllene Tider’s new album, released yesterday, went double platinum - 123,000 copies - in 22 hours! Gyllene Tider comments “We are overwhelmed, happy and touched! Retouched!”

  At Folk & Rock in Malmö approximately 1,000 people lined up to get their records signed. The Daily Roxette’s reporter, David Björnström was there and met the guys. There was no time for a formal interview but at least we got some nice pictures for you.

  Gyllene Tider will sign at Åhlens City in Stockholm at 17:30 CET today. TDR expects a chaos, Åhlens has even told people not to bring any other records to the signing.

  Update June 13th: Pictures from all the signing sessions in Halmstad, Malmö, Stockholm and Göteborg are now available on Gyllene Tider’s official website.


  David Björnström contributed to this article.

• GylleneTider.se