STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - It may have been the pressure from the media or from the fans, or Per Gessle’s own lust for touring, or the mix of all of it, but in the end, Per has managed to arrange a tour around the end of July to mid-August. The “around 14-gig” tour will take Per at least to Stockholm and Sofiero Slott in Helsingborg where Gyllene Tider started Återtåget tour in 1996. This time, however, the premier will be in Brottet, Halmstad on July 29th.

  Per’s band will be the same as at the release party: Helena Josefsson (backing vocals), Jonas Isacsson (guitars), Jens Jansson (drums), Christoffer Lundquist (guitars & backing vocals), Anders Herrlin (bass guitar) and Clarence Öfwerman (keyboards). TDR will publish more dates as they become available.

  “I never could’ve imagined this reception for my little mazarin,” says a happy Per Gessle, “and a tour was never in the cards. But we had so much fun in Halmstad and I can’t resist the possibility to take these songs out in the Swedish summer. They are sort of made for parks and picnics, and I hope the audience agrees with me… and wants to end the summer in a green park with a mazarin.”

STOCKHOLM - As TDR already announced earlier this week, Per will be signing his album “Mazarin”, to be released Monday, in different locations in Sweden. Here are the dates and times:




Monday, June 16th at 12:00 in Halmstad - Åhléns


Monday, June 16th at 17:00 in Stockholm - Åhléns City


Wednesday, June 18th at 15:00 in Malmö - Folk & Rock


Wednesday, June 18th at 17:00 in Lund - Folk & Rock


Friday, June 27th at 16:00 in Göteborg - Rocks

• Åhléns
• Folk & Rock
• Rocks

STOCKHOLM - Due to problems at the DVD pressing plant some of the limited edition of “Mazarin” is postponed until June 20. The normal version will be out as planned.

• CDON

HALMSTAD - Per Gessle enters one of the conference rooms at Hotel Tylösand around midnight, after a massively successful mini concert and a chaotic, but peaceful, record signing session. He looks very happy. On the whiteboard is the play list. It ends with “Billy”, a song we never got to hear (due to Per’s blistered fingers).

  “Will there be a tour?” TDR wonders after greeting Per and Li Eriksson, from Capitol Records.

  “The question of the day. I can’t answer that yet. We don’t know yet. Jens is busy. I’m a bit funny, I need my
key personnel when I tour… like Oscar who does my monitor sound. There are a lot of logistical problems, but if they are
solvable, then yes, I feel up for it. This I say without even having the album out yet,” Per laughs.


  But with this response from people and media regarding the single and all? “Yes, I know, these guys really love playing these songs. Christoffer on guitar is great, and during rehearsals we’ve really had fun. No prestige whatsoever. We all had fun.” Per talks at lengths about the recording sessions and rehearsals and he seems to glow when he does. One can tell this is something he has enjoyed immensely.

  If there will be a tour, will there be a big tour or a club tour or…? “If we do decide to go on the road it will be a summer tour, an outdoor venue tour, like Sofiero, Skansen, venues like that. Maybe 10-12 gigs. All the songs I do work so much better when you get that sing-along feeling, you know? Just look at Återtåget with the 24,000 plus audiences. That worked great! But at the same time I’d hate losing Jens… We will decide this week, we really have to.” He also reveals that the possible tour may even include Norway, Denmark and Finland.


  When asked about the reason for not having a video for the new single Per says “No one cares about a video anymore, who’d show it? ZTV??” “ZTV may very well play this video,” Li interjects. But Per is reluctant, “It would be more expensive to make a video than the whole album. Maybe a low budget thingie but…”


  Will there be a second and a third single?

  “Yes I’m sure, this guy at Capitol demands at least four singles! We’ve discussed which song it should be but we’ve reached no decision yet,” Per says. “We’ll have at least two singles,” Li says. “The song also depends on which
direction the album goes, and if there’s a tour,” Per states. Per also mentions that he stays out of the single decision making these days. “Denmark will release ’Gungar’ as a
single. EMI Denmark is crazy about it. What do you think should be the next single?” he continues. TDR suggests “Spegelboll”, “Tycker om när du tar på mej” or “Om du bara vill”. Li and Per agree that they all are good choices. “This is of course a very pleasant problem,” Li smiles.


  Will there be any record signings for the album? “Yes I think so, at the department store Åhlens in Stockholm and in Halmstad. Also Gothenburg and Malmö. Nothing up north this time. But if there’s a tour, I want to play up north this time, I haven’t been in Norrland [up north] in a hundred years!” he says (conveniently forgetting that he was up there in ’96). Li explains that the signing sessions – due to obvious reasons – work better when there’s a crowd.

  Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Yesterday Per Gessle accepted a prize for Roxette at the 10-year anniversary of Radio NRJ at Gröna Lund amusement park in Stockholm. The prize was presented by Ricky Martin.

  Roxette received the prize for being one of the most played acts on NRJ Sweden the last 10 years.

  Other well-known faces at the gala were Robyn, Dr. Alban, E-Type and many others.

• NRJ (In Swedish)

HALMSTAD (UPDATED) - Per Gessle threw a release party for friends, select media and competition winners Tuesday night to promote his new album “Mazarin”. About 600 people attended the club gig at Leif’s Lounge, the night club located in the lower level of Hotel Tylösand in Halmstad.

  Per and his band performed 10 songs at the mini concert. Joining Per onstage were Jonas Isacsson (celebrating his 23rd birthday, according to Per), Anders Herrlin (of Gyllene Tider), Jens Jansson (of Brainpool), Christoffer Lundquist and Helena Josefsson (soon to be married).

  The concert opened with Gyllene Tider’s “Kung av sand”, continued with the new song “Vilket håll du än går”, the album opener. After that “Om du bara vill”, “Gungar”, “Tycker om när du tar på mej”, “Födelsedag” (dedicated to Jonas), and “Här kommer alla känslorna”… all from the new album. After leaving the stage, the band returned almost immediately and played “På promenad genom stan” (alas without Marie), John Holm’s “Den öde stranden” (that Per claims he always has to play whenever he does something in Swedish), and finally the old Gyllene Tider rocker “Vill ha ett svar!” from “Swing & Sweet” (“Covers are fun,” says Per). “Billy” was, according to our information, mysteriously cut from the playlist.

  The concert was very well performed, with a surprisingly tight band. Commenting on this to The Daily Roxette afterwards, Per said “Really? We’ve only rehearsed for three days, and just forty minutes yesterday, so that’s great to hear!”

  Per was very pleased with the show, and has yet to decide if there will be a tour or not… but time is running out. “We will have to reach a decision this week,” he told TDR. The big problems are that Per’s key players, as he calls them, are partly booked with other artists. Jens will do a Japanse tour for instance. This is what they are trying to solve at the moment. “It’s all about logistics,” Per states. If a tour will come true, Per is aiming at venues like Sofiero in Helsingborg and Skansen in Stockholm.

  All in all, a nice evening with lots of happy fans. Prominent guests spotted by TDR included MP Persson, Micke Syd, Göran Fritzson, Peter Jöback, Frida Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus to mention a few.

  Editor’s Note: A strange but unfortunate rumor promising that the first 50 fans who got to Leif’s would get in for free seemed to have circulated, according to those managing the event. Apparently, this resulted in a bus full of 50-80 German fans arriving. “Naturally we let them in”, Per said.

• Article in Aftonbladet
• Article in Expressen
• Article in Hallandsposten
• Article in Göteborgs Posten (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet streams, in an exclusive preview, four full songs from “Mazarin” today - “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)”, “På promenad genom stan”, “Spegelboll” and “Tycker om när du tar på mej”.

• Aftonbladet

STOCKHOLM - On June 6th Swedes celebrated their National Day. During one of the activities programmed for this day, Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden, gives national flags to the most dedicated civil organizations of the Kingdom of Sweden.

  By the end of the celebration a very familiar melody started to sound, for many Marie Fredriksson fans’ surprise, this song was “Tro”, which was interpreted by the Swedish singer Carola accompanied by the Arméns Musikkår (the Army Music Corps).

  The text, though, was modified and instead of “i en vintervärld” (“in a winter world”) Carola sang “i en sommarvärld” (“in a summer world”), to give it a special summer spirit.

  Carola celebrates this year her 20th anniversary as an artist and has released a greatest hits album which is currently #1 on the Swedish charts. “The Carola hysteria of the 80s is back,” wrote Aftonbladet in a recent article.

• SVT’s timetable for the show (in Swedish)

MALMÖ - Nature’s freedom and tasteless bass marks the new album.


He has played in arenas in Latin America, has had mega-hits in USA and Russia, has been played on MTV and has filled Stockholm’s Olympic stadium with sing-along fans. What else did Per Gessle have left to accomplish?


  A whole lot. He hadn’t recorded a solo album in the middle of a forest outside Vollsjö before. But now he has. “I did it on my own responsability. I decided to not to contact the record company before everything would already be finished,” Per explains to Sydsvenska Dagbladet (SD). “I started by writing down thoughts about the album. It should be about small town thoughts, but with big feelings.”


  Small town as in Halmstad? Well sure, but most of it was recorded in a substantially smaller place: Vollsjö in the middle of the province Skåne. Here the musician and producer Christoffer Lundqvist has his studio, twenty meters from his house. We’re talking seriously in the provinces here.

  “Clarence Öfwerman and I got rooms at the local bed & breakfast, a single room each. No families, no kids, just the two of us and Christoffer. We started our days by watching music movies, and finished them by playing disco. A lot of things we did imprinted on the album. If you would grind the three of us and everything we like it would sound just like the album,” Per Gessle says.


  “Christoffer has played a lot of guitar, he proved to be quite good. I play the bass, because I don’t know how to - so it gets to be charming. A guitarist doesn’t play the way a real bass player would. You do those sexy things you hear a bass player do, the fast climbs along the neck, but you do it at the wrong places. And maybe a bit too often. You get tasteless and totally ruthless. It’s fun when you can’t play for real, you get happy.”

• Sydsvenska Dagbladet’s article (In Swedish)

Read more…

STOCKHOLM - In today’s edition of Swedish tabloid Expressen Per says “It’s stealing. Of course the writers, producers and musicians should get paid. It’s not good when people feel it’s OK to download without paying. It’s not good when an entire generation takes it for granted that music is for free.”

  As we speak seven of the songs, although snippets, are available on the usual downloading sites. “I’m definitely glad that the entire album isn’t out yet. I see that many people on [The] Daily Roxette site are looking for it, but no one has found it. At least to my knowledge,” Per says to Expressen.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)