STOCKHOLM - The Daily Roxette presents the sleeve of Son of a Plumber’s new single, along with a message.

Imagine the power of an iPod. During last winter, spring and summer a man transfered his favorite songs to his mp3-player. At the same time he rediscovered a lot of great pop he had forgotten. Soft pop, hard pop, weird pop, cute pop, tough pop - in short a whole lot of pop. He looked into the mirror and said “Son of a Plumber.” Then he took his guitar and started writing. “C’mon”/”Jo-Anna Says” is the first single from the double-album “Son of a Plumber.”

  “C’mon” is Per Gessle in a way you’ve never heard him before. Prince meets Sweet in a distant studio on the Skåne prarie. “Jo-Anna Says” is a classical song that sticks like an unwanted guest: Scaffold meets Mouth & McNeal in Top of the Pops. Son of a Plumber says “I’ve only tried following something that feels right. It’s been as clear to me to do this album as it was when I did “Mazarin.”

  A splendid time is guaranteed for all! Enjoy.

  TDR would also like to point out that “Keep the Radio On (This Is the Perfect Song)” will be added to the vinyl edition of “Son of a Plumber” as a bonus track and won’t be available on the CD edition.

Update November 1: Now you can listen to snippets of “Jo-Anna Says” and “C’mon” on Son Of A Plumber official website.

• Son Of A Plumber

Tonight on SVT2 at 21.30 CET there’s a show called Musikbyrån (The Music Bureau.)

  Today Musikbyrån will visit Per Gessle, Clarence Öfwerman and Christopher Lundquist in the Grey Aerosol Machine studio and we’ll get a first preview of the new Son of a Plumber album.

Henric Wahlberg contributed to this article.

• Musikbyrån (Link to video stream)

SKÅNE - Per Gessle has, as per usual, videoed most of the time during the recording process of the album “Son Of A Plumber.” So far it is not decided whether the material will be included as bonus material on the album or not. The Daily Roxette can also add that more film has been shot featuring six songs from the album. Per calls this “little promo videos,” but it’s not decided yet what they will be used for. Per and the band has spent two days down in southern Sweden shooting.

  “We have not discussed a ’Son Of A Plumber’-DVD”, says Marie Dimberg, manager of Per Gessle. The EMI representative knows nothing about the footage either.

Robert Thorselius and SleepingSingle contributed to this article.

• Aftonbladet (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - A new section has been added to the official Son Of A Plumber website today: Q & A - Ask Per, where - as the name indicates - Per is once again responding to questions from fans.


  In the first batch of replies Per reveals that there are plans for the upcoming album to also be released as a vinyl record – also double – with a bonus track not available on the CD version.


  Per is still cautious when asked about a tour. “It will depend on how the album will be received,” answers Per, but he surely would like to make a small club tour. “It would be great, don’t you think?”


  Per also says that Marie is fine, and that she performed a “couple of blues songs in a club outside Marbella a month ago.”


  Point your browser to the Son Of A Plumber website to read all the replies and, of course, to submit your questions!

• Q & A - Ask Per

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Like The Daily Roxette reported a while ago, due to technical issues the album has been delayed for one week; the new release date is November 23.

  However, the first single will be - in good old Gessle-fashion - a double a-side featuring the tracks “C’mon” and “Jo-Anna Says.” Per comments to TDR that it has been hard to find a single as the album goes in so many directions, and that he didn’t want one this time. The album has to date not been fully mixed and mastered.

  The release date is November 9 with a radio date of November 7.

  On a sidenote TDR would like to point out to anyone that hasn’t already noted - the official Son Of A Plumber and Gessle sites have cracked the door open with the forum so far. More to follow we’ve been promised.

  And yes, the album is a double… but priced as a single album.

  Per says to Aftonbladet “This is the most beautiful and important album I’ve ever done.” He has recorded around 24 songs, but some of them are shorter than a minute long. He describes the album as original. “And weird, many people will probably think it’s weird. It’s sort of a homage to the music I grew up with 1968-1972.”

• Son Of A Plumber
• Aftonbladet’s telegram (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - New sites have been announced, earlier sonofaplumber.com and sonofaplumber.se have been revealed. But also gessle.com will be opened shortly. Shortly in this context means about mid-October.

  The sites are constructed by Transmit/Receive from Söderhamn, Sweden.

• Son Of A Plumber
• Official Gessle
• Transmit/Receive

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - In just two months, there is a new Per album coming! The Daily Roxette has just received the press release stating that the album indeed will be in English as predicted, and a “debut”…

  On the album musicans as Clarence Öfwerman, Christoffer Lundquist, Helena Josefsson and Jens Jansson partake. “Without Clarence and Christoffer none of this would’ve existed. I could never have done this on my own.” The project is called “Son Of A Plumber.” The album will keep “Per’s full musical heritage,” according to the press statement.

  “Gessle” and “debut” are two words very seldomly paired, what happened, Per Gessle? “Wow, I don’t know what has happened! Somehow it’s taken me 46 years to dare to make this album. And to be ABLE to make this album. Son Of A Plumber has become some sort of a musical purification bath for me. The album contains all of my musical heritage. I don’t know why that happened, maybe it’s because I bought my first mp3-player this winter.” Per tells us. He continues: “I’ve spent half this year transfering my old records to the computer and rediscovered so much great music I love but had forgotten. It’s been a journey back to Furet and Simlångsdalen where I grew up, into the 70s, stuff we listened to in Gyllene’s first rehearsal studio.”

  Yesterday evening EMI Svenska held a presentation for their partners. They showed a video greeting in which Per spoke briefly about releasing a new album and told it will be out in November. He also showed a piece of paper saying “Son of a Plumber” to the camera, but didn’t tell more about its meaning. “I discovered that if I work under a different name, I don’t have to ’follow up’ Roxette, ’Mazarin’ or Gyllene Tider. Incredibly nice! Here’s something new; Son Of A Plumber! My dad was a plumber. I have become a debutant,” Per says.

  Originally, “Son Of A Plumber” (or Son.Of.A.Plumber) is a studio in Stockholm where some of the demos for, for instance, the “Have A Nice Day” album were recorded.

  “I’ve gotten great self confidence and a lovely boost from the last years’ huge response from the audience. I suddenly dare to trust myself and my capacity in a totally different way than before. Therefore it feels like a ’debut’!” concludes Per.

STOCKHOLM - Per was appointed “Artist of the Decade” at Metro’s “Concert of the Decade” in Globen last night. “It is a fantastic distinction, but I have had a great successful decade with Roxette, “Mazarin” and Gyllene Tider, so it’s actually right,” he says laughingly to Metro’s reporter Axel Björklund.


  Eva Dahlgren opened the show with her new single “När jag längtar” and the well-known “Ängeln i rummet” and was followed by Per and his band, who performed “Gå & fiska!” and “Juni, juli, augusti,” and joined the stage again at the end of the show with “Här kommer alla känslorna” and “Det hjärta som brinner.”

  As reported earlier by The Daily Roxette, Per has been recording various things in the past year, and he is not sure what his new project will be, he claims. It might be a “three-chord pop” album, in English, Swedish or even French, or a soundtrack “it’s one of my dreams to do a full soundtrack to a film, it could maybe be in Swedish, I don’t know,” he explains. It isn’t sure if it will be on a national or international level, or both. “I am 46 and don’t
feel so much like repeating what we did in 1989-91, when we flew 260 days a year. I’m not ready to give that much up for a new international career.”

  Whatever the new release will be, he says he’s not planning to tour in 2006, “but when you look at U2 at Ullevi, it’s all coming back to me. When one has been there, one wants to go back.”

  Yesterday’s concert featured both new and older/established artists, of which Per is more familiar with the latter. “I bump into Håkan [Hellström], The Cardigans and The Ark professionally, like this concert, Grammisgalan or Rockbjörnen. Since we do the same thing, I consider us sort of colleagues. I only know Eva [Dahlgren] privately. I have never met Darin, for instance… Maybe you meet them in the hallway and shout ’great album woohoo’ or something.”



Additional photos by Tobbe Joneby.

• Metro
• Eva Dahlgren

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Per Gessle will participate in a concert the free tabloid newspaper Metro is organizing to celebrate its 10th anniversary on September 7.

  The event, “The Concert of the Decade” as Metro not-so-humbly calls it, will take place at the Globe Arena, Stockholm, and – along with Gessle – will feature The Cardigans and Petter among others. “I thought I’d air out the band,” Per tells TDR, “Nothing big, maybe four or five songs…” TV3 will broadcast the concert the very same week.


  One thousand tickets will be given away via Metro, TV3, Rix FM and NRJ. They can be also purchased via Ticnet, regular price 250 kronor (€29), for Metro club members 125 kronor.

  Update Jul 26: Three more acts have been revealed: Eva Dahlgren, Eric Gadd and Robyn.

  Update Aug 28: Swedish TV3 will broadcast the show September 10 at 17:30 CET. Also, The Hives and Darin have been added to the bill

  Update Aug 29: The final two acts are The Ark and Håkan Hellström. Today, nine days before the concert, TicNet still shows availability “green” and you can still get tickets reserved for Metro members only. MTG (owners of Metro) has made tickets available for other MTG members as well, like Club Rix FM.

Daniel Alvedahl and Tobbe Joneby contributed to this article.

• Ticnet/BiljettDirekt
• Article in SvD (in Swedish)
• Eva Dahlgren
• Concert of the Decade

GöteborgsPosten (Gothenburg Daily) has an interview with Per Gessle today, regarding the press statement released yesterday. They have gotten some more info about the forthcoming album.

  If the project will be a solo album, a new group name or what language will finally make the cut, Per doesn’t want to go into. However, he gladly mentions the wide spread of material they have recorded. “I have recorded so many different kinds of music, a musical testament if you will. Instrumentals, westerns, horny three-chord pieces, some green country, a nine-minute bubble gum pop medley, spiced with a falsetto blues. We’ll see where we land. Everything is very spontaneous, fun and exciting,” Per says to GP.

  Per estimates that they need another 30 studio days. When the album will be released is not yet determined, however, it does seem to be followed by a tour, Gessle seems eager: “Of course it would be great to meet my possible audience again!”

• GP’s article (In Swedish)