STOCKHOLM - Swedish phone operator Comviq/Tele2 offers their customers to go to select Gessle concerts for half price if you SMS a certain code to them. You can see more information on their site (see the link below).

  On a sidenote, Capitol Records Sweden told TDR today that the “Mazarin” DVD production has been upped to 9,000 copies due to demand.

• Comviq/Tele2’s offer (For Swedes only)

TYLÖSAND - Norra Västerbotten newspaper publishes today an interview lead by the journalist Mikael Forsell, where Per explains, among other things, that he is not the “summer type.”

Gessle’s music has been, during the past 25 years, a soundtrack to the Swedish summer. Everything from “Sommartider” and “Gå & fiska!” with Gyllene Tider to his new album “Mazarin”. “I don’t know what it is about. I have tried to develop my music style, but it ends up with the fact that I can’t. I sound as I sound,” he states with a smile.


 Per is a synonymous to summer and especially Tylösand and Halmstad where he co-owns a hotel with the nice Laholm bay in the background. An inspiration? “I have never been the summer type. Actually I have never bathed here at Tylösand…” he says surprising the reporter, and goes on explaining “I was over there,” he says pointing some kilometers to the right to the beach called Frösakull, “my dad and mom had a summer house there, which was sold when I was born. But my dad and grandad have laid all the plumbing there.”
  “Then when the Gyllene thing happened one couldn’t be here. It was a myth crushed,” he laughs.


  Gessle has written many of the most loved melodies about the Swedish summer. His last album “Mazarin” was released just at the right time for Midsummer and it went directly to the top of the pre-order charts. The first single “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)” was embraced as the perfect summer of 2003-song - even though it is clearly mentioned in the lyrics that the story takes place during winter.

• Norra Västerbotten’s article (in Swedish)

Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Per has caught a bad case of bronchitis, due to the cold and wet midsummer in Halmstad, according to a report published in Aftonbladet today.

  “I sound like Louis Armstrong, it’s really troublesome. If I can’t sing, what do I do?” says a worried Per, who is scheduled to perform tonight on the live TV show “Allsång på Skansen.”

  Whether he will perform his two songs together with his band “Mazarinerna” or not, no one knows yet. “The doctor said that this must heal itself and that the only thing that helps is a good dose of rest,” Per tells Aftonbladet.

  The show’s producer, Meta Bergkvist, says they don’t have a contingency plan. “We’ll see tomorrow” (read: today). “If he’s not better then, we’ll have to solve it somehow,” she says.

• Aftonbladet’s story (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Today the tickets for Per Gessle’s summer tour went on sale at Ticnet/Biljett Direkt. Already early in the morning three of the positions of Ticnet’s “Top 5” were taken by Gessle and, at the moment, four of the five positions are taken by Per. In addition, Halmstad’s concert has already been sold out.


  The other shows that are selling the most are Stockholm, Göteborg and Helsingborg. None of which are over 90% booked yet, according to TicNet’s system.

  Editor’s note: Tickets that aren’t picked up in time (within three days) go back into the system to be sold again.

• TicNet

HELSINKI - The international free newspaper Metro published a big Per Gessle interview in its Helsinki edition last week. Per’s album was released in Finland on the same day as in Sweden, so the topic is relevant. Per tells in the interview that the album was made just for fun.

  “It’s a personal record and made by my own terms,” he says. “I didn’t want the record company to mess up things. I’m tired of everything being so planned ahead. Everything is so narrow and adjusted in music business, especially internationally.”

  “I unsubscribed from the music magazines and stopped reading charts a couple of years ago. There was too much music I didn’t like,” Per says. “Actually, I follow the F1 season more than music business.”

  If you look back on your career as an artist, are you surprised how well you’ve done?

  “That’s something I haven’t been asked before. I think I am. At the same time, I think I am good at writing songs. That’s my main operations. If I compare Roxette’s success to its competitors, I think Roxette’s place in rock history is definitely well-deserved.”

  So, what’s a typical Per Gessle song?

  “At its best it’s short. I believe that if people like the song it will be played again. 2.39 - that’s a fantastic length for a pop track.”

  You have fought against music piracy. Aren’t CDs too expensive?

  “In my opinion it’s wrong if a whole generation is raised to believe that music is free. If you don’t pay the musicians, the music gets poorer. And if you compare the prices to the ones I pay for my son’s computer games, CDs aren’t that expensive.”

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - After the huge success with the album “Mazarin” we can hereby confirm the dates of Per Gessle’s tour. The album has reached platinum (60,000 copies) in record breaking time by selling in excess of 60,000 copies so far.

  Here are the confirmed tour dates:




July 29, Halmstad, Brottet - Sold out

July 30, Helsingborg, Sofiero Slott


August 1, Skövde, Boulognersskogen

August 2, Finspång, Rockslottet

August 3, Varberg, Fästningsrundan

August 5, Malmö, Mölleplatsen

August 6, Gothenburg, Trädgårdsföreningen

August 8, Kalmar, Kalmarsundsparken

August 9, Jönköping, Rådhusparken

August 10, Karlskrona, Sparregården

August 12, Stockholm, Sjöhistoriska Muséet

August 14, Sundsvall, Park Arena

August 15, Leksand, Sammilsdal

August 16, Karlstad, Mariebergsskogen

August 17, Eskilstuna, Sundbyholms Slott



 Tickets are 275 kronor (€30, $35) plus a service charge. Tickets are released Monday June 23 and are sold via BiljettDirekt/TicNet (0771-707070) and local ticket agencies.

  The tickets to the Sundsvall gig are more expensive (307-357 kronor) and impossible to get via ATG for some reason. One may have them send the tickets via registered mail though.


 Per Gessle’s tour is sponsored by AJProdukter.

• TicNet
• AJProdukter (In Swedish)
• EMA Telstar

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 - 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

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 a few weeks Per Gessle’s new album “Mazarin” is out. At the same time he debuts as a movie director. “I’ve made a DVD-movie called ’En mazarin blir till’ (The making of a mazarin). I’ve shot it myself and edited it in my computer,” Per Gessle tells Aftonbladet. The DVD is included with 5,000 copies of the album. “It’s rather than good, but you can see how much fun we had. The film radiates a hysterical feeling of happiness.”

  The new single “Här kommer alla känslorna” has started a movement in Sweden to get Gessle on tour. It has quickly become the most played song by the Swedish radio stations.

  The commotion surprises Gessle. “I didn’t expect anything like this. I didn’t even have a record deal when I started on “Mazarin”. This is an emotional insurrection toward the thinking of the business. I’ve just collected songs, recorded them myself and paid myself,” Per says in Aftonbladet.

  Per’s colleagues, like Mauro Scocco, Eva Dahlgren/Buddaboys and GES have had a hard year selling albums Aftonbladet claims. “Yeah the recording industry is in a deep crisis. But nothing like that is on my mind. I haven’t had to please anyone. I can bomb majorly and it’s OK. That way a whole new world opens up. You get more honest and spontaneous,” Per comments.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)
• Do you want to see Per on tour?

Read more…