LONDON - A songwriter went to court on Tuesday claiming Swedish pop group Roxette stole one of his songs, robbing him of potential earnings and causing him “seven years of emotional trauma”.

  Stephan Malmstedt, a Swede living in London, told Britain’s High Court his compatriot Per Gessle, Roxette’s songwriter, copied the tune of the band’s 1994 hit “Sleeping in my Car” from one of his own songs, “Jenny and I”. He appeared in court without a lawyer, and cross-examined Per Gessle himself.

  Malmstedt says he sent a copy of “Jenny and I” to Roxette’s record label EMI in 1991 and that it must have found its way into Gessle’s hands.

  Gessle, who formed Roxette with fellow Swede Marie Fredriksson in the mid-1980s, denies the charges.

  The judge was treated to recordings of both songs in the normally austere courtroom in central London.

  The case continues.

LONDON - Per Gessle is once again accused of stealing ”Sleeping in My Car”. Stephan Malmstedt wrote the song ”Jenny and I” and sent the demo to EMI. When he heard ”Sleeping in My Car” on the radio, he believed that Gessle had stolen his song.

  Malmstedt has already taken the matter to court in Sweden twice. STIM thought there were some similarities but that it wasn’t enough so the complaint was rejected.
Now Malmstedt has moved to England and he will take the case to the High Court of Justice. “If I didn’t think I had a chance at winning, I wouldn’t bother,” he said.

  Gessle says through his manager Marie Dimberg that he’s not worried.

  “There’s really nothing more to say. The song has already been checked twice and both times it was rejected. I assume that the same thing will happen this time,” Dimberg said.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle has written a song for the well-known Swedish singer and actor Peter Jöback, that will be included on his upcoming Swedish-language Christmas album.

  The album, “Jag Kommer Hem Igen till Jul” (English translation: “I’m Coming Home Again for Christmas”), will have a mix of 13 classic and new songs, one of which is a Gessle-penned ballad. Jöback will release the album on November 11th.

  “I’ve had this idea about a Christmas album for several years. But now I really felt it was the moment to release it, says Peter to Aftonbladet.

  Jöback, who is involved with Per in at least one business venture (Fame Studios) and has the same manager (Marie Dimberg, d&d), has starred in the London productions of “Miss Saigon” and “The Witches of Eastwick.” In Sweden, he had a leading role in the extremely successful “Kristina från Duvemala,” which was written by Benny and Björn from ABBA. More recently, Peter lent his voice to the title character in the Swedish release of the two “Stuart Little” films.

  The album is produced by Lars Halapi, who has previously served as producer for other Swedish artists such as Ulf Lundell and Sophie Zelmani.


Photo by Ulf Magnusson, courtesy Sony Music [click to enlarge]. (Agustina contributed to this article.)

• Peter Jöback Official Website (In English and Swedish)
• Aftonbladet’s article

STOCKHOLM - Making an appearance on the RixFM “Morning Zoo” radio program, Per Gessle faced the inevitable question: “You’re alone today. Usually you’re two. We must ask about Marie.”

  “I met Marie the day before yesterday,” Per replied, “and Marie feels completely OK, with some pain of course, but completely OK.” Per went on to say she is both strong and positive.

  When asked if there was anything missing in his life, Per mentioned that perhaps he would like to have another child.

  Other topics touched upon in the interview segments included cars and driving, coffee rolls (it is, after all, an early morning program), the Oktoberfest going on in Halmstad (Per’s hometown in Sweden), his art gallery at the Tylösand Hotel and Björn and Benny (from ABBA).
  The on-air personalities at Rix said they would “hold their thumbs” (the Swedish equivilant of “cross our fingers”) for the new record and for Marie, of course.

(David Nuñez [royalball] contributed to this article).

STOCKHOLM - Dagens Industri, a Swedish newspaper that focuses on financial news, has recently mapped Per’s business empire. DI claims he’s good for half a billion Swedish crowns (almost 54 million USD).

  In one interesting item, Per is quoted as saying “Today I own the rights to all my songs but one.” That ’one’, TDR has learned, is “From One Heart to Another.” It’s owned by Sweden Music.

  Here’s an overview of his various enterprises:

• Roxette - self explanatory. Sold more than 55 million records.
• Music publishing - Owns the rights to GT’s and Roxette’s material, plus the works of many other successful Swedish songwriters.
• Artist consulting - Owns 8 percent of Desert Business Management in Örebro and 38 percent of d&d Management.
• Hotel - Owns 40 percent of Hotel Tylösand, plus 1/3 of art gallery Tres Hombres, with one of Sweden’s largest art collections including, among others, Ernst Billgren, Peter Dahl and Anton Corbijn.
• Financial investments focusing on IT/Music - This is where many of Per’s more or less failed attempts to connect music with IT are. He recently took over the company Noteheads together with Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA.

  Examples of other businesses Per owns (at least in part): Roxette Productions, Roxette US Inc., Roxette Recordings, Gessle Music, Gessle Records, Hidden Dinosaur (computer games), Fame Studios (Internet consultants), People’s Front (Internet consultants), Tom Bone (Music publishing), and Jimmy Fun (Music publishing).

  Gessle declined to comment on his businesses. “Right now I’m on my way to the studio to record two new Roxette-demos… now that is real fun!”

STOCKHOLM - The Daily Roxette received this message from Per today, who asked us to share it with our readers:



Dear friends,

  On behalf of Marie and myself I would like to thank everyone for thinking/praying/writing/e-mailing good and positive thoughts regarding her illness.

  As you know, what happened Sept 11 (that day again!!) took us by complete surprise and last week has been tumultuous for us all to say the least.

  As I’m writing this, we don’t really know what’s going to happen with the Night of the Proms tour. We do know that the single/video “A thing about you” and the album “The Ballad Hits” will be released as planned worldwide and our ambition is still to promote and take part of that process as much as possible.

  Once again, thanks for your support and let’s keep our fingers crossed things will turn out for the best for Marie and her family.

  Hope to see y’all very soon.



Per G., Stockholm

Sep 19, 2002

HALMSTAD - Roxette is coming out soon with two compilation albums, but Per Gessle is thinking of releasing a solo album too.

  “I would like to do something in Swedish again, I havent done it for a while. There´s something ’cooking’ - something getting ready,” he said in an interview published in Swedish newspapers today.

  The article states that Gessle has worked hard this summer. He has worked a lot in the studio, to write songs and record them - not only for Roxette, but also for other artists and himself.

  “I have written for both Swedish and foreign artists. I can´t say anything else now, but I think you will hear them soon, ” he said with a laugh.

  Some years ago he released a solo album in English, the report continues, but this time he wants to write it in Swedish, and release it in Sweden.

  “I’m a bit tired of all the German TV shows,” as he expresses it.

  Musically, the album should sound like “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” his version of the Ramones classic for the tribute album that was released some months ago.

  “It´s a great style of mine and I would like to go on working with it with a small band. Some of the songs I have written for Roxette are in that style. Power pop like ’Sleeping in My Car,’ but a bit more ’alive’ or ’pushing.’

  “The record company was nagging about a compilation album. We have so many songs and have been aroud for so long that we thought it would be nice to
separate the slow from the fast songs,” explains Gessle.

  “I have written so many songs, and if we had
thought about it - organised it a bit - we could have really released a new album instead.

  “I think it’s funny, since in the pop business there are many artists who come and go. It´s proof of a kind of ’substance’ to be able to do such an album and
besides be able to divide the two albums. It’s more like knocking on the door to say ’Hello, don’t forget that we’re still here.’”

• Metro article (In Swedish - PDF format - see page 17)
• Hallandsposten article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle’s recording of “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” for the Ramones tribute album will be released as a commercial single in Scandinavia on May 27 and to the rest of Europe on June 10.

  The vinyl 7” and the CD-single will include Per’s version of “Sheena Is A Punkrocker” and the 12” vinyl will have yet another track; Per’s version of “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment”.

  Per has just returned from Antwerp where he checked out a special performance of Night of The Proms.

According to Official Roxette Fanclub’s roxettenews.com, Per’s Ramones cover “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” will be released as a single. No further details, such as release countries or dates, were given yet.

  Roxettenews.com also offers a 30-second snippet of the song.

Per Gessle will perform his cover of the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” on the April 20th installment of the Swedish television program “Bingolotto.” The song is Per’s contribution to the Ramones CD tribute album “The Song Ramones the Same” - due out on April 15th. The show is broadcast on TV4.