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

HALMSTAD - As reported some weeks ago, the “Join the Flumeride” DVD is now out in the stores in Sweden. The DVD can be purchased in two stores in Halmstad as well as via Internet at the “Join The Flumeride” web site.

  The web site describes the movie: “Join The Flumeride is the true story about Gula Tidningen and Pincette. A colorful musical journey through USA no 1s, barré chords and spectacular hairstyles. This movie is full of songs - all of them are hits!”

• Join the Flumeride

HALMSTAD - The long awaited “Finn 5 fel” is out in the stores in Sweden today. Together with the release of the album, Gyllene Tider wanted to surprise their fans with a nicely updated website.


  Besides the already existing latest news, ringtones and forum, a discography, a list of all GT concerts since 1978 and downloads section - among other things - are now awaiting for your visit. “Our ambition has been to make a site that everyone will like. We’ve checked around the Web to see what people seem to want,” says the Admin of gt.se. Enjoy!

• Official Gyllene Tider website

STOCKHOLM - Gyllene Tider’s first album in 20 years, “Finn 5 fel”, was released yesterday in Norway, and will be released in Sweden tomorrow. Per Gessle and Micke “Syd” Andersson met with the press last Friday to listen through the album and comment on the songs. Some of the comments we recognize from Gyllene Tider’s own site.

  Tomorrow morning Gyllene Tider.se will morph into its final shape.




1. En sten vid en sjö i en skog

Micke: It’s fun because Per has played a lot of guitar on this album, and here he plays the guitar solo.

Per: Yes, they are nice to me in this band… The song was written up in Stockholm October 2003 after we had decided to try to cut another album with Gyllene Tider.




2. Solsken

Per: It came to a very late and wet night. I found one of those dictaphones with a lot of old song embryos on. I played it to the producers Clarence and Christoffer who liked it. I wrote the lyrics the day after.

Micke: The best song, absolutely. This you should play in your car along the coastal highway down in Halmstad with a cute girl next to you… You should play it when everything is great. I get a smile on my face when I hear it.




3. Tuffa tider (för en drömmare)

Per: I went to a music store to get a ukulele, because I’d heard that George Harrison always traveled with one. I bought two and got one for free so I left the store with three ukuleles. I sat down trying to learn how to play it and realized you tune it as a violin and so I wrote “Tuffa tider”. The others wanted to turn it into a reggae so I left the room! But it turned out as a reggae finally and I guess it’s fine.

Micke: There’s a melancholy sound to it, but it’s special. When a friend of mine heard it he thought “what a fun song” but after a while he heard that it actually has sad lyrics.




4. Ordinärt mirakel

Per: I don’t quite remember how this song came to me, we tried it out anyways, and it became a nice and pretty song. Anders plays a horrifying great bass on this song.




5. Ta mej… nu är jag din!

Per: We were listening to a live album by The Who and heard that riff in “Summertime Blues”, then this song came alive. It felt like something we’ve never done before.




6. Jag borde förstås vetat bättre

Per: This is sad, it’s about a guy who still is hoping… this song is one of my favorites.

Micke: There’s a bridge there that is the best we’ve ever done… it’s a waltz beat and Fritzon who isn’t a pro was totally unstoppable on the piano! He didn’t need a long time before he was going.




7. Du måste skämta

Per: Was written during my vacation in Mauritius this January. I always travel with a guitar and some simple recording equipment. The original demo was made on the plane though, in my cell phone. I still have that version…

• Gyllene Tider.se (In Swedish)

Read more…

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Yesterday, Saturday June 5, Gyllene Tider’s new album “Finn 5 Fel” was leaked to the Internet. All the songs are there, and in good quality. The Daily Roxette suspects that a journalist has ripped his evaluation CD.


  Update: Aftonbladet has contacted Göran Fritzon and Micke “Syd” Andersson about this matter. Göran believes it has been somebody from the media who has leaked the whole album as “only reporters and reviewers have gotten the album.” Last week Gyllene Tider gave away copies of the album to reporters for them to review. “Then we knew that it wouldn’t take long [until the songs reached the Internet]. But it’s still sad,” comments Göran to Aftonbladet’s Fredrik Svedjetun.


  “You can figure out with your ass what we think about this,” comments Micke “Syd” to Aftonbladet, “it’s sad that such a problem exists, but there’s not much we can do about it.”

• Article in Aftonbladet

HALMSTAD - The Gyllene Tider 25th anniversary exhibition “Återblickar - Gyllene Tider 25 år” opens its doors to the public today.


  The official vernissage took place yesterday afternoon. Already when arriving to Halmstad, visitors got a pretty good idea that Gyllene Tider was in town. Everywhere one could find road signs saying “Gyllene Tider.” By
following those signs, one ended up in front of the museum. The huge poster on one wall left no doubt that it was the right place.


  All five band members as well as Per’s family and Marie Dimberg showed up for the opening of the exhibition. After the approximately 100 guests were gathered the exhibition
was inaugurated by local politicians. After these formalities, the guests were invited to wander around freely. Gyllene Tider mingled with the crowd as well and seemed to enjoy it as much as everyone else.


  Since an image tells more than words, please follow the link below to see a collection of pictures from the opening.

• Pictures from the vernissage

STOCKHOLM - According to Aftonbladet, Gyllene Tider will release a tour DVD in the fall. Many of the concerts will be filmed, because in those concerts the scene features large video screens to allow everyone in the audience see what’s happening on the stage. Per says a tour DVD is a certainty. “We don’t yet know what will be included. A lot of concert material, maybe a little backstage also. We’ll make it as good as possible,” says Per to Aftonbladet.

  It has been reported that Gyllene Tider’s earlier tour documentaries “Parkliv” (1981) and “Återtåget” (1996) are also planned to be released on DVD this year.

• Aftonbladet article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - A grand piano currently owned by Per Gessle is going to be auctioned later this month by Lilla Bukowskis Auctions. The instrument is manufactured by Steinway in 1896-97. Per bought it seven years ago.

  “Since then it has been in my studio in Stockholm and been the mother to all the material I’ve written between 1997 and 2004,” writes Per in a letter attached in the auction.

  The starting bid is 50,000 SEK (€5,470). It is believed that the price will go higher than that.

• Per’s grand piano in Lilla Bukowskis catalogue
• Expressen article (in Swedish)

HALMSTAD (UPDATED) - Gyllene Tider will be in a television studio early tomorrow when their new video for “Tuffa tider/En sten vid en sjö i en skog” will have its premiere on Swedish Television 1 “SVT Morgon” at 06:45 CET. Informed sources tell The Daily Roxette that this video will be “something out of the ordinary!”


  The video will also be available on Gyllene Tider’s official website beginning at 10:00 CET. Additionally, it’s likely that SVT Morgon will show the Gyllene Tider interview segment as the “Dagen’s Video” on their site. If so, it will be posted by 11:00 CET.


  Xarrrr contributed to this article

• Gyllene Tider website
• SVT Morgon (In Swedish, but “Dagens Video” is expected to be the GT segment)

OSLO - The Norwegian newspaper Aftonposten reports today about Gyllene Tider’s success – that has also reached Norway.


  Per explains to Aftonposten’s reporter Knut Utler about the day he bought the ukulele and later composed “Tuffa tider.” He wanted to buy a guitarstring and had company with a journalist. When he was there he saw a nice ukulele and just bought it straight away. The journalist also bought one. The store keeper liked this so much, that he gave Per another one as a gift. “I got home with three ukuleles,” laughs Per.


  He also got a book to learn to play the ukulele, “but I think the best way to learn to play a new instrument is to write a new song with it,” he tells Aftonposten, “and ’Tuffa tider’ was born.”


  Some of the songs on “Finn fem fel” are shorter than two minutes “so short that people will want to play them again and again,” says Per. He thinks that one of the mistakes that artists do nowadays is that they release long-lasting albums. “68-minute long albums is only craziness,” he states.


  Per also revealed that Gyllene Tider may play in Norway in the beginning of August.


  “And what is up with Roxette?” Utler wondered. Per explains that he is “eager and willing” but nothing will happen until Marie says she is ready. “Besides that, she is still under treatment and is also working with a soloalbum, which is to be released during the fall.”


  Ketil contributed to this article

• Aftenposten (In Norwegian)