We read it in Aftonbladet and Expressen: on Monday 19 May 2003, the single Här kommer alla känslorna [på en och samma gång], which is the first Swedish solo single by Per Gessle in 18 years has been serviced to Swedish radio stations. Radio City Stockholm had the world airplay premiere. Even though the single is only released in Sweden, it can be ordered online from almost anywhere abroad.According to Roxette Service, the single has quickly become the most frequently played ones on Swedish radio lately. All this even to Per Gessle's own surprise. Especially after most of his colleagues have had a hard time selling their music lately. It also received splendid reviews by the press. Columnist Per Bjurman from Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet already stated that Per Gessle has never been better. That this is a summer hit if he ever has heard one before. That it is the eternal pop nerd from Harplinge who has written the soundtrack of the summer. Journalist Anders Nunstedt, from Expressen, who normally isn't too fond of Per Gessle's music, even agrees that it will be THE summer tune this year.
Per Gessle comments:
I'm completely overwhelmed. This actually wasn't a summer song, but something about my voice makes anything that I sing in Swedish sounds as summer. I had not expected anything like this. There wasn't even have a recording contract for Mazarin when I started. This is an emotional insurrection toward the thinking of the business. I have just collected songs, recorded them myself and paid for them myself. Yeah, the music 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.'
The song Här kommer alla känslorna [på en och samma gång] means "Here come all the feelings (all at once)". Here are the credits:
- Produced by Clarence Öfwerman, Christoffer Lundquist and Per Gessle for Elevator Entertainment.
- Recorded by Christoffer Lundquist at The Aerosol Grey Machine, Österlén, Vollsjö, Skåne, Sweden between December 2002 and February 2003, by Mats MP Persson Tits&Ass Studio, Halmstad, Sweden between May 2002 and February 2003 (demos and most vocals) and by Ronny Lahti at Polar Studios, Stockholm, Sweden in March 2003 (strings and backing vocals).
- Mixed by Ronny Lahti, Clarence Öfwerman, Christoffer Lundquist and Per Gessle at Megaphon, Stockholm, Sweden in March and April 2003.
- Digital pitch: Magnus Börjesson at Pojkrummet, Malmö, Sweden.
- Post-production ideas and well-chosen programming: Anders Herrlin at Shortlist Analogue Studios, Stockholm, Sweden. Post-master-editing: at the Cutting Room, Solna, Sweden.
- Vocals, whistling and electric guitar solo: Per Gessle.
- Acoustic guitar: Per Gessle and Christoffer Lundquist.
- Electric bass, maracas, electric guitars, slide guitar, 1950s guitar and minimoog: Christoffer Lundquist.
- Vox Jaguar, Hammond organ and glockenspiel: Clarence Öfwerman.
- 12-string acoustic guitar solo: Mats MP Persson.
- Drums: Jens Jansson.
- Backing vocals: Christoffer Lundquist and Helena Josefsson.
Finally Gessle got his "small" band. Here we can find his old partners from Roxette (Clarence öfwerman and MP Persson and Anders Herrlin, from Gyllene Tider) and his friends from Brainpool (Chris Lundquist - now also producer - and Jens Jansson). It is the band that began rocking together in The World According to Gessle. And they enjoy it: just listen to the other song of the single, Nu är det ju juli igen, ju, an instrumental blues take-off on a traditional Swedish Christmas song. This is the style they were looking for.
The newbies this time are two musicians from Lund, Skane: Magnus Börjesson (singer and bass in the band Beagle) and Helena Josefsson (vocals and songwriter in the band Sandy Mouche). I really love Helena's backing vocals in this first single.
Right after finishing an album I listen to it a lot. And then I also listen to them a long time after they have been finished, released. I learn a lot from this process. I often realize when I put on a record which is like three years old, and I haven’t listened to it for a long time, then I realize new things in the songs which I didn’t realize before, because I was so much into the producing and working on it. “Mazarin” is a bit of retro, old style. That was the reaction to “Room service” or “Have a nice day”, where there was more like a conscious attempt to make them sound modern. I remember sitting with my wife in the kitchen, listening to “Mazarin demos” for the first time. I just played them in the background, not paying much attention, after a while we were “hm, what is this?”, next song “huh, what’s going on here?”. So from a song writing point of view it was like finding the source again, real inspirational sounds. With “Mazarin” we just allowed ourselves anything, we did what we felt like. It turned out to be a bit more retro. When you work like that everything goes faster, when you work trying to make modern music everything lasts forever. So it’s difficult to keep the feeling when you work on a song. It was a blast to record like that, more live.
It’s very good as well not to have new people coming and going. Christoffer Lundquist joined in 96, so it’s also a very long time. The band changed a lot when he joined, to the better, of course. He is an amazing guy, he can play anything. It all became fun again. He was there for “The world according to Gessle” and “Have a nice day”, but more as a musician. With “Mazarin” it was like “wow, it is fun to be in the studio again”. And has been since.
Having two producers is even more fun. Per Gessle has always been very much involved in the albums. Even though, he wasn’t in the studio the whole time in the early days. It was me and Anders Herrlin or Alar Suurna who sat there the whole time, with the musicians. Per and Marie went out of the studio, did some shopping, you know, some time off, then came back.
Now it is very hard to say who has done what but it doesn’t matter. It’s just team work. It’s easier with many people, of course, if they are easy to work with. If you struggle all the time then it gets complicated. And we have kind of the same ideas, me and Christoffer have the same roots, even if he is younger. We both like prog rock, which Per hates. So we agree in many things, we try different directions but then don’t always tell Per what it sounds like, even though we both know, because then he would scrap the idea immediately.
Having two producers is even more fun. Per Gessle has always been very much involved in the albums. Even though, he wasn’t in the studio the whole time in the early days. It was me and Anders Herrlin or Alar Suurna who sat there the whole time, with the musicians. Per and Marie went out of the studio, did some shopping, you know, some time off, then came back.
Now it is very hard to say who has done what but it doesn’t matter. It’s just team work. It’s easier with many people, of course, if they are easy to work with. If you struggle all the time then it gets complicated. And we have kind of the same ideas, me and Christoffer have the same roots, even if he is younger. We both like prog rock, which Per hates. So we agree in many things, we try different directions but then don’t always tell Per what it sounds like, even though we both know, because then he would scrap the idea immediately.
1 comment:
We took Christoffer Lundquist's and Clarence Öfwerman's words from two marvelous interviews in roxetteblog.com (December, 2009). Thank you, Judith and Kirsten.
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