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Heartland Cafe

My first solo album, ”Per Gessle”, came out in 1983, while the rest of the band crawled around in the mud at I16 in Halmstad. Gyllene Tider was almost in hibernation. Rehearsals were very sporadic, we almost didn’t hang out at all, we were very sick of each other after many intense years. We had a meeting where we discussed the future. Either we quit with flying colors or we do something totally different. We had succeeded in getting a few contacts at Capitol Records in Los Angeles and knew that they were interested if we recorded some material in English.
We decided to try it internationally. Our Swedish record company wasn’t too excited but realized at the same time that it was the only thing that felt right. We had to get motivated again.
Through Mats’ parents we managed to find a house outside of Halmstad which we could convert into a primitive but able studio and rehearsal place. We started to write songs and also tried others, like “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” and “Rock On”. In July we felt ready to hit the studio in Stockholm seriously. We recorded 16 songs from which 11 made the album. Some where cut for different reasons. “Kiss From a Stranger” is probably the best of them, with Mats on pedal steel guitar and Lindbom, Stromstedt and Bark in the choir. I wrote “Young Girl” for my old favorites Hep Stars (who I’d met in Falkenberg) as a matter of fact, but we took it ourselves and put it on the “Teaser Japanese” b-side. “Anytime” was a mere trifle Mats and I put together acoustically. It ended eventually up on Kjell’s compilation album “Hi Fidelity”. “Mr. Twilight” and “Rock On” were no way near making the album but was fun to record. Reg Ward played the saxophone on “Mr. Twilight” by the way.
We talked a lot, before the recording began, about this LP that it would be synthesizer oriented and “international”, but somehow nothing much happened with that in the studio. We were too cowardly and too scared and fell back into our old grooves. For better and for worse.

The album was finished just before Christmas ’83. Everyone agreed that “Teaser Japanese” was the right single to top all the charts in the world, and we would do a video for the first time ever. Rickard Petrelius was the man to direct and he built a perfect Japanese bar with hand painted Japanese signs. He rented a hangar at Bromma Airport where we shot the street scenes. It took three weeks to build everything. He must have lost a fortune because the budget was for SEK 250,000 and that can’t even have covered half…

The video turned out pretty cool though, but it felt like song wasn’t good enough. In Sweden it was yet another hit, it sold 20,000 which was rather unexpected since we had switched language and much of Gyllene Tider’s identity was in the lyrics.
“The Heartland Cafe” was released in February, I think. It was received with mixed emotions.
Sales wise it ended fairly quickly and stopped at 45,000 copies. No record company abroad wanted to have anything to do with it (to our great disappointment) except for Capitol in the US who released it as a mini-LP (6 songs) but nothing happened. I think it sold 8,000 copies or so… oh that’s right, we couldn’t call ourselves Gyllene Tider abroad so we got us an “international” name. “Roxette” (from Dr. Feelgoods eminent song). I remember what a kick it was to find us in our own slot (in front of Roxy Music) at Tower Records in L.A.!

We where kind of skeptical to take this album on tour, but realized pretty soon that it was a must. We brought Janne Bark on guitar and two girls for the back up choir, Ulrika Uhlin and Majsan Fredriksson. That was fun! Some gigs, for instance the one at Wa-Waco in Halmstad, were among the best ones we ever had done.
Like I said, the album died soon enough and the international career died before it even started. Problems arose. Anders wanted to move to Stockholm, I wanted to make another Swedish soloalbum, money was getting short for everyone (except for Micke who doesn’t smoke, drink or buy anything…). Almost a year went by and nothing really happened, we talked a little about recording a new album eventually, we recorded “Galning” in the Getinge Studio for instance, (it ended up on my second solo-LP “Scener”, but in general we were rather low. At the same time as “Scener” was relesed we decided to put Gyllene Tider to rest… until further notice…