EP18: Pelle Lidell - Skateboarders, Seoul, & Music Syncs from Sweden.

Welcome to episode eighteen of the Europe In Synch podcast.

This time we are talking with a bona fide legend of the music publishing world, Pelle Lidell.

From a jazz‑kid turned punk drummer to a trusted A&R and publishing exec, Stockholm born & bred, Pelle tells a story driven by instinct, service, and an unshakeable belief that the song is king. From early signings - like Millencolin, whose skate‑punk energy became a sync magnet - to a gutsy bet on seasoned pop writer Paul Rein that delivered Christina Aguilera’s “Come On Over Baby” to No.1, we follow Pelle's view that the power of songwriting transcends trends.

The journey widens as Pelle co‑founds Merlin, builds a wildly successful catalogue from scratch, then spends 11 years at Universal Publishing delivering lightning‑fast placements, including back‑to‑back American Idol winners. Then comes a significant turn: a call from SM Entertainment and a crash course in K‑pop economics at a time before most of the West were paying attention to the sky-high potential of the genre. He breaks down differences in writing with K-Pop in mind—song over status, being choreography‑aware, melody that survives translation—and how launching Ekko Music Rights with SM brought teams like Cassiopeia and Moonshine into place to help fuel the global K‑pop wave.

We find out what great sync managers do, about maximising briefs, and the importance of songwriting camps to generate successful placements. Pelle is candid about the hardest part of today’s business—the collapse of mechanicals, streaming’s thin payouts for writers, and the sometimes messy politics of writing splits and credit claims. His personal outlook is simple: fairness in the room, generosity when it’s earned, and a relentless standard for quality so every pitch keeps doors open. 

Through it all, Pelle's love of the songwriting craft is obvious and infectious and his passion for the art of A&R remains as strong as the day he started.

We recorded this conversation at the Scandic Malmen hotel in Stockholm on Tuesday 6th August 2024.

We hope you enjoy the episode and thank you for listening!

Find out more about our guest:

Instagram: Pelle Lidell

If you have comments about this episode - or have questions, ideas, requests, recommendations, or general feedback, feel free to contact us at feedback@europeinsynch.net.

Europe In Synch is created, managed, promoted, and driven by several European organizations and companies and is a truly cross-border collaboration.
The goals are to bring together professionals from the music sector with decision-makers from film & advertising to provide a real-life, hands-on, learning experience, and to promote European music in the complex field of synchronization, through communication, knowledge-building and networking via focused mentoring and peer training sessions.

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Intro/Outro music is an instrumental edit of "Gimme" by Daffodils.
They're on Soundcloud.

Europe In Synch is co-funded by the European Commission.

This podcast is a SuperSwell production.

Transcript

Meet Pelle Lidell

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Welcome to the Europe in Sync podcast. I've popped over to Stockholm to talk to a bona fide legend from the publishing world, a man with thousands of successfully placed songs and hundreds of millions of record sales worldwide. It's Pele Liddell.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hi, thank you for having me. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Let's fast track past your own beginnings as a musician. I know you're a much sought-after drummer in local acts, and you're a musician through your teens and into your twenties, to the point where you had international label deals and tours, national and international. So let's cut from you being a great drummer to the point where you got into the publishing business. Yeah. I'm guessing that working at that level in a band, you got to see some of the ins and outs of the way labels work, touring works, publishing works. Right. Did you pick up a lot of tips? Was that the reason why you started to think about getting a job in the industry rather than as a musician?

From stage to A&R

Early signings and breakout wins

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Absolutely. To start with, as a musician, I was lucky to have a manager here in Stockholm called Tuna Ulofson, and he was the guy who brought simple minds, the police, the cure, skids, tooth and metals, etc. etc. Very, very early on at his clubs here in Stockholm. So I got to meet a lot of English managers, road managers, the bands, crew, and I just tried to memorize everything. It's like this is the environment I want to be in. There's nothing else in the world. And when I moved to England, I met a guy, Brian Rowling, who later on formed Metrophonic, became a very successful producer. He was acting as an AR guy for a small publishing company in the UK called Strado, which I was signed to. And we discussed a lot of music. And he said, Man, you should be an AR guy. You know as much about music as I do. And you speak the language to musicians, and you're a musician yourself. And that sort of stuck with me. And when I moved to LA, I met an AR guy at EMI Records, really, really nice dude. He said the same thing. You should be an AR guy. That would be a great career for you. And I'm like, all right. And when I moved back to Sweden, I applied for an AR gig at Air Chrysalis. And the managing director there, Lars Wigman, was very well known in the business as a gentleman, a veteran. He knows publishing. So I thought if I can get a gig with him, I will learn quickly and I will have the best teacher. And luckily I got the gig. And for some reason, I don't know, he believed in me and I gave me more or less free hands. So I started signing. And at the time there was a huge variety of music in Stockholm. Anything from, you know, the indie bands, pop bands, writers, producers, you know, indie pop was competing with Euro Dance. And I thought, wow, there's great music on both sides. I want to try and sign the best from both worlds. And I signed this band called Millen Collin that went on to sell millions. A local band from Uribru in mid-Sweden, skate punk. And I thought they were amazing. Great band, great songs, lyrics were really fun. And we really didn't realize what kind of monster we signed because in the world at the time there was a huge explosion of skateboarding, wakeboarding, surfboarding, snowboarding, anything with a board. Every commercial or film wanted a Milan Collin song. So small in the publisher in Sweden, and we were crushing it. So we were signing off sinks, like you were popping corn. I've never seen anything like it. And then this other band came along, weeping willows, fantastic, and suddenly there was a huge demand for their music internationally, not just locally. I think I grew with this, getting to know more people around Europe and in the US. And then I signed a guy called Paul Rain, who was a former 80s bad hair dude, synthesizer pop kind of guy, cash a google type, you know. And I remember him as such. And he called me and said, Hey, I got a few pop songs I written, you know, and I was wondering if you want to listen to it. I have to admit, I was very prejudiced, you know, half an hour, what can I lose? And he came in and blew me away. And I signed him. I had phone calls, and I won't tell you who, but very well respected people in the business laughing at me, basically saying, Are you out of your effing mind? Six months later, he was number one with Christina Aguilera, come on over, All I Want Is You. Four weeks number one, Bill Wartz, four million singles worldwide, 13 million albums on a debut. And I can't say I saw that coming when I signed him. That would be a lie. You mentioned Millencolin.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

I get the feeling that's probably a bit more your musical taste. You understood it, you didn't have to work too hard to know what you should do with it.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah, I mean, I was a jazz guy who went into the punk world at 15. So I could play. But I listened equally as much to Moldown and Stax, classic, Rocksteady and scar, great melodic music as to guitar-driven noise. And I listened depending on the mood I was in. And I always loved pop as much as I love Queens of the Stone Age or a similar band. With Mill and Colin, I felt they had both. You know, they had great pop songs. And mind you, bands like Green Day, they hadn't broken the market yet. So I actually felt ahead of the game. And given the amount of tickets they sold on the tours in the US, I felt like we got something going here. With Paul, it was just perfect, perfect pop songs for that era. What Max Martin and Dennis Pop already had done. The demos were more or less masters. I actually feel that the demos still sound better than the final version with Christina Aguilera. So it was a no-brainer for me. And I mean, I've been naive in other situations, you know, signing, but I don't think I was with Paul. I was very much convinced, and I couldn't care less about what other people had to say about it. I wasn't cool enough or credible enough, you know. F that. So I was happy that I could compete in that world as well. And that led to signing Anders Bagger, who later on became writer-producer for Madonna, Celindion, Janet Jackson, J Lo, etc. And after five and a half years at Chrysler's, I was appointed deputy MD and head of AR. Loved every minute of Chrysler's and also the Chrysalis people in London with Jeremy Lesels and Steve Lewis, Cheryl Robson, Steve Sass, and those guys. I tipped my hat to all of those. They treated me beautifully, and I made a lot of friends there. But Baggy had started a company and wanted me in as a partner, and that was Merlin. To build a publishing catalogue that I would be co-owner of.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

So you you moved from Chrysalis and formed Merlin's a partnership.

Pop instincts and credibility myths

SPEAKER_00 7:52

That was the hardest conversation I ever had in my life to walk into Lars and say, Lars, I'm leaving. And he was like shocked. And I said, I'm loving it here. But I'm actually being given a shot to be my own businessman. And knowing where I came from, etc., that was a dream coming true. He was totally cool about it, and we've remained friends since 1994. We're still very much good friends. So Merlin, we started signing young writers and producers and Bloodshine Avant. You know, they wrote and produced Toxic for Britney Spears and wrote and produced for Sugar Babes, Madonna, before becoming Mike Snow, and later on Miguelantis. A great run, six years there, where we build a catalogue from scratch. And at Merlin, we decided to go with Universal Publishing UK for a worldwide sub-publishing deal. And it turned out to be the right move. They were extremely supportive. And then I started commuting to London. But to cut a long story short, after six years with Merlin, we had a fallout. One guy wanted to move in that direction, the other one wanted to move in that direction. So I decided, you know what, I'll sell my shares and move on. And I thought I'm going to take six months off now. And 24 hours later I had signed on as European AR executive at Universal Publishing UK. And I thought I'd give it three years. And I stayed for 11 years. I felt that Universal were really good with bands and artists, not as good with songwriters, producers. But we had a lot of good ones that I signed to the Swedish office, Trinity were one of them. And I had two American Idol winning songs, 2005 and 6, with Pelen Island and a Norwegian writer called Hanna Servok. And I realized that she's a hell of a mainstream pop writer. So I said, Do you want to do a deal with me? I'm going to do my best to put you on the map. And three months later, she was like, I'm number one in the US. And that was just luck. I mean, I was pitching songs to American Idols and God knows how many songs they get. But the first one found its way to Simon Fuller, a big ballad called Inside Your Heaven. And they decided this is the winning song for American Idols. I had been at Universal for three months. And I was like, yes. So it was a fun time. But you could you also feel the change because the market was being hit by you know a post-napster. Streaming was a word. Spotify hadn't really started yet, but they were about to. And then in 2007, I get a phone call from a Korean guy called Chris Lee from SM Entertainment in Korea. I'm coming to Sweden and I would love to have a meeting with you. And I'm like, yeah, sure. And then he gave me a rundown on what K-pop is. And I was like, you're kidding me? I had no clue. And when I realized the numbers that the Koreans were selling, it's like 1 million, 1.5 million, 2 million. I was like, locally? Yeah. And then I started to calculate on the mechanical royalties, how much is a cut worth? And although the PPD price was a bit lower than what we're used to, it still made sense. It was like getting a cut in the US. And you get a million? Why wouldn't I go for that? I've been watching a show on the Seoul Olympic Stadium with 50,000 kids, a seven-hour gig with all SM Entertainment's biggest artists. With the most modern production of lights and entertainment, and the shows were incredible, flawless. And I see all these stands around the stadium are just selling bucket loads of merchandise and stuff. Wherever I go in Seoul, I see posters as big as buildings, you know, 20 by 40 meters in diameter. New single by it's popastic. It's like smash hits, glossy, and I'm like, it's pop music for the kids.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

They've taken all the exciting elements of 80s pop music and culture and modernized it.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

100%. And I love left off center music as well. But we are a business, right? So I said to all my songwriters, you have to start writing hits now for the K-pop world. However, my bosses in the UK, they weren't pleased because they thought it was uncool. And I'm like, are we in this business to be cool or are we in this business to service our songwriters? I choose the latter. Until SM Entertainment asked me to launch a company together with them, Echo Music Rights, which I did in 2016. And the two writers I brought into Echo was Cassiopeia and the Moonshine Boys, and they are the equivalent to what Max Martin is in the Western world. That's them in the K-pop world. They have billions of streams, millions of physical sales still.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

We should point out that this was well before K-pop became the global phenomenon it is.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah, before BTS.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Right. And I know there were concept promoters that didn't see the big picture either until BTS came along and they blew everything apart. What were the fundamental differences pitching to a South Korean company and artist as opposed to other more traditional powerhouses in the US and the UK?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Well, in the US and also in the UK, they're very preoccupied with who sweeten the song. If I place what I think is a hit, and you can feel they love the song, but they're uncertain because it has to have the right name behind the song. In my book, that's bullshit. It's like a song is king. The audience that you're aiming at, they couldn't care less if it's X or Y who's written the song. It's the song and the artist. That's one thing. That's very common in the UK and the US. Sometimes in Germany as well. In Korea, they don't care. It's about the song. And a couple of other things that were extremely important is you had to write very, very, very good lyrics for American and English artists. In Korea, most of the lyrics will be adapted into Korean anyway. So you cut the deal with a local adapter, so they get a little cut on that version only, not the original. And you have to think choreography. Because every K-pop act has to dance, you know. So even if you got a hip-hop beat with a pop top line, it has to work with the choreography. So some of my writers, when they tested the song, they just tried to time it with an existing K-pop video to see how it sort of resonates with the images. So those are, I would say, the main differences.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

You're obviously known as an AR manager and executive. What about when it comes to sync and licensing? How much involvement have you had in that during your career?

Building Merlin and a catalogue

SPEAKER_00 15:21

It varies. I mean, usually if you're with a larger corporation like Universal Music, you present new music to the sync department and you sit down with them and you might pinpoint a couple of songs. Hey, listen to this. Could you hear this with brand X or Y or whatever? But ultimately it's their job to nail it to the sync agencies. In other cases, you've been more directly involved with the client, which could be an advertising firm or a Sync licensee, or you try to write something along the lines. I mean, these days, where almost 90% is either production music or commissioned music to compose this, the 10% is for the rest. It's an incredibly fierce competition there. One of my clients, Lavine, the Swedish-Narwegian writing team, they just got a cut with the big Netflix hit Midsummer Night, which became, I think, number one in 30 countries or so. And for a small upcoming team, money wasn't wow, but they had to be in it. And I got something more I can add to the CV when I talk to the next one. And sometimes you get a phone call and say, hey, we like that song, we want to use it. And it's a deal done in 10 minutes. But when managers come in with their clients and more or less say, How much sync can you guarantee? I say, Well, if I would guarantee anything, I would sit there and lie to you, and I'm not going to do that. So we can base the deal on everything else, look at sync, ass Icing on the cake.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

So if you get the right song, you deliver a hit to a major artist, then the sync opportunities will naturally appear.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Not naturally. You never really know. But if you're a good sync manager, you're in touch with everyone you need to know. And a great sync manager will immediately find five suggestions. And I want to be that one that services my sync guy with those, if I can get two out of those five suggestions, then I'm happy. But it's an incredibly underrated and extremely important art for me in music poetry.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Did you ever have it in your mind when signing artists or investing in a particular songwriter that they could write music for film or jingle? Yeah. Jingle writing or some type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Absolutely. I've done those deals. One of them was a band here in the 90s called Baxter, which Madonna heard and fell in love with, so she signed them. They did F All sales-wise, but we got a lot of scenes with them because the music was the sort of moodiness of Portisette, but with drum and bass groups, which at the time was very sought after. When I signed Mill and Collin, I sensed that all the skateboarders around the world would be interested, but I couldn't see it to the extent that we actually delivered in the end. But yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Right. So there are songwriters that specialized on jingle writing or music for film. Yeah. And then other artists and writers that were hit songwriters.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, and if you're lucky, you get a couple of good things coming out of it. Milan Collin did a big campaign here with Jivalia Coffee in Sweden. Jivalia is a huge brand. At the time I was at Chrysler's and my sync manager there, Peter Nielsen, he was exceptional, very, very hard hustler. And obviously he had to compete with all the bigger companies we were in competition with. So he had to be innovative and hands-on in everything he did. I can't take credit for that at all. I was just happy when he told me, like, listen, we we got it. And the money was fantastic as well for Swedish standards.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

But you learned very early, almost immediately, the value in sync.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Absolutely, from day one. And that was my mentor, Lars Wigman, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

I think at the peak of your work, you were working with 40 or 50 writers.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah. Well, at Christ's, yes. We had about 45 at Marlin and probably just under 40 at Universal. And then probably 25, 26 at Echo.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

How do you manage that amount of writers? Do you really have to work individual to individual?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Various. Some of them want to be phoned in on, you know, once a day. Others just want to be alone for a week or two. And you send them a text like, Hey, you want to meet? You got anything? You want to play me? Anyone who wanted to get hold of me would get hold of me the very same day. And I tried, to the best of my means, to read people and ask them, how do you want to work? Do I piss you off if I call you too much? I made sure they got briefs, more or less on a daily basis. And I made sure that everyone got the same briefs. I wanted to do that to avoid a situation where someone is calling me up and saying, hey, I didn't get to brief and why are you leaving me out of this? But at Echo, one thing I did to be closer to the music was to build a studio complex literally 200 meters from our office, where the writers basically picked one studio each. So I made sure I was there at least three days a week. And it was nice just to get out of the office and just go from studio to studio. And they love to play a lot of music for me.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

How important or how useful have songwriting camps been for you in your job?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Extremely important. I know there are publishers that don't raise songwriting camps that much, and I faced them over the years. We have to gather the right people, give them the right briefs, and as an AR person, I've had a lot of hits from songwriting camps. A huge one was for Ricky Martin. And that was written at the songwriting camp by Design Music, which I published at both Universal and later on at Echo. And I actually called from the writing camp to the AR manager at Sony Music in Miami, who was taking care of Ricky Martin. Because I knew Ricky was looking for songs. And I said, I got a song I want to send you now. Can you have a listen to it? So I sent it over, and he actually calls me back 20 minutes later and said, Oh my God, I think this is a hit. I want to play to all my colleagues in our AR meeting tomorrow. Can I do that? Yeah, of course. Literally, two days later, I said, This is the next single of Ricky Martin. Two billion views on YouTube, and we had two Latin Grammy Awards. It's fantastic. And that came from a songwriting camp. And I had the number one idol song in Germany written at a writing camp, tons of K-pop hits. So I love writing camps if they're done properly. It leads to so many other possibilities than just the writing camp itself.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

The first time I came across you in person was actually a songwriting camp that Music Finland organized. It was just outside Helsinki. Everyone there really wanted to impress you. That wasn't just the writers, it was everyone involved with the writers, it was the producers that were there as well. And you couldn't have been nicer by the encouragement you gave, and you were positive about everything. Could see the impact you would have on people's creativity.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah, well, we're there together. They invite me for a reason. I'm not in focus here, the songwriters are. We're working with and for songwriters. If I have information or expertise in some area of the business that can help them to write the best music they possibly can, then it's my duty to give it to them. That's how I look at it. You know, I'm at the end of my career now. I mean, I'm retiring in a couple of years. I want to look back and feel like I did my best. Try to be a decent bloke. Do you know I'm an honorable Finn? Of course. I have my star in Tampera. It's one of my biggest achievements.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

You got the Tampera Award.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Lifetime achievements.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Lifetime achievement awards, yeah, which is a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

They felt that I had unselfishly revealed ways of export that we did over here. We Swedes take more of a, I would say, an American approach to our export.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

It's not a matter of the Finns being less talented. It was more of them being a bit shy when it came to export. And it was a huge honor to stand there on stage in front of the entire Finnish music industry. And I have this really beautiful piece of art made of crystal in my shelf in my living room. Look at it every now and then like that one.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Very nice.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

The Europe in Sync network, who we're doing the podcast for today, is based on workshops where they bring together people from the different strands of sync. Yeah. So they'll have music agents in with supervisors, producers, filmmakers, publishers, and talk to each other and see if they can improve communication. Do you think that's a useful thing? Is that something that you would have enjoyed being part of? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Because you pinpoint what is the client looking for. And if you have the clients and the creatives there, they should be able to explain why. I think it's a great way of avoiding wasting time.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

And understanding what's happening on the other side of the table much more.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Exactly. You get to know the people who are asking for a certain work. For a lot of songwriters, sync is just an expression. They really don't know how it works. So a lot of questions they might have might be answered.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

We've gone from the nostalgia of talking about pitching songs to American divas and pop stars, probably trying to burn CDRs.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah, even cassettes.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Right, cassettes. And we've ended up talking about counting streams and recognizing new phenomena from unexpected markets, like K-pop, for example. So it's a wild development. But is the modern business do you think it's getting too difficult to work in? It's certainly not the same as the business that you spent most of your career working in.

Discovering K‑pop economics

SPEAKER_00 26:06

No, I wouldn't say too difficult, but it's more complicated than it's ever been. And also as a publisher, how do you estimate a break-even? You know, is it a hundred million streams, 200 million streams, you know, to recoup what you invest in? That's harder. There are many, many more different ways of breaking through. I mean, it could be TikTok, it could be social media, it could be an ad campaign, you know, etc. etc. It's more complicated than ever. And I think the AR role has changed drastically in publishing. I think the old school AR people like myself, my role has changed. I still try to make sure that I'm involved in the creative process with the clients I have in terms of music. You know, they send me something, I'm like, oh, I love the song, I think it's great. I think you should cut two bars and go straight into the chorus, more bass or whatever. Then I will pitch it to the appropriate people around the world. Pitching-wise, there are more songs flying around in the digital world to AR people than ever before. So you have to be very, very sure that it's this contender. Because I'm promoting someone else's work, someone's writing and production name. And I want to be damn sure that even if it doesn't get cut, I've sent quality. So the door is still open for me the next time I pitch. The more complicated thing is I think the decline of income for songwriters. I'm very, very worried about that. How have the revenues changed? Percentage-wise, I can't say exactly, but it's a lot. It's a lot. Back in the day, you had three pillars mechanical, syncs, and streams. Now, mechanical's gone, and you're left with streams and syncs. And we all know what it pays or what Spotify pays to songwriters. And that's really worrying. Even extremely successful songwriters have a hard time to survive. The ones who are doing best are the ones who have a catalog from the older era. But right is entering the market now, it's difficult for them. And there isn't much else you can get money from. So that worries me.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

It certainly feels like your career seems to have coincided with the golden era of music in general.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yeah, I mean, I started it with vinyl, or actually vinyl and cassettes, and then CDs, so I've had to work in every format. And I actually love the way you define music today. The accessibility to music is fantastic. I don't like the sound quality because I think it's crap, to be honest, but I can live with it. But it's how songwriters' value has been devalued. I do oppose that. Is there a music business without songwriters? I don't think so. I mean it all starts with a great song. And not everyone can be on tour as an artist. There are songwriters, they write songs for a living. So if their songs are being cut and released, they're driving that project with their music. And still they are at the bottom of the food chain.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

One thing I noticed is this tendency now to split songwriting among six or seven different songwriters for one song.

What Korea taught about “song first”

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Or 14 in the Beyoncé case, was it 14 or 19 writers? And I've faced more and more coercion over the years to. You know, the artist who hasn't written a single syllable of a song, it's become the norm that managers are demanding 10 to 15, sometimes 20%. And sometimes they rearrange or rewrite the song without informing the original writers or the publishers, and once it's done, then they demand 10%. And we say, no, you never asked us for permission. And now you have an argument which could take six months to solve. I just don't understand why it's so hard to acknowledge and give credit to the songwriters. If I have a songwriting team of three and they sent the song to the artist, the artist said, Love it. That song's going to be a hit with me. That artist's going to make a lot of money and the label as well. Why are you moving in on the songwriters who delivered in the first place? It's a very, very weird approach. And we're facing that coercion left, right, and center. Don't like it. So as a publisher, I will always make sure it's fair for each and every one. Three writers in the room and they start a song from scratch, three-way split. Tell everyone be fair, you know, build alliances. If someone is doing a rework or rearranging or rewriting one of your songs and it's approved, be generous. Don't be an asshole. I can't say how many points you should give, but be generous. In general, that will pay off because you build alliances with people. But labels are moving in and are discussing splits on songs now. And managers, so I see more of that these days than I ever experienced before.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

In that case, you may be feeling quite happy to be stepping back and doing less these days if this is the reality of what the modern business is like.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

In one way, yes, but you know, this business is in my blood. I don't know anything else I want to do. I love it too much. I love seeing other people being successful when the score hits. I honestly cheer with them. And especially, you know, since I'm a Swede, I'm very happy if my own music community are creating new roads out there. And I love that with the whole K-pop thing. That we drove that business a long time and look where it's at today. The good thing is, because I've done my thing so I can relax, I do it because I think it's fun. Which also means that I can pick and choose a little more than I could before.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Without overcommitting.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah, without overcommitting, yeah, exactly. But I'm still childishly in love with this business and music. And I listen to endless amounts of music every week and loving all the kids coming up with new ideas.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

You must be genuinely satisfied with the legacy that you have. You've successfully placed thousands of songs and more than 300 million physical sales. It's quite an impact to have on an industry.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah, I I suppose it is, but I've never preoccupied my mind with it. It's like on to the next one. Of course I'm proud, and obviously you gather a few stories or anecdotes from your career, but for me it's always about the next one. And the people I work with and for. So if I work with a writing team, they have to trust me, I will always do the best for them. If it's best for them, in the end it will be good for me. I want longevity with people. I want them to have careers. Anyone can have a one-hit wonder, a couple of hits, and then you're off. I want to work with the ones who are around for years, who actually changed their lives. So I'm very honored and humbled that the working-class suburban kid palais got to work with all these talented people and the friends I made around the world, that to me is just priceless. It will always be with me for the rest of my life. You know, the whole process of finding a piece of music that speaks to you, and you really want it to speak eventually to the general audience. And when you see that audience seeing it live, it's wow, that's a wonderful feeling. And a tiny bit of that whole food chain, you know, I was part of that.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Very good. Well, thank you ever so much for talking to us about it today. It's been fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Thank you ever so much for having me. This was fun.