Svensktoppen – interview podcast with Björn Dixgård
– We got rejected from record company after record company. In the end we found one who believed in our album with poems set to music by Gustaf Fröding. The record company said we should invest in “Strövtåg i hembygden” as a single. We didn’t believe in that song at all, some in the band had even fallen asleep when we recorded it from the beginning, reveals Björn Dixgård.
The music for the poem came to him one day in the rehearsal room, he was left alone and was already a little late for the kindergarten where he was supposed to pick up his children.
– I was already maybe 15 minutes late, and then suddenly I get that music loop in my head and feel that I have to record it on a voice memo. The staff at the preschool got a little angry, but I had a hit in my pocket!
The story behind Strövtåg in the countryside
Mando Diao goes straight into Svensktoppen’s first place in November 2012 with “Strövtåg i hembygden” which is released as a single from the album “Infruset”. The song remains on the list for 167 weeks and is still today the one that stayed at the top the longest – a total of 86 weeks. And the band soon begins to notice that they are beginning to gain a whole new audience, that they are becoming popular.
– Among other things, you called from Svensktoppen and updated us on the successes and after the concerts we noticed that more and completely different people than our usual fans came forward and wanted to talk to us.
Björn and the former member Gustaf Norén also become summer speakers on Sveriges Radio the summer after the success. But things have started to crack in the joints between the two band members, Gustaf leaves the group in 2015 and a few years earlier, another band member was fired.
– I was a bit scared when Gustaf dropped out, how will things go for the band? Are we doing something wrong? But then I realized when I looked around that many bands, even the really big ones like AC/DC or Depeche Mode, have also changed members over the years. We who are in the band today can be extremely disagreeable, but now we have learned to work out all the problems – that was something we didn’t do before.
Strövtåg i hembygden wins Svensktoppen’s vote for the best song ever by far with 31 percent of the votes in the final vote in October 2022. The one that comes closest is “Håll mitt hjärta” with Björn Skifs who gets 19 percent and the most recent winner from 2012, “Du er min man” with BAO and Helen Sjöholm finishes third with 15 percent of the votes.
– I want to thank everyone who voted, this means an incredible amount to me! concludes Björn Dixgård.
Carolina Norén – presenter Svensktoppen
Source: ICELAND NEWS