Petri Signs Pet Shop Girls

Petri Lunden said he didn’t so much win a race to sign new Swedish pop sensation West End Girls, it was more that the father of one of the Pet Shop Boys tribute duo bullied him into it.

"I used to manage Hans Erkendal over 10 years ago when he was in a band called Mobile Homes, which didn’t really make it very big either with or without my help," the Talent Trust chief explained.

Erkendal’s daughter Isabelle and Rosanna Jirebeck, the two 17-year-olds who created West End Girls because they were such huge Pet Shop Boys fans, have sold more 30,000 copies of their debut album in Sweden (Gold) and Lunden’s Gothenburg-based Talent Trust is now looking for some international success.

"They were with Sony BMG but I got them out of that because nothing was being done outside of Sweden. The band owns and controls all the masters and we’re looking forward to securing deals for them across the world," Lunden told Pollstar.

What’s pleasing the girls most is that the Pet Shop Boys themselves are among their biggest fans and are already plugging and selling their West End Girls Go Pet Shopping album through their petshopboys.co.uk Web site.

In other Talent Trust artist news, The Cardigans are writing new material, although vocalist Nina Persson is singing on the Manic Street Preachers’ first single from their next album. Also, Europe has just finished a tour of 23 2,000- to 4,000-seat venues across 11 European counties, and Danish rockers D.A.D.’s busy summer schedule includes 30 festivals and fairs in their homeland.