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Back in 1994 four Swedish guys formed the band Blindside. Three years later they signed with the new record label Day-Glo Records out of Stockholm. This lead to their debut album featuring some solid hardcore songs. It caught attention in the USA with Tooth & Nail Records and the band signed a licensing deal and got the album released with some new songs in 1998 for the US market. A tour followed with POD. The second album A Thought Crushed My Mind was a major step in Blindside's increasing popularity with videos being played on MTV Europe and VH1. And there's a seven inch record coming up. Art For The Ears invited guitarist Simon Grenehed for a message-board interview to find out how the band's doing now. ______________
Lord_Rogoth: Hey man, I read on your website that you have a new seven inch with songs that give an impression of the future. What musical direction are you heading compared to A Though Crushed My Mind? Simon: On the new material we're taking a turn toward something new again. We've had a lot of time to explore since we've recorded on our own and we've been focusing on finding more melodic passages without losing edge but also more of a rock 'n' roll kind of sound. It's hard to explain. We took three different kind of tunes to show where we're at on the 7 inch; One garage rock 'n' roll kind, one more mellow melodic kind and a groovier metal vibe kind of song. Lord_Rogoth: The seven inch comes out through Structure Records from Sweden. Why not Day-Glo records? I thought they were supposed to be your Scandinavian outlet? Simon: We thought it'd be fun to release a vinyl record and release it on our friend Samuel Durling's label in Sweden this time. Day-Glo doesn't release vinyl and through Samuel we were able to do a vinyl release that we've been wanting to do for a while. Lord_Rogoth: What bands have you listened to that guided you towards this new development? I'm not saying that you are picking things up from others but every musician is also a music listener and that might have some sort of impact, either directly or indirectly I suppose. So, what bands do you listen to recently? Simon: To be honest I haven't listened to a lot of music lately, we've been concentrating on our own material. I don't think music around us has made a big impact on our musical creativity when we've written new stuff. I checked out the new Luti-kriss album recently and I like it a lot, also the latest Extol is a beautiful record.
Jarhead: You guys are known for your raw hardcore music. Yet I wonder what else you enjoy in life. Do you have hobbies and stuff? Simon: Well, first of all, the music does take up quite a bit of our life. Me, Christian and Thomas are interested in something called Capoeira. It's a Brazilian martial art/dance thing. Also we're all spending a lot of our time with friends and families. Me and Thomas move around with different kinds of sport activities but Marcus and Christian are totally not interested in that. Other than that we enjoy to go to coffeehouses and just hang out. Some_Guy: Simon, do you like pizza? And if you do what do you like on it? Simon: I love pizza. Um, it depends on where I eat it. I like home made pizza with all kinds of stuff on it. If I'm in the States I usually go for a vegetarian pizza 'cause I don't like the taste of the stuff Americans usually put on their pizza. Jay: How did you make your dreadlocks? Natural or did you use a beeswax product like Knotty Boy? Did you have a friend do them? I was thinking of knotting up my hair and wondered what the minimum requirements would be and if you have any advice. How long did it take for them to really lock up? Simon: I had a friend do them. Well, she used toothpaste and a comb. It took 10 hours with no brakes. Then she told me not to wash them for a while. About the hair to "lock up": It depends on what kind of hair you have, all I can say is that the longer you have them the better they get. I haven't dyed the dreads, the bright colors are sun bleached. PunkPieter: I was just wondering if it's hard for you to stay close to God during tours. I can imagine that you've got other things on your mind when you're very busy. At least that's what I've experienced when I'm busy, it's very hard for me to make some time free for Him. Simon: I can't say that we've had a problem staying close to God on the tours. It's rather the opposite way around 'cause we spend a lot of time on the roads which makes it easy to find time for prayers, the Bible and focusing on God. We think a lot about this and spend time in prayer before driving to the next place. So far we've grown on tours spiritually. Lord_Rogoth: I hope you'll be working on a new album soon. Can you tell about that? What's in store for us?
Simon: Well, we've got lots of material right now, we've been working on new material all winter and spring. I think our next release will be a mix of really heavy stuff and also more melodic tunes. The first songs we wrote were really melodic sounding but we tried to keep the edge to it. Lately we've been getting back to more heavy sounding stuff again, so I guess in the end it's going to be a mix between both things. Christian sings more on the new songs but we've been mixing it up with heavier backup vocals so it sounds interesting indeed. I can't say how long it's going to take before we'll have a full-length album released but we're sure working on it. We'll post more news on the web page as soon as we know. |
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