Profile: Grande Roses
Name: Grande Roses
From: All over Sweden
Sounds like: Raucous country rock'n'roll
Listen: Burst
Discography:
2006 - Arctic heart EP (New Noise)
Links:
www.granderoses.com
www.myspace.com/granderoses
I like country and I like punk-rock. Marry the two together and the results actually come out pretty damn good. Bands like X and Social Distortion paved the way, Grande Roses continues the tradition. Frontman Göran Messelt Andersson recently took some time to answer a few questions about the band and explain why their first release took them so long.
Who are you guys and where are you from? How did everyone meet and start playing together?
Well to start with, we're all from diffrent parts of Sweden. I'm from Hammarö, an island outside Karlstad. Johan, Eb and Ekan are from Östersund and Anders, our pedal steeler's from Vargön. But now me, Eb and Ekan live in Stockholm, Johan is in Östersund and Anders in Gothenburg. But it works fine - I'm the least talented one so I'm the only one that needs to rehearse.
Why country music? Was it a natural evolution over time or something you simply jumped into?
Some years ago I lived in Tärnaby, go north and when there's 3 hours between the villages... turn left.
I had no one to play with and I got sick so I called a friend with a classic fostex portable 4-track studio and told him to put it on a bus...
You know woods, mountains, -30 degrees... It just wasn't an option.
Fast songs only? What's up with that? Do you have something to prove or are you just scared of embracing your emotions?
This is where the actual Grande Roses story (curse) begins... Actually 2 1/2 years earlier...
I lived in a small town called Duved, not too far from Östersund, and they have or had a counrtyfestival. Every year I signed up... But I needed a some one to play pedel steel so I got in touch with Johan. It turned out he'd never played it before, but was an outstanding guitarplayer. We recorded some songs and and found it quite fun. Then we got a record deal with a small company and everything was fine. I went into the studio with 8 written songs and 4 half-written and planned to record it under 5 days... I couldn't. So we focused on the fast ones... And I didn't get them finished either. So me and Johan recorded five slow ones (emotional and heartbreaking) in his studio as a compliment to the fast ones. But it turned out the sound was so diffrent from the first recording, so we'd figured, "well let's do this as an EP." The record label didn't like it. And it took us over a year to sort things out. Some of us did not accept it, the company didn't accept the other way and I was stuck in between not caring at all. Resulting in me almost losing my bandmembers for my huge ego... haha. But we dropped everything, went in to Johan's studio once again and this is what came out. Oh, when we recorded the song "Arctic heart" and only had the vocals left, the tape got screwed and it was useless... So up with the drums and everything again, starting over and... screwed again. But this time it wasn't compleatly ruined, we toggled it out and you can hear the result in the second refrain. Then everything after that's just like a small stone in your shoe (we just laugh at it). We were on the Razzia Xmas compilation [ed: "Oh no... it's Christmas!"] and the first verse is missing... and when the send us the records there's been a mistake and it wasn't enough stamps, so I had to bail 'em out. And the same story with the 7"s. The Swedish post office missplaced the address so we didn't know they were in Sweden and when we tried to get them 2 weeks later, we couldn't get them at first 'cuz they didn't know how send them (terrorists are growing on trees here you know). Things just got delayed... 2 1/2 years to be exact.
So for now on we leave our plans at home... They don't work anyway.
You grew up with punk-rock, right? Do you think there's still an element of that in what you're doing now?
I grew up punk and then I got old... haha. No, there still some left. Well to start with, we play a lot faster than others and then we have a pretty hard "we don't really care attitude". But we're way too nice and kind to be really punk... I'm married and have a job, how punk is that!?
What's your take on the current punk scene in Sweden?
I dont really know. I'm not into it any more but our record label [ed: New Noise] handles a few good ones.
Who's your hero? What kind of person do you aspire to be?
Well, I would like to say Roky Erickson. There's so many songs from the Elevators and the solo things after that... It's so brilliant. I remember sitting at a friends house listning to At the Gates "The red in the sky is ours" album and then he put on the "Evil one" album and I was hooked... I listen to it almost every day since then. Musically - Roky Erickson, mentally - no. I like Union Carbide as well and Neko Case... Let's say we're a mix of those three without the brilliance. The Ikea version, almost the same, but not quite the same and we have missing parts... haha
Lastly, what's the future for Grande Roses look like? When will we hear some of those slow songs?
Well, last time we sat a date for a release it took us 2 1/2 years. Let's just end there.