BLINDSIDE
Here's a short interview that Markus recently had with
Simon Grenehed, guitar player for Swedish band Blindside...

Markus : I saw you last year in the Netherlands together with Eso-Charis. I was impressed by your powerful sound. You, the guitar player were running like a fury across the stage and the singer had this big, big voice. Very cool show. About your band history I can read your website, so I will ask you a little bit about the background.

Simon : Thanks man, glad you enjoyed the show.

Markus : Tell me a little bit about your musical influences.

Simon : We all listen to different kinds of music. There's no band that has entirely captured our band, but what we have in common is the heavy music. I, myself grew up listening to The Beatles and that's had a great impact on my music interest but nowadays I listen to all kinds of music really.

Markus : Would you put Blindside in a special scene?

Simon : Not really, we've been placed in the hardcore scene by some people and in the "new-metal" scene by others. It doesn't really bother us cause we've never tried to be part of any scene. There's been a great hardcore scene in Sweden but we never really fit into it because of the variations of our music. We totally respect that scene though and listen to a lot of hardcore music.

Markus : How are the contacts to other bands? How is it with the secular bands? With which bands you have been touring up till now?

Simon : Once you start touring as a band you make lots of contacts. Just by playing shows, especially festivals. It's cool, you make a lot of friends and get to tour with other bands. We rescently did a tour in Sweden with a secular band called Plastic Pride and we got along great, they were splendidly nice people and respected our beliefs as we respected their oppinions on different things.

Markus : Is there a "higher" goal behind your music? If there is one: Tell me about it. And where you get this?

Simon : The reason we started this band was to play music, have fun and sharing our beliefs in Jesus Christ. We never intended to shove our passion down someone throat though, but instead we try to show what's inside of us through our lyrics and through ourselves. We don't try to show anymore than we are, and we hope to be able to get people interested in our lyrics and being able to relate to them, christian or not.

Markus : There is a big discussion here in Germany about youthchurches. Are you in a youthchurch? Or in a conservative church? Tell me a little bit about your (non?-)cooperation with your churches.

Simon : We don't want to make any statements of different denominations or what kind of church people should attend. That's really up to each and everyone one to decide for themselves. We try to talk about the personal relationship with Jesus Christ. However I can tell you that we have great support from our church which means a great deal for us. To be able to have people praying for us during tours and stuff is amazing, and totally makes the difference.

Markus : You have brought out a new CD now. Tell me about the sound. Some say you´ve lost the emo influences and it´s a bit harder now - a special reason? What about the lyrics?

Simon : I don't think we've lost emo in this record at all. Maybe that's what people think when they hear it for the first time, but if you get into it you'll see there's still a lot of harmonies. This album is a lot more thought through, and we've pushed out limits technically and musically. There's no particular reason why it turned out like it did, it was just a natural development for us. When we make new music we simply create what's inside of us and always follow our hearts, that's why it's impossible to predict how it will sound.

Markus : What´s the story behind the song "Teddybear" (from the first Blindside CD)?

Simon : The subject in "Teddybear" is that people seem to turn to God when they are in need or in trouble of some kind and when things are great they forget about him, that's not how it's suppose to be. You can't throw him away like a teddybear...

Markus : Okay last question... Have you ever seen a troll?

Simon : Nope.

 

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