Blindside are a new band from Stockholm, Sweden, that have absolutely nothing to do with "the Stockholm sound". As a matter of fact, they almost completely defy categorization, and as you will read in the interview, they don't even know what to call their music! When I listen to their debut self-titled CD, I'm thinking along the lines of a hardcore band playing Fugazi and Frodus tunes, but then again I could be completely off base. I recently met up with bassist Tomas Naslund and vocalist Christian Lindskog (the band is rounded out by Simon Grenehed on guitar and Marcus Dahlstrom on drums) back stage during their current US tour to learn about all things Blindside.
CoC: So do you guys have anything new coming out any time soon?
Tomas Naslund: Yeah, we have a new record coming out in September.
Christian Lindskog: We don't really know yet if it's going to be out in September, but we think so.
TN: We recorded it, but the contracts are not ready yet.
CoC: How long have you been around? When did the band start?
TN: November of '94.
CoC: And did you have any music released previous to the _Blindside_ CD?
TN: We had a demo...
CL: ... but besides that, no.
CoC: So how did Solidstate Records find you guys?
TN: The president of the record company in Sweden [Day-Glo Records] was at a festival or something, and he handed out the CDs to different people, and Brandon [Ebel, owner of Solidstate] just called us up afterwards.
CoC: Without Solidstate, you wouldn't have been able to get the album in America, right?
CL: That's right.
CoC: So what kind of following do you have in Sweden?
CL: Not that big. We are a small band.
CoC: Well, what do you call your kind of music?
CL: I don't know... I don't know. People label us so many different styles. Actually, the next album that is coming out is quite different from the last one.
CoC: How so?
CL: It's more, I think, hardcore, more like the hard stuff. The screaming parts are more like screaming, but we still have those mellow vocals. We have experimented with some stuff. So on one hand we have the very hard, but on the other hand it's a lot softer.
CoC: So is there an audience for your kind of music in Sweden at all, or are people just pretty much caught up in black metal and the Gothenburg or Stockholm sound?
CL: The scene is the same as here [US], I guess.
TN: Many good hardcore bands have stopped this year. We have a lot of hardcore bands in Sweden coming up, like Refuse.
CoC: Who would you guys cite as influences for Blindside?
CL: A lot of different stuff.
TN: Yeah, we listen to everything. The drummer listens a lot to electronic stuff, techno and all that. I guess we have some influences on the new record from other Solidstate bands, because we got all the records last year.
CoC: But none of that stuff is available in Europe, is it?
CL: It is, but you have to know where to look. You know, it's not like you can just go into the store. It's not like that.
TN: It's hard to get.
CoC: What bands have you been able to build relationship with while touring the States?
CL: Payable on Death. We've kind of met most of the Solidstate bands.
CoC: Are you guys going to be able to tour in Europe anytime soon?
CL: We'll see. We hope so.
TN: We hope that we can go now with a bigger band.
CoC: Who would you like to tour with?
CL: I would love to travel with PoD once again, in Europe, because now they are big and maybe their company wants them to travel in Europe. I think we would learn a lot from those guys. We have learned a lot from those guys. We're going to actually tour with Extol here in the States after this tour is done.