Gravenkiss: Greetings from Obscuro! Your music style was labelled ´death´n´ roll´ and as you put it, it´s something like a death metal cigarette with a rock´n´roll filter 🙂 Who came up with this funny metaphor?
Hednar: A journalist named Marcus Grahn (close up magazine, Sweden rock) came up with that in a live review years ago. We liked it and started to use it and it just stuck. It describes us really accurate.
G: Who started the band and who´s the person that ´keeps the spirit alive´?
Hednar: We started The Generals up when a former band called Necronomicon split up. After 13 years we are still all original members.
G: What´s your main source of inspiration? Do you listen to any other music styles apart from metal music?
Hednar: Yes, of course, that’s probably why we aren’t a straight up death metal band. We have different backgrounds. I have a special love for American 90’s hardcore like Life Of Agony and Biohazard and old Swedish hardcore like Refused and Breach. Dick’s an old punk, Rickard comes more from an action rock scene and also loves 70’s rock and stoner and Martin (Metal) is probably the most brutal death metal fan of us all. But in the tour bus we listen to all sorts of stuff, even stuff like Cypress Hill and John Mayall.
G: You released two full-length albums Stand Up Straight (2009), which was very successful, Blood for Blood (2013) and a split album with thrash metal band Invasion (2014). According to the posts on your facebook profile it seems that you´re working on some new songs. Can you reveal the name of your new album and the date of release? What kind of material can we expect?
Hednar: I can´t, sorry because we don’t even have a working name for the new album. We are currently writing songs and because of family situations it might take a little longer than usual. I can however say that we personally believe that this, the third album, will be the best so far. The new songs go back a little to the Stand Up Straight-sound but more mature. It’s truly gonna be a death ‘n’ roll album. We can´t wait to tour this album.
G: Your video clip to the song Blood for Blood received lots of positive reactions. As far as I know, you´ve been working on your new video. Can you tell us more about the production?
Hednar: It’s a video for a song called “Evil Transcends” taken from the album ”Blood For Blood”. We’ve talked about this for a while and we wanted to do something to show our fans that we are still alive. It’s a pimped lyric video you could say. It came out really cool thanks to Erik Engstrand from Eyes Wide Open who directed it.
G: What do you personally prefer- writing songs and the recording process or playing live?
Hednar: No fucking doubt playing live. That’s what we do best.
G: I´ve heard a mysterious story about your drummer. 😀 Was he originally a guitarist and is he also a band member of Invasion?
Hednar: Haha, yes that’s true. He played guitar in Necronomicon and he often plays guitar when we write songs. He’s a damn good one, too. A bit rusty maybe but good. And yeah he handles the drums in Invasion but they are not that active nowadays.
G: When speaking about live shows, which country has the most eager fans? What´s your best and worst memory from the tour?
Hednar: Well, some towns in Sweden have more eager fans than others. Gävle up in the north is one of those towns we always have awesome shows in. When we talk about rest of Europe I’d say The Netherlands. If you mean the tour with Annihilator 2013, it has A LOT of cool memories. The best show we probably had in France (Lyon), that place was packed and the mosh pits were on and they sang along and kept at it the entire show. Just awesome. I can’t say there were any bad shows on the tour so the worst memory would be when we crashed the nightliner outside Madrid after the show. Some dude drove into our trailer and completely fucked it up. We had to cancel the Barcelona show and turn back to France. That sucked big time.
G: What about the upcoming shows? Where can we see you on stage?
Hednar: We have nothing booked. We want to focus on getting the new album together. If we get a good offer for a festival run this summer we might accept though. We’ll see.
G: Downloading music has disastrous consequences for musicians and labels. Do you support strict copyright laws?
Hednar: That’s a tough question. Personally I’m a physical record kind of guy. I like buying CDs and vinyl. I also like to sell records obviously, but at the same time it’s easy to release and spread music with Spotify and iTunes and so on. If we could get decent pay from digital distribution it would be awesome. As it is now it’s terrible. It’s slowly getting better though so I hope it will pan out over the next years.
G: Are you guys full-time musicians or are you forced to have a regular job?
Hednar: Yeah right, we wish. We all have day jobs. If we had made it to where we are now when we were 20 years old then maybe we could have gone full-time but we can’t now. We’ve gotten old and there are more things in life that matter equally much these days. Three of us have kids for example. But we march on!
G: Nowadays there are too many metal bands, but only a few of them can succeed in music business. What advice would you give to the new bands that are trying to build their career?
Hednar: I’d say play live as much as you can and don’t get hung up on records deals. There are more or less no proper records deals to get these days. Also try to record your shit in a professional studio with an experienced producer. If you get a sell point from him/her that also helps. The recordings matter more now than in the past. Then try to get a master deal from that recording with a smaller label. Buy a tour slot if possible and do lots and lots of marketing on your own on the Internet. Another thing is to make friends online with bands in other countries and do swap gigs. That is quite easy and a lot of fun.
G: Looking back at your own career, is there anything you´d like to change?
Hednar: I don’t know. Maybe we could have released one more full-length album during these years but overall I’m pretty damn proud and it is far from over.
G: What´s your final message to our readers?
Hednar: Thank you for all your support! The Generals will be back sooner than you know with new material and on the road. We hope to see you all, old and new friends at The Generals show in the near future. THE DEATH ‘N’ ROLL TRAIN ROLLS ON!
The Generals wish you a metal x-mas and a headbanging new year!
G: Thank you for your time and I wish you good luck 🙂
Photos: band´s archive
