Lark Cinis Entertainment & Walls Of Fire
June 21, 2003
Hi Tobias! Greetings from Walls of Fire! How are you?
Tobias: I’m fine. I’m sitting here with Thomas and we’ll try to answer your questions.
To begin with, would you please introduce yourselves in a few words:
Tobias Nilsson (vocals and bass) - Currently unemployed and content with it since I'm working with different music projects.
Joakim Thell (guitar, artwork) - On vacation.
Thomas Elenvik (drums) - Working as drums teacher.
Could you tell us the history of Blind Dog so far? When, how, where and by whom was the group formed, what happened afterwards...
Tobias: Me and Joakim had been playing with some other people and eventually got to the point where it didn’t work out. Standing without a drummer we got the question if we wanted to play at a party. We had thrown all our old songs away and were asked to play party music... which we interpreted as being Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath and Kiss. We asked Thomas whom we knew was a good drummer if he wanted to do one gig. Okay, but just one, was the reply. And now we’re sitting here.
Blind Dog was formed in 1995, but you released you debut album by yourselves in 1999. Why did it take you so long?
Tobias: We were ready to record the album years before that, but no one was interested. Eventually we decided to do it ourselves or not at all. A project like that costs a lot of money and it was this decision that took time.
The big news today is the birth of your second album, "Captain Dog Rides Again". Congratulations! It's a really great piece of music! It shall be released in the very end of June 2003, four years after the debut... Why?
Tobias: Well, four years? That depends on how you look at it. We released the album by ourselves in 1999, but it wasn’t officially released by MeteorCity a year or so later. I guess we weren’t motivated enough to write material until we were sure we would be able to make another CD. During the time between the albums we also got contacted by Listenable Records. So there was a time when we didn’t know what would happen.
Personally speaking, I think of your music as raw, heavy and extremely catchy hard rock. However, I'd like to know what YOU think about it.
Tobias: That description suits us fine. It’s up to the listener.
Do you agree with the constant comparisons between Blind Dog and Michael Amott's Spiritual Beggars?
Tobias: I have a theory about that.
Thomas: Do you?
Tobias: Yes. Take the bands from the sixties, for example. They weren’t thinking: “Let’s write sixties music.” That happened because they were living in the sixties. We’re living in Halmstad, Sweden...
Thomas: So you mean that an outside listener can hear similarities that we are unaware of, just like we now hear similarities in the music from the sixties?
Tobias: Yes.
Thomas: But I don’t think we sound like the Beggars.
Tobias: Neither do I.
Ok... In this connection, which are your all-time favourite bands?
Tobias: Kiss, Black Sabbath, Gentle Giant, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix...
What about your fave Swedish bands?
Tobias: Soundtrack of our Lives, Abramis Brama, Bo Hanson...
In fact, what's the situation within the Swedish rock and metal scene at present, according to you?
Tobias: It’s slowly growing bigger and getting more and more attention.
How do fans, the media and other rock bands in Sweden accept Blind Dog so far?
Tobias: The media has been very poor, so they don’t like us or they don’t know that we exist. And what other bands and fans think? Some like us, others don’t know of us.
Ok, let's focus on Blind Dog again. What do you sing about?
Tobias: The first CD was an effort to ventilate personal distress on a common level. However, it became too depressing to find out that people could relate to bitterness. The lyrics on "Captain Dog Rides Again" are trying to comment on the world instead. Still the negative sides though, I suppose. I’ve currently adopted the idea that if you have the possibility to say something to people in a way that is going out worldwide, cease that possibility. That’s what I think now. I don’t know what I’ll say in a couple of years.
In order not to waste time in asking you questions about lyrics, melodies, influences, etc., could you please tell us something more about each song on "Captain Dog Rides Again":
Tobias: Actually, we pretty much say what we want to say in the CD-booklet. However, Thomas gave a colour to all the songs - in fact, these were their working titles.
Thomas:
"Don't Ask Me Where I Stand" - Yellow.
"Iron Cage" - Blue.
"Let It Go" - This one was called “Let It Go” right from the start.
"Would I Make You Believe" - Red.
"Follow the Fools" - It was called Black, but now it feels Green.
"Back Off" - It was actually called Kiss - try to guess why...
"Fading Memories" - Orange.
"Unsellable" - Purple.
"There Must Be Better Ways of Losing Your Mind" - This also had its final title at an early stage.
"Be the Same" - White.
By the way, would you please introduce Captain Dog to our readers?
Tobias: We’d like to, but he hasn’t introduced himself to us. Sometimes he comes into the rehearsal room or the studio and stands there for a while nodding his head, but he’s never there for us to talk to. We always make an extra cup of coffee in case he comes.
What happened to Captain Dog back then, in "The Last Adventures of Captain Dog"?
Tobias: There was something he had to do and we weren’t sure he would ever come back. We feared it would be the last adventures. He just sodded off... but returned one early morning in October.
And what was the reason for Captain Dog's "resurrection"? What made him ride again?
Tobias: What made Wittgenstein go back to philosophy? What made George Forman sell grills? Who are we to answer these questions?
How shall the next adventures of Captain Dog look like?
Tobias: Heavier. The captain is pretty mad at the moment.
Author: Nicki
<< Back to interviews