OLLE WESTLUND - GREYBEARDS

💿 Hi, it's a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal OLLE WESTLUND of GREYBEARDS! Welcome!!

Hey! Ollie here. The pleasure is all mine!

💿 Can you tell us somethin’about your early days? Which bands have influenced you and what's the matter of your moniker? Well, we began playing when we where around 13 years old in different bands.

Me and Simon in a band called "The Slightest Trace (among other names) and Ingemar in a punkband called "Solid Overdose" (Their song "Cheers" could have been a huge hit! 😄😄). We got together as the current group for the first time in high-school, performing Foo Fighters "Best of you" together.

Since then it's been us and us only, and so we needed a band-name.

The Elder Scrolls–Skyrim was a huge ground-breaking videogame that we all loved back then (and still do), and if you now your Skyrim-characters you may recognise some similarities between the game and our bandname..

💿 Your new album "FOR THE WILDER MINDS" is ready (available from May 4th)! Can you tell us somethin’about its composition? Are you satisfied about this platter? We had the privilege to listening to it in preview and we were very impressed! It's been a great ride. Working with Chips has been an amazing experience, but really writing an album from page one has been the best part of this journey. You know, out first album (Longing to fly) really was a collection of songs written by us the very beginning of Greybeards till' a week before we entered the studio. We never really aimed for anything, we just wrote a bunch of songs when we felt for it.

But FTWM had a plan, a destination, and to watch it thrive from the first demo to final product has been an amazing journey. So we're super-happy that you like it! We do to! 💿The real "news" in music industry is the return of a vinyl. What's your opinion about this classic format and the current music business?

Vinyl is great. I know Niklas and Ingemar's been listening to vinyl for years. I've been collecting vinyls for a pretty long time, even before I bought a tabletop.

It's just more value for the money compared to CD. It's cool. A funny curiosity is that my parents got rid of like 200 vinyl in early 2000's, since vinyl was super-dead in Sweden.

They traded them for a framed picture of Iron Maiden (my all time heroes) that clamed to have hanged on the wall of their Los Angeles-office. Vinyl-discs look cool, but I really like that picture.

💿 The new album will be out via ATTITUDE RECORDINGS. Can you tell us somethin’about your relationships with them?

We've been with Attitude Recordings since late 2014. They saw us perform at the pre-party for Getaway Rock Festival. They came for another band, but got blown away by our performance ;) We'll never meet anyone who believes in or music as much as they do. A massive privilege. 💿 Can you tell us somethin’about your next live projects? We have seen several gigs scheduled!

UK indeed. And some support-act gigs to some major bands in Sweden. We got some other things going on for fall and next spring. But all in all, just to play as much as we possibly can to promote or new album!

💿 We love the cover of FTWM..Who made it? Thanks! It's made by Björn Rallare at "Hombre Productions Inc.".

💿 Lastly..What's your opinion about new hard’n’heavy bands? Is there an hope for a new golden era for pur love kind of music? Oh, of course there is! Thundermother are growing massive! And we love that. Then there's a lot of cool "70ties rock-bands" and "Actionrock-bands" like Dead Lord and Grande Royale. And then we still got our long time heroes Foo Fighters, Billy Talent and Architects. The future is bright!

💿 Thank you so much for your time! See you soon on Hardrockheavymetal! Thank you too! It's been a pleasure. Stay beardy!

(Thanks Stampede Press UK)

#GREYBEARDS #STAMPEDE