Most of the questions were answered by Daniel (Astroqueen’s "frontman")... with a few shouts from the rest of the guys...
hogfeldt: Let’s see... You guys are about to release your first full length album... How does it feel a month before the official release date?
Daniel: It´s a little tense, but we’re looking forward to it, we have waited for a long time to get this CD out and now it looks like we finally are on our way...
hogfeldt: Is it the same label in the States as in Europe?
Daniel: Yeah, it´s Pavement in the states too... They’re bringin´ out the big guns in the states, they showed us their marketing plan and if they keep these promises, it’ll be a blast, massive radio promotion, magazine commercials etc etc.
hogfeldt: Yeah, it seems to be the same deal with most of the Swedish genre bands... Both you guys and Mammoth Volume are way bigger in the states. But gettin´ gigs in Sweden that’s something else...
Daniel: It´s almost impossible (here all the guys in both bands says the same thing at the same time, can’t really pick out who’s who from the tape... needless to say this is a big problem for Swedish genre bands).
hogfeldt: I’ll get back to that subject a little later on... Fist time I saw Astroqueen live was when you guys did the support for Unida when they played here in Gothenburg... I think it was back in November -99... How did you get that gig?
Daniel: It was thru Tony Jelencovich (singer in Transport League, who also runs Belsepub). This gig tonight is "Stoner Rock Night V", we’ve played at three of `em at his club... it’s great!!!
hogfeldt: And I’ve missed almost all of `em...
Daniel: The first "Stoner Rock Night" at Belsepub was by the way our very first live gig!!! ...the second time we opened for Misdemeanor.
hogfeldt: Yeah, I was goin´ to that one... but for some reason I couldn’t go...
Daniel: The third one was when we opened for Unida, it was at a bigger venue and Belsepub was responsible for that show to, and the party afterwards was held at Belsepub, wasn’t it you guys playing there? (question to Mammoth Volume)
Jörgen (MV): Yeah... We played at the after-hours party the same night as the Unida gig...
hogfeldt: That gig looked like a lot of the audience had gone to the wrong club... mostly goth-rockers in full make-up and so on. I was kinda irritated when I was sittin´ there by a table close to the stage... no-one seemed to pay any attention to the band... back to Astroqueen... If I remember this correctly, the Astroqueen sound back then, wasn’t it a little more psychedelic... it seems much heavier nowadays...
Daniel: Well, I don’t think we ever were that psychedelic, but we are more heavy now, it has been a natural evolution in the band, we all love heavy music and wanna do some massive riffing along with a metal edge to it, that’s why we chose the metal father himself, Andy La Rouque (King Diamond guitarist) as the producer of our debut album!
hogfeldt: Not that there´s no psychedelic vibes in your songs nowadays...
Daniel: Off course we have some tripped out parts in our songs, but we feel our main direction is to have heavy and fast forward catchy songs. We leave the more psychedelic stuff to other bands out there doing it way better than us :)
hogfeldt: That’s what I remember from that gig anyways... kinda trippy, but then again there´s a lot of directions you can take your music and still be called stoner rock... even though most Swedish bands don`t seem to like that term very much...
Daniel: We don’t have any problems with calling it stoner rock, it´s a way for people to know what kind of music a band they never heard of plays, you know, if we say we play just rock, it can be anything from Oasis to Kyuss, I don’t see any problems with being called a stoner rock band, although, maybe the term stoner can be confusing if you are not doing drugs... hehe
hogfeldt: I guess you gotta take it for what it is... it´s gettin´ to be a big "family" and everyone seems to get along just fine...
Daniel: Yeah, that’s one of the better things with this genre...all the bands are helping each other out, you know, it really has a family feeling to it.
hogfeldt: "Into Submission", your new album, was produced by Andy La Roque (and Astroqueen). He also produced The Awesome Machine’s "...It´s Ugly or Nothing" album. When I listened to the opening track "Landslide" it struck me that there were a few similarities in the sound, especially the guitars... Does he have any special "stoner" button he pushes when he’s producing genre music?
Daniel: He said himself that he was more pleased with how the sound came out on our album... that the sound was cleaner. We don’t want it too rough and raw. I think our sound is different from other bands in the genre, its to clear for it to be a stoner band... hehe. It was Pavement who suggested Andy, our first thought was Roberto Laghi (he has among other produced Mustasch, B-Thong, Transport League). We’re extremely pleased with how it all worked out.
hogfeldt: Are all of you from Stenugnsund (40 kilometers north of Gothenburg)? And how’s the scene in Stenugnsund? hehe
Daniel: Yeah, that’s right! The scene in our town sucks, I don’t know of any other bands except us... Nope, I think we’re the only genre band from this town... it really shows how our scene in Stenungsund is right now.
hogfeldt: Tell me a little of your background... when the band got started and so on...
Daniel: We started playing together back in `95 or `96. We mostly jammed... nothin´ more... We didn’t call the band Astroqueen `til `97 or `98 and then we started to get a few tunes together... it wasn’t `til then we could call ourselves a band. We made a demo and we sent a copy to Tony Jelencovich... and then we got our first gig thru him... we never felt that our music was stoner rock back then... but, of course we listened to Kyuss and so on. I think we never really understood how our music was developing. The first time we understood we played stoner rock was when someone, after listening to our first demo, said that the guitar riffs sounded a little like Kyuss. (more was said here but I couldn`t make out what)...
hogfeldt: Song writing... do all of you work together on this, or is there a "special" songwriter in the band?
Daniel: It´s mostly me and the other guitarist... we make the riffs and then the whole band works on the tunes together...arrangements and such, almost all of us writes lyrics, its a good way doing it, this way we get different ideas.
hogfeldt: Pavement has signed lotsa interesting bands along with Astroqueen, I have had some contact with Stuart at the European office, he seems to be a nice guy... How did you hook up with Pavement?
Daniel: That was also thanks to Tony Jelencovich, Transport League had just signed with `em... he thought we should send `em our demo, so we did... and maybe to two other labels... I’ve always listened to bands like Crowbar and Malevolent Creation and they’re on the Pavement label, so I didn’t think they’d be interested in a band like ours... but we heard from `em four days after they´d gotten our demo, so it all happened right away which kinda took us by surprise...
hogfeldt: Now I thought I’d ask a few questions `bout influences... what’s Astroqueen’s classic influences, you know 60´s and 70´s stuff and such?
Daniel: Of course Black Sabbath... but also Kyuss and lotsa metal... we’re not trying too hard to get that 70´s vibe going, as many other genre bands do, we are better at writing more "to the point" songs, if we kid around with a trippy tune I think it gets too boring, we are not good at it, an example on a band doing it good is Natas! We love their tunes and its a good example on how a more psychedelic band should sound, and still be interesting to the listener.
hogfeldt: What influences do you guys have in common, when it comes to bands of latter days?
Daniel: We listen alot to Nebula and Electric Wizard... Spiritual Beggars, Mammoth Volume, Opeth, Natas, Dying Fetus, Iron Maiden, High On Fire, old Metallica, Crowbar, Cannibal Corpse etc etc...
hogfeldt: The Swedish `stoner`-scene seems to grow at an almost alarming rate, do you think it´s a risk that it’ll overheat... or has that already happened?
Daniel: I don’t know, it´s good that new bands show up, it keeps the interest up, everyone likes to discover new bands, but of course many bands will sound the same, I don’t know if it´s good or not , I think its the same deal with all genres, the strong will survive :)
hogfeldt: It seems like it’s very hard for the genre bands to get gigs in Sweden, even the really good ones, and there´s plenty of good Swedish genre bands (and a few that are not so good)... It almost seems like it´s easier to get a European tour on the road than to get just one gig in Sweden...
Daniel: That’s true! I don’t know why it is this way. Maybe the Germans have better taste?
hogfeldt: What Swedish bands do you guys like... any band you dislike, hehe?
Daniel: We like Transport League, Entombed, The Hellacopters, Breach, Edge of Sanity, Lowrider, Misdemeanor, Spiritual Beggars, Opeth, etc etc... and we like Mammoth Volume...
hogfeldt: The fact that they’re sittin´ in the same room right now doesn`t have anything to do with it, hehe...
Daniel: Deranged, Demon Cleaner, Dozer.... (someone shouts Europe, I think it was one of the Mammoth Volume guys), there is lotsa Swedish `heavy` bands, but the Swedish commercial radio music scene sucks ass...
hogfeldt: As I said before, the gig situation in Sweden ain’t exactly great. Do you guys have any ideas on how to make things better... I guess you guys have had as hard a time getting gigs as a lot of other Swedish genre bands?
Daniel: Since we had the gig as support for Unida we have had three gigs... I guess that pretty much sums it up. Gothenburg at least has a few cool clubs like Belsepub and Sticky Fingers...
hogfeldt: Best gig ever... and worst gig ever?
Daniel: Best and worst gig ever was the Unida gig, we had been double booked for the Stockholm date, the day after we played with them in Gothenburg, the venue in Stockholm had booked their own opening band, so we had been travellin´ for 7 hours and when we got there, they told us to us go back home, cuz they wanted a local support act, but the Unida guys supported us and said to the venue guys that Astroqueen will play!!! (cheers Scott!) so we did, and that gig went great! Maybe our best gig ever.
hogfeldt: What’s your collective goal for the future? How high do you guys aim?
Daniel: The goal right now is to get out and play more live gigs... and to make another album.
