"We like the weather, the food and the wine from Spain"Dado que nuestro gran amigo Pedro se enredó a vinos y pinchos con los Maharajas en Valladolid, y olvidó hacerles unas preguntas para este espacio, ha tenido que ser el enólogo OSCAR CUBILLO el que charle con Jens Lindberg, fundador de esta banda sueca de garage y rock and roll que tanto nos gusta.
Que por qué creaste la banda.
Well the answer to that question is quite simple. As you might know I have been playing in various garage/rock groups since the early 80’s - and the key mark for all those band was that they mainly we’re quite hard and fuzz-driven acts. When I formed the early Maharajas in late 1996 I had come to the conclusion that I wanted to explore the more moody style of punk rock, mainly expressed in American loser groups heard on various compilations like Shutdown 66 etc and obscure greek 60’s groups. You see, in 1995 I took a trip to the homeland of Dionysos to hook up with two groups -the Cardinals and the Frantic V, from Athen and Thessaloniki respectively. They both showed me how things should be done and I went straight back to Sweden to form the Hymen Of Tongues - a group that you might say was the predecessor of the Maharajas.
Que cuáles son vuestras influencias.
All good rocking, swinging music that is made by heart and feelings from whatever decade. Well I could name-drop a zillion groups and I will do it again in no particular order: The Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Pretty Things, the New Dawn, the Unrelated Segments, the Music Machine, the Ramones, the Hellacopters, Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, Amy Diamond…
Que por qué gusta tanto a los escandinavos el garage y su estética.
Sweden has about 9 million people and a rough guess is that maybe a couple of thousands in this country actually like garage music. The other Scandinavian countries has far less people within their border so the numbers are even smaller there. But I can see the point that a lot of Scandinavian groups have made some impact with their music in the rest of Europe and maybe in the New World. My question to you could be how it comes that everyone in your country seems to like Rock’nroll? It’s fabulous!
Que a nosotros nos gustan The Men. El grupo, claro.
Sorry Oscar you got me there. I haven’t heard this group, but I’m sure they sound great if you like them. And by the way, any group who’s name starts with the letter M is bound to be great ha ha!
Que por qué os llamáis The Maharajas.Well there a lot of groups called something like the Kaisers, Ceasars, Kings etc etc. A maharaja is a king and boss in India and I thought it would be cool to have a connection to that. And wouldn’t it be great if we all could have flying carpets and stuff like that?
Que nos cuentes algo de vuestro último disco, In pure spite.
First of all - it is by so far the best album we have done. A lot of this has to do with the fact that we have a new drummer since the summer of 2006, Ricard Harryson, and of course the never ending top-notch songs that Ulf spits out seemingly effortless. The story goes that Ollie of the Low Impact records took me and Ulf out for dinner in august 2006 and told us he wanted a new album to be released the next year. He asked us if we could do that and if we had enough of material. After a few pints of beer, both Ulf and I swore that we had more than 20 songs and it would be no problem at all. The truth was that we had like 20 IDEAS of songs but no complete ones. Anyway we just had to start work reald hard, and quite early we booked 4 weekends at Dustward studio (who is runned by mighty boss Stefan Brändström, member of notoriously hard rocking the Henry Fiat Open Sore) early winter/spring of 2007. We managed to squeeze in a cople of rehearsals and finished the recording of the album in just 3 weekends. We started to record 16 songs, but choosed to release the best 14. as always, things got a bit delayed, but we had our official releaseparty the 8 of December 2007. The best part of recording the album was our chance to really explore the various sounds of the different vintage amps and microphones that Stefan has in his vault ha ha.
Que nos cuentes algo de vuestras letras.
No… The lyrics are just forced together with the music and the important thing is that it should rhyme and that the choruslines should be catchy. Well I’m speaking for myself there. I guess the lyrics of Ulf is full of secret messages and clues to what’s really going on at the planet Earth and especially in Stockholm.
Que cómo son vuestros conciertos.
We play some old stuff from our previous albums like H-minor, Unrelated Statements and A Third Opinion. And we give a good treat of songs from our latest album In Pure Spite. And we have a couple of secret extra songs that we can play after request!
Que qué os mola de España.
We played 5 shows in the autumn of 2004 in places like Burgos, Vitoria, San Sebastian, Madrid and a small place outside Barcelona. It was absolutely fabulous and we had a GREAT time. In june this year we played in Andoain, together with mighty groups like the Neanderthals, the Trashmen and the Dirtbombs. We also hooked up with good friend Peio who gave us a treat we will remember for the rest of our lives!
About Spain and the people: We absolutely love it! First of all the various types of landscapes depending in which area you visit is are always very dramatic and beautiful, from Andalucia in the south to Galicia in the northwest. The weather is great - you should try to live in Sweden during January or so and you will definitely understand why people commit suicide in this country - that’s a bit of a joke ok? But you also have the food and the wine - nice red ones from places like Rioja, Navarra, Bierzo, Emporda, Penedes, Manchuela, Ribera del Duero etc and lively white ones from Rías Baixas, Monterrei, Rueda, Chacoli, the finos/oloroso/amontillados, the dulce monastrells, the cidres from Asturia not to mention your brandies. I could go on and on and every place in Spain has something good to offer. And to this you can add all the wonderful people who has understood the meaning of rock’n’roll and life all together.
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