How are you doing?
Göran Florström: Just fine thanks. We´ve just started doing some pre-production for our next album, laying down like 12-13 tracks… so we´re keeping ourselves busy..

Can you give us a little history of Generous Maria?
GF: We got together '98, I think it was.. I hadn´t been doing much music-wise for a while when my old friend Jeppe, he´s the bass player, called and told me he was back from living out of town for a few years and that he wanted to put an act together.. Good thing he called I´d say, because this band really turned out to be great working in.. We released the Strict Nurse EP on the Generous Maria/Skua Split out thru Alone Records in year 2K and then our album Command of the New Rock on Lunasound in 2002. That´s the one just released in the US a few weeks ago by Abstract Sounds.

Who would you say are some of your main musical influences? I'll bet that Led Zeppelin is in there!
GF: Well, we´re five guys y´know so there´s a variety of influences there.. Of course we´ve got the 70´s heavy bands in common, always rewarding to dig in the rich soil of the 70´s.. For me personally the house god´s always been Iggy. So much influencing you, isn´t it.. No point in listing all the bands we´re into, and there´s so much more, sounds on the street, life, universe, everything..

Obviously, people will say your sound is 70's hard rock but that's putting it in a box that I'm not sure it really fits in. How would you describe Generous Maria's sound?
GF: I´m happy as long as our guitars are heavy, the rhythms groovy, our songs something more then just a couple of riffs loosely packed on each other and the energy´s there. And think we´ve got it at all points.

Command of the New Rock is a pretty gutsy title, but I have to say that the album lives up to its name. When you chose that title did you think that people might perceive it as arrogant? Has anyone even suggested that the title may be a big statement to make?
GF: Haha well yeah.. Actually it´s like this. You know on the cover there´s this stone monolith looking a bit like a part of a r 'n' r guitar and these apemen, five of ´em actually - might be us, standing around it looking at it in awe. And you´ve got this rocky landscape.. So the apemen know every one of the old rocks in their environment, but this is a new one, coming from the dimension of Rock 'n' Roll or something and holding some kinda command over these guys.. omitting something very special.. They´ll probably start a band tomorrow already..

How has response been to the album so far?
GF: It´s been goddamn great! It´s been out here in Europe for a year you know.. And all these raving reviews, we love it! And we´re excited over it getting an official release now in the States. It´s only been available as import earlier..

What did you want to accomplish when you went in to record this record? Was there a particular goal in mind as far as what you wanted the end product to be?
GF: What we wanted to do was a goddamn Rock album, loud and proud y´know. And we wanted to have some variation to it, you know some albums you buy and that you really like to start with tends to get a bit like "jeez is it the same song all over again..?" But basically we wanted to record ten good songs and make a real good album out of it.

It seems like Sweden is on the verge of becoming the new capital for rock and roll. Is there a big movement over there towards rock and roll or is it just that more rock and roll bands are being accepted outside of Sweden?
GF: Well yeah, there sure are a lot of bands over here, some really good and some not as good.. But I don´t know, it´s not like a big movement or anything, you don´t notice it if you don´t dig a bit under the surface, it´s still a underground thing.. I mean, it´s not like the radio plays good stuff all the time, it´s still the same old shit, and there aren´t rock clubs in every corner or anything.. I think it´s pretty much as you say, that many Swedish bands manage to do pretty well abroad..

I have to mention the artwork. The "Planet of The Apes" theme is awesome! Who did the artwork for the album? Did you come up with the idea or did you just pick something you liked?
GF: Actually the theme is inspired by Kubrick´s "2001 - a space odyssey". And the artwork is done by the fantastic guys of Malleus, they are really something else.. So the guitar-head monolith I was talking about before is of course a travesty of the black monolith in that movie. We had this idea of using the first part of the film in some way and Malleus bought the idea entirely. Then we had a lengthy email correspondence where they showed sketches and stuff and it turned out pretty well, didn´t it?

Will you be doing any touring?
GF: We´re negotiating for a tour in the Netherlands right now.. for this fall. Otherwise we´ve been doing some minor tours here in Sweden. Mostly one off gigs though..

Parting thoughts?
GF: Parting is always a difficult thing, never get used to it.. Just joking - it was good to hear from you! And for you guys out there: check out 'Command of the New Rock', it´s good for you!

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