I let Chrome translate it for me. The most interesting part was this:
- What are your next plans?
Glen Graham: We will continue doing these concerts for the weekend. As an album, I think we will do nothing for a while. Of course, record a couple of covers , "Ooh La La" by Faces and "Celebration Day" by Led Zeppelin, and publish a way or another, to have a kind of new recorded material. But a new album should be in the future.
We like touring. It's fun to fly, make a couple of shows and go home. So everyone can be with his family. For years we were on tour 10 months a year and it was fun but tough. And believe me now, at this age, is considerably harsher. Also everyone in the band except me, have children, so they want to be with their families.Here is the whole article:
At the end of next July, Blind Melon arrive in Chile for the first time to perform in Santiago and Concepcion. After a period of instability, the American band is making new plans with Travis Warren , the definitive replacement of the missing and always missed, Shannon Hoon . On these plans, the group's history and his visit to South America spoke drummer Glen Graham.
For most Blind Melon is a one-hit wonder , a band remembered for the incredible success of "No Rain" , but for a large group of fans around the world and some critics, who led the band until 1995 and that Hoon was unfairly pigeonholed into the grunge movement, is much more than that .
Blind Melon was from the beginning a particular mix of elements and a statement of pluralism. Its members were from different parts of the United States and settled in California but when they began to break into the music, their albums were recorded in different cities, its successful debut in North Carolina wrote in a house they dubbed the sleepyhouse and they lived for a couple of months later and was recorded in Seattle, while his successor, Soup , was recorded at Kingsway Studio in New Orleans in late 1994 and early 1995.
And as the band moved from one geographic location to another, so did his music. Although the sound of Blind Melon has a seal perfectly distinguishable, in part thanks to the unmistakable voice of Hoon-can hardly be labeled under one genre. Their music is folk, psychedelic rock and a clear influence of southern rock, and converge on a single plate from completely acoustic songs to pieces that flirt with the metal.
After signing a deal with Capitol Records , Blind Melon released their self-titled debut album in September 1992 . The album had an essentially retro is due in part to the way it was recorded, using technology that was already outdated by the date, looking for a sound similar to the first records of the Rolling Stones. Additionally, for the cover art used a photo from 1975 which featured sister Georgia Graham Glen Graham , the original drummer of the group, disguised as a bee .
It took another year before the grouping was done really known what eventually happened when MTV started rotating the video "No Rain" , the third single from the album, which took as its concept to the bee girl and became an absolute success.
"Probably from the outside it may seem that everything happened too fast, but we were together for two and a half before anything happened," says Glen Graham, on the phone from the U.S., adding that from that moment everything was on the rise .
Blind Melon was part of the festival poster Woodstock '94 , an experience that Graham describes as "frightening, to say the least," and remember: "We played right after Joe Cocker , who is one of my favorite people of all time ... Woodstock was too big . And the idea you were going to be filmed and that was to be broadcast around the world and you were a tiny ant wandering in this scenario ... it was a great feeling very, very strange. Besides our usual sound engineer was not present so we need a couple of songs to put everything in order. But I think Shannon did a great job and we played well. People seem to remember much (...) I had a great time after I stopped bother me. "
Despite the success, Blind Melon was different from the rest of the bands that emerged in the same period in the United States and became known worldwide. "Much of that came from Seattle and was similar in many ways. I do not know if we were the typical rock band of the early '90s. I think we were somewhere between Guns N 'Roses and The Grateful Dead. We had many different influences, "says Graham.
After recording two albums and being in the middle of the tour for Soup - one of the most underrated rock albums of the '90s - Shannon Hoon was found dead on the bus he was traveling on 21 October 1995, the day they had scheduled a show in New Orleans.
After some years of doubt, the group could not recover the loss of their frontman and officially disbanded in 1999. However, seven years later the story took another turn and the four musicians met orphans singer Travis Warren, a twenties who decided to return to the music. With him they recorded a new album in 2008 and returned to the stage. Albeit with lower expectations of greatness and the desire to enjoy all this and have fun.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH GLEN GRAHAM
- What about the musical movement of the '90s in America?
Glen Graham: I think it definitely marked a break with what came before. In the late '80s had such great hair metal bands and (then) there was a big transition. Guns N 'Roses was the first in a style more like Aerosmith, a hard rock band, and then very quickly, someone found Nirvana signed with them and everything changed .
I feel that bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Alice in Chains, when you heard a song they could say, "this band," but we abarcábamos many things ... I guess we did not sound so definite.
I do not know if there was a scene in the '90s. The scene is what people see from outside, while watching MTV or whatever. There was a small club or a group of people spending time together, or bands going on tour together. Were not the '60s! But I definitely had a lasting impression and I guess I'm happy to be part of that.
- After the death of Shannon you decided to separate. What did you do during those years?
Glen Graham: I did some albums with different people (including an EP with The Meek ). I lived in New Orleans until 1999 and then I moved to North Carolina and built a strange house hippie to a river and it took me about 5 years ...
After Shannon died I was very interested in the idea of continuing the search for a career in music. But now I'd be playing in any band, like Christopher (Thorn - guitarist) who is currently playing in a band called Awolnation , with someone who did production work and are doing well in America and Europe and spend some time tour, so I'd be doing something. We will continue doing this for as long as we can, but we all have our interests. For example, Rogers (Stevens, guitarist and keyboardist) is in law school ...
- What is the current state of Blind Melon? Announced that Travis had left the band and now he's back, is it permanent?
Glen Graham: He is the right person and will be with us as he wants. He came out of nowhere, we were not looking for anyone for a long time we stopped looking for someone to replace Shannon and Travis came in 2006 to study Brad (Smith, bass) and Christopher (Thorn) are in Los Angeles to work on their own material and eventually Brad thought, "it might work, can be our singer." After Rogers and I went to Los Angeles to see if this was true, and we realized that it was. We entered the study, we did the record and out of turns. We did that for two years and then we had a misunderstanding and we were separated for a couple of years, but now we're back and everything is fine.
- What are your next plans?
Glen Graham: We will continue doing these concerts for the weekend. As an album, I think we will do nothing for a while. Of course, record a couple of covers , "Ooh La La" by Faces and "Celebration Day" by Led Zeppelin, and publish a way or another, to have a kind of new recorded material. But a new album should be in the future.
We like touring. It's fun to fly, make a couple of shows and go home. So everyone can be with his family. For years we were on tour 10 months a year and it was fun but tough. And believe me now, at this age, is considerably harsher. Also everyone in the band except me, have children, so they want to be with their families.
- What is your favorite song by Blind Melon?
Glen Graham: I like to listen to "Dear ol 'Dad' and I like to play" Soak The Sin "and" Time. "
- Personally, I always liked "Mouthful of Cavities." Is it true that the singer who accompanied them on that topic was a fanatic who would almost all their shows?
Glen Graham: That song definitely we will play in Chile. And yes, Jena Kraus always came around and eventually said "I can sing." She finished in the studio while recording Soup and one day we tested and it was true, he could sing. Currently we do not travel with a female vocalist, so if you know of someone who can do that part there, make it reach us. In America we do often and sometimes works and sometimes goes very wrong.
- In July, presented for the first time in Chile, what are your expectations?
Glen Graham: I hope to do more cold here where I am because the heat is terrible, they are like 100 degrees Fahrenheit! As for the concert but really I have no expectations. We'll play mostly songs from the first disc, Soup , Nico and a couple of tracks on the album For My Friends . From what I've seen MySpace and Facebook know that at least a handful of people keen to see us. We do not know what will happen, we've never been there. We expect people to go and like.