1. First of all I’d like to congratulate you on releasing a marvelous album! Are you happy with the end result? How does it feel? 

Thank you and we are very happy with the result! It feels like being an up and coming fighter, aiming for a championship title and having potential to get the belt!

One of the best moments so far is standing in front of a 3000+ crowed at Gävle Cityfest in 2006. It’s been a difficult experience getting all the influences and styles of the band members to unify, but now we are a well oiled, a totally together unit!  

Yes. 

We first made a three track promo CD/EP with “Last Ride”, “Carved in Stone” and “Hide” in a limited edition. The recording and production weren’t the greatest, but it had a really good vibe and was full of energy.

Well, I don’t know any musicians who feel they ever are real “masters” of the art or their instrument, and we are all still learning and growing, and writing. Playing our songs has always come very easily and flowed very well.  We have all grown both musically and personally.  The promoting and business side of being in a band has been the hard part. It’s like with all bands, we have no problem with spending hours, days, weeks or months in writing, recording, mixing, mastering and releasing our work, but after that we’re lost. Now we’re finally learning and have come in contact with a great manager in the states.  So now all the parts are finally coming together in harmony and we are really thrilled!

I would say that I don’t think anyone sums it up better than Mark Griffiths of Kerrang!, so I will quote him: “…fucking fantastic! Calling on seminal metal influences [Metallica, Kyuss, Soundgarden, Motörhead] and mixing them up into a groove-laden sound, rich on big hooks and seismic riffs, this will sit favourably with fans…” 

The thing is that I either have to experience or closely relate to the things I sing about, otherwise it feels like a joke to me and I can’t do it.   

When we write new songs the most common procedure is that the other guys write some baseline music, we play through it, expand it and when we’re all happy with that foundation, it gets passed on to me and I write the lyrics and a melody.

The interlude of “Painwave” gives me goose bumps every time I either hear or sing it. Overall, I think there are a lot of catchy tunes. I would like to look into using different tuning and exploring the moods more in our new material.  The only weak point of the album is that it’s only 35 minutes long.  We constantly have people saying to us that they’d like the CD to be “more” and “longer”, so we are happy to fill that request.

The main topics are goals and dreams, sex, war, politics, not fitting in, betrayal, drugs etc. and the source of inspiration is self-experience or something I can relate to or have a strong opinion about. Never dungeons and dragons, spaceships or just cool word combinations. It has to mean something to me.

Yes, and that was the main criteria when we took the name, to get a name that shows the heaviness and aggressiveness in the music. Back in 2005, before we came up with GROUND MOWER, we called it LEDSTONE, but we felt that it wasn’t good enough. I can’t remember who or how we came up with GROUND MOWER but we all agreed that it was right on the button.  

It’s a dark, rough landscape with a little cabin in the outskirts of an abandoned city and the skyline is covered in butterflies with open skulls, or “skullterflies” as we like to call them. 

Our good friend Jocke Harju made it for us and the original idea was to get a nightmare kind of feeling which we thought was a cool idea and he found a great balance between good and evil with the “skullterfly”. 

We have a select number of shows booked in Sweden during spring 2009, and are working on the new album at the same time. We are proud to say that GROUND MOWER is opening for Blaze Bayley on 30 April, and we will be performing at Sweden Rocks 2009.  We are also looking at a couple of options to tour outside Sweden at late summer. 

Get some one you can trust and who knows the business and let that person run the business, then you and/or the band focus on the artistic. An Official Website, MySpace and Facebook are the first three things I think you should prioritize. Remember to be seen all over the internet and be generous with free downloads when you establish a new band or artist.   

Crunchy Hard Rock with a jagged Metal edge!  And we are actually getting that one trademarked.

I think most people get excited and get pumped up. The music either gets people in a party mood or makes them wanna break stuff.

“Painwave” is the most genuine song to me.  For a video I personally would choose “Down”, cause I have a cool idea with a black room and a stroboscope switching between the band playing and a mental patient in a straightjacket to mention a few ingredients in the video. 

There are some good bands out there, but what it all comes down to, in addition to talent, is having a plan and just hard work. I don’t believe in timing and luck, I believe you create your own success. 

I want to thank everybody who’s been supporting us from the start all the way up to now, all our families, friends and fans, and we’re looking forward to seeing you all on the road! GROUND MOWER’s coming your way!