What's Cooking with the Grande Roses

It's not easy for the Grande Roses (first appearing here) to make music. After all, the five members of the band (Goran-acoustic guitar/vocals, Johan - Guitar, Ekan -Guitar, Eb - Bass, and Emil - Drums) don't live in the same city. As you can imagine, this makes practicing and touring difficult. Recently I had the opportunity to correspond with Goran and discuss this issue, as well as find out what is cooking with the Grande Roses.

In July the Grande Roses released a five song EP titled The Farm. Their is a strong country feel to it (every time I listen I am reminded of my grandmother's farm). I asked Goran about his inspiration for the EP:

Most of the songs, except "Factory," were written while I lived in Duved (in northen Sweden). It´s a small place with about 400 people. But most of my songs always come back to what I hated about my hometown, Karlstad. But for some reason I made peace with it this summer, so i dont know what I´m going to write about now. "Factory" was written in my old apartment in Stockholm in the peak of the high conjuncture. I thought, why the hell did I write a song about people getting fired when everythings pretty good... Well, things changed and it suddenly made sense...

The few album reviews that the EP has garnered have been good (here's one, here's another). To support The Farm the band performs shows when they have the opportunity. One of their live shows was recorded a few months back and the band plans to release it as a video shortly. What else are the Grande Roses cooking up, musically speaking? I posed a similar question to Goran and here's what he had to say:

We´re up for some good old rehearsing before hitting the studio (ep/single/album/performanceartproject!?). We also need to find a record company to take care of the bureaucracy!

Also look for a band website to appear soon. Since this is also a food blog I ended our discussion with a question about what the Grande Roses are cooking up (in the more conventional use of the word). Turns out, it's soup:

Grande Roses Quick Autumn Soup
-yellow chanterelles
-white wine
-bouillon
-cream
-onions
-garlic
-thyme
-a touch of brandy
-salt
-pepper

1. Mix the ingredients together in a big pot. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and allow the soup to simmer.

Here's another track off their EP:
Grande Roses-The Farm

And the Earlier one:
Grande Roses-The Factory

To purchase the album you can contact the band directly through their myspace page.

Look for more "What's cooking" entries to come your way over the next few months.