Biography

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Chapter II

I met David Isberg sometime during the same time I did Eruption. We were into this skateboard thing, you know? All of us were having a fucking skateboard. Anyway, he was really into extreme music as well, and I guess I owe it to him that I like this music so much. He really sparked my interest when he loaned me the Mefisto demotape called "The puzzle"! I was awestruck! They had cool solos, grim vocals, acoustic guitars, everything! I thought they were way better than most Death metal records I had bought. Together with Morbid Angel, Death Bathory, and Voivod, Mefisto became a big influence for all my future compositions. During the same time Eruption died, Opeth started to live.

David had formed the band together with some bums from Taby. The name was taken from a book by author Wilbur Smith, and was originally spelled Opet without the "h" at the end. The meaning was unknown for me until I quite recently found the book myself, and got the knowledge that Opeth is the city of the moon.

Eruption was dead, and I wanted to get into some other band. David had earlier showed me the Opeth logo, the old one with the inverted cross, and I was really impressed with that logo, so I guess I got somewhat interested in the band since I had seen it.He approached me one day asking if I wanted to play bass with them.

I thought I could try it out, so one evening we went to their reh-place in Taby. The thing was that none of the other guys in the band knew that I was coming, and they didn't really want to kick out the bassplayer they already had. The climax was when the other bassplayer appeared as well. It was fucking embarrassing! They started arguing about the matter, and the very same night, Opeth was history, at least for the Taby guys. They renamed themselves "Crowley" and released a terrible demotape called "The gate" in 1991.

However, me and David wanted to do something together with Opeth. We "reformed" Opeth as a 2-man band. I remember at the time that we said that Opeth was destined to be the most evil band in the world!!

As you might understand I was more or less influenced by the occult back then, although in no serious manner. Music wise I was really into the twisted, dark, and evil-sounding riffs. The lyrics written by both me and David were pure Satanic chantings!The two songs we I first wrote was "Requiem of lost souls" and "Mystique of the Baphomet" (later "Mark of the damned" and later "Forest of October"). However, we needed to complete the line-up. We asked Anders to join the band which he did. We also asked Nick to join as a bassplayer. A second guitarist was found in Anderas Dimeo.

It didn't take long until David had fixed us a slot on one of those various death metal gigs that were arranged in Stockholm during the same time.

We rehearsed in a elementary school at the time, only using old 60's equipment that we found there. The gig was in February of 1991 together with Therion, Excruciate and Authorise. We had practised 3 songs of which only 2 was played on that show. I reckon it was probably the worst appearance one can have witnessed. We were so fucking nervous that we all wanted to cancel the fucking gig and just go back home.

Not long after that, David had fixed us another gig, down in Gothenbourg. Since the last gig both Nick and Andreas had quit the band due to obvious reasons. For this 2nd gig we contacted 2 guys who played in a sleazy metal band called Crimson Cat, if they could help us out for the gig. One was Kim Pettersson and the other was Johan DeFarfalla (Yes, the very same)!!

They were glad to, thinking that Playing death metal would be the easiest thing in the world. I tell you, they had serious problems learning our tracks who had by then become quite complex. The gig was fucking cool!Other bands playing were At the gates(they had just started playing), Therion, Desecrator, Megaslaughter and Sarcazm. We went down pretty well, and afterwards we stayed at Adrians (ATG) place.

All but Johan, who immediately drove back to Stockholm to his girlfriend, and that was also the last we would see of him in Opeth, at least for a while. Kim actually stuck with us for yet another gig. One was booked together with Asphyx and Desultory, in late 1991 or something like that.

By now I had written a track called Poise into Celeano who turned out more different than the other tracks. No blast beats, no ultra doomy parts. This track had acoustic parts, harmonies, and lots of double bass drumming!

Some parts of this track ended up in "Advent" on the 2nd album. Anyhow, for this third gig we needed a bassplayer.

I had met Peter earlier due to my girlfriend at the time, being a good friend of his girl friend, you know how it is! He was originally a guitar player, but his band, "Sylt i krysset", was just a mere joke band, and he wanted to do something more serious, so he accepted our offer. The gig was pretty cool as well! A short time after this gig, Kim left the band, so Peter changed gears and became the second guitarist instead. David also left the band in early 1992 in favour of Liers in wait. Honestly, at the time, I thought it was good for the band, as he no longer seemed as interested as the rest of us.

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