Biography

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Chapter IX

2004 started with one helluvatime on the top of our house. We had a new years eve party with many of our friends. There was a lot of people (metal celebrity?) here, and I guess we all had a blast. I was "working" as a bartender mixing drinks (yes, free drinks...fuckin' freeloaders!) for our guests, preparing food and seeing to their comfort. I basically didn't have time to get as drunk as I would have wanted. My wife wasn't drinking at all. We'd taken a pregnancy test just the day before which came out positive. She was carrying around a glass of non-alcoholic wine through the entire evening to prevent getting "difficult" questions.

Per Wiberg dropped by but the other guys in the band had parties elsewhere. Still a great evening! It's not like I hadn't seen enough of them already!

This had been our longest break since the previous tour. Jordan had been cancelled twice, the south American tour had turned sour after non serious promoters had fucked it all up (hold up Chile, we can't wait to come down...Brazil, Argentina...Uruguay?)

I was quite anxious to go on tour again even though time back home is always welcome. We had a looong US tour (our 4th in support of the last two albums) scheduled. It was officially in support of our DVD, "Lamentations - Live at Shepard's bush empire", but it was really a mishmash of our albums and not that particular DVD set.We had support from Portuguese old-timers (sorry Fernie but we're getting there) Moonspell and new comers Devil driver of which I knew very little apart from them being led by ex Coal chamber vocalist Dez. Anyways, the tour started in the end of January and we felt like a well oiled machine at the time. However, Martin Lopez had had some recent problems. The same problems that forced us to cancel Jordan the first time (2nd time the promoter cancelled it!). He was suffering from anxiety attacks and did not feel well at all. It all started great with us meeting up at Arlanda airport, the 5 of us, now with Per as a member/session member (whatever it will be) included in the band.

We had a flight scheduled for Frankfurt, but due to some light snow the flight had to relocate to Stuttgart (why??? It's not the first time it's Winter!) due to some ice on the landing strip. We ended up missing our connecting flight to Canada thanks to a well-delayed bus destined to drive us back to Frankfurt. Trouble looming! At the airport there was total chaos with several cancelled flights + lines and lines of people. No one came to help us, we'd no idea where to go, where we would stay for the evening. Eventually, after several heavy drinks we got the information thatv we had a hotel room for the evening, and were booked on the morning flight the next day. During the evening I could see Lopez was not feeling well, and damn right, he came to me later on saying he literally couldn't do this tour as he felt extremely ill, that he had to go home! What can you do really?

I cashed a ticked for him to go back home and hook up with his psychiatrist and get some medication. The rest of us had decided after long talks with management etc to continue our trip to Canada. Lopez had promised that he would join us after a few days, which would obviously mean that we'd miss some gigs in the very beginning of the tour. We reckoned it' better to miss a few than to cancel an entire tour. Unfortunately those first gigs were in cities we'd never played before. Well....we had to get there first!!

Our flight to Calgary landed on time actually and we walked over to the connecting flight to Edmonton. Guess what!?....the flight was full, and we're not even certain to make the next flight! Of course we missed that next one too due to it being over booked. 3rd attempt 4 hours later, myself and Peter got on the flight while Mendez and Per had to wait for the next one after that. On top of this the clock was about show time for our first gig, which obviously meant we'd officially cancelled.

We figured we could make it to the venue in time for at least apologizing for everything + meet up with the fans and talk or whatever. However, when me and Peter went to collect our instruments and bags and whatnot we'd brought with us, nothing came out on the carousel. It was gone, all our equipment!! After hours of pointless arguing with some thick headed guard we got the info that our equipment was still in Calgary. I called up Per but they'd obviously just stepped on their flight. So we had to wait for another few hours until the equipment finally came. Puhhh! Stepping on the tour bus and having that relaxing cigarette felt like a dream. And we hadn't even started the tour! Fortunately we managed to catch a few fans in the venue and sign some stuff, hang out a little bit.

For the next 2 gigs we'd planned to at least play a few songs with our drum tech, Damon filling in for Lopez. He knew some of the mellow "Damnation". In Calgary we did like 5 songs with him. For the Vancouver gig our tour manager suggested that we'd bring someone in for us to be able to play a longer set + some heavy songs.

I was immediately turning that idea down as there's not a chance somebody could learn any of our songs during a day. Anyways, I was talked into it, and perhaps I felt it's worth a try. I wasn't even sure that Lopez would show up at all! We called up the mountain of a man, Gene Hoglan from Strapping young lad. He lived in Vancouver and everybody knows he's a terrific drummer + nice guy and...on top of that, one of Martin Lopez drum heroes! Gene said "Alright daddy!" in 10 seconds after we'd asked him to help us out.

Now, he came down to the venue round lunch time (for normal people, that is!). We gave him a walkman with a wish for him to listen and learn how to play at least 1 song. By sound check 3 hours later he'd learned and also flawlessly played "The drapery falls" and "Demon of the fall". That guy is a genius! It took me 2 weeks to learn the "Smoke on the water" lick properly! Anyways, that show was legendary I feel. We all felt out of place due to Lopez's absence, but playing with Gene was great and definitely a unique Opeth happening! The crowd went insane when I introduced him on stage. By the side was Devin Townsend and his girl watching, probably thinking we're going to try and steal Gene for the rest of the tour. But, luckily, by the time we hit Seattle, Lopez came back, happier than I've seen him in a long time. The doctor had actually diagnosed him with a condition that's inherited and one that his father, Washington had suffered from too. He'd recieved some medication too. Quite honestly, I don't think I've ever seen him happier!

It's no secret that we'd had difficulties recording the last 2 albums, but also everything past that had been plagued by personal problems and other stuff that wasn't bringing us closer but rather further apart.

But now, we'd left that behind us and as a result I feel we felt more connected with each other than perhaps, ever before! A great tour! The support bands were great people too! We had heaps of fun with them and our best wishes go out to them! I felt bad for Devil driver at times as some people in the crowd were mocking them. I thought they we're quite heavy and didn't think of them as a nu-metal band at all. And believe me...I HATE nu metal!!

Coming back home was especially great as we knew this was our last long tour for quite some time. We all felt exhausted but also slightly down/sad. Touring is something you gotta experience to know exactly what it's like. When you're touring you can't wait to come back home. But very soon, you start itching to go back out again. I guess this lifestyle has become what we are! We had a short break before our official last tour.

The rescheduled tour for one of our favourite countries in the world, Australia! I was really anxious to go back there and play but also to spend some weeks with my wife. We'd planned a 2 week holiday that officially was our honeymoon. Almost one year after our actual wedding.

This tour was fantastic! We are getting a seriously big fan base in Oz, and every gig was fantastic! We started out in Adelaide. The night before we decided to drink...really to get wasted! We emptied all the mini bars at the hotel. Fighting about whether Yngwie Malmsteen is writing evil music or not. Suddenly Per got this great idea. He wanted to see what happened if he dropped a chair from the 12th floor. The Martins were sleeping but we were in their room, the rest of us. Per dropped one chair, and 12 floors down it smashed into pieces. Then I dropped another, also smashing it to bits.

Then came the notion of "what the fuck are we doing?". We're grown up men, not some problematic small kids. I was very nervous that we'd be fined or even arrested. I mean, it's quite dangerous dropping chairs off the balcony like that. As we're checking out the receptionist said something like "Didn't you guys like the chairs on the balcony?", very ironic she was. We ended up paying 50 Australian dollars per chair, which really was way less than I'd expected. In retrospect I almost feel it was worth it. Seeing them chairs smash to pieces was a great sight! Wouldn't do it again though! Or???

Sydney is a fantastic city! The gig there was amazing. I think we pulled almost 2000 people to the gig at the Enmore theatre. Marvellous!! As the tour had ended (2 nights in Melbourne), me and my wife flew back to Sydney and spent a week there. After that we had a week on a sunny tropical island called Hamilton island off the east coast of the mainland. All I can say (again) is fantastic!!

We'd officially completed our last tour. The only gigs remaining were 2 festival appearances. One at the Download festival at Donington park/UK + at the (great!) Sweden rock festival.

Both gigs went great, and I remember feeling slightly depressed after the SR gig. Everybody knew that it might take a year before we'd be on stage with Opeth again. Sweden Rock is a festival I can warmly recommend to people who're into classic heavy metal. I think it's the best festival in the world. I'd go there regardless if we'd play or not.

This year Judas Priest were headlining but I was quite dissapointed with them. Tipton played really bad and the drummer was bad too. Only Rob and KK did great, Ian Hill? Well, who looks at him anyways? They all seemed tp believe they could live off of their "metal god" status forever. I love them with a passion, but this gig was not great!

The Scorpions was one of my absolute favourite bands when I was a kid. Me, Anna and Blakkheim watched them and we had a absolute blast! I do admit however, that at times we were laughing at them and not with them. Rudolf Schenker has some moves that are... well, not cool! Europe played to, a reformed gig, and it was cool to see them, good set! The best was...Heart! I'm honest. I only knew some of their hits from the 80's, so virtually every song they did I was hearing for the first time.

Absolutely fantastic gig! I'm now a big fan of theirs!! Ann Wilsons voice is the best I've heard in a long time, her sister, Nancy is fucking awesome too!

Coming home for me meant I'd be able to spend some time writing new music ( which I'm still currently doing) + spend time with my pregnant wife. We had one weeks vacation down south, but apart from that we've just been taking it easy over the Summer. I went down during a day to visit Steven Wilson. He'd asked me to play some guitar + sing some backing vocals on the new Porcupine tree album. A offer I could not turn down. Since then there's no actual band news worth mentioning apart from that the DVD has sold Gold in Canada.

Peter got married to his Jessica on the 21st of August + me and my wife became parents to our daughter, Melinda on the 13th of September. She's crying out for me now so gotta go!

Oh, also gotta say that I got to meet one of my absolute idols the other week, David Coverdale! I kinda know the Whitesnake guitarist, Doug Aldrich as him and his girl came to our gig in LA...great guy! He introduced myself and Blakkheim (who was shaking!) to DC. Coverdale's opening phrase as I stepped into his dressing room was "Hello Mikael, how's the band doing?"

I gave him a copy of "Damnation" which I think he's heard before from Doug and actually liked + I got a poster signed to myself, Anna and Melinda! What a great man! We talked for 10 minutes or so, then me and Blakkie headed over to a night club, drinking...Blakkheim kept his signed Whitesnake backstage pass round his neck throughout the entire evening!

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