Amsterdam

“We'll go there for one drink and then we'll head back and get some sleep.” Famous last words that have been said many a time. You think we'd learn...

I woke up in bed next to Stachel with my head pounding.

We flew in to Hamburg last night where Stachel had picked us up in the van with all of the gear we're renting for this weekend trip. We couldn't find any affordable flights into Amsterdam for the first show tomorrow, so we opted to fly into Germany the night before and hang out with our good friend Stachel for one extra night. We just can't get enough of the little man. And besides, it's nice starting with a day off.

We landed around ten pm. and by the time we got to Bremen it was just before midnight. The roadworks on the Hamburg to Bremen autobahn still no nearer completion it seems. They must have been restoring that road for the last decade. By the time we get to Stachel's place we're all starving. I've never been in Bremen before, it must be the only big town in Germany that I've not played in, although that will be accomplished on Saturday.

We take a walk into town and it's pretty quiet. It's a nice looking place though. Stachel had promised us Bremen's best falafel and I was dying to check it out. The place is a nice little no frills- hole in the wall kebab shop called Torno. The falafel hits the spot perfectly and when Jon cracks open a large bottle of Becks, the temptation for a beer is too much for both myself and Johan. It feels good to have warm food inside me after a dinner of airport and air-plane sandwiches. The beer doesn't feel too bad either...

Stachel has been telling me for a long time now about a friend of his called Daniel that is a great cocktail bartender. He's also played in a few hardcore bands, one of which was Mörser. Anyway, he works at this really nice little place called 1^st. Class Suicide on Wednesday evenings, and with all we've been hearing about the place, the man and the drinks, and this being Wednesday night, we feel obliged to check it out, even if it's just for one drink before we go to sleep at Stachel's place...

I opt for a drink that is made up of gin, melon, cucumber and chilli. It might sound a bit strange but it was absolutely tremendous.  Johan goes for a Ginger Cosmopolitan.  I know as soon as the cocktail menu comes out that this won't be the last drink. And then when the Jagermeister shots arrive courtesy of Daniel I know I'm going to have a headache the next day. I really don't like doing shots anymore but you don't want to appear ungrateful. Jon starts getting stuck in to some other crazy booze that smells like cloves but I make sure I stay clear of that fucker... A few more drinks and a beer, as well as some good chat with Daniel about old shows and new bands, and we head back to Stachel's. I can feel the headache even before I go to sleep. So much for only one drink.

A couple of paracetamol and a shower later and I feel better, although my head was killing when I first woke. By the time I'm done with the breakfast Stachel has made us I'm feeling good for the day ahead. The drive to Amsterdam takes around five hours. Another friend of ours, Micha, who runs the wonderful Punk Distro label, is coming out to the shows helping with the driving. He's bringing a few boxes of records to sell at the shows too, so I guess I'll be coming home broke as per usual. The drive to Amsterdam goes by pretty fast since I spend most of it studying. The college term ends next week and I still have a bit to do, so I don't have much choice. I'm trying not to get stressed about it, but next week I have a big essay to write on Selma Lagerlöf's Kejsaren av Portugallien, which has to be handed in by Friday. So for the first time in my life, I actually sat in the band van doing school work. I'm not planning on making a habit of it...

We get to Amsterdam around seven pm. Perfect timing. The doors to the show open at nine and we're on around eleven so the night should fly by nice and smoothly. Nothing worse than hanging around at a venue doing nothing but waiting around.

We get done with soundcheck, it sounds good. The gear Stachel has gathered together for us seems to be concrete. During soundcheck tonight I can tell that we're all a lot more relaxed on stage than we were at the first show in Gothenburg, when even in soundcheck the songs were flying along at an uncontrollable pace. It feels now like that show helped shake the cobwebs off. We play through a few songs and everything feels really good. After we're done we tuck into some delicious risotto that the venue has made for us up in the room above the venue. I'm not that hungry but it's so good that I'm forced to take seconds. Can't let good food go to waste on tour.

We don't have any spare guitars with us on these shows, which for me can be a fucking problem. After dinner I put new strings on my guitar, which is without doubt, the most boring chore known to man. I hate it. I'm hoping that this new set will get me through the three shows at least, otherwise there is going to be some uncomfortable pauses onstage. When we're done with dinner and strings, Jon and I take a walk around the park opposite the venue. Good to stretch the legs for a bit. It's a beautiful night and the park provides some welcome fresh air.

It's nice to be back in Amsterdam. It would have been fun to get into town a bit earlier today and hang out with some friends, but at the same time, getting to hang out at Stachel's this morning without any stress was too good to pass up. After hanging out in the park for a while, listening to Jon tell me about some French film he's been in to recently, we head back to the venue to meet my friend Lotje. Outside the venue is one of Amsterdam's many heavily trafficked cycle lanes and as we approach the venue Jon gets belled at by some old lady on her bike, who comes cycling up behind him. Jon almost jumps out of his skin whilst grabbing on to my arm and shouting some expletives in Swedish at her. I crack up laughing as does the old lady and a few other people who witness the spectacle.

Lotje comes down and meets me at the show and we go to a bar on the corner and catch up over a beer. It's always good to see her. It seems like things are going really well for her at the moment. She and a friend of hers opened up a hostel a few months ago and it's gone amazingly well. As well as that she's doing some work tour managing for the Swedish pop singer Robyn. She's off to the States in a few weeks with that. It's really nice to catch up in this quiet bar just a few doors down from the venue, although our time is too short as always since I have to worry about getting back for the show. Lotje doesn't feel like coming in to hang out a noisy punk show so she heads off home. As I say goodbye to her another friend of mine, Igor, texts me letting me know he's at the venue. We chat for a good fifteen minutes before I head into the venue to catch the end of Hysteria's set.

I like this venue. It reminds me of a slightly larger Kafe 44, but with a bar and a bigger stage. There are by now about eighty people in and it looks pretty good. I'm looking forward to playing. Hysteria sound really good, the girl singer has some pretty brutal vocals. The bass payer is a friend of Jon's who we were talking to earlier and who I only now realise is playing in the band. I'm going to have to pick up their record.

Hysteria finish just after eleven which gives us about fifteen minutes to set up since the venue has a curfew set for midnight, which is mainly due to the fact that the last train away from this part of town departs not long after. We want to get up on stage and get on with it, since there is nothing worse than playing a show to a crowd of people that are forced to leave before the end of the set due to transport restrictions. We get set up quick though, and it still sounds good up on stage, which is credit to the in-house sound guy. Hysteria had their own sound engineer with them and I don't know who's fuck up it was, but the settings we had on the desk from soundcheck got wiped.

Since we played the show in Gothenburg a couple of weeks ago we've rearranged the set. That night at Truckstop felt like we were just playing a bunch of songs in no particular order. We've since been back in the rehearsal room and sorted it out. We've cut a couple of new songs away and everything feels a lot more structured now. We start off with Victims in Blood #5 and when we're done with the first block, three songs and two minutes later, I know it's going to be a good gig. Even if I did snap one of those new strings before we'd even started...

I didn't bother mentioning it to the guys since it's only the High E string and I don't need it. With time getting on, I decide to just play the set without it and hope that it's not a bad omen for the rest of the show. It isn't. Although it's in the back of my mind, I don't really hold back from playing since you can't really do that and enjoy the show properly, so I decide to just go for it whilst making sure that I have a spare pack of strings within reaching distance.

The crowd is really enthusiastic tonight. They tepidly creep forward from the back of the dance-floor to the front of the stage on Johan's demand, but once we start, they kick off. Amazing how one gig can make a difference. After about six songs in Gothenburg I thought I was going to pass out, but tonight the energy is flowing. I can sense that the other guys are feeling it too. Everybody seems to be enjoying the gig and in no time the set flies by. We finish up by playing Circles and Scars as a couple of extra songs and then we're done. We stand there discussing the fact that somebody had requested For We Are Dead but I want to stick with the plan.  The guys are keen to play the guys request.  I joke with them asking them if we're a cabaret act.  I get my way.

The show felt like a really good start to the weekend. I make my way through the crowd to get a gasp of fresh air and enjoy the rest of my bottle of water. It was by no means the hottest show I've ever played tonight but I'm nonetheless dripping in sweat by the time I make it out in to the cool night breeze.

I meet a couple of people out there who really seemed to enjoy the show. One is a guy from South Korea who is in Amsterdam studying for a year. He tells me his name is Moonsick. I don't know how you spell his name but he explains it to me by first pointing at the moon and then holding his stomach and making a puking action. Really nice kid. We talk for a while about South Korea and the punk scene there. He tells me it's small but there are a few bands trying to do something. He tells me he's collecting a load of new records whilst he's here to take back and introduce to people at home since there isn't a lot of access to punk rock over there.

Another kid comes out of the venue who I recognise from being at the front and dancing throughout the entire show. He's covered in sweat and gasping for air by the time he gets to the street. He tells me that he travelled two hundred kilometres to come to the show tonight, which absolutely blows my mind. He keeps thanking me over and over for the show. I tell him that is I who is thankful to him. I chat for a little while longer with my new friends before heading back into the venue to claim a well earned bottle of Budvar. It tastes superb flowing down my throat.

We hang out for a while longer, chatting to our friends in the band Vitamin X who are from Amsterdam. We talk mostly about touring in the States and our friend Scotty, who has put out our records on his label Tankcrimes. As much as playing shows is what it's all about, hanging out with friends and catching up in different cities all over the world is what holds your heart dear to touring like we do.

We load out around one am. The bike lane is still really busy and as I'm in the middle of throwing gear into the back of the van I'm almost hit by a lady on a Paralympic style wheel chair. She's moving fast as fuck and I barely see her as she whizzes past me irritably ringing her bell. When we're packed we drive out to our friend Ronald's place, who was promoting the show tonight. Even though he's straight-edge, he's filled his fridge with beer for us and bought us a load of food for breakfast. Great guy. We sit up drinking beer and listening to records by Infest, Jerry's Kids and Herätys, all on a suitable low volume. Perfect.

By the time four am. comes around, we all start flaking and making plans for how we're going to sleep. The guys spread themselves around the sofas and the floor of Ronald's living room. I make a bee-line for the back room upstairs where Micha has already crashed out.

I feel another headache coming as I crash out on one of the mattresses Ronald has laid out for us.

Gothenburg

I always have a hard time getting to sleep the night before an early rise. It's the hours I work. I'm used to going to bed at four in the morning and getting up around ten. If my alarm clock is set at any time before nine then my head refuses to turn off. This morning the clock was set for seven and last night I lay in bed reading my book until two, and even then, when I finally turned the light out, I only lay there thinking about that fucking alarm clock.

Jon and Ana were picking me up in the van at ten past eight. I knew they'd be bang on time too, Jon is impeccably fucking punctual.

Despite only sleeping for five hours, I felt pretty good when I woke up. After a shower, a cup of tea and some marmalade on toast, I took Bonzo out for a quick piss. It was a beautiful morning. Tonight we would be playing the first Victims show in almost a year. I can't believe it's been so long. Seems crazy. This is the longest I've been without playing a show, since I started playing shows. The only gig I've played in the last nine months was when Battle of Santiago performed with Stig Larsson at an antique book store, and that was in November. I'm looking forward to getting things going again with Victims, now that we have a new record out.

I'm not sure how the gig is going to be tonight, though we're sure to be a bit rusty. The venue we're playing, Truckstop Alaska, is absolutely great. Last time we played there it was with Regimes, AC4 and We Live in Trenches. It was a fun night. This time around though, the show has been arranged at short notice. Martin At The Gates only asked us a few weeks ago, so that coupled with the fact that it's Valborg tonight (which seems to be a big deal here in Sweden), makes tonight's turn out hard to predict.

Jon calls me at ten to eight. I'm still out with Bonzo. He tells me he's on his way. We have to be at the venue for three pm and besides the other guys in the band, we're picking up Viktor Nitad and Stachel who runs our European label, La Familia. They're two great friends and it's really fun to have them along. I'm always happy to have extra faces in the van, and with Jon's girlfriend Ana driving, we have a good little crew today.

The van journey down to Gothenburg takes around six hours including the compulsory stop for a veggie burger at Max in Jönköping. We'd picked up Stachel from Björn Disfear's place, just outside of Nyköping. Stachel had flown in from Bremen last night to hang out and drink beer with Björn and Markus, who are really into brewing their own beer. It was good to see them and chat for a short while. Things have been pretty fucked up the last few weeks, since Henrik, the Disfear bass player, passed away. I'm sure the three of them had a toast or two in his name last night.

We arrive at the wonderful Truckstop Alaska on Hisingen Island, which Jon informs me is Sweden's third largest, just after three pm. This is one of the few times I've been to Gothenburg and seen the sun shining in the sky. Even though we're in the middle of an industrial estate, baked in the sun, the place right now looks beautiful. I'm looking forward to tonight.

We load in and then hang out for a while in the beer and grill garden they have out back. The guys who run this place should be really proud of what they have created here. They have put a lot of hard work into it. The venue itself is awesome. Really good stage, loads of sofas and lamps spread around the venue, a great selection of beer by the bottle that they keep at very cheap prices and some great food. They have a band apartment in the back with around seven beds, a kitchen and a shower, even a tv and a bunch of DVDs. As soon as you turn up here, you feel welcome. I wish we'd played more places like this with Speedhorn.

Whilst waiting to soundcheck, we hang out in the back garden, sitting on a sofa in the sun, drinking a cold bottle of Oppigård's wonderful Golden Ale. I have barely drunk a drop during the last two months. I took what we call a “white month” in Sweden, but when I got to four weeks, just carried on. No special reason, I just haven't felt like drinking for a while. It does me good to take these periods at least once a year. It's always healthy to have a little inner certification that you can go a month without drinking, not that I drink that much any more anyway... I'm happy to leave the partying for touring. There is nothing worse than being really hungover at home, and these days I get hungover after four beers. I don't even have to be drunk to get hungover any more! I must be getting old...

The beer in my hand, whilst sat on the sofa in the sun, chatting away to Viktor, tasted fucking brilliant though. I'll have to limit myself to just a couple before we play. The problem is, we're not playing until midnight. The one draw back about playing Truckstop is that you play late. Well, it's not that late, but we're here from three pm. since they open at six. I'm not sure why really. They set the stage times late since they say that “everybody comes late”. Well then, why open at six? Or why not put the bands on from ten pm. and tell everybody to get their fucking arses down in time. As much as I like Truckstop, hanging around at a venue for nine hours, waiting to play, is going to kill your energy for a show. Either that, or you're going to end up steaming before you go on.

Whilst waiting around for soundcheck, Johan and I witness something that dampens the mood of this most glorious afternoon. We're sat on the steps that lead from the club down to the grill garden at the back, drinking black coffee. There are a couple of denim vest-wearing hard rocker guys (everybody in Gothenburg looks like they're in Graveyard right now) hanging around in the yard messing around with an air rifle. At first, we just chuckle to ourselves, since it's the perfect picture of the classic hard rock stereotype... dudes with beers, firing guns at shit. We soon notice though, to our horror, that they're firing at a wounded seagull that is flapping around on the ground over by the fence. We wonder what the fuck is going on! We sit there, getting wound up, when one of the guys from the club tells us they'd found the bird with a broken wing, and they were performing the humane necessity. I feel bad for even doubting the guys, I had thought that it seemed weird for people at this place to be acting like cunts. The image of that poor bird makes me pretty sad. Eventually they have to break its neck, since they can't get a shot on it. I hear the bird screaming in panic as they grab it and I have to take a deep breath. What a fucking downer. The guy who had explained to us what was going on, manages to lighten the mood ever so slightly with the comment, “Could this scene look more white trash!?”, and even though we snigger, the mood is a little sombre for a while.

We soundcheck. It sounds good on stage, although we're playing the songs a little too fast. Viktor tells us that it sounds good out front, which is the most important thing. Satisfied, the whole gang heads of for a walk around the area. It's either a bus or a boat journey into the city, which feels like too much of an effort, given the time of day, so we head down to the waterside and sit there in the sun, whilst Jon points out the different landmarks of Gothenburg situated across the water. He lived here as a kid and still feels a big connection with the place. We sit there in the sun for a good hour. It's nice just to change the scene for a little while. It would have been kinda fun to head over on the short ferry to the city centre for a while, but nobody bothers even suggesting it. We're happy just sat there chatting away.

I limit myself to just two more beers before we go on stage at midnight. The coffee continues to flow though. The guys make a really great veggie lasagne that we gratefully tuck in to as well. We sit around at the venue on one of the sofas for the next three hours or so. Viktor is happily letting the beers fly, Andy is sticking to his hard disciplined ways of not touching a drop before we play, although he admits around ten pm. that he's “fucking thirsty!”. Stachel has had a few and in his usual mischievous manner, has decided a sofa wrestle with Viktor is in order. Samsa and Ulf from We Live in Trenches are here hanging out, it's good to see those guys. Jon has gone off exploring his old neighbourhood with his good friend, Robban, who was the guy who did all the poetry stuff on the second Acursed record. Jon had actually brought his bowling ball bag (he's fucking obsessed right now), but a game hadn't panned out. The night is casually flowing along and by about ten pm. people slowly start steadily trickling through the doors.

Miasmal are playing before us tonight, which is Pontus from Martyrdöd's other band. They're pretty good, kind of trashy death metal with elements of crust. The bass player looks like Cliff Burton and plays fast as fuck with his fingers. I spend most of their set watching him, very impressed with his style. The drummer plays the first few songs wearing sunglasses, which looks a bit silly. I'm glad when he takes them off. I enjoy watching Miasmal although I'm starting to feel like my energy is seeping away. More coffee. There are quite a lot of people here now. I head over to Andy who's stood on the other side of the room, and from there I notice for the first time, that the drums don't sound too good. I don't know who's kit it is, and I don't know if it's the kit or the PA, but the drums sound like cardboard boxes. As I'm thinking about this, Andy leans in to my ear and shares the very same concern. We can only hope for better when we play...

With all the coffee that's being flying down my throat, I constantly have to piss. Just as Miasmal finish, I decide that I should go one last time before it's time to play. Nothing worse than being on stage dying for a slash. When I get to the Gents, there is a space between the two guys stood at the urinal. One is a Graveyard type, the other is some drunk idiot I noticed walking around the dance floor doing silly moves whilst Miasmal were playing. He's now stood there pissing, singing full blast with his eyes closed. He has this really weird, squeaky voice. I sigh, unzip and try and squeeze out a piss. I takes a while. In fact, it doesn't seem to be happening. Graveyard is looking at me. The idiot is still singing. Graveyard looks down at my knob and then asks me, “Are you just standing here holding your balls for no reason?”

“Why yes, it appears I am,” I say, “I must have some sort of stage fright.” The idiot is still singing and Graveyard is now grinning at me. Well this is fucking awkward. I wonder why the fuck I didn't go to the toilet in the band apartment. I joke with Graveyard, “I normally hang out in the bogs actually, it's a good way to meet people, since I don't smoke”. This raises a laugh. The piss finally starts coming, although it's nothing more than a dribble. Graveyard walks off laughing, I zip up and wash my hands, leaving the idiot to his merry tune.

We're finally ready to play the show. Our first show since July 2010. All of sudden, I feel a little nervous. There are at least a hundred people in tonight. It's not as many as last time, but under the circumstances, I feel the turn out is pretty good.

Andy starts the drum fill into Death Do Us Part from the new album, and we're on our way. We're actually on our way pretty fucking fast! I'd almost forgotten that there are three tempos to every Victims song. Album tempo. Practice room tempo. Stage tempo. Stage tempo tonight feels very fucking fast! We go straight into Lifetaker and I'm already feeling the burn. I don't know if it's lack of actual gig practice, nerves or what, but it doesn't feel very tight. I guess that was to be expected though, it has been a while. The first gig of any tour is always the same. It takes a few gigs to find your stride, for the tempo of the set to find itself, until everything magically goes on to auto-pilot. That's what makes these one-off shows all the more difficult.

I get the feeling that the sound out front is not the best. I can here it from the stage even. The crowd are enthusiastic enough between songs, but there isn't much movement during them. The set feels long tonight too, and I feel that maybe we're playing too many songs from the new album. This is all stuff that comes to you during the set though. There are certain things you can only measure from gig experience.

The show is by no means shit, but it's not one that will go down in history either. It has more the feeling of a pre-season football match. A couple of things go down with Jon's gear, which takes time to get going again. Simple stuff like a lead cutting out. It all conspires to kill any momentum we're building up though. It's not until we get to about the halfway point of the set, when we play Nowhere In Time, another new one, that things start to feel like they're settling down, at least musically. But it's not long after that song that my body lets me know it's starting to tire. It needs more training, simple as that.

We get to the end of the set, not even entertaining the crowds calls for an encore. I'd snapped a string at the start of the final block, Circles/Scars, which although easily manageable, serves as a good enough excuse for everyone to call it a night. Besides, I don't think encores should be an automatic part of the set. You should go back up and play a couple more if the mood fits, and tonight it didn't.

I'd almost forgotten how fucked up I can feel after a show. I'd followed through with my new rule of not having beer on stage tonight. It's a complete waste of time in every aspect. The trouble is, I'd forgotten to take any water on stage. I'm sitting backstage, flaked out on the sofa, with Samsa and Ulf hanging out, telling me that they thought the show was really good. I can hardly focus on what they're saying for the first few minutes, and my neck feels like jelly, making it difficult for me to hold my head upright. My head eventually comes back to me though, and when it does it's nice to sit there and talk with our friends. As is often the case, people standing in the crowd have a different perspective of the show than the people standing on stage. I'm glad they enjoyed the gig. For me, it felt like hard work.

We chat some more, cool off, and then pack up. Samsa and Ulf have to leave for the night, so we say goodbye to them and then chat amongst ourselves about the gig. We decide we have to cut the set down and most likely a couple of the new songs. It's healthy to sit and dissect the gig afterwards. I'm already looking forward to getting back into the practice room, tweaking a few things, and then getting back on stage in Amsterdam in a couple of weeks time.

When I've finally cooled off and my head feels stable again, I head out to the bar with Johan. Andy is already there with Viktor and Jon, Stachel is floating about somewhere. Andy is now happily getting stuck into a few beers. I exchange one of the tickets I have for a beer of Oppigård's but it doesn't taste as good now as it did this afternoon. I think I'm too fucked to appreciate it. I end up leaving half of it. Stachel decides to start wrestling with Andy, usual Stachel behaviour when he's bored. It's funny watching the little bugger trying to pick Andy up off the floor.

We're getting up at nine in the morning, with the aim of leaving for ten. I'm working tomorrow night. The gear is packed down, but still on stage. I look at the clock and it reads three am. Johan and I decide to head back to the apartment and get some sleep. Today has been a long day. We leave Andy, Viktor and Jon at the bar who are happily getting stuck into their beer. They look chuffed.

The camping bed in the apartment doesn't look like much cop, but at that moment it feels like the most comfortable bed I've ever lay in. My body aches. The gig took a lot out of me. I give a lot to each show and my body certainly pays more for it now than it used to. I think after a few shows I'll start building up a resistance again.

When I wake the next day to the sound of my alarm, my neck is fucking killing. We all eventually stir, one by one. I ask Viktor what time they went to bed, he mumbles something about six am. Andy rolls over, looking pretty fucking tired. He asks me the time. When I tell him it's nine thirty, he moans that he thought we were leaving at nine. Brilliant. The ambitious bastard only went to bed three hours ago. He lies in bed grumbling about that whilst I sit there wondering why he didn't set his alarm.

After a quick shower we load the van, down some strong, black coffee and then we're actually on our way by ten. Ana at the wheel again. She's driven this whole trip and sold merch for us. She's a really great girl, always willing to help out. The journey home is considerably quieter than the journey here. I sleep long sections of the six hour journey home. Every time I wake I tell myself that I really should be getting on with school work. I've only got three weeks left and with a trip to Barcelona next weekend with my family, followed by a weekend of gigs with Victims the week after, I don't have much time left to get my assignments completed. I just can't keep my eyes open though. I'll have to crack down during the week and get some work done.

We get back to the Bunker at around four pm. Johan drops me off at home when we're done loading out.. Before I go to work, I'm going to need a bath and a cup of tea or two...

Working Titles

During the writing process of this latest Victims album, the first that I'd been involved with, I noticed an old work-sheet on the wall behind Johan's amp at Victims HQ, or The Bunker as I call it. It was the work-sheet for the Killer album. It was a list of the working titles for the songs accompanied by a lot of arrangement notes, all scribbled down in black marker pen.

The first thing that crossed my mind whilst looking at this list was how professional Victims were when going about their business. On closer inspection of the list though, a broad smile crossed my face. I noticed a song that had been given the working title, “Lemmy E Stolt”, which in English means, “Lemmy Is Proud”. I knew immediately that that must have been the working title for, Lies, Lies, Lies, a song that was released as a 7” following the Killer lp. I also knew that it must have been Jon who had christened the song. Looking at the other titles and I realised that it must have been Jon who had christened all of the songs on that work-sheet.

The new album, A Dissident, is out this week, and this being the case I thought I'd share the background story and working titles for each of the songs written for the record. As they'd always done before, we worked through each song in a professional manner, pulling songs apart and dissecting them, whilst all the time keeping notes on one of those work-sheets that this time hung on the wall behind Andy's drum kit.

Once again, it was Jon who took it upon himself to give the songs their working labels.  Like every song ever written, they each have their influences, which are usually where the working titles come from.  The real titles of the songs came to light long into the writing process.

In Speedhorn, lyrics were usually an after-thought, at least until Bloody Kev joined the band. It was usually the case that I'd give the songs their titles long before lyrics were written for them. I was always scribbling notes of song titles down. They would come from something I'd read, or heard somewhere in a film or on the news, that had caught my ear and I'd thought would make a pretty cool title. I'd have loads of these song titles in a note book I carried around in my bag at all times. So the subject of a Speedhorn song was usually always in the title, and not in the lyrics. The lyrics were often written in the studio and rarely had anything to do with the name of the song...

On A Dissident, the lyrics were given a lot of time and thought by Johan. Now they're not exactly Hemingway, but he at least had a solid theme for each song, which in turn followed a general theme for the entire album. It was only whilst we were pre-producing the album that the real song titles started to surface. Up until then we'd followed the working titles that Jon had dictated to Andy, who in turn wrote them up on the sheet. This being the case, the new song titles took some getting used to...

Theft – Dismember

Kind of obvious I guess, but it's a common theme in Jon's song-writing. The song was given the initial title Dismember due to the death metal style intro on it. The lead melody in itself though was very much inspired by Hallowed Be Thy Name by Maiden...

Jon had actually showed the guys this song during a practice session I had missed. Andy had told me afterwards that Jon had written a song with a pretty cool Maiden style melody in it. I texted Jon afterwards and told him that I had heard there was a good new song on the go, mentioning that Andy had said that it had a Maiden feel to it. ”Maiden feel?”, Jon immediately texted me back, “It's a direct rip off of Hallowed Be Thy Name! If Harris hears it he's gonna come knocking!”

Funnily enough, despite the Maiden/Dismember style intro, the main body of the song personally reminds me of one of Jon's other bands, Acursed. It was actually that that pleased me the most about it. I love Acursed.

Death Do Us Part – Discharge Rakt/Världens Bästa Låt

Again following the theme, this song was particularly influenced by Discharge. I know...shocking! But they did invent the entire scene after all... It was known as Straight Discharge at first, though Jon was so happy with the song that it soon got the working title Best Song In The World. It was obvious to us from the start that this was one of the stronger songs we'd written and would most likely have a place near the start of the album. It's straight up and to the point and one of the more aggressive songs we'd written for this record. Although it is heavy in it's Discharge influence, the hook at the end of the chorus always reminds me of To Ride era Entombed.

In Control – AB 4 Klack

As with every record I've ever been involved in writing, there are some songs that don't convince you at first, that go on to be firm favourites when they've been given the studio treatment. At the same time, there are songs that you really like in the rehearsal space that just don't live up to expectations once properly recorded. In Control was an example of the former.

The song itself was originally half the pace of the final album version. I thought it was way too slow. I didn't really get it. I have no problem with exploring new avenues but they have to remain true to the band's sound. It's a common theme on Victims albums that there is normally at least one standard 4/4 song, as opposed to the more common “d-beat” that the band's foundations are built on. This song was AB 4 Klack, which basically meant Another Breath 4/4. Jon was really into this song by our great friends Another Breath, which had this long guitar intro, and he wanted to have a song of our own that, in a similar manner, was based on a long guitar riff.

There was something missing though. It was a pretty straight forward song with just a couple of riffs, and being so slow it had a tendency to get a little boring. We ended up speeding up the song to around twice the tempo, I came up with an idea for a Helmet style stop/start in the chorus and Johan came up with a killer hook for the vocals. It became one of the more hit type songs on the record. Again though, it never really reminded me of Another Breath. I think it sounds more like the latest Coliseum album if anything. I think that might have more to do with the general attitude of the song though.

Victims In Blood Pt. 6 – V6

This is the one song that was written with a specific intention. That intention was to be the new V.I.B. song. It's been a tradition within the band that started with the first 7”, that every record since has had an In Blood song. They're always up there with the very fastest songs on the record, they're usually very short and always really aggressive. The one record that the song title doesn't appear on is Divide and Conquer, but Another Way To Die is actually Victims In Blood Part 4.

Although we didn't write the album with any specific intentions, the one mission Jon has, and he does treat it like a mission, is to write a song worthy of the In Blood title. We had one early on in the early stages of writing, but after toying around with it for a while, Jon tossed it out, claiming it not to be good enough. I liked it all the same.

As it happened, V6 was the final song we wrote for A Dissident. It's one of my absolute favourites.

Burning Bridges – Lemmy E Stolt Igen

If Lemmy was proud of Lies, Lies, Lies, then he was proud again of this song. The working title would later become simply, Lemmy. In the vain of the Killer sessions, Jon had once again written a Motorhead anthem of a song. I really liked it from the start, although Johan later admitted that he wasn't sure. The song never actually had any vocal line written for it, or at least, I never heard it in rehearsals, so it was a real boost to hear Johan's vocals on it at Nico's studio for what was the first time. I liked it anyway, but Johan's vocals really gave the song a lift. It was only after the album was finished and we were rehearsing the songs again that Johan said he thought it would be a good addition to the live set. I think this song is one of the most fun songs to play from the new material.

Bringing Me Down – Lizzy Intro

Yes, pretty obvious, but this song has a real Thin Lizzy intro riff. In it's embryonic stage it was way more over the top, very rock 'n' roll, in the worst sense. Jon had this high lead break thing that went over the bottom heavy chords Johan and I played. It was the song I had the most doubts about, and I was pretty sure that I'd be able to vote it off the record once finished.

We did toy with this song a lot though and eventually Jon's lead thing on the intro left the building. I was pleased with that. It went from sounding like Lizzy to something closer to From Ashes Rise. The working title reverted to just Lizzy after a while. Although we'd taken the silly intro away, the main body of the song still sounded pretty Lizzy, albeit a Victims take on it. The main riff is pretty rocking, almost happy in tone. The guitar solo I put down in the middle is directly influenced by the song, Massacre, from Lizzy's Johnny The Fox album.

Andy also seemed a little unsure about the song, and did his best to sneakily speed it up in rehearsals so as to bring it a bit more in line with how a Victims song should sound. He ended up succeeding. But as with In Control, it was Johan's vocals that really converted me to this song. I think he did a great job. His vocal on the verses gave the song exactly what it needed. It is now one of my favourites on the album.

We Are Not The Future – Anna Lotion

I have no fucking idea where Jon got the working title for this song from. Well the Anna part I get, since that part is a tribute to Annihilation Time, but the Lotion part? I haven't a clue. This song actually reminds me of Jon's girlfriend Anna, since she was out touring with AT a while back. I don't know, maybe this song is Jon's tribute to his girl...

The song itself took a long time to get together. It swayed back and forth a lot. It was one of the earlier songs written, one that had been around before I'd joined the band. The verse riff is really rock orientated, very AT. And the hook at the end of the chorus riff is about as close to Kiss as Victims will ever get. I remember we put a lot of time into the middle section, trying to nail this pretty cool drum accent thing, which went over my guitar chugging part, but we never got it together. Andy just couldn't find the right timing, and my arm refused to chugg for that long! We ended up going with a beat there in the middle instead. The Kiss riff was pretty straight up at first, but again we changed the drums to keep it in line with the more stabby beat that's in the rest of the song, which made the song a lot harder hitting in general. Johan and Jon came up with some cool interchanging vocals on this one which gave the song a really good hook. It turned out to be one of the songs I was really satisfied with on the album, but it probably won't be one we'll play live.

Lifetaker – Tråk Käng

The working title of this song literally means Boring Crust, which says a lot about Jon's sense of humour. It's actually one of the stronger songs on the record. It is though, a straight-forward d-beat crust song, direct from the realms of all those classic Swedish crust bands. The thing I always liked about this song was the minor chords that Jon wrote for the verse riff. It's quite subtle on the recording but if you listen for it you'll hear it.

If there was ever a Victims song that could be done acoustically then it would be this one. It's had many an acoustic going over in the studio control room, whilst we've sat around bored waiting for something to get fixed. It sounds really nice on an acoustic guitar actually, although Johan's singing accompanying it wasn't that hot...

Broken Bones – Garett Ett

This was the first song that I wrote for Victims, hence the title. Jon always pronounces my name in that ridiculously over the top Swedish way, with about ten “t's” added to the end.

This was another song that spent a lot of time hanging around in limbo. We didn't really know what to do with it. It had a whole other chorus at first and was quite a bit slower than the version that appears on the record. Once we'd adjusted it a little though it turned out pretty great. Jon came up with a awesome Entombed bit in the middle breakdown, which reminds me a lot of their song Wreckage from the To Ride album. Jon's years of grind training comes to the fore right here! Johan came up with some really great vocals again, and I played the nearest thing to a real guitar solo I'm ever going to manage. Linus, who is actually a real guitar player, helped me out a lot with it in the studio though.

Nowhere In Time – Maiden

This is about as obvious as it gets! It has a Maiden harmony in the chorus, Jon does a harmonic thing going back into the verse that when we put it down on the recording came out sounding exactly like the part from Aces High. This song could have been on Powerslave for fuck sakes! Even the official name for it was an obvious salute to the boys from London.

The song itself took no time to get together. It was one of the few songs that didn't need much work from Jon's original idea. In fact, the 4 track version that Jon had recorded at his desk at work (and he's always complaining that he works his ass off...) sounds pretty much as the final version turned out, apart from the ridiculous sounding drum machine that was on Jon's work/demo version.

I think this song pushes Victims boundaries about as far as they can go... definitely a song that grew on me over time. It's now one of the most fun songs to play in the rehearsal space.

Ignorance Is Bliss – Green Green

This was another song that was kicking around before I joined the band. There was a practice room tape with about five or six song ideas on, this being one of them. Jon had named this one Green Green since he thought the main part of the song sounded like Gang Green style hardcore. Fast, no frills. We fucked around for a while with the second part of the song and there's a little accent thing that ended up in there, right at the end of the song, that sounded like a song from Green Day's album, Dookie. When I first heard this idea I was like, what the fuck? But somehow it kind of worked and the working title became Green Green.

As opposed to how songs like In Control and Bringing Me Down didn't convince me at first, this song was one of my favourites in the early days. Unfortunately I feel we didn't quite capture it as we'd maybe hoped we would on the recording. It's weird, some songs are just like that. I think the end part of the song didn't quite hit how I thought it would. It's still a lot of fun to play this song in the rehearsal room, but I don't think it will make it to the stage. Still, a good song.

The Egoist – Dio Must Die

Not sure how the "Must Die" bit came about, but again, the "Dio" part is pretty self explanatory, at least if you're in Jon world.

He was playing around with a riff melody that he thought sounded like We Rock by Dio, and he wanted to make a song out of it. My fond memory of this song is of me and Jon sitting on my balcony in the late summer of last year, each with a guitar and a can of beer, working out the arrangement for it. At first the song was a lot slower and I kind of feel it lost something when it sped up to the tempo that it is now. I never really heard the Dio reference Jon was so psyched about, personally it always reminded me, at least in feeling, of a great song by our friends band Mörkt Kapitel, called Det Här Är En Dröm. It was another favourite for a while, but it was also a song that took a lot of work in the studio, and sometimes that can cause the band to lost a bit of faith in it. I still feel that it holds its place on the album, it's just doesn't sound how I imagined it would when we wrote it that evening on my balcony...

Waiting For Shadows – HC Däng

This was the first new song that I'd heard, and the first I rehearsed with the band once I was done with learning the dozens of old songs from the live set.

I remember being completely head fucked after having learnt around twenty five old Victims songs in the space of about three practices, only for Jon to be on me straight away with, “Ok, let's go through some new songs...” I was slightly over-awed... And then we played through this song, HC Däng, which loosely translates as Hardcore Belter or Ripper, or something equally as cheesy (insinuating that Jon thought this song was a real classic Hardcore kick in the face kind of song), and the cocky fucker nonchalantly tells me that I'm going play a solo after the first chorus. I realised then that I was in trouble. I'd never played a solo in my life! That fucking guitar solo had me bothered for weeks. I didn't know what I was going to play there. In the end I opted for something pretty simple, but it turned out ok anyway. Simple normally works.

This song was the first song the guys had written for the record. There had been a few other ideas knocking around but this was the first really strong idea that had surfaced. Once they'd written this song the guys knew that they were officially off the ground with the new album...

About two and a half years later, we'd finally go into the studio to record it...

There were a few other songs written during the last year or so that for various reasons, never made it to the album. One is going to appear on a split 7” later on. Another we had, which had the title Stiff, was recorded during the sessions but for some reason just never turned out how we'd hoped. It's strange how that happens with certain songs. I really loved Stiff when we'd written it (Jon had named it Stiff due to a Stiff Little Fingers drum accent at the end of the song, although the song in itself was pretty raging), we just couldn't capture it in the studio. The song was recorded and mixed but I doubt it will show up anywhere, we'll most likely use the best riff from it for something else in the future.

A couple of songs were half written but faded away before getting serious. And then Jon had a song he'd named Alabama Boogie, which in truth, was pretty ridiculous. It was a real southern-rock, blues boogie type thing. Jon loved it for a while. Andy and I had our doubts. I remember Jon showing it to us for the first time. He played the whole song, which was a couple of minutes long, guitar amp on full, hair in front of his face, head banging away and his left leg doing this jig thing. It was a sight to behold. One of the things I truly love about Jon is his insatiable enthusiasm for song writing. In truth, Alabama Boogie had some pretty good parts in it. It just wasn't a Victims song.

I listened through the test pressing of the record the other day, sat in my flat, drinking a cup of tea with the stereo volume cranked high. The buzz of listening through your band's new album on vinyl for the first time is one of the many pleasures that makes playing in a band the greatest thing in the world. I can't imagine ever wanting to retire from that...

Back In School

When I was a kid I hated school.

Well, that's not entirely true...I quite liked “junior” school, when I was a really little kid. Life at junior school was easy. No home work. No cantankerous teachers. No hormones and no angst about what fucking career you were going into at the end of it.

Junior school was pretty much about one thing. Playing football in the play-ground at break time. We got three breaks a day and Monday through Friday we'd have an on-going match that continued throughout the course of the day. If on certain days, the game was evenly poised going into the final twenty minute break in the afternoon, then the classroom would be buzzing with tension. Life is junior school was simple and I liked it.

Besides football at break times, there were a couple of class activities that I really got in to. I loved hand-writing. I always had really neat hand-writing, although due to a perfectionism that existed in me in those younger years, it took an incredible amount of time for me to put anything to paper. I was eventually told by the teacher that although my hand-writing was the best in class, if it took me so long to accomplish such high levels, it wasn't worth it. I remember finding that incredibly fucked up, but I took the teacher's advice and my hand-writing went to shit. The other thing I was enthusiastic about was book hour, when we'd sit in class and the teacher would narrate a novel to us as we read along with them. I remember two books from that time, that to this day I still love and have read many times since. Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl and Ludo and the Star Horse by Mary Stewart. Two fantastic books.

Yes, junior school was easy. Senior school on the other hand... now I really did hate senior school. I remember that first day, feeling tortured in that fucking school uniform (we didn't have school uniform at junior school). I'd never felt so small in my life. The people who were in the fifth and final year of school, although actually only sixteen, looked like grown adults. The girls wore make up and had big tits and the guys had facial hair and big fucking muscles! They all terrified the shit out of me. And the teacher's weren't any better. Instead of kind old Mr. Price reading Danny, Champion of the World to us, we had the hideous looking Mrs. Jupp threatening us with detention if we didn't do our Maths home-work in time. Detention for fuck sakes? Home-work? My evenings of playing football with my mates on the field behind my parents house were over. I hated senior school from day fucking one!

And then everyone hit puberty and the whole thing really went to shit! But you can't really blame the school for that I suppose...

I got through the first three years of senior school relatively on track. I played for the school football team for the first couple of years, until the fun got sucked out of it with league play and hardened discipline. I was still into the whole book thing though and the one subject I was truly inspired by was English Literature. I loved reading works like Watership Down by Richard Adams and The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It was the only class I can truly say I enjoyed being a part of.

At the commencement of the fourth year, everything starts gearing towards the dreaded GCSE exams, which take place at the end of the fifth and final year. GCSE's were the passport to adulthood. They scared the shit out of me. Adulthood scared the shit out of me. Being thirteen years old and having “career advice” meetings seemed totally fucked up, as far as I was concerned.

I was one of the quiet kids, the kind that although I was friends with everybody, I made sure I didn't stick out, for neither better or worse... I always did just enough to get by, without caring to excel. I made it in to the top class of every subject (except Maths), but then once there just glided towards the GCSE exams on the bare minimum. To this day I have a hard time reading or studying a subject that I have no interest in. And in those days I really didn't have in interest in French, or Maths, or History or Religious Studies... I understood the importance of obtaining qualifications, I just didn't like the idea of going home after school and having my free time taken up by home-work! I hated the fact that the school day didn't end with the school bell.

The atmosphere at senior school wasn't exactly inviting either. The higher the year, the worse it seemed to get.

A great example of this was GCSE Maths class. It was the only class I hadn't made it to the “top-set” for. Now I don't know what the attitude was like in top-set, but in our class it was an absolute joke... We had this old Scottish teacher, Mrs. Martin. She was a pretty timid old lady, who sat at her desk in front of the blackboard generally looking terrified of the kids she was supposed to be teaching. The noise in her class was unbelievable! It was like a scene from one of those shitty movies about a run-down school in the estates. We didn't seem to do any work. Everyone just sat around talking to each other, chatting each other up, showing off and generally taking the piss. Nobody even noticed Mrs. Martin at the blackboard writing away. If she had stopped showing up altogether, it wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference. The poor old thing would have had a hard time inspiring a dog to piss up a tree, never mind a class of teenagers to learn algebra! I often sat there quietly in the midst of this bedlam, wondering what the fuck must be going on behind the desperate expression on Mrs. Martin's face.

One day, when she decided to try and force some authority on the class, things got out of hand. It was almost painful watching her trying to shout over the chaos. You could see her lips moving, but you couldn't hear a word she was saying. And then she screamed. It was a spine-tingling, desperate scream. The class went silent. She then almost apologetically told us that we were all going to be in detention. For a split second she had our respect and attention. And then Steven Murie told her to fuck off and the whole class burst out laughing. Her eyes welled up with tears and she ran from the room. I hated myself at that point. I felt so sorry for her, and yet I said nothing. I just sat there, waiting for the shit to really hit the fan.

Five minutes later the Headmaster, Mr. Rumbelow, came storming into the class with a face like thunder. He went fucking crazy! Rightly so, of course. Mrs. Martin stood behind him, looking shaken, as he screamed at us for the best part of ten minutes. We were all forced to write a personal letter of apology to Mrs. Martin. I realised then that my chances of passing GCSE Maths were pretty much fucked.

There were rumours that in third-set Maths, a student and a teacher had come to blows, so I guess Mrs. Martin should have been happy to have us lot...

By the time senior school and the excruciation of GCSE exams were over, I'd done just about enough to make it to A-levels. Of course, I didn't have much choice in what to study, but then I was still only really interested in one subject. English Literature. And although I did enjoy being out of school uniform and into the sixth form, where the relationship between student and teacher was of a far maturer nature, it was still Lodge Park School. It was still the same grey, miserable building that I'd always hated. I left after the first of two years. I just wanted out. All I wanted to really do at this point was play music with my band at the time, Sect. We had a decent following in the local area and we'd even played a gig in London, I was sure we were going places.

It turned out not to be. I left Lodge Park, the bass player in Sect went to university and the band split up.

I was still only sixteen though and I knew it was too early to go into full time employment, and so out of panic, I enrolled at the technical college in the town centre. I thought the change of venue would make the world of difference. I could not have been more wrong. I literally signed up for the first course I stayed my eyes on in the college catalogue. Computer Science. What a fucking joke that turned out to be! I'm sure the teacher was onto me from the very first day. He was a guy that obviously spent his days at senior school being bullied by the tough kids and now he was ruling over his very own binary kingdom, and he fucking loved it! I guess it was pretty obvious that I wasn't bubbling with enthusiasm, and the smarmy bastard gave me a hard time from the get-go. I didn't help myself though. For the most part I spent my days writing out set-lists and imaginary tour dates for my new band, Soul Cellar. I didn't know what I was doing there. I only knew that I was miserable. And after a while I just stopped showing up.

I'd make it all the way to the front doors of college, and then I'd turn away and carry on along the street. I spent my days walking aimlessly around Corby, listening to my walkman. I'd been gone for a full day, so as not to arouse suspicion with my parents. It was the most miserable time of my entire life. I think that period is the closest I've ever came to being “depressed”. The only good memories I have of those days is the music I was listening to at the time, Steady Diet of Nothing by Fugazi in particular. I loved that record. I still do.

One day I walked into class after an absence of about four weeks. The teacher didn't even call my name out whilst reading the attendance register. I went up to his desk and asked him why my name wasn't called. He told me he didn't even realise I was in class any longer, I told him that I guessed I wasn't and I left. The smarmy cunt just smirked, as if he'd achieved some sort of victory.

When I walked out of that computer science class at eighteen years old, I was certain that I'd never set foot in a school classroom again. All that changed a few years later when I had moved to Sweden.

I had been in Stockholm for a while and had made some friends and I found myself increasingly frustrated by the fact I couldn't speak the language. It wasn't easy. For a start, everyone I knew spoke English brilliantly, but on top of that, I was constantly travelling away on tour with Speedhorn. I knew I wanted to stay in Stockholm though and I figured that one day I would just get around to learning the language.

Half way through recording the second Speedhorn album, things went to shit with our record label and we became embattled in a case to part ways with them. As shit as that was, the six month delay in the recording of that album gave me the window of opportunity to finally learn Swedish. Six years after walking out of college, I was going back to school. And this time I felt good about it.

Going to school as an adult with a genuine interest in the subject you are studying makes things a lot fucking easier. At thirteen I hated French class, at twenty-four I genuinely enjoyed sitting in the library after class working my way through Swedish exercise books. I went to class two times a week, four hours a day for six months, and by time I was done I could speak everyday conversational Swedish. It was a world away from Lodge Park Senior School and I loved every minute of it. I passed the course with flying colours.

What was really amazing about being back in school was the people I shared class with. The course was titled Swedish For Immigrants and therefore was attended by people from all over the world. Some were people from cultures that I had no idea about, some were from cultures that I thought I knew about but soon realised I didn't have a fucking clue.

I made friends with people from countries such as Rwanda, Moldova, Ukraine, Iraq and Bulgaria. They all had such different backgrounds to mine and finding out about their lives was fascinating. A group of us would go for coffee after class and we'd share stories from home over a few mugs of the black stuff. Sometimes we'd sit around for a couple of hours, just chatting away. I learnt as much about life from those conversations as I did Swedish from the lectures in school. It was an amazing time.

Unfortunately, not all of the stories I heard in those coffee shops were happy ones and I heard some things that shocked me. I suddenly felt incredibly ignorant...

I was sitting at a coffee shop in the old town with a guy from class that I'd become friendly with. His name was Solomon and although he was raised in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, he was of Eritrean heritage and held an Eritrean passport. Now for a start, I wasn't even sure that Eritrea was it's own country. I knew there had been a conflict of independence between Eritrea and Ethiopia, but I didn't really know what the state of affairs was back then. We sat around drinking coffee and I asked Solomon what Addis Ababa was like as a city, and what life in Ethiopia was like in general. The only impression I'd ever had of Ethiopia was of those famous pictures of the famine, with the Cars song Drive playing over the horrifying images.

He told me that Addis Ababa was like any western city. Sky scrapers downtown, Starbucks, McDonalds, 7 Eleven... He told me that all those images I'd seen were of the millions of starving people outside of the cities in the slums, in the decimated farm lands. Of course it is an awful thing, but he told me that like myself, he'd only ever seen those images on tv, and probably not as much as I had, since the government there didn't exactly advertise what was going on in the countryside. Solomon himself had a good job in the city and led a quite normal life working 9-5 and socialising at restaurants and bars, just like anyone in a western city would have done. I have to admit that I was quite surprised by this. It wasn't exactly the image of Ethiopia I'd grown up with. I conveyed this to Solomon, who simply replied, “It's like anywhere else in the so called Third World, the rich are rich, the middle class lead relatively comfortable lives and the poor who are dying in the wastelands are ignored. He thought it was a horrible state of affairs, but what should he, or could he do about it? What should any of us do about it? We all agree that it's awful, but nothing actually gets done.

I sat there contemplating this, and I had to admit to myself, he had a fucking point. How many times had I sat in front of the tv watching the news, and seen some heart-wrenching story, thought about the fact that we should really do something to help, and then the news moves onto sports or an advertisement for some new car and it's forgotten? My thoughts switched back to Solomon. I asked him why he and his wife had left Ethiopia. What he told me next left me stunned...

Solomon told me that he sat eating dinner at a restaurant in downtown Addis Ababa with his wife and a group of friends. It was a completely ordinary Friday night and the atmosphere in the restaurant was relaxed. The topic of conversation amongst the group, as it almost inevitably would, shifted towards the troubles that were going on between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The two countries had had a border dispute ever since Eritrea had fought for independence some years before. Although Solomon was Eritrean, he'd spent practically his whole life in Addis Ababa. He'd been raised in the city, educated at the university and later found a relatively well paid job. He'd married his Ethiopian wife there and together they'd made a home for themselves, doing their best to get on with their lives as best they could. Although the foreboding shadow of famine and civil war hung constantly in the air and was never far away from the top of the agenda during conversation.

As dinner was eaten and coffee was ordered Solomon noticed a nervous look in the eye of one of his friends. He followed the friends gaze towards the window that looked out at the busy street outside and his balls jumped up into his throat. Outside the restaurant was a police van, and pouring out of the back doors were around ten cops, all armed with machine guns, and they were heading in to the restaurant. Solomon had an idea what was coming...

This gang of angry looking Ethiopian police barge their way into the restaurant and a heated exchange between the restaurant owner and the main cop ensues. After a couple of minutes, the owner of the establishment reluctantly shakes his head and the Head Pig starts barking orders at the patrons, who are now sat in stunned silence, wondering what the fuck is going on. Head Pig grunts an order to the men in the restaurant, telling them to line up outside in the street against the wall. There is a gasp of panic amongst the public, as one by one, the men in the room get up and leave to go outside. Solomon assures his wife everything will be ok, that it's most likely some random bullshit. Once outside, Solomon joins the already formed line and waits for whatever is coming next. Once the evacuation is complete, Head Pig starts checking everyone's identification. They're checked one by one as he walks down the line. As the passports are checked, some are given back and others are kept by the Pig. Those who's passports are obtained are then bundled into the back of the van at gunpoint. When it's Solomon's turn to show his Eritrean passport, he already knows that he'll be going in the back of that van.

Along with around eight others, Solomon is taken away by the police, all the while under the watch of a machine gun. No reason is given. In fact, not a word is said by anyone. He assumes that he'll be taken in to the police station for some bullshit questioning. He's surprised therefore when the van pulls to a stop, and still without any explanation offered, he's marched into a cell and the door is locked behind him. It's a dark, fifthly room with just a blood stained bed and a stinking toilet. Nothing else. He sits down on the bed, terrified, and awaits the next move.

One month later, a policeman opens the door of his cell and leads him back down the corridor he'd came upon arrival. The policeman marches him to the station's reception, in much the same manner as when he arrived, under the watch of that scary as shit machine gun. The door is opened and he's kicked out into the street. And that was that. Not once was he even spoken to by any of the police, never mind interrogated about who could only imagine what. He was given a paltry couple of meals a day and that was that. No visits, no telephone calls, no nothing. Now I've sat in a police cell in Spain with the Speedhorn boys for a couple of days, knowing fine well what we were guilty of, and when I'd awoken hungover after that first night in the cells, I was fucking terrified. But not once did I fear for my life, I knew that we'd be able to pay our way out. I can't even imagine the torment Solomon went through! And for what? Because he had an Eritrean passport? When he's done telling me this story over a cup of coffee, in some café in the beautiful surroundings of Stockholm’s old town, I just sit there staring at his happy, jovial face. I'm lost for words. After a few moments I finally inquire when this had taken place, expecting him to tell me it was many years ago. He told me that it actually happened in 2001, just a couple of years ago...I could barely believe it. It's hard to comprehend that stuff goes on like that, completely ignored, as the rest of is in the western world go about our lives.

I understand why Solomon left his country and moved to Sweden. I felt like a right ignorant cunt when he asked me why I'd left my home town, asked me what was so bad about it, and all I could say was that it was boring. I made a mental note to never moan about Corby again. What made this tragedy even worse in my eyes, was that as bright and intelligent as Solomon was, he was struggling to even get a job working in a bar here in Stockholm. As the conversation moved on he enthusiastically asked me about my band, and I tried to explain to him what my band was about, what the whole punk rock thing was, but after what he'd told me, the whole band thing just felt trivial. Solomon was fascinated by it though.

I met a few people like Solomon whilst I was at school, and in doing so learnt as much about the world we're living in as I did about the Swedish language. It was a wonderful bonus meeting people like Solomon from Ethiopia and many others, like my friend Stella from Moldova and Paco from Bulgaria, each with completely different lives to that of my own. Going to SFI turned out to be one of the best choices I ever made. Unfortunately, as life goes on and people go separate ways, you lose touch. I don't know what Solomon is doing now, but I hope he's still as happy as he always appeared to be, despite the shite he'd gone through in his life.

It's been six years since I finished that course. Although I wanted to learn Swedish, it was done more out of necessity than anything else. Last week I went back to school again. This time, not only to learn Swedish, but to take up some studies I thought I'd left long behind. It's only been a couple of weeks, but already it feels a world away from Lodge Park Senior School. Maybe things have changed. More than likely I've changed. I guess I've grown up. Not so strange, I think you probably do a lot of growing up between the ages of eighteen and thirty-two. My life now is pretty much non-stop. My weekly schedule is planned out to the minute, what with studying a couple of courses at school, running the bar full-time and playing in Victims amongst others, whilst sustaining a happy married life and looking after our dog, Bonzo.  I couldn't be happier.

Coliseum, Hard Rockers, Sewergrooves

Sunday afternoon. I barely dare to utter it, knowing fine well that winter won't leave without at least one last fight, but spring seems to be here. The sun is shining bright in a clear blue sky and the snow is retreating. It's a beautiful day... and I don't feel like going to work.

It's amazing how quickly the weekend seems to disappear when your working the Sunday shift. My free Friday and Saturday gone in the blink of an eye. At least today, with it being the last Sunday before pay-day, it should be a quiet night. If all goes as I hope, the last of the customers will have left around midnight and I'll have the last hour of the night to myself, meaning I can have everything sorted by the time one am. comes around and I can get out of there and on the first night bus home. If spring really is here, then soon I'll be biking back and forth to work. Just as soon as the last of the snow has melted...

So fucking sick of the night bus.

The good thing about working Sunday, is that I'm off on Friday and Saturday. I can't really complain I know. Anyway, this weekend I went to shows each night. Two very different types of gig...both of which I've played on numerous occasions.

Last night, Coliseum played at Annexet, which is a pretty big arena. Big in that it holds about three thousand people. The guys in Coliseum are very good friends with Victims, having toured together in the States previously. Ryan, their singer, also designs shirts for us and sells them through his distro, Shirt Killer. He's a good friend to have. Coliseum are in Europe touring with a band called Rise Against, who are apparently fucking huge right now! Last time Coliseum were here they played Kafe 44, there were about 60 people at the show and they were great. Tonight Ryan and the guys played to a crowd closer to two thousand. It must have been a pretty wild feeling for them.

It was fun to watch them up there on the big stage. I've been there myself when Speedhorn have supported the likes of Slipknot, Slayer and horribly enough, Rammstein. There really wasn't a fucking gig in the world we said “no” to! Rammstein really is a gig I wish we'd declined... I wish I knew then what I know now. But that's life.

Anyway, these big arena shows are something else. The whole production, and a production it is, is a universe away from the punk rock world the likes of Victims and Coliseum come from. Not that it isn't fun to sample a bit of that universe now and again, if for nothing more than to experience how totally mind blowing it is to stand there and play to so many people. Even if ninety five percent of the people watching wishes you would go the fuck away. It was certainly like that when we played with Rammstein! Though on that particular occasion I was only too happy to oblige the audience, and get the fuck out of there...Last night Coliseum seemed to be having a lot better time of it though.

Of course, most of the adolescent crowd are there to see this band Rise Against. I hadn't even heard of them until Andy told me that Coliseum were coming back supporting them on this tour. I guess I'm not with the times any more, since the place is packed out with young kids. I'm assuming the band are shite but fair dos to them for bringing a band like Coliseum on tour with them.

Ryan comes on stage and announces, “We're Coliseum and this song is called Year of the Pig.” Andy and I are instantly chuffed! Great start to the set. Jon is stood with his beer in one hand, and playing air guitar with the other. I get the feeling Jon is going to get pretty sauced tonight.

We head down towards the front of the arena to check out the rest of their set. It sounds way better up here. They play a great show and at one point Ryan dedicates a song to Victims, whilst informing the crowd that they should check us out, that great bands like ours exist in their own cities and they should support the scene. We're all genuinely touched by this. Ryan really is a great champion of the underground music community.

The crowd are into the band and show their appreciation between songs, even if by the end sections of the public are getting restless and start calling for Rise Against. Ryan firmly puts them in their place. That is part and parcel of playing these tours though. You have to expect that almost the entire crowd are there to see the big superstar band and couldn't give a fuck about who is supporting. You're doing well if you manage to win over just ten percent of them. Even ten percent of such a big crowd is quite a large amount of people to have discover your small DIY band. And if you can achieve that then it's probably worth it. The Coliseum guys seem to have done a fair bit better than ten percent.

A wave of nostalgia washes over me when at some point near the end of the Coliseum set, I notice a bunch of young kids who are elated by the fact that the security guys have let them through into the sectioned off mosh pit area. The arena has a fenced off area right at the front, where the young moshers are at. I notice these kids running into it like they've just won the lottery, they're hopping up and down and screaming with joy about the fact they're going get so close to their idols in Rise Against. Like I said, I have no idea what Rise Against are, but I feel a genuine happiness when I see how glad these kids are. They're probably no older than fourteen and seeing them reminds me of when my dad took me to see Metallica at the NEC Arena in Birmingham when I was thirteen. I was ecstatic that night and I know how those kids feel, I just hope that one day they'll check out the bands that Rise Against probably grew up listening to as well. As I'm watching these kids hopping around with joy, I catch a glimpse at Jon, who is watching Coliseum play their last song and the tit is crying. He's obviously pissed because that's when he gets emotional. As we head off back to the bar I laugh at the silly sod and say, “And you lot call me Emo Boy”. “You're not even close” he says, drying the tears from his eyes.

We catch up with Ryan after the show and he brings us back stage to their dressing room. We hang out and chat with the guys for a couple of hours. Jon is chatting at an extremely slow pace, as he does after a few beers. It's great to see them. They say that although some of the drives have been torturous, the shows have been far better than they expected. They're staying at Andy's place tonight and then tomorrow they're leaving first thing for Copenhagen. It sucks balls touring in a van when you're supporting a band travelling in a night liner.

Another downside to these tours is the merchandise situation. The venue tonight being a typical example. The venue doesn't allow you to sell your own shirts. You have to count them in and leave them with the venues staff to sell, only for the cunts to then take thirty percent of your sales money. It's completely fucking sick! As if the venue doesn't make enough money fleecing the public of their money by selling shite beer in plastic mugs at ridiculous prices. The fact they openly rob the band makes me ill. Is if that's not bad enough, they than put a steep price on your merch so nobody wants to buy it anyway. On top of that you have a gang of thieving cunts outside the venue selling bootleg t-shirts of your band. It's like you're being fucked in both ends.

Ryan tells us that the merch sales have been unsurprisingly low...

When Speedhorn used to play these big shows of our own, not this size, but big enough for the venue to take a percentage of our merchandise, we just used to bootleg our shirts ourselves and sell them out the back of the van after the show, for our usual low prices. Frank would openly address the crowd from the stage and tell them exactly how they should buy their Speedhorn merch. Some nights it was ridiculous, we'd have a queue out the back of the venue, buying shirts out the back of our van. Frank doing his best Del Boy impression. Fuck knows how we got away with that?

Despite the merch situation situation and the drives, everything else seems to be going well. I'm glad for them. The Rise Against crew have been really helpful to them, and that in itself is incredibly unusual on these types of tours. I've done tours like this where the crew of the headlining band have treated us like vermin. There are exceptions of course, but again, Rammstein's crew weren't one of them...

It really was a great sight to see so many people clapping along to Coliseum. Maybe there is still hope for the music scene after all? After saying goodbye to the guys, I head off through the arena looking for a way out. I happen to catch a glimpse of Rise Against as I leave. It's as I thought. Not my cup of tea...the kids seem to love them though. Hopefully within a few years those kids will be listening to Black Flag too.

The night before had indeed been a very different type of show.

One of the things that really attracted me to Stockholm when I first started coming here to visit Jenny, before I made the move over, was that everyone we knew and socialised with seemed to play in a band. And it wasn't all bands belonging to just one type of scene, it was bands of all sorts. Punk, hardcore, metal, prog, doom, garage rock, stoner rock, blues, sixties girlie pop, you name it. Stockholm had a real vibrant scene. And it seemed that everyone helped and supported each other, no matter what genre you belonged to. I think Entombed have to take a lot of credit for that. And so it is today, almost everyone I know here plays in at least one band. If somebody put together a Stockholm music family tree, its branches would seemingly go on forever.

Kurt and his band the Sewergrooves are close friends of ours. Kurt is together with Jempa, who played bass in Jen's old band, Misdemeanor. He's one of the first people I met over here. Sewergrooves have been around for a long time now. Although I'm not massive on garage rock, I've always been into Sewergrooves. To my mind, they are Sweden's finest when it comes to that type of music. Their third album, Revelation Time, is in my opinion, the best album to come out of that whole scene.

Tonight they were playing a club show, which they were doubling up as a release party for their new album. When I heard the show was at a bar called Harry B. James', I have to admit, I feared the worst.

The place used to be an ok American style bar. I remember back in the early days they had a pretty great veggie nacho dish. Those days are long past though. Today it's a rock bar. A pretty fucking horrible one at that. I don't like to generalise, but my problem with “rock bars” is that they're usually patronised by idiots.

I can't stand the term “rock 'n' roll “ as it's used today. The actual 1950's Jerry Lee Lewis/Little Richard kind I have no problem at all with, but the Motley Crue kind makes me fucking sick. And for the record, there was nothing funny whatsoever about The Darkness. To be fair, Hard-Rockers in general get on my tits, be it your Jack Daniels, hairspray wearing sleaze rocker, or your Pantera t-shirt wearing metal-head, who, no matter what part of the world they actually come from, believe they're from fucking Texas.

Of course, I don't mean to say that everybody who likes this music is thick as shit, it's just that the scene is often poorly represented.

As we're waiting in line to get into the bar, Sewergrooves start in to a song. At first we assume that we're late, but it soon becomes apparent that they're only sound checking. This in itself tells you all you need to know about this gig. Playing a rock bar that doesn't close doors to let the band sound check is fucking horrible. It means there is a good chance that a large percentage of the crowd hang out at the place no matter what, and they're not particularly bothered as to what band is playing.

We get eventually get inside. It's exactly as I imagined. Hot, loud and full of drunks in rubbish band t-shirts. We meet up with some other friends and head directly to the bar. The stage is set up on the other side of the bar, next to the bogs. I'm not exaggerating, the smell of sweat as I'm stood there, crushed at the bar, is enough to knock you over. At least they have Brooklyn Lager on tap...

A large part of the decision to split Speedhorn up was that we felt we could no longer relate to the vast majority of our fans. Of course, when I was sixteen years old, I used to hang out in the woods, drinking cheap cider and listening to Metallica on a portable stereo, but I was sixteen. By the time we finished the band we were thirty years old and had moved on. I grew tired of metal-heads that were my age, coming up to me and belching in my face, screaming “Metaaaaaal!”, when I was sat there trying to enjoy a pint with some friends before a gig. I still love some of that music, but I've discovered a lot of other stuff since then too. You can actually listen to more than one type of music without being a traitor to what you grew up on. This type of snobbery actually exists in all types of underground music scenes though, not just metal. The punk-hardcore scene can be every bit as close minded in certain areas.

One particular episode from the Speedhorn touring days stays with me to this day. We'd played a show in Manchester, whilst touring our third album, and we were having a pint in the pub with one of my best mates who I hadn't seen for a while. A couple of metalers who had been at the show came over and invited themselves to sit down with us. Kind of rude, but not particularly a problem, the table was big enough. I said hello and thanks for coming to the show and they seemed happy enough. But then every time I tried to talk to my mate, one of these guys kept butting in with some inane question, one such cracker being, “What do you reckon is best band in t'world?” I couldn't be arsed with this! As they were both wearing XL Pantera t-shirts, I had a feeling they wanted me to answer the question and then reciprocate it. I wonder what their answer would be? I tried to politely tell them that that particular question is impossible to answer. “But if you had to say? One band? What band would it be?” Fuck sakes, I could tell that I wasn't going to be able to get back to talking to my mate until I appeased them. “I don't know, Fugazi maybe? Pavement? Black Flag, Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band? I don't know...”

Their faces gaped in amazement. “Pantera man! Fuck sakes, best in t'world wi-out doubt!” “I can't believe they're not your favourite band!”. Yeah, go fucking figure! They piped on like this for about another ten minutes. Luckily, Darren, our bass player came along, pissed out of his mind, and I was able to palm them off on to him. He had a fucking field day with them!

I realised there and then that I couldn't relate to these people. Towards the end, we did everything we could to annoy these people, and when you're doing that to your own fans I guess it's time to call it a day.

As if to reaffirm that these types still exist, I came across another pair of ball-bags just last week. I was out on a driving lesson and had just pulled up at a red light. A van pulls up in the lane beside me and starts revving it's engine. I look over and of course, there sit a pair of metal heads in the van, laughing, thinking they're hilarious. They want me to race them. My driving instructor waves at them whilst hissing through gritted teeth, “fucking idiots..”. They keep revving their engine, all the harder and louder, whilst I sit there like a right chump. They fucking love it. The light goes green and they whiz off, obviously chuffed with themselves. I'm happy to see nothing has changed.

Anyway, we're in this pub and it looks like Headbanger's Ball. Thankfully there are a few old friends here and we catch up over a beer. By the time Sewergrooves go on stage, there are a crowd of friends down front, and mingling in and out of us are droves of Harry B. James regulars, who are all fucking boats, and couldn't give a fuck who is on stage. I feel bad for Kurt and the guys but they don't seem bothered. They've done it all before. They play great anyway and it's fun to see them on stage again. It's been ages since I last saw them. I can't help but observe the crowd as they play though.

Strangely enough, tonight the band have a girl with them who I fail to recognise, playing percussion and doing backing vocals. There is one guy who must be in his fifties, who is out of his mind, playing air guitar right in front of her, practically drooling over her. He obviously feels that he has a chance. The bouncer who works at the place is giving a pissed off vibe and telling the drunk guy to take it down a notch, the guy doesn't seem to care, or simply he can't see the bouncer, but he carries on regardless. The bouncer just walks off shaking his head.

There is also a woman, again in her fifties, dressed in what looks like dirty underwear, make up smeared across her face from drunken tears, making out with a guy who must be at least half her age. In fact, they're practically fucking each other in front of the stage. I continue to watch the band play a great set, albeit with this pair disturbing the periphery of my vision. Am I just a prude? A fuddy-duddy? Maybe, but this woman fills me with equal parts pity and nausea.

And then a trio of young chumps arrive in front of the stage. A geeky looking guy and two girls. They're no more than eighteen and the guy is obviously following the girls around like a lost shadow. I almost want to give the guy a hug. They stand in front of the band, hanging on to the stage, ready to bang their heads. The guy shouts to the girls, “Nu kör vi!”, roughly translated meaning, “Let's go!” They dance for the remaining thirty seconds of the song the guys are playing, banging their heads and doing whatever else it is they think they should be doing. The song soon ends and the girls look bored. One of the girls motions to the other, suggesting they go for a smoke. The guy catches this and quickly suggests, “Yeah, shall we go for a smoke”. Poor bastard. He follows them away. It's not easy being eighteen and full of hormones.

If the band are disturbed by the piss-poorness of the venue and it's crowd, like the professionals they are, they show no sign of it. They play a great set. They are so tight it's unreal. I almost forgot what a great singer and guitarist Kurt is. I hear the reason they're playing this place tonight is that an old friend of theirs has a club night here, and he wanted to put them on. And as Speedhorn did, they just love to play.

I used to get frustrated with the guys in Victims, when I would read offer after offer that came in to our email account, only for the guys to reject them. Offers from Greece, Russia, Italy, all over. I was always the guy in the band that was willing to say yes to everything. But now I realise why the guys are so cautious when it comes to booking shows. They've been there and done all that. Gone are the days where we can go off on tour only hoping to break even. If it isn't set up properly, we don't do it. I now understand why you have to be like that, even if secretly I harbour hope that one day we'll take up on an offer to play Russia. I'll most likely have to go there as a tourist though.

By the time Sewergrooves are done, we're all dying to get out of there. Kurt seems happy enough though, throwing down his well earned beer after the show. I'm looking forward to hearing their new record. The few songs they played from it tonight sounded great. One thing I have to give to the bar is that the sound system was pretty good, or maybe it's just that the band know how to handle their gear. Either way, I won't be going back in a hurry, even if they do still make great nachos...

The Bar

Pay-day Friday. In the normal scheme of things, this night is the busiest night of the month. It's also the biggest pain in the ass.

The Swedish system dictates that the entire population, except those freelance workers out there, gets paid on the same day of every month. The 25th. Typically Swedish, it is for the most part, a sensible and efficient system. Everyone gets paid at the same time, everyone's bills get paid at the same time. Simple. There's only one downside to this. And that's for me, the humble bartender... When that first weekend comes a-knocking, everyone goes fucking insane!

Normal, respectable members of society become slobbering, infantile fuck-wits. And then the Crazies, who seemingly spend the rest of the month hidden under some rock, come out into the night to wreak havoc. The tube ride home after a long day at work, is like taking a ride through the set of Shawn of the Dead. This month was no exception...

I counted no less than fourteen piles of puke on the way home! Fourteen! I saw some guy staggering around the platform at Central Station, out of his mind, wearing just a thin shirt. The fucker could hardly stand and I honestly wondered if he was going to tumble off in front of the train when it pulled into the station. He didn't. But it's easy to see how these things happen. Funnily enough, the guy looked like a Brit. When I got to Sundbyberg, my final destination, whilst walking past the cue at the burger joint in the square, some hard-rock chick walks past, completely naked from the waist up. Tits out. It must have been minus eight degrees out. She looked chuffed with herself as she strutted past me towards the tube station entrance, as if she didn't have a care in the world.

I just shook my head and walked on, blocking the ravings of idiocy and chaos from my ears with the sounds of the new Victims album, which I listen to for the first time in it's entirety on this journey home. It sounds great and I'm buzzing listening to it, whilst it provides a soundtrack to these nonsensical scenes.

I'm fully aware of the fact that I've been a part of these scenes myself, on more than occasion...

The night in the bar hadn't been as bad as could be expected though. The place was packed from around five pm, but the usual crowd that comes in on Friday's kept away. Friday is the one night of the week that even the owners, my employers, don't like hanging out in their own bar. The other nights of the week we have what you could call a hip crowd of musicians, artists and other bourgeois that are just about on the right side of my line. But Friday's we get invaded by stuck up, rich, poseur brats who somehow find their way to our little corner of Södermalm. They get on my tits.

Tonight, for the most part though, was ok. I actually met Kay from Dead Inside, who is one of my favourite punk bass players. She was out having a drink with a one of a few common friends we have. Although I've got a close connection with Dead Inside, through Bloody Kev and Nigel, I'd never met Kay until now. It was pretty packed in the bar when she came in, but it was cool to meet her and chat for a short while nonetheless. She told me that she only plays in Comet Gain these days, and not in any punk bands, although she misses it. Too bad, since she's an awesome bassist.

With that unexpected surprise early on in the evening, I was in a good mood, and for once enjoying a Friday night behind the bar. My problem is though, I allow myself, far too easily, to let one person spoil that.

There is this arrogant prick who comes into the bar now and again, only ever on Friday's of course. He's usually a little bit drunk, although not too drunk to knock back, but on his way to that point. He normally only has one drink though, so I never get the pleasure of cutting him off. He was in tonight, with a friend who looks equally as annoying as he does. Some people just have the kind of face you want to stomp on I guess. I notice them for the first time, stood in the middle of the packed out bar, around ten pm. I sigh quietly to myself before heading over to them and taking their order. The ordering part goes smoothly enough. Two Brooklyn Lagers, tack. No problem. Fridge open. Two bottles out. Opener out of back pocket. Tops off bottles. Bottles on the bar in front of them. One hundred and twelve kronors, tack.

(I know... That's about eleven quid, if you're talking pounds, which seems like a ludicrous amount of money, but it's all to do with the fact the pound is worth dog-shit right now, but that's another matter, and yes, one hundred and twelve kronors is still on the expensive side for two bottles of Brooklyn, but thinking of it in terms of pounds makes it seems way worse than it actually is...)

The problems begin when the guy pulls his bank card out of his wallet and I place the card-reader machine on the bar.

(Since the turn of the year, EU law has dictated that restaurants and bars must have these readers installed, failure to do so being punished by hefty fines and even temporary closure. Their thinking is that customers are more secure in their plastic transactions if they type in their pin codes and everything is done digitally, as opposed to them signing a receipt. It's also their thinking the customer then takes greater control of how much they want to pay, i.e., in point most interesting to myself, how much tip they want to leave. Before this law, it was the staff at the bar who manually transferred the tips from the written receipts to the computerised cashier. Nowadays the tip is put into the system directly by the customer. Amazingly, most customers seem to have a problem with this, which just goes to prove that the people in power are talking absolute shite when they say that there were hordes of people complaining that they were being robbed when the old system was in place. Of the hundreds of people I've had through the bar since this new system came through, I haven't met one who didn't prefer the old system. The government always finds convenient excuses for implementing regulations that they want in place, regulations and laws that often involve taking money from the working citizen, the environment being the usual example today. This is just more bullshit. It's not about people's security, it's about keeping track of what people spend, and it's about taxing my fucking tips! It's so fucking easy in Sweden because everyone here is obsessed with paying by card.)

Anyway...I digress.

I'm not exactly happy with the new system, and I'm hoping that the owners are going to follow the trend that some bars in Stockholm are taking, and just simply refuse to accept payment by card. Though even if we do that, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the government outlaws that too. I digress again..

The card reader is in front of the guy and I tell him to type in the total amount and then his pin code. I can tell by previous encounters with this guy that he thinks of himself as a bit of an intellect, and I'm not in the least surprised when he starts going off on one about how bullshit this new system is. Even though I agree with what he's saying, he still manages to annoy me. I assure him I agree with him, and yet he continues to into a monologue highlighting his disdain, as if I'm putting up some sort of argument. I tell him again that I agree with him and reassure him that this bollocks is a way bigger pain in my ass than it is in his. It's like my mouth is moving and forming words, yet he's hearing something else. It's not any sort of language barrier, since my Swedish is fluent after nine years of living here. He's just a dick.

After wasting my time with this idiot for far longer than I feel happy about, I tell him that if he doesn't like this new card system then he's free to take advantage of another concept, which has been practised since civilisation began, called paying in cash. At this, he tilts his head ever so condescendingly to one side, and slowly says in English, “Would you prefer it if we spoke in English?”

This really fries my fucking piss! I snap-retort, myself now converting to English, “I couldn't give a fuck either way mate!” And then I stand there and stare at him. He just kind of sniggers and turns his attention back to his friend. I don't know why, but this really gets my goat up. I can't stand being spoken down to by anybody, and especially not some cunt like this who obviously thinks he's better than me.

I guess, somewhere in there, my accent gave me away as being an Englishman. When I first learnt the language I really tried to speak Swedish with a Swedish accent, because I wanted to fit in. And of course, you can't actually speak Swedish with a Corby accent, it would sound ridiculous. Now, after seven years of speaking Swedish, I would imagine most people I meet for the first time, wouldn't know either way. As it happens, now that I'm fluent in the language I'm not as bothered any more about hiding my nationality. For example, I've gone back to introducing myself to strangers with my name pronounced the way my mother says it, and not the Swedish version that is Garett. I think it's to do with the fact that now I speak the language well enough, that even if I give my nationality away by pronouncing my name as it should be, whoever I'm talking to realises I speak the language and they don't have to go over to English. Which most Swedes love to do, given the chance.

But this cunt in front of me obviously thinks that now he's found me out, he's got something of a position of power over me. I was trying to agree with the wanker and yet he's managed to successfully cause an argument. When I see that he's done, I walk away, only mild amusement at my own typical English attitude brimming to the boil as soon as the Queen's leaves my cake-hole, consoling my annoyance.

I spend the next twenty minutes or so, serving other customers, with a face like a slapped arse, whilst Cunt Balls is still hanging out at the bar with his friend. And then he calls me over to him again. And now I'm really ready to give this guy some shit.

“Is that a Black Flag tattoo on your arm?” he gleefully asks me. Er..., a bit off balance, I answer that it is. He then excitedly starts tugging at his coat sleeve, telling me to “check this out”. “This” being a Black Flag tattoo of his own. The Bars. Exactly like mine and in exactly the same place. Well so fucking what? Are we bros' now? Are we part of some fucking club together? No we're not. I tell him that that's just fucking great, to which he replies “Six Pack man!”. Who is this guy? There are probably thousands of people across the globe with the bars tattooed on them, I mean, that band mean a lot, to a lot of people, especially nowadays it seems. It doesn’t mean that this guy isn't a prick, just because he likes Black Flag. I'm pretty sure Rollins himself would agree with me on that one. “Six Pack man!”...I've got nothing else to say to that. I go back to the other customers, but now the slapped arse has been replaced by a smirk of my own.

The rest of the night rolls on without incident. I close the bar down and have a quick beer, before heading home, through the puddles of puke and the hordes of roaming zombies, listening to the new Victims album and thinking about how nice it's going to be to go back on tour.