EUROPE - STOCKHOLM

I think we’ve had 4 Max’s now. Mack dreads it every time someone (me) suggests we stop off, he longs for anything but another burger. Even Charlie is sick of them. I’ve had 4 burgers and am loving life. Every time Simon orders he immediately regrets the amount he’s bought, claiming his compulsion to go large is a fully fledged impairment. This morning he has once again ordered a burger, fries, buffalo wings, onion rings and large drink. He’s brought a lot of Gaviscon this tour and swigs it in bed before going to sleep, straight after eating Pringles (also in bed). If I’m sleeping near him I always am impressed by his bedside snack station.

Waiting for his food after ordering from Max’s touch screens, Jack has a seizure and hits his head on the tiled floors. Simon rolls him on his side and holds his head, tells me to get napkins for the blood. A staff member rushes from the bowels of the kitchen to assist. ‘Epilepsy? I have it too’. He immediately handles everything and relays info to Morbid Breath who are on the phone with the paramedics. The Max guy is twitching a bit, I think maybe he has a tic, but he tells Charlie he’s hungover. Middle class Swedes lean over their tables to see everything that’s going on, eating fries and staring. By the time the ambulance comes, Jack is ok, the bleeding stopped. The medics check his head, it’s nothing too serious, no need for hospitalisation, and are happy to leave it at that.

We load into the final venue of the tour, Jakob’s Kök (& Bar) providing much hilarity. Inside there’s a killer memorial mural of LG Petrov. Slayer is playing. Apparently this was LG’s local, he drank here a lot and was a super humble dude. The other day they did a big walk just over a year after his death from the pub to his grave in the cemetery with the giant cross from Left Hand Path.

Estefan from Morbid Breath informs us we are in a working class neighbourhood where Swedish metal essentially originated. Europe, Candlemass, and the like. I can’t believe I’m playing in the stomping ground of the cunts that wrote the fucking New Year’s Eve song I’ve had to hear at countless end of year bar shifts in my 20s. Estefan also tells us about meeting Nicke Andersson by mistake, and how Death Breath have apparently been sitting on a whole album for years and it will finally see release soon, which I am very excited about.

I get a text from London. Matteus, a well-known and loved London (/England really) musician, promoter, scene fixture, and my friend and colleague from the Black Heart, had a heart attack and died this morning. He was younger than me. A rare dude, without a single bad bone in his body, he was the loveliest, nicest guy, always smiling. He’d just played a show in Brighton a day or so before, was posting about missing his old cat the nite before he died. I’m stunned and expend my two beer tokens immediately while messaging people back home. Rest in power, you beautiful bald bastard. Tonite’s for you.

 Simon gets us some special LG Petrov shots that we see advertised at the bar and we toast Matteus. The spicy obsidian liquid is double, perhaps triple, the size of U.K. shots, and comprised of vodka, something liquorice-based (black sambucca?), and some other unknown shit. The barman keeps saying, ‘You will not forget, you will not forget,’ as he waits for us to down the shots.

For awhile I’m not sure what to do. Just drinking. If I think I start to cry, so I’m just gripping my beer and scrolling thru social media like an automaton moron. I don’t wanna lay a sad sack trip on anyone, nor be emotional in weird suburban Stockholm. Fortunately, Simon’s missus Jenny is here with her two brothers, three Mancunians rolling deep in suburban Stockholm. They flew in last nite and are spending the weekend in town. They hit the Stockholm clubs yesterday evening. One of the brothers, apparently 38 years old, was dancing with girls, got given a pill by a chick. After awhile he told Jenny, ‘I feel good but I can’t move my body’ and then stood vomiting for 10 minutes in the middle of the dance floor. I like them already.

I’m getting a little drunk, feeling a bit manic, trying not to think about Matteus and everyone back home. The drinks and the company steady me, remind me of my mission. Gotta save rock ’n' roll, tonite is no different. Shred now, cry later. I once had a big, nasty, tearful break up before going straight to the Underworld and killing a set. It’s Rock Time. I’m a pro. This how we do.

The promoter, a portly Bulgarian speed metal lunatic, plays the Star Wars ‘Imperial March’ as Morbid Breath take the stage. He plays the Mortal Kombat theme for us. Midway thru our set, the promoter brandishes a flight tray of tequila shots. Chris helps him distribute them. Simon, quite drunk but holding it all together, grips his shot and looks at it with despair as he sits hunched over the kit. Chris is standing on stage with shots looking for which band member wants them. We launch into the intro for ‘Under The Boot’, and I’m craning my head to get Chris’ attention, sticking my mouth out, Jenny in stitches. I knock my head back for Chris to pour the shot down my throat, just in time for us to kick into the full thrashing verse. Immediate head banging with a mouth full of tequila.

We play an incredible final show. I’m raging thru with the HM2 (we’re in Stockholm, how could I not?). The promoter tears his shirt off, looking like a heavy metal wrestler now, and somehow crowd surfs. I summon Wolfbrigade, I summon P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. I get the job done. Attitude and energy. Electric shamanism/spirituality, drunken catharsis, whatever it is. For better or worse, I’m a musician and performer and I need to keep doing this.

People want autographs, thank us for coming. I’m in a daze. We’re in the absolute Mecca of metal and punk, and people are thanking us for playing. I’m thanking them back, their country gave us Anti Cimex and Entombed, but try not to linger. It has been a long day and I’m still spun out by the Matteus news.

When we loaded in, the Middle Eastern bar owner was wary, but now he loves us. He keeps embracing his hands with mine. Sensing the service industry stink which forever clings to me, he takes me behind the bar, away from the speed metal playing thru the PA, and down some corridor cutting through the building, past a very good kitchen, and leads me into a swanky craft bar. New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ is playing and I’m introduced to a hip, tattooed, middle aged English bartender with a snowy beard and ponytail, pouring a pint as well-heeled clientele sitting around the bar smile at us. The owner lets the English dude run this bar apparently. He’s very proud to show it and says we're always welcome, to both of his joints, and keeps embracing hands. Sweden. Truly god’s own country.

Early next morning, we begin the long journey home. Stockholm to Calais, Dover to Hastings, and finally London. It’ll work out to 30+hours in the van. Simon says he’s calculated it, and if we listen to the entire discography, we should be able to go thru Slayer’s full recorded output 3 times over.

My weary body once more conforms to the curve of my seat in the van. Wayfarers on, head resting back against the window. Broke but not broken. I could do more. I can always do more. Fuck gainful employment. Fuck bosses. Fuck 30 minute lunch breaks. Fuck shit wages for backbreaking shifts. Just let me write and rock. Everything else is just noise. The highways await.