What was going on after recording was done
2001-09-02
After finnishing the recordings we invited music journalists from all over Europe to come over to our studio and listen to the album. Normally this is a rather boring event where you give them a bunch of beers and play a few songs. This time we did something special.
As it is a nordic theme on the album, I started with bringing the whole horde of people (there were over 20 of them) out to an ancient nordic cult place and had Thomas Karlsson to make a small lecture on the topic the lyrics deal with him self. Normally he is this mystic figure that no one has seen, so just to make things different than usual we even allowed pictures taken where he was standing with me (which was published in some of the major music magazines already). After this we went to the studio for the usual stuff with listening.
The night was ended on a wiking ship that I had rented (with Nuclear Blasts money of course, he he). It sailed out to sea for some hours and meanwhile the people (that had to dress up in wild wiking clothes) were served tons of meat and other type of foods that they had to eat with their hands of course. Mjod (an old swedish honeybeer that the wikings used to drink) was served as much as people could drink and the wiking waitress was singing for us in old traditional folk way.
After this there was Wacken and Eurorock! Wacken was good (even though we made a few mistakes here and there), but I heard from many people that there was some dissapointment that we didn't perform with a full orchestra as was announced by the Wacken advertisment (it was later removed when we discovered it and complained about it). There were many people that didn't know we were not to have the orchestra and when discovering it at the festival, it for sure decresed the enthusiasm a bit. I think we would have had a better response if the Wacken people didn't fuck this up (we NEVER said we would bring an orchestra), thank you a lot! Another "thanx" goes to the lightguy of SAXON that where fucking up our lightshow by making only 30% of it accessable (even though it was in our contract to use the full light system). The stagemanager was freaking out and did what he could, but we had to start the show. That fucking lightengineer asshole was swiching it off just before we should go on stage. Thanx alot! SAXON didn't need shit like that, they have pondus enough anyway! I'd like to belive that the band was unaware of this act as I grew up with and am a great fan of the band.
The Eurorock was great! The audience was loud as fuck and we did one hell of a show! We ended the show with an Accept cover, "Balls to the wall". We tried to invite some fans from the crown to come up and sing it with us, but no one dared, ha ha! Instead we had guys from Nevermore, Napalm Death, Opeth and a guy from Israel coming up on the choirpodium and sing with us! This meant a lot to me as Accept was one of the very reasons for me to start dreaming about one day becoming a musician. Balls to the wall was the first song I heard and it felt so cool to play it with a bunch of similar metalheads in front of such a big crowd! I've been making music for almost 15 years and from a very personal point of view this was actually something worth waiting for!
Straight after Eurorock I went to some weeks of well deserved vacation in Germany, France, Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Austria. Mainly hanging around with good friends, drinking hefe weißbier (a very special beer from Bayern in southern Germany), walking in the mountains, swimming in a mountain lake, staying in the middle of nowhere at a farm...
I also paid the recordcompany some days of visit and besides making some interviews and finnishing the work with the details of the lay-out for "Secret of the Runes", I was getting drunk with Schmier from Destruction (really cool guy!) and some of the Blast people. Loads of beer on this trip for sure!
Then I ended it up with visiting my friend Christian Rätsch (the guy who translated and fitted the german lyric in one song on the new album) and his wife Claudia for some days. This guy has EVERYTHING Wagner ever did! He has a room full of his recordcollection, but only the CD's, all the vinyls don't even fit in there, so he had them in the garage! After writing down all the cool versions and till this moment for me yet undiscovered pieces, I realize I will be a very poor man after purchasing them all! I have to join Metallica or something so I can afford to extend my Wagner collection... =*
Speaking of Richard Wagner! On Thursday I will go to Helsinki in Finland to see Götterdämmerung! I'm so excitied! It's a 6 hour long opera (the last part of the Nibelungen Ring opera) and every secound of it is like an orgasm of musical euphoria!
When I get back I will spend my time doing over 100(!) phoneinterviews, try to catch up with my oceans of unanswered email and finnish the stuff for Fanclub with Ivo (there's loads left to do - you guys have to send him some mails to encourage him as he has the biggest burden to carry in it).
As it is a nordic theme on the album, I started with bringing the whole horde of people (there were over 20 of them) out to an ancient nordic cult place and had Thomas Karlsson to make a small lecture on the topic the lyrics deal with him self. Normally he is this mystic figure that no one has seen, so just to make things different than usual we even allowed pictures taken where he was standing with me (which was published in some of the major music magazines already). After this we went to the studio for the usual stuff with listening.
The night was ended on a wiking ship that I had rented (with Nuclear Blasts money of course, he he). It sailed out to sea for some hours and meanwhile the people (that had to dress up in wild wiking clothes) were served tons of meat and other type of foods that they had to eat with their hands of course. Mjod (an old swedish honeybeer that the wikings used to drink) was served as much as people could drink and the wiking waitress was singing for us in old traditional folk way.
After this there was Wacken and Eurorock! Wacken was good (even though we made a few mistakes here and there), but I heard from many people that there was some dissapointment that we didn't perform with a full orchestra as was announced by the Wacken advertisment (it was later removed when we discovered it and complained about it). There were many people that didn't know we were not to have the orchestra and when discovering it at the festival, it for sure decresed the enthusiasm a bit. I think we would have had a better response if the Wacken people didn't fuck this up (we NEVER said we would bring an orchestra), thank you a lot! Another "thanx" goes to the lightguy of SAXON that where fucking up our lightshow by making only 30% of it accessable (even though it was in our contract to use the full light system). The stagemanager was freaking out and did what he could, but we had to start the show. That fucking lightengineer asshole was swiching it off just before we should go on stage. Thanx alot! SAXON didn't need shit like that, they have pondus enough anyway! I'd like to belive that the band was unaware of this act as I grew up with and am a great fan of the band.
The Eurorock was great! The audience was loud as fuck and we did one hell of a show! We ended the show with an Accept cover, "Balls to the wall". We tried to invite some fans from the crown to come up and sing it with us, but no one dared, ha ha! Instead we had guys from Nevermore, Napalm Death, Opeth and a guy from Israel coming up on the choirpodium and sing with us! This meant a lot to me as Accept was one of the very reasons for me to start dreaming about one day becoming a musician. Balls to the wall was the first song I heard and it felt so cool to play it with a bunch of similar metalheads in front of such a big crowd! I've been making music for almost 15 years and from a very personal point of view this was actually something worth waiting for!
Straight after Eurorock I went to some weeks of well deserved vacation in Germany, France, Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Austria. Mainly hanging around with good friends, drinking hefe weißbier (a very special beer from Bayern in southern Germany), walking in the mountains, swimming in a mountain lake, staying in the middle of nowhere at a farm...
I also paid the recordcompany some days of visit and besides making some interviews and finnishing the work with the details of the lay-out for "Secret of the Runes", I was getting drunk with Schmier from Destruction (really cool guy!) and some of the Blast people. Loads of beer on this trip for sure!
Then I ended it up with visiting my friend Christian Rätsch (the guy who translated and fitted the german lyric in one song on the new album) and his wife Claudia for some days. This guy has EVERYTHING Wagner ever did! He has a room full of his recordcollection, but only the CD's, all the vinyls don't even fit in there, so he had them in the garage! After writing down all the cool versions and till this moment for me yet undiscovered pieces, I realize I will be a very poor man after purchasing them all! I have to join Metallica or something so I can afford to extend my Wagner collection... =*
Speaking of Richard Wagner! On Thursday I will go to Helsinki in Finland to see Götterdämmerung! I'm so excitied! It's a 6 hour long opera (the last part of the Nibelungen Ring opera) and every secound of it is like an orgasm of musical euphoria!
When I get back I will spend my time doing over 100(!) phoneinterviews, try to catch up with my oceans of unanswered email and finnish the stuff for Fanclub with Ivo (there's loads left to do - you guys have to send him some mails to encourage him as he has the biggest burden to carry in it).
