A typical day

Breakfast. Powershake. It's not so nice (it gives you the dry and wet heaves) but according to William and Max OT it is good for you.

Meeting Mats Liljegren at Playground music. Delivering and picking up cd:s.

My trunk full. This was before meeting Playground.

Back at the office. It's pretty messy as you can see. Book keeping end comming near...bluurk!

Backing up some files. Being a bit paranoid. But better safe than sorry.

Writing a letter to the German manager. Yes, my handwriting is the worst. Some letters were altered to make the adress more readable.

It's always been a problem for me to write. Looks like an eight year old did it. There is probably something wrong with my fine motor skills I suppose. In school the teachers always complained a lot about this (and other things). I went to special classes for this problem.

Taking the dog for a walk.

Meeting Joakim Sandberg from Sandberg music in the Sandberg music shop. Known him since we were teenagers. He is also the guitar player from Aces high.

Engrish

What do they mean? They went thru the trouble to make this sign and still it's nothing that makes sense. Like if aliens tried to speak with humans. If you have to make a foreign sign it's better to ask a person that speaks both languages to make it. And the check it with a third.

More stuff at: www.engrish.com

Back in the fusion days.

I'm 27 years old here. The other person is Robert Karlsson, the sound engineer on this tour we jokingly called "Skägg och ägg" (beard and eggs).

This was a few years after our time in Yngwie Malmsteen's band. A hasbeen at 27 I sometimes felt we were :-) but it was fun to explore new musical and land territories.

We were in Berlin and played with Jonas "The bass monster" Hellborg when this video was shot. My brother Jens was also in the band. He had an angry tantrum and broke an effect pedal during his key solo. The jazz audience looked really puzzled to say the least :-) He held the camera. We did someting we called "The speaking diary". It was spoken by me onto videotape everyday like a little tour diary. I think Jens has these tapes.

In general were these jazz tours we did really fun and interesting. We played places we never been before. Played stuff we hadn't really played before. Complicated stuff it was. A lot of odd meter and fast playing. Met strange and weird people. Saw, for us, new and different things. On one tour we were on top of a mountain in Austria in the middle of a thunder storm. It was really dumb. Went to countries behind the iron curtain. Once a dog came on stage. It seem the first thing you do something is the most fun and exciting.

I drew a map of Europe on an ashtray as you can see. Note: Yugoslavia is named J...this was before the split. Yugoslavia in Swedish is "Jugoslavien".

Jens opening a rotten herring can in Hammerfall's backstage

I brought rotten herring, a Swedish delecacy, to a Spanish metal festival in Villa Robledo a few years back. Motörhead, Dio, Stratovarius, Hammerfall etc shared the same backstage area. Jens couldn't resist opening a can in our backstage room. It sprayed everywhere since these cans are so fermented inside they become over pressured. Rumor, according too Mikkey Dee, is that Ronnie James Dio, that Jens used to play with, is still disgusted and can't eat fish anymore.

Drum show

Did a drum show together with a 9-year old drummer Emil from my home village. They had this festival and asked me to play. I have played for 1000 years and in 1000 different situations so I thought it would be fun trying to play on a drumkit 1000 times too small. And it was.

Past crimes years back.

Got a message from an old pal in Sweden.
I apparently have been sending bragging and stupid postcards to him. I feel really embarrased now and realize that I have also sent to more people. Worse ones for sure since this guy who told me is a cool guy that I admired since he was a great guitarplayer and played at the time in a famous band (still does).

I hereby appologize to everyone I might have offended in the past by my childish and immature behaviour!

People in Hammerfall's past

Check it out here:

http://www.hammerfall.net/blog.aspx

Border shop

On the way back from Wacken open air we stopped at the Border shop in Puttgarden, Germany. It's an alcoholics dream. All this for €130 (£100). It would have been four times more in Sweden.
A lot of people just go there for the cheap alcohol. It's a five floor huge floating shop. I think it might have been a floating parking garage before.
The thing is that I don't really drink that much so now we have alcohol for years to come.
A bottle of Katarina vodka was €6.

Talking about Wacken. We played the largest gig so far. 72 000 people. The nice thing was that there was more people when we played than when the later bands played. We played at 19:15 which is probably the best slot I would say.

Phobias part 2

This is my constant companion. It goes where ever I go. It's a bottle of rubbing alcohol. For cleaning the hands after shaking peoples hands or touching door knobs etc. Since I started to use this I have gotten less colds. I think 70% less. So it's recommended.

Phobias part 1

I constantly have phobias. Getting rid of an old one only to get new ones instead.

Here is an old/new one:



I saw this dude talk right in the sunlight. He is a normal man, nothing strange about him at all. The thing was that I saw that the sunrays enhanced the mucas and spit comming from the mouth while talking. I tried it myself and: yes, there is a little spray from everyone talking. Always. Every time.

Now I can't talk to people in bars (or loud environments where you have to stand close to eachother to be able to hear...Don't stand so. Don't stand so. Don't stand so colostomy!) anymore without keeping a distance of one meter. I think of the little droplets of virusinfested spit that land in my mouth or on the skin of the ear.