Chapter XI

It went smooth, well for me...I basically just had to pep talk Anna a little, she did all the work (I´m sure you´re aware of the fact that it´s not exactly something we men are un-happy about). But it was very smooth overall. At 9 in the morning she gave birth to Mirjam Ebba Maria Åkerfeldt. A healthy young baby girl which basically is the cutest newborn I´ve seen since September 2004. Awesome!! They give you some sandwiches and coffee when everything is done, and that time is soooo relaxing. Now she´s a little blob, although insanely cute and she started laughing when she sees me. I´ve become a sentimental babbling idiot...but what the hell. My death metal cred has been in the grave for years and I aint looking back with regret.

Peter Lindgren and myself started playing together for fun as we´d girlfriends who knew each other so we´re a little gang hanging out. This goes back to the 80´s, maybe we first met in 1988 or something...maybe earlier. He had a band called Infinity which was a thrash type band, I don't think I ever heard them for real. Maybe they just had the name. I was in Eruption and later on Opeth. We'd found ourselves in a little bit of a squeeze since we had a gig booked, with Asphyx and Desultory and had no bassplayer. I asked Peter to fill in which he did. Since then he became the guitarist as the guy who played with us at the time left, and Peter was really a guitarist anyways.

We had the same type guitars, Yamahas with 24 frets, his was black and mine was white, but I'd painted blood on mine as well as had some stickers on it, the original sticker from Samaels 7" single "Medieval prophecy" actually!. It looked and played like shit to be honest.

Together we started playing guitar. All the time! There's a few riffs I'd written that were inspired by At the gates first demo, only that we played slower and even more melodically.

We wrote most of the songs on the first album in my boy room out in Hagsätra where I lived with my mum at the time. And once we had recorded that first album, something just clicked and we became sure of what we wanted to do. Peter was studying at the time, he also went in the army, something I'd been fortunate enough to hassle my way out of. I was a bum with a dream more or less. I eventually got some work in a guitar store and worked there up til the "Morningrise" tour in 1996 and then left.

Fast forward 10 years or so and Peter's not in the band anymore. It's quite insane for me, but it's reality. I think Peter had lost a little bit of that initial spark of playing guitar and I think his mind was occupied with many other things than just the music. He enjoyed the tours and everything but like anyone with a wife or family, it's extremely difficult to be away from home so much. Even though I'm still in some kind of state of shock, I think it was a good thing for him personally and for the band.

If you are in Opeth you need to be 100% all the time I guess, there's no time "off" so to speak, and I think Peter seriously needed that time off. I need it, and when I do, I just don't pick up the phone, don't touch the guitars etc...I mean, we could be working around the clock if we wanted to. But there's never been a question in my mind about what I want to do.

Peter also has an education to die for. It'd be a little bit of a waste not to do something with it.

Let's face it, being in a metal band is not a very lucrative career move if you want to have a long-lasting career and make a decent living. I love it because I love music and I don't know anything else. Peter always loved the music but I think his creative side needed more of an outlet, and perhaps that is getting recognized more now as he wasn't really writing that much for the band during the last years.

I will always be burdened by this, I always been a nostalgic person and I believe in "forever" but to be honest, all I want to do is to play music. If I'm not playing with Peter or Lopez I will be playing with somebody else. People change and there's nothing one can ever do about that. We remain friends to this day and I hope we'll become even closer friends now when we're not working together anymore.

Fredrik Åkesson is a little bit of a legend in the Stockholm scene. He's done a lot of work, but his metal ventures have been more or less limited to work with Krux, Arch enemy, Tiamat and Talisman. I'd known about him but didn't know him personally. I saw him play in a small pub here in Stockholm. He had a black Les Paul custom and plugged straight into a Marshall and just took our heads clean off. They played some metal classic covers set, but it was enough for me to be real impressed. I got to know him through his involvement with Arch enemy more or less and found out he's a great honest guy with the heart in the right place. He spent more time with us on Gigantour than with his band at the time.

As Peter was leaving I'd just been informed that Fredrik had been asked to step down from his position in Arch enemy. So even though we're going through a pretty rough dramatic time, at least we'd been struck with luck in the "perfect timing" sense.

He's the only one I called and only one we ever auditioned, and I haven't looked back since.

As I write this we have just finished the mixing of our last record and I know how his performance on this record will find you all completely impressed.

The new line up has so far only done one gig together, which was last Summer at the Iilosarirock festival in Finland.

It went well, I was a bit shit but the band probably sounded good. I remember looking out from the side of the stage just before we're going on and there was maybe a few 100 people there. I'm like... "OK, whatever, we'll just do this and then get fucked up". 10 minutes later we go on, and it is packed! Maybe 15000 people there to see us! Fucking nice! Thanks! That night we went to some kind of metal club and got completely shitfaced. I can still feel the hangover today, haha! But we needed that I guess. So many impressions during the last couple of years, we needed to let out some steam.

We're gearing up to be ready to see you all again. A few months worth of rest and then we'll go out again and tear it up, as the posers say. But we fucking mean it!

The Dream theater tour dates just got announced and it looks like it will be a very cool tour. Hopefully we can do the Mexico date as well even though noone told me yet whether we're supposed to do those too... * * *