It’s a long old way to Copenhagen from Stockholm. Especially when you understand there is a very real risk that you’ll be playing to pretty much nobody. That’s always a risk when you’re in an underground DIY band I guess. Even more so when you’re totally new and nobody has heard of you. But unless you’re Iron Maiden or something there is always a chance the gig will be a bum turnout.. I wonder what they would consider a bum turnout? Copenhagen, though, feels like it’s a bigger risk than most places. We played what turned out to be the last ever Victims show here. We didn’t know it at the time ..read more

“It’s up. It’s down again…” I grew up with Fawlty Towers. Me and my family watched it all the time when we were kids. The scene with Basil and the painting is still one of the classics my sister and I reference when we’re gagging together. It’s starting to feel like that with this fucking pandemic. I know it’s not a laughing matter, but still. It’s off. It’s on again. Although maybe ever thinking it was off was pretty naive. But two months ago it felt like we were finally emerging from this shit. “Do you not think people were tired of the war in 1943?” I read some doctor saying in the paper th ..read more

It’s a couple of weeks shy of two years ago. We could never have imagined then what the future held in store. That it would be two years until we’d be together playing music to an audience again. Eighteen months ago we sat in this very practice room, an impromptu band meeting with Victims before we practiced the set, to decide on whether we should cancel the festival in Belgium we were booked on two weeks later. Things were beginning to get a little scary by that point. Up until that point we’d tried our best to ignore it, but then our booker Zoli mailed us with a simple question, “Guys, it’s ..read more

We began writing new material for Victims at the start of 2020. We were planning to record four songs and maybe release a split 7” with our friends Svalbard, who we'd just toured Europe with a few months earlier. When everything got cancelled Victims also came to a halt. With Johan now furlonged and no longer commuting to Stockholm from Nyköping we stopped rehearsing, stopped writing, stopped everything. Things felt pretty fucking dire for a while. They still do now and again. But those first few weeks felt pretty apocalyptic. I had planned three weeks off whilst in between jobs and had dream ..read more

Next week I turn 43 years old. I started my first band when I was 13. 30 fucking years ago. I haven’t not been in a band during that time. There have been times when I’ve felt like stopping, but that has never gone beyond the stage of muttering to myself that maybe it’s time to give it in. The fact is, being in a band is a huge part of my identity. For a long time, it was my only identity. Now there are other aspects of my life that are vying for the position of “Who am I?”. Parent. Social worker. Book nerd… But when I was sat eating dinner with my friend Gill and his family, Gill plays guitar ..read more

There is a certain beauty in guesting on a blog that is called Punk Rock and Coffee. Especially that both punk rock and coffee-nerding run on street scene credit points, and I’m at 50% best case. Now why on earth would Gaz invite any random coffee nerd to blurt about coffee, so you my dear reader must have guessed I just gave myself 100% punk rock scene credit points (how brave of me to do so), while I’m still thinking coffee is one of the worst things ever and tastes like ass. Now hello there, how do you know what ass tastes like, Zoltan? It must probably suck, just as bad as coffee, just ..read more

I started this blog back in 2009. The main idea behind it was to share stories in written form, to recount all those great tales that have been told whilst sat around somewhere, sometime, waiting to get somewhere or for something to happen. Stories that could only happen on tour. Stories sometimes you’d have a hard time believing had you not been there yourself. There were many stories like that from the ten years we toured with Raging Speedhorn. There were many others I heard along the way that had me crying with laughter. As time went by the blog developed into a platform for my tour diarie ..read more

An inner monologue with myself. “Your flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle has been cancelled”. We were supposed to be playing in Paris tomorrow night. And then Lille on Friday. And then Aalst on Saturday. But a week ago the world turned upside down. This time last week we took the very tough decision to cancel our trip. We spoke about it with Zoli, our booker, he’d brought it to our attention as the “Elephant in the room”. Until then, we’d been planning ahead as usual. Practicing the set, arranging merch and the van situation with the Bleakness guys in France. Just kind of hoping this virus ..read more

Within seconds of exiting the Universitet tube station my feet were sodden. Properly fucking squelching through the grey brown slush as the sleet came down like icy needles. I had not prepared for this. It was the first day of winter and it had taken me by surprise. I had a lot of work on at uni, being in the middle of writing a bachelor's thesis, and I’d planned to go straight to the gig when I was done for the day. Trainers were a truly piss poor choice of footwear. My socks would agree. Thing is, I can’t play in winter boots, can I? Clamping around on stage like BigFoot. The situation would ..read more

And then we were four. Strange feeling having one show left but it already feels like the tour is over and your mind is set on home. I felt like I just wanted to get this festival in Eindhoven over and done with and then get home. We have a fucking monster journey home, though. We’re driving to a hotel by Bremen after the show, which will take about three and a half hours, and then leave early tomorrow for another fourteen hours or so. Hard to get your head into a gig when you’ve already clocked out. It would have felt different somehow if Svalbard were playing this show, too. Maybe. We all s ..read more