Category: REFLECTIONS
Sleep tight, Stanley
I came home today after a trip to Germany, only to find my Facebook-mailbox full of private messages from friends who wondered if I had heard the sad news. “Stanley is not with us anymore”. One of my friends called me the minute I got through the door because he didn’t want me to get the news “through Facebook”. Sometimes things should be done “old-school”, person to person, not through social media. And I’m grateful for that.
I had a flashback that took me few years back in time, when Stanley’s bandmate from Nasty Idols, singer Andy Pierce, suddenly passed away in the shower at the age of 45.
Now Stanley. I’ve been friends with these guys since what feels like forever. There’s no secret that they didn’t choose to live particularly healthy lifestyles.
But it just doesn’t matter, the reaction and the sadness is still the same when you are faced with the fact that they are simply not here anymore and they won’t be coming back.
Stanley was always a wild child, a person who everybody knew – and much like with Andy, you either loved him or you hated his guts. Or it would go both ways like a roller-coaster, depending on what state of mind they happened to be in at the time, cause they could both “suck people in” in a strange sort of way.
Stanley and Andy had another thing in common, and that was to provoke people. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes it just happened, but I think that most of us knew that they had good hearts – somewhat troubled, messed up souls – but good hearts and that’s why they still had people around them offering their help and support even when they messed up, which was an ongoing thing pretty much.
My very first thought when I heard about Stanley was something he did for me that I’ll never forget – and which defined him as a person in my book.
I was celebrating my birthday and wanted to do something that would be a great memory for me and my friends, so I wanted to take everybody to Tivoli – an amusement park in Copenhagen – and pay for everybody’s entrance tickets and the transport there so we could all have a good time, regardless of anyone’s financial situation. I would pay for all of us, cause I knew it would be a great memory, and that’s what it’s all about, not the money.
Two or three people bailed in the very last minute with bad excuses and I was really angry that they hadn’t told me earlier, because I had already bought their tickets as well, and they knew it.
Stanley was the ONLY person who had a VALID good reason not to go, he was just out of surgery and was in great pain, he should have been at home resting.
But when he heard that people had let me down, he immediately got on the phone and called me and said that he was back on, cause he sure as hell was NOT gonna be one of those who ruined my birthday.
I told him not to do it, it wasn’t his problem what other people did, he was sick and should be in bed! But there was no way I could change his mind. He had already made up his mind that he was going – for my sake. It was the right thing to do and he was determined to do it.
We had such a great time that day, he was so funny and he enjoyed it, dispite having taken god knows how many strong painkillers to make it through the day.
I’ll be forever grateful for that gesture. THAT showed me what he was made of, he was there when he needed to be. He cared. And we weren’t even that close, just long-time aquaintances I guess, would meet at gigs or private parties or whatever.
Stanley at the Tivoli (left)
A few years prior to that, he also showed up to one of my birthday parties with one of the best gifts that I got that day – a box of organic cheeses, crackers, jams, just little goodies that felt a little bit exclusive in all its simplicity. But it was well thought through, he knew what I liked and what I would appreciate and put some effort into it.
You wouldn’t think he was that kind of guy when you saw him, cause he could be such a mess. I’m not saying that to be mean, he knew it, everybody knew it, it was just a fact.
A few years back, I was recording a demo and he was brought in in the last minute because the original drummer effed up. After a few days I was ready to kill Stanley. He was complicating everything, sucking up all my energy and making us all wait for hours (studio time that I was paying for, stressed me out big time).
I cursed him for weeks after that, going “never ever again!” – but the good thing about Stanley was that he could be very charming when he wanted to, so he could win people over – or win them back. :)
We could have arguments but still always with that “twist” where we both knew that we disagreed but we would cut eachother some slack. He would go “oh come on you bitch, you know I’m right” and get the reply “call me bitch one more time and I’ll kick your ass“. And then we would laugh about it.
It was all cool, no hard feelings. It’s a balance act that doesn’t work with everybody but you could do that with him.
Today, Facebook is flooded by goodbye messages from people who knew him – which is pretty much the whole city and then some.
I needed a few hours to even take it in. On one hand I wasn’t shocked that something bad could have happened to him, cause he was often walking on the edge, and willing to take risks. But you are never ever prepared or indifferent once it actually happens and it’s no longer a joke.
You can say a lot of things about Stanley, but he was genuine and didn’t make any excuses for who or what he was. Take it or leave it – he was who he was and proud of it. Sometimes he might not have been, but at least he knew that there was nothing he could do about it anyway.
He was a good person, I can say that much, and my heart and my thoughts goes out to his family and closest friends who are suffering today. He was too young, but I guess that when it’s time to go, you must go, your time is up. None of us knows when that day will come.
Stanley’s time was up and it’s just hard to handle when someone who’s always been around, suddenly won’t be coming around no more.
We will miss you Stanley, I hope you’ve finally found peace, wherever you are….
STANLEY AND ME – HE BROUGHT AN AWESOME BIRTHDAY GIFT.
Andy Pierce (vocals, Nasty Idols) and Stanley (drums, Nasty Idols) – now both partying on the other side somewhere…
DESERT TRIP – home of the coolest of the cool
The festival of the century. Bucket list fest. Call it whatever you want, but I feel incredibly privileged for having been one of the 75,000 people that attended the Desert Trip festival in Indio, CA on “weekend one” (Oct 7-8-9).
There have been a lot of age-jokes about the festival, which I guess is to be expected when you put all these legends on the same stage three days in a row:
Bob Dylan
The Rolling Stones
Neil Young
Paul McCartney
The Who
Roger Waters
Even Mick Jagger himself made a few age-jokes when he entered the stage the first evening.
It’s funny though, cause I never saw “old men” on that stage.
I saw young guys stuck in the wrong bodies.
Every time I see Keith Richards smile that rascal smile of his, I see a rebel kid that lives inside a wrinkly body, and you see it in his eyes too.
It’s not an old dude. He is just badass, maybe even more now than ever before. He’s earned it.
Keith Richards, Desert Trip, Indio CA (Weekend 1)
Being young is not always an advantage. Respect and reverence is something you can enjoy when you’ve invested YEARS into whatever it is you do in life.
There is not a 20-year old on the planet who comes even CLOSE to being as cool as Keith Richards. When you’ve done something your whole life, proving time and time again that you’re not only a survivor, but also a winner and you’ve paid your dues a long time ago, it just puts you in a position that younger musicians can only dream of.
Check out Mick Jagger. Most young guys couldn’t do what he does – he doesn’t stand still for five seconds, he works the biggest stages in the world and he doesn’t even stop to catch his breath. What “old dude” does that? It’s all about the energy that you’re projecting, not the packaging you’re stuck with.
Paul McCartney always had his boyish charm, and he’s always looked like a young man, dispite the inevitable signs of aging. His spirit shines through everything he does and all he is.
Paul McCartney – Desert Trip, Indio, CA (Weekend 1)
He’s a young boy with a talent that he’s blessed the world with.
When he entered the stage at Desert fest, I wasn’t prepared for my own reaction. I thought I was going to be all smiles and partyyyy during his set. Instead, his very presence made me cry like a baby for almost 2 hours straight! I simply couldn’t stop it. That’s how powerful that experience was.
It was tears of joy and like a “movie” rolling inside my head that took me to different places and emotions throughout my life, that were somehow connected to whatever song he was playing. First love. First heartache. Days in school. Growing up. Life. Friendships. Career. Every single song is strongly connected to something that has touched my heart. I could barely hold on to my camera when he sang “Here Today” (tribute to John Lennon). Just totally lost it there.
That wasn’t a concert. That was a religious experience. And going back to that age thing, I can’t recall ever having one of those super-emotional experiences at any 20-year old’s gig. Not even when I was 20.
Wrote this in a private Facebook update that night:
“I’ve used superlatives about concerts and artists in my life, but that was compared to what I had seen, heard and experienced up until then. THIS was not just on another PLANET, it was a totally different GALAXY. I’ve never seen anything that powerful in my entire life and I’ve seen a lot.
The whole thing just moved me to tears, I was bawling my eyes out while smiling up to my ears all at the same time, because I really didn’t know what else to do with everything that I felt during that show.
I’ll have to process it a little first, but, man… that was just… they would have to come up with another word that’s stronger than “amazing”, “fantastic” or “out of this world”. Paul McCartney in concert – on a stage this size makes EVERYONE ELSE look like freakin AMATEURS!”
The Who… Oh yeah, when you hear Pete Townshend talk to the crowd, it’s easy to tell that he’s still a loud rebel at heart with a whole lotta attitude! And he did slide on the stage on his knees too!!
When Roger Daltrey swings his microphone like a maniac, I suddenly realize who Sebastian Bach got that move from. :)
In short: These guys wrote the book! The book of rock’n’roll. They had something to say, they had visions, they just went ahead and changed the world.
So to me it wasn’t just an “old dude festival”. Far from it.
My closing words in a private post on Facebook that night were:
“I leave the US this time with my mind full of impressions which will take a long time to process, but it was something extraordinary that I’ll remember for the rest of my life“.
There is a LOT more to say and post from the festival, but I just wanted to share some of my first reflections on that age-thing – cause in this case, age is a measure of your coolness.
Cause when you’ve worked yourself up to this level, there is NOBODY that will EVER get close enough to even try kicking your ass! :) And that calls for some respect.
DESERT TRIP – GOT A PASS!
When it was announced, I thought it was a hoax. A festival with names like Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, The Who, Neil Young and Roger Waters. To me, that sounded like the kind of gig you would imagine you could go to when you die and go to heaven one day. Simply too good to be true.
I could barely believe it when it turned out to actually BE true. Holy cow!
Of all the hundreds, maybe thousands of gigs I’ve seen in my life, this surpasses them ALL, even as just an IDEA, never mind the actual FACT and the actual FESTIVAL….!
I’ve seen Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Roger Daltrey individually, but to have them all in one place is unearthly! :)
I had to try to get a ticket. I realized that the whole world was going to be online at the time the tickets went on sale and there was an imminent risk that I would end up with a crashed webpage or something that said I was number 1,567,901 in line or along those lines.
Yet, if you never gamble you never win!
That particular day, I had to work late, and since I work in Copenhagen and live in Sweden I knew that I wouldn’t make it home on time for the ticket release. The solution was to bring my laptop. I decided to find somewhere to sit at Copenhagen Airport where nobody would bother me, and just be READY….
Copenhagen airport is my second home. I know everything about that airport that a traveler needs to know. :) There is a space right below the Metro-escalators that has a bench with 3 seats that most people never notice. Sure enough, there was only a young guy there, and in the hour that I sat there, nobody else came.
Went to the Desert trip webpage that had this countdown clock, which really got the adrenaline pumping. At the same time I was trying to stay cool and also be prepared for the possibility that I would have to go home empty handed.
The minutes turned to seconds…. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1……..
The page reloaded and it said I was number 1,945 something in line. My spontaneous reaction was: “Okay, I’m screwed, this isn’t happening…” .
Next thing I know, the thing counted down really, really fast, went to number 500 in line and less than two minutes later I was IN.
I now had 10 minutes to complete my purchase or my place in line would go to somebody else.
I knew what I wanted. Where are the STANDING PIT TICKETS???
A hunch told me to click on page 6 – and there it was!
I had already prepared everything so that it wouldn’t take more time than necessary. Google chrome can save your credit card info, but even if that doesn’t work, I had written it down in the Windows word pad, so all I would have to do was cut and paste. Bam – bam and bam!
Before I knew it, I was a proud owner of a ticket to the Desert trip festival!
Honestly… I was staring at the screen thinking: “What? Really? That was it? I’ve got a ticket now?”
I still can’t quite believe it!
But yes, best seats in the “house”. I thought everybody had the same easy experience as me but when I checked online I saw lots of angry and disappointed people who said that they had waited for hours in the virtual line, only to find out that it was sold out. From what I’ve heard, and I’m not sure if the figures are correct, about 100,000 tickets were sold out in 5 hours. For both weekends – cause they announced an extra weekend due to the extreme demand. All gone.
I’m not surprised. And I feel incredibly blessed and thankful for being one of the lucky ones who will get to experience this.
It’s the most expensive thing I’ve ever done, right after the Monsters of Rock cruise, but thatyou could pay in installments, choose a payment plan. Here, you had to pay straight up.
Which means, no traveling and no gigs for me until after October. All the plans I had have been cancelled because I have to reek in some extra cash for this.
However, it will all be worth it and Im beyond excited! I’ve always been a Beatles fan, since as long as I can remember, so seeing sir Paul again will be MY treat. :) I love the Stones as a live act, that will be icing on the cake.
And the trip itself, I love it! I had actually booked hotel and rental car BEFORE tickets went on sale. Figured it would be easy to cancel if I didn’t get a ticket to the festival. Also, prices AFTER the tickets were sold out, would be through the roof, so I’m glad that I planned ahead.
Got in touch with a lady on Facebook that will be travelling from Peru to the festival and her and her company wanted to share the rental car with me – so we cut the costs and it’s a lot more fun to get to know new people as well!
This will be fantastic, I can’t wait!!
Never mess with the blonde killers
You waited all day, in all kinds of weather, your feet are killing you, your mouth is dry, you need to go to the bathroom and you’re starving. But it’s all worth it – BECAUSE YOU GOT THE FRONT ROW SPOT to see your favorite band!
And then, you just know it’s gonna happen… There is that guy who shows up ten minutes AFTER the show has begun, who kicks and shoves his way through the crowd like the asshole he is – and spots the little blonde chick there at the barricade. He thinks “Bingo!” and figures it’s his lucky day. It will be a piece of cake getting rid of that little blondie over there. Au contraire my dear, unsuspecting friend. You might just have made your biggest mistake today. :)
Me and my blonde, concert loving female friends, have been in situations like that many times, and they never ended well – for the dude. Or sometimes for some annoying chick. We know how to disarm them. So never underestimate that little innocent looking girlie there at the barricade, she’s done this before.
This happened at a Pretty Maids concert at Hard Rock cafe in Copenhagen a few years ago: There was no barricade and my friend was in the very front, when this gorilla type showed up from out of nowhere and decided to HANG on her. He was twice her size and thought that gave him an advantage.
She had nowhere to go and nothing to grab or hold on to, to keep her standing straight. So she got an idea. She took a firm grip of his family jewels and TWISTED them around – 360 degrees. Not only did he stop his nonsense, I think he got a new career – singing Bee Gees songs….
That wasn’t the only time she made her point at a gig.
At Sweden Rock Festival, she had this girl next to her that was waving her arm in front of her face during the gig, so she couldn’t see what was going on on stage. After a few nice attempts to kindly ask the girl to stop doing that (and only getting a stupid grin in return) she quite simply BIT HER.
“What was I supposed to do? I just sunk my teeth in her arm when she started flapping it in my face again! But she stopped after that….”. No kidding.
Blonde rock chick number two – we were at a Jon Oliva’s Pain show in Copenhagen and this drunk guy was jumping around like a pinball. He was all over the place, stepping on her toes, on ours, just being a major pain in the behind. After a few “please stop thats” she finally got sick of him and grabbed the chain he had around his neck, and with a strong, firm grip just pulled him backwards.
He was so surprised that he never had a chance to prepare for it. He flew across the room and we didn’t see him again for the rest of the evening.
Then there was that drunk and high son of a b…. at a W.A.S.P concert in Lund, Sweden a few years ago. He was screaming, jumping, shoving, trying to literally CLIMB over us, cause he was so pissed off that we were in “his” front spot (where were YOU when we came in an hour ago, dude??).
After fifteen minutes of what felt like three rounds of WWF wrestling, my friend decided to make good use of her spikey high heel boots – so she STOMPED on his toes with those killing machines for all she was worth.
The dude stopped for two seconds, but was so high on god knows what, that he didn’t feel pain. He continued.
I was furious by the time he focused on me. So I used my head. Literally. I hit him in the face with the back of my head – full force. It even hurt ME and it scared me a little cause the guy stopped, finally. It was scary quiet though. I didn’t turn around to see if I had knocked all his teeth out, broken his nose or done any other kind of damage. But at least we got rid of him…
When you’re in a crowd, you do things you would never ever do in real life. Suddenly it’s the law of the jungle that applies. If you’re trying to ruin my concert experience, I’m not just gonna stand there and take it. I’ve never seen a veteran lady rocker be helpless in a concert situation. We become amazon women ready to kill.
So before you think that “the two blondes in the front row” are an easy target, think again. Rock’n’roll is about blood and sweat, and we’re all in!
The FANTASY is so much better….
You know how sometimes, when you have a secret crush on someone, you create all those wonderful fantasies in your mind, of what that person is like?
And then, one day, when you actually get to KNOW that person, and you see all their flaws, the fantasy dies right there. It was all in your mind. You created that perfect person. There ARE no perfect people, and the disappointment is very real.
Well… it’s the same with rock stars.
I’ve had the opportunity to get to know some of my teenage idols on a more realistic, human level, and it didn’t always go down too well.
It’s no wonder when you think about it. Because their music means a lot to you, so you think of the person who created it, as someone extraordinary.
When I was a teenager, rock stars were freaking GODS! They were larger than life, they were aliens, they were simply not regular people. Heck, I couldn’t even imagine that they went to the toilet like other human beings. They were from another planet and much like Wayne and Garth I would be like this:
So the leap from THAT to reality can be pretty harsh.
Suddenly you get to see the human side of these “gods”.
The primadonna behavior, the sad alcoholics and drug addicts who can’t even make it to the bathroom without the help of someone who drags them there, guys acting like pigs, treating women like trash, or even worse – treating their fans like trash.
Like one who shall remain nameless, who totally ignored a 10-year old boy who’d been waiting for him all day long with a poster he was hoping to get signed. There was nobody there, and the “Rock Star” didn’t as much as look at him. He walked right past him and treated the kid like he was invisible.
There was another Rock Star who I had idolized for a while, who I got to know as a friend over the years, and realized he was a whiny bastard who thought the whole world owed him something.
He accepted no flaws in other people, but expected everybody to accept and forgive him for HIS.
I was disappointed and for a while there I couldn’t even listen to his music because it had been somehow ruined by the realization of who he truly WAS. I would have been better off if I had never found out.
Same with another dude who I thought was a fantastic performer, whose records I would play over and over again… We got to know eachother well cause I was on so many tours, press conferences and interviews, it just naturally got that way.
And although I liked his personality sometimes, he could quickly and easily transform into this terrible egoistic asshole who I wanted nothing to do with.
The friendship had its ups and downs but I couldn’t stay a “fan” after that. When he was on stage he was a friend who was living his dream with his pals, the band. Not the Larger Than Life unobtainable Rock Star. Far from it.
These experiences taught me something. The Fantasy is better.
They can be whoever you want them to be. They can mean whatever you want them to mean to you, because you create their personalities in your own mind, and that way they remain the amazing Stars whose music means the world to you. They can never disappoint you, if you never get to know them.
Learning this made it easier to make my own decisions on who I wanted to befriend and who I would deliberately keep at a distance as much as possible, so that I could enjoy what they and their MUSIC has meant to me, without ruining it by getting to know them.
Rob Halford of Judas Priest would be one of those people. He’s the ultimate god because he and Judas Priest have meant so much in my life, it’s beyond what I could even explain. I wouldn’t be sitting here today writing about my life in the music biz, because without Priest it wouldn’t even have happened.
I’ve met Rob several times since that very first meeting back in 1990. I’ve talked to Rob on the phone many times. And I’ve been at hotels, backstage and on tour buses with Priest and with his own band Halford through the years. BUT, I’ve made sure to keep it on a very, very professional and manageable level. I didn’t want to even attempt to make friends with Rob on a level that I would consider a “real” friendship, because I want to keep him on his Metal God status forever.
It’s a conscious choice. I like Rob Halford a lot. I think he’s a great man and I have nothing bad to say about him whatsoever. I haven’t seen any bad sides of him, on the contrary, he’s been a very kind and inspiring man to talk to.
Others have been keen on telling me the “nasty details” about him, as if I wanted to hear about it. I’ve even told people NOT to tell me anything bad, if it’s truly bad, because I don’t want to know. It doesn’t bring anything I want to my life.
The way I look at it is this… Rock stars are two different people in one:
The STAGE persona – the side that the world gets to see, the person whose lyrics and music can be interpreted any way you want, and have it mean anything you need or want it to be. That’s the ROCK STAR side.
Then you have the PERSON, the human being, the one who might disappoint you because he/she doesn’t fit YOUR image of them. The person whose personality might be the exact opposite of what you see on stage. And in most cases, the stage person is NOT who you will meet once the spotlights are off.
Sometimes they’re better people in real life than they want the world to see when they’re playing the act of the Rock Star they want to be. Sometimes it’s the opposite. If you can’t handle the truth, then don’t seek it. That’s how I’ve dealt with it.
It’s not that I’m naive by any means. I know exactly how it is and somewhere in the back of my head, I also know that some of the “bad” things that people have told me about my “idols” are true – I just choose to block it out because I want the positive side of them to brighten my life.
Take David Coverdale for example. I’ve heard from so many people through the years how mean he can be to people, how egoistic and unpleasant he can be. Some of the stories have shocked me, why would someone BE like that at all?
But then I shove it aside because he’s been nice to ME through the years. ALWAYS. He’s made me feel good with his music, his voice . and the way he’s treated me every time he’s seen me – whether it was at an interview, a press conference, at a hotel or in a crowd – he has always had a smile to spare and a few lovely, kind compliments. So I simply choose to love THAT David Coverdale. Not that other person that other people have been unfortunate enough to experience.
Or Lita Ford. Twenty years ago I was talking to two guys who had been on tour with her, and they had a few select stories to tell about the chick I thought was so badass. She wasn’t badass, she was simply not a person you wanted to be around, apparently.
They weren’t the only ones who were less than impressed by miss Ford, to say the least, I’ve heard it a few times, so I’m aware of that too.
However – she’s played a BIG role in my life as well, serving as an inspiration and role-model in a world that was reserved for men. NOW people can’t understand what I’m talking about, because the scene has changed so much since the early 80’s, but back THEN it was a different ball game. There was no one to show you who you could be, what you could do, what you should look like as a young, female rocker.
For a teenager who needed “guidance”, Lita Ford was the heavy metal goddess. Regardless who she was behind the scenes, what she did, who she treated badly or who she screwed – to ME she was the icon who showed that you COULD be in charge of your own destiny, you COULD be respected in a male dominated world, you could be sexy and feminine without being a stupid slutty bimbo, and you could be in metal without looking like a dude (all the other girls looked like dudes – Joan Jett, Girlschool, Rock Goddess, it was just very much jeans and t-shirts, whereas Lita walked around in high heels and fishnet stockings. Somehow that appealed more to me than the “dude style”).
When I finally met her, for that interview in Malmo a few years ago (I was happy to find a pic of that meeting in her biography recenty!) she was just the way I imagined her and I could relate to so many things she said. The IDEA of her, and MY experience of her in REALITY was the same.
That doesn’t mean that she isn’t a pain in the butt to deal with, like some have mentioned, maybe she is. But again, I have no reason to focus on that aspect, I make a choice when I want to – to see the side of her that works in my life and serves as the inspiration she’s always been and continues to be.
It is what it is. But one thing is for sure. The FANTASY is always better than reality. Cherish it. :)
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 