Metal Storm

Wind Of Change

"Is that it?" inquired Sebastian.
We were sitting in the backstage area, watching the next band play. Astrid had joined us, showing us the pictures that she had taken of us during the show.
"What do you mean 'is that it'?" Eric asked as he furrowed his brows.
"What I mean is, for a band that claims to be Satanic, you play things quite safe," Sebastian said.
His voice had grown cold. Chilling.
"Do you want us to sacrifice a goat or something?" snorted Ace.
Sebastian looked up at the ceiling.
"Perhaps..."
It was kind of hilarious to us, how he was acting so seriously about something that we all treated as a shock value image for our band. So we all just burst out laughing.
He didn't laugh along with us, however. He just frowned at us and shook his head as if he didn't understand why the hell we were laughing at him.
———
"Hey, Marlene. I have something that I gotta discuss with you." Eric's voice broke me out of my focus. "I've already discussed it with the others."
I looked up from my notebook.
I was once again at his house, working on a new, slightly more ambitious song with him.
Eric was planning to have all the songs written out by mid summer, so we could record the album by late August and release it sometime in late fall or winter.
"Yeah, of course. What is it?" I asked.
A potential album cover, maybe? A future show? I wasn't quite sure what the guitarist wanted to discuss with me.
"We're probably going to move to Stockholm," he said.
I looked at him, in welcome stupefaction.
"There's just not a lot of opportunities for us here," he explained, "and hardly any scene for our music. Plus, there are a few good recording studios in Stockholm that might be down to having us come in and record."
He wasn't wrong at all.
Ystad was a small, tourist oriented town famous for its cute storybook homes, cozy shops and homely restaurants. Trying to make it big here was like trying to get famous as a rap artist in a Midwest US town, or like trying to sell fried chicken to a vegetarian commune.
I'd only been to Stockholm once before, when I was very little, and I didn't remember much of it. But I was supposed to attend university there anyway. So my parents certainly wouldn't have any issue with me moving there.
I nodded at him to continue.
"Ace and I have jobs and my dad is going to pay for part of the cost. There was a house that we saw on the market. It's a big, old, and shitty place right on the edge of the city, but it's exactly what we need, and the price isn't too bad for what it is."
I'd never been away from my family for more than a week, but had always pined for the day when I would move out on my own to start a new, adult life.
I wasn't set to go to university until the fall of 1988, since the classes that I had wanted to take were all full for the year, which gave me more time to spend with the band. But it would still probably not be a bad idea to move to Stockholm sooner to prepare myself for what it would be like to live without having to mostly depend on my parents, I figured.
"Are you asking me if I want to live with you, in this house?"
Eric pressed his thin lips together before replying.
"Yeah, there's four bedrooms. Each of us could have our own room. Svenn's gonna stay with his girlfriend but you, Ace, Sebastian and myself can have the house to ourselves..."
Living in a house with two of my best friends who happened to be metalhead boys? Now that sounded like quite an adventure. Sebastian however...daunted me a little bit. The way he was always glancing at me, the way he greeted me as if we had known each other for years whenever he saw me...
Maybe he just thinks I'm cool or something and wants to be my friend I thought, and decided to leave it at that. No use being paranoid, after all.
Sure, it felt good to be noticed by a guy as attractive as him, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to be in a romantic relationship with someone who I'd only known for such a short while. I'd never dated anyone before, didn't even know what really, really liking somebody felt like. Well, maybe I did, I just hadn't recognized the feeling at the time. I had bigger things to worry about.
"You up to that?" Eric asked, waving his hand in front of my face.
"I think I am and you're totally right about Stockholm having more opportunities. I'll obviously still have to discuss it with my parents, but if they agree to it, then I'm totally in."
"Fucking great!! We're planning to move in there by May, as soon as school ends," Eric said, his sapphire eyes glimmering with unfettered excitement. "Man, just think! We'll have a whole place to ourselves. No parents to tell us what to do or any of that bullshit. True freedom!"
"And not needing to worry about the neighbors calling the police on us for blasting music," I said with a smile.
"Exactly!"
———
"Honestly, that new guy is just...disconcerting," Astrid said, scrunching up her nose and lightly hugging herself when I told her that I was going to be moving to Stockholm in May with Eric, Sebastian, and Ace.
"Oh my god. You say that about literally everyone you meet," I groaned, rubbing my face in an embellished gesture of annoyance.
"Yeah, yeah," she said, rolling her eyes, "but listen, I have reservations about this guy. I don't really want to jump to conclusions, but he seems kind of unhinged. I could be completely wrong about him, but I'd prefer to stay clear of him if I were you. I don't like the way he looks at you. I don't like the way he talks to me either."
Sebastian was indeed kind of odd, and it was sometimes difficult to tell whether he was being candid or not about a lot of the things that he let slip, but I didn't pay it much mind.
It wasn't like we could kick him out at such a crucial time for the band, anyway. He was as close to Kristina's skill level as we were gonna find.
"Yeah, I will," I assured her, a false reassurance to stop her from worrying too much about me.
"How did your parents even agree to this?" she asked, "isn't your mom pretty puritanical about heavy metal?"
"She only agreed to allow me to leave because the university that I applied for is located in Stockholm, and also probably 'cause she wants me to get out of the house as soon as possible," I chuckled.
"Ohhhh, haha."