transmission

anders was the last one to join the band but the first ever to join a band i was in who was a complete stranger. we'd been posting adds around stockholm since we didn't know any bass players at all, or at least no real ones. all our friends were guitarists and even if they would have wanted the job we wouldn't have given it to them. we wanted someone who had chosen the bass for his/her instrument.
the first one to try out was a guy called fernando and we invited him to play with us and jam. it all ended after only one rehearsal. it seemed he had picked up depeche mode from our list of influences a lot more than anything else and maybe i should have left them out in the first place.
anyways, by the time anders called i'd learned my lesson and this time we decided to meet first and talk. if we clicked, we'd take it from there. we talked a lot but did not really like each other. i can't really remember what we talked about specifically, and to be honest i do not trust my judge of character skills from nine years ago, but we didn't share that much and anders seemed a bit too uninterested and unimpressed (i had an ego to please). so when we found a shared passion for the tea paty (this was by the time trip tych was relesed) i turned to my two favourite features, optimism and naiveté, and invited him to try out for the band.
he quickly found his place in the band and didn't care much for songs alredy written. he suggested his own material and didn't really listen to my suggestions for how to play his instrument. all this may seem like bad moves when trying to make the cut for a new band, but i wasn't out for a puppet i could tell what to play. i wanted someone who would see the faults in my songs and arrangements. or maybe i was looking for that, and anders revelation opened new subconcious doors. never the less, in anders i really found that guy. at times when i've been trying to come up with cool stuff for some parts but found nothing, he can just go "why don't you just shut that guitar up?" and be absoultely right about it too. in a band with me and thomas, who know no boundaries to the layers upon layers of bricks we add to create that wall of unstopable sound we want to be, you need a guy like anders to sometimes tap you on the shoulder and remind you that sometimes: "less is more."
the funny part about that first meeting is that, when talking about it a few years later, anders reveals that he felt exactly like me. he found me stiff and self-centered, but our common love for the tea party made him at least try out for the band. and for that, i thank him, and jeff martin.

with that said, i leave you with one of canadas finest: