Jukebox:Metal

An Argentinean Vacation

Leaving a cold Sweden with Iberia Airlines for Madrid - and after three hours I am there. “Great!” I think for myself. Only seventeen hours left to travel. Of those seventeen hours, five hours is waiting. Waiting for the next flight down to Buenos Aires Argentina to meet my girlfriend who lives there. I will have a vacation with her and also record a theme song for a radio programme down there called ‘Ahora O Nunca’ which means “Now Or Never” in Spanish. I wrote the lyrics for the song and an Argentinean band called Etherna wrote the music for it. Madrid’s airport is a really big one so you have to take a train between the departure halls - trains without drivers, exactly like in Forth Worth, Texas! Five hours to kill… But they have a smoking area, internet, and they have… Tada… Starbucks Cafe!! We don’t have that in Sweden (sorry, what? –ed) so for me Starbucks is a really great place! I spend almost all the five hours there with a crossword and an enormous muffin and a… a… Frappolino Cappuccino Fabulino Cicciolina… something with toffee and cream on the top!

And it’s time to jump on the big Iberia Airbus! Perfect. My ticket says I will sit by the aisle. Great. I hate window seats, or even worse, middle seats! I sat down, very tired, and as I almost fell asleep my neighbour for the next twelve hours appears. It’s an Irish guy called Trevor. A backpacker who is travelling alone to discover the world (cool!) Mr Trevor is NOT tired… he is very, very talkative. I am normally a very social guy who loves to chit chat about this and that with whoever. But right now I am very tired and unfocused. And I understand half of what he is saying because it’s very hard for a Swede to understand the Irish accent. Especially if 80 percent of every word that comes out of his very kind Gaelic mouth is slang! It was like that in Trevor’s case.

Somewhere over the Atlantic Trevor falls asleep. Me too! I wake up almost exactly when it’s time for landing. My mouth tastes and smell like a graveyard and my tongue is dry like a beaver’s tail! I’m thinking: “I have to kiss her when I see her now in the airport”. “Maybe she breaks up with me immediately because of the smell.” But everything went fine! She probably had a weak sense for smell.

In Argentina it was 37 degrees! And we absolutely had some wonderful days in fantastic Buenos Aires. I was surprised to see how many heavy metal fans there were - and people recognized me! In this part of the World!? In Sweden NOBODY knows or cares who I am! So for me it’s fun and flattering when people comes up to me and ask for an autograph or a photo! We later on went to a city called Gualeyguaychu (Yes it’s spelled like that) to attend the second largest carnival in the World. I had never seen a carnival before. It was HUGE!! A lot of drumming, enormous creatitions, and men and women in outfits that would make Gene Simmons in his stage outfit look like a guy who works in a bank!

The recording of the song was in another city called Colon. A very, very nice little city close to the border of Uruguay. The studio was in a house owned by the singer of the Etherna. When I entered his house the whole band was there and they made me feel so welcome! They had brought the best of wine and in the backyard they had fixed an Asado! (it’s an Argentinean barbeque) And for you who thinks that meat is meat wherever it may come from - WRONG!! Argentinean meat is really something different. It’s like comparing Volvo with Rolls Royce! After the dinner I nailed the song pretty fast. I have to say… I have sung better in my life… Hehehe… But we had so much fun and it was done from the heart! The result?? Well it reminds me very much of Stars, the song that was made by Ronnie James Dio in the mid eighties sung by different heavy metal singers, and all the money was given to Africa’s starving children. We made the song “Now or never” with an eighties atmosphere with a lot of reverb and big arena shouts and the whole cliché thing.

After that we started to talk about the music scene in Argentina. There is so much talent and bands but I have never heard about an Argentinean heavy metal band that made it big outside their borders. This band Etherna has been around for a long time and they told me they would have a gig at a club next week. “Oh cool! How much do they pay you to play a club gig?” I said. “Pay!? No, no, listen Thomas. WE pay to play there! A lot of money and we have to do all the marketing ourselves! We have never got any money for any of our gigs.” I was speechless… I realized I’ve become a spoiled a**hole that takes the cash for granted. It’s not the same everywhere. In Sweden you can survive as a musician. If you are ready to sell yourself a little bit. In Argentina it’s almost impossible. But these guys were really happy and satisfied and proud. And they reminded me of something. They are doing this because they love music. Their music. And they have fun and they love to play and make people listen to them. I’d like to thank them for reminding me of that. I almost forgot that along my career. We hugged and said goodbye. And I was actually very sad to leave my new friends. The next day it was time to go home. I said farwell to my lovely girlfriend Ludmila at the Ezeiza international airport in Buenos Aires. And the big bad wolf (me) dropped some litres of tears behind my shades. “You are really a true metal guy Thomas” I thought to myself. 23 hours later I was home in my bed. Half sleeping with a desperate wish to go back again. And I will also do that soon! I finally fell asleep with a smile on my face and some new very important new wisdom… Buenos Noches!

Written by Thomas Vikström - March 2008
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