 okay fellas here we are a grand entrance snow is gonna make his grand entrance right now live live on the metal voice da da there's the man and there's the book yeah our guest today snowy Shaw oh boy he's played with everyone came diamond merciful fate there's even wonders dream evil just played with everyone I think we have to just name the people you haven't played with that's easier yeah he's playing I tried to get into Bee Gees but they wouldn't allow me you know I didn't have a high pitch enough not high enough all right so here we are on the metal voice talking with snowy shy's book they want to show your book the book of having the book 444 page show the thickness metal Bible show the thickness turn around the thickness yeah like that yeah there you go that's here some what do you say four words from Nicky D yes it's been like a kind of a mentor to me and shit so so he say some nice words at the end of the book or in the beginning on the on the front whoops hold on okay all right well we'll just talk amongst ourselves jobs yeah well yeah one thing I gotta say about the book is I've got the book I've read the book and this is something that will take you by surprise because snowy has played with so many people he's got a great you know his observations as he's worked worked his way through his career from the very very early days you know with joining with King Diamond and the mentor Maury and all these other bands he's played with and his own solo stuff it's a really really great read even if you're not a hundred percent familiar with everything he's done after King Diamond afterwards will fade or any points that you may be unsure of it's a great read anyway to get informed and it's a great take on the the scene the genre and everything he's been a part of it's it's one of the best books I've ever read actually and it's you know written by a musician look at that snowy look at that right there look at that testimonial I think I think I think right there snowy's book and David Lee Ross book would be my two favorites I like David Lee Ross book so appreciate that coming from a guy who barely read in the books at all I mean I read a couple of biographies that's why I do and that's actually write a book in English not being our first language and all that and but it took some time and I think we get to that snowy okay so why did you decide it was what a year a year and a half ago that you you started this book or you you completed this book just what was what was the idea behind it why did you feel the need let's say a year and a half ago a year ago to to why did I write this book I was supposed to have this show on a Saturday and it got canceled I just figured yeah why the hell not let's write a fucking book how hard can it be and I did and I was done by the day after not really I mean it was a long long process it actually started out right after I turned 40 and some people may say that is just a number and I try to sort of tap into that yeah it's just a number but to me it felt like I hit the crossroads so like now I can't deny it anymore I'm a middle-aged fucking man and what I have I accomplished and achieved in my life for some reason despite the fact that I had been up for full year like a singer and frontman with theory on all over the world I had this kind of crash after I turned 40 because you start to to to look at yourself and and yeah ask you ask yourself those kind of questions and so I had like three options and writing a book didn't cross my mind at all to begin with I was either number one I take a nose-dye from the God from all the hard and money I earned through my life on therapy for the next two decades but as I was sitting there on that could all I could see was really really dark then it crossed my mind that I felt like and in order to to to deal with my inner demons if you will or unfinished business or whatever just to distance myself and and and take a take a step back and look at it objectively as some sort of self therapy homemade therapy if you want so that is what I did back then after I turned 40 and I went home and I just wrote for and it was in dark November in Gothenburg it's rainy and gray and fucking boring and like I said I couldn't see anything positive everything was pitch black dark I was like a biggest loser ever I thought so but one day actually after a couple of weeks I looked out the window and happened to see the sun and to me that represented I saw that as a sign of okay I'm on the road to recovery here I can actually see some light some positivity but some positivity here and after that I put it aside and got back in the saddle so to speak and you know start working with music again and I figured me who had never written any journal kept on a journal or writing any diary or anything like that I thought to myself that okay maybe I should just continue writing every once in a while when I have like things popping up in my head and and I remember all stuff that I needed to kind of get out in the open like a catharsis or whatever and I kept doing that and after some time it's sort of crossed my mind that maybe other people would learn something from reading this and it would be interesting also because I mean my life's been such a long road of I call it in the book rock and roller coaster like a constant ups and downs but I have a tendency of quitting bands I mean people may think about like why would you think about quitting merciful fate or Sabbath all those fans and what can I say I mean I just follow my heart all the way through and I certainly haven't made it very easy for myself I mean no one can excuse me of taking the easy road but I mean essentially why I'm doing this is to have some sort of outlifting and and platform for my creativity so just so you know I'm writing about all that so I'm interested for other people to read this what yeah sometimes you break up I know Jals do you get that you get a lot of internet dropouts on I think it's it seems to be coming from you snowy maybe are you downloading a movie or something or close all your browsers if you have anything open yeah maybe there's emails every time an email comes in you know it just drops the feed okay viewers here okay maybe I shouldn't have Photoshop yeah everything helps running right yeah I close down my males now all right hopefully that helps we should have tried this before it's better it's okay okay ready as we Jals you another question there well I mean just to recap I mean I did catch a lot of we were slightly better now all right okay and I did I mean just any question I had I did catch what a lot of what you were saying there even though we had some intermittent dropouts is you know you said why would you quit merciful fate why would you quit sabaton why would you quit so let me ask the question why did you quit merciful fate why did you quit sabaton you know what you can read it in the book well you know in the case of merciful fate come on I'm just trying to say like maybe we should backtrack a little bit right like before you quit before you quit maybe we should talk about getting into it yeah but as I was saying I mean if we had let's see for if I had technical dropouts and all that here I was saying that gradually you know I kept writing on this off and on for about 10 years before I figured that okay it's time to wrap it up and get it published but it's this start out like I wanted to to put out the book but it was started out like homemade self therapy and it's sort of morphed into a biography and so that's what I did basically to cure myself in a way in some sort of catharsis and get it all out and to heal myself first of all and also that people can read about that because I'm very very let's say open like I am in normal life yeah I I don't keep a lot of like all those what do you say fantasies I'm telling the truth the way it is I mean there's a lot of preconceptions about the music business like like it's so glamorous and lucrative and all that but you know I've been doing this for you know 30 40 years you know so so it's everything about that and I have to tell them that you have to struggle hard to just stay afloat I guess yeah but but let's go back in time here a bit right you know conspiracy and you know we're not gonna talk about all the details because people could buy the book right but overall impressions right you're offered the chance and I think it's probably what through Mickey D that the opportunity to tour with King Diamond on his conspiracy tour right what's what's your reaction your first reaction to something like that is King Diamond somebody you know you've admired all these years is it are you nervous about this or yeah going back to this I mean you can actually read all about that in great detail I mean I grew up I discovered merciful fate on this metal mascara compilation album like in 83 maybe I think it was and it was I think it was metal blade who put that out so it was predominantly American bands and I just assumed they were two and I mean because of all that the way he sang I mean it was like the highest-pitched falsetto and the song was catchy and it was black funeral and I got really into that band but I had no clue because this was like pre-internet of course and I had no clue they were from our neighborhood country Denmark so and I saw him in a Swedish publication called okay later on it's like wow it's like there are some weird cousin of Alice Cooper with you know corpse paint and having this upside down cross human bones and all that and he would fill up in dolls in pig intestines whatever throughout in the audience like wow that's really disgusting but I wasn't turned off by it you know it's like wow and I went out and bought Melissa right away and I was like really mesmerized with the band and I really love it I thought to myself well this is so complicated music I mean all those time changes and how can they even remember health of it you know but as as so turns out Mickey who I knew since I was 13 because he was playing in a local rock band and all he I think he moved to Copenhagen because nothing really happened in Sweden at that point so he moved to Copenhagen and he made a name for himself and he also brought along other people like Pete Black and so on and they were playing with the Danish band called geisha but then when merciful fate okay now I'm going real a long way back but tell the whole history so he got the offer from King Diamond when they split up merciful fate and King was going to continue as like the soul artist and bring along dinner and Timmy Hansen so that's how it all started so I knew him and if you go back or forward actually a few years I was home from a school when I was like starting way up north in Sweden on the Christmas day it's traditional that you hang out in party and all that and Mickey was back home from Los Angeles because they all moved there in 1987 and he was saying that okay I think you should take the take over the drama stool after me because I'm gonna quit King Diamond but we were both drunk so I thought it's just the alcohol doing the talking basically you know and I was apart from the fact that I really liked merciful fate in King Diamond theatrical it's like an extension of let's say case Alice Cooper Black Sabbath and so forth and you're a heap stuff that I really love I was mostly interested in creating my own stuff it's always been like that but so I didn't think about it I just brushed it off and Pete Black got back to me a couple of months later and you know and gave me that offer again and I thought to myself this must be some sort of symbol if it happens twice I cannot turn this down I mean this is bound to happen this is my destiny so that I was like thrown into this completely crazy circus I mean I never been to America before and and Los Angeles just walking up the Sunset Strip in 1989 in the summer I mean that was the epicenter of the fucking hair metal thing which I hated but I mean it was nice to see it firsthand and to be thrown into that melting pot so to speak it was completely mind-blowing and I was so such a rookie so green I had no clue about anything but I knew how to play the drums and that's why they hired me you know so good learning experience yeah I don't know to me if I was like part as a drummer back then like I remember King Diamond back then in conspiracy and I would be like you know back then he used to go in the media and used to say you know well who's gonna defend Satan I'm gonna defend Satan you know he was a Satanist back then right he was a pro claim Satanist and I guess he pushed away from that over time but was there any scare were you scared there maybe you're jumping into this guy who loves Satan too much or you didn't care you know we even video piece right when he first got you know on the plane with black Sabbath he goes where am I here what's gonna happen to me you know all these cross yeah you can read about that in great detail we got actually thrown off the flight and all that and we've got the rest and all because I know and I was like just this normal guy and Pete black and half a Tina that had been on tour with the band and they kind of developed a bit of a rock star attitude to say the least so and I was like just staring with my blue eyes there what the fuck is going on when they were like really rude to the staff or whatever and got ourselves thrown up and the whole you know everybody in the cabin were applauded get rid of those fucking assholes so what kind of drama am I thrown into here I was really good I mean I was just kind of observing the whole thing okay you know and then try into you know try not trying to blend in but trying to understand how it works basically you know yeah yeah yeah about the whole Satan thing when I when we first came to and landed after a couple of days of a lot of turmoil there or something and I met King for the first time I didn't really have any kind of expectations what he would be like but because you know we grew up with all this kind of bullshit in a you know kind of it was a good selling point in the early 80s like oh we're motley crew used in the pentagram and wasp throwing meat at the audience and blah blah blah all that of course it's scary but it that's what attract you the same way you're going to go to watch horror movies for instance I mean it's fiction of course and that's the difference it's fiction and in reality and in King's case he wanted to be more trustworthy or real than Aussie and those guys before him of course so of course I'm a true Satanist I'm a go to the church of Satan and yeah but anyway I came to the King's castle which is which wasn't a castle obviously but a apartment in Kanoga Park and he was sitting there with his baseball cap on chain smoke game playing some sort of soccer game and he was the nicest guy you can imagine like really humble and serious and all that and I tried to talk to him but I couldn't understand Danish very well so so I tried to do a real work when we tried to communicate but he wasn't finished our close right in language Swedish and Danish is like oh yeah but it is it is but what can I say yeah let's say it's like Spanish and Portuguese maybe I don't know well obviously we've all read the book so we know the answers to all these questions which for the sake of the viewers who are maybe wanting to get an idea of what the books about we're just kind of touching on various topics and maybe getting some some answers that are highlights for what can be in a greater detail found in the book so you know I mean you did it you did a couple of you did it you did the conspiracy to either the next record with King you to it a little bit behind the eye what what happened what happened after that eventually you transitioned into merciful fate but that was not a media was it they were using a correction there nothing happened after the eye we did one festival in Denmark and that's it and then the contract King decided to terminate with the roll runner because he was kind of they've been with that label for a long time and since this was yeah it was up to to resign or whatever he decided to to aim for a major label I think and so and we have been out touring so much like in America and in Europe and it creates a little bit of tension I guess with some members and so on and there was issues with drugs and alcohol and you know bad behavior or whatever so we kind of lost two members there so while all the bang the manager and King Diamond were shopping for new contracts he put me and and in charge of finding new members and and we figured that would happen pretty quickly that he got signed but it turned out that it took quite a long time so we got Mike Weed and Charlie D'Angelo you can read all the details about it it's kind of interesting I gotta say but how I kind of kind of manipulated the whole thing and took took I had all the applicants whatever they say sent to my mom where I said like SOS manager on the door and but Charlie D'Angelo he was like my best friend from when we were kids and and he was a decent guitar player very very musical I mean like a natural talent and all that but he couldn't never live up to deliver those you know felt the face melting fast the souls like in the Malmsteen and you know called Gilbert or whoever so I said that's a shame but can't you pretend that you are a basis instead so you just borrow a base and I took all the rivals and throw out so he got the job and all that you know so that's how it happens but anyway so that's how we had a new lineup for with Mike Weed and Charlie D'Angelo and we had a new lineup for spiders lullaby and we were supposed to record that and we started like learning the songs and so forth but time went by and one day King called me and said that we haven't got signed to any new labels but we got great offers to play what is it that Holland festival dynamo festival to headline that and also to get signed to to metal blade I think it was with merciful fate and they didn't want anything to do with Kim Russ the original drummer so they wanted to put together the original lineup but featuring me who was still in the family so to speak and how could I turn that down I mean I was like a big fan from from when I was 14 15 years old and I said of course of course so I was supposed to do both King Diamond and merciful fate parallel but you know so merciful fate got back together it took a while actually you know so so I heard sort of in the grape wine whatever you say I mean rumors that that they got another Danish drummer because at that point King had moved back to Denmark from from America and so they were based in Copenhagen and then it was a whole lot easier to have a Danish drummer so I figured okay shit happens that's the way it is was that oh sorry sorry go ahead yeah yeah but that was this guy Morton Nielsen or whatever his name is I don't remember yeah so he was the one doing in the shadows of a recording that in Dallas but during the recording they realized that he wouldn't cut it was some reason it has some problems there so I think King or Ola Bang or Hank or whoever called me and said that okay we want you to be the drummer in the band but but we're already in the studio recording the album and I was saying that okay I would kind of insisting on that there it is ugly picture you've done the Rudy Sarzo Tony Aldridge you know where they appear their picture appears on the album but they didn't play it right as the credit yeah but I mean I was kind of stressing the fact that I would love to record for the drums and they say but we're already running late and we're out of budget and we spend so much time making the drums work here so and now it's time for Hank to put down all the rhythm guitars and all that so we don't have time and I looking back on it now I wish that would have been more persistent or sort of say okay either I'm in the band and then I recorded drums or I'm out but who was I to say that I mean I had a chance to be in the legendary merciful fate and do the force and all that so I said okay I just hang along so I actually just took the train down to Copenhagen shook hands with the guys went in to do that photo studio and that's it so and then I was in the band and we were doing the videos where you get in there in Los Angeles and starting the US tour now we were doing like some shows in Europe open up for Metallic and so on you know you know did it bother you like the eye one of my favorite King Diamond albums I mean did it bother you that they ended up using a drum machine and here you are this amazing drummer you know but it's not a drum machine it's not a drum machine okay no no the thing is hadn't it been for me I mean I kind of regret spilling the beans or actually a slip of a tongue you would call it I was doing this interview with boyboy burguing like for for metal Mac maniacs when we were doing the mental warrior album in 93 I think it was and and he said wow I love the drumming it's so good technical and progressive and blah blah blah that's Borgie I was so I said yeah but that was a drama machine my English was so and so even worse back then so but it wasn't a drum machine obviously I mean I was playing on pads and parts were sort of programmed because that's what King insisted on doing we didn't have any time to rehearse or do anything like that and that was their kind of argument for that and I couldn't understand it for the world of it but you can read it all I mean as a book in great detail but it wasn't a drum machine I gotta say for the record that people have this kind of romanticized view on being in the studio for example and and very a skew view of it because people don't record all together in the studio like in 1972 I mean it doesn't happen like that you know so and you do the drums first of all for example and if someone uses a synthesizer like all these metal guys want to be diehard yeah fuck keyboards and stuff all bands like 95% of all bands nowadays have pre-recorded back in tracks on stage because otherwise they can never live up to the do a performance that match the recording where you have like eight rhythm guitars for example and and choirs and everything like that so not everything is the way it's supposed to be the way it's seen from just a confirmed yes or no like you played the pads the drum pads on the whole album right yeah okay there was no cutting paste yeah but what can I say I mean I haven't played a fucking song all the way through on a recording since I don't know 97 that's not how it works you punch in and out that's how you do it you know I think I think you do a really good job in the book of just going into detail exactly how all that went down so anyone anyone wondering needs to pick up the book and check that out yeah but I don't want to spill industry secrets or anything but in the book I'm very clear about how it actually works I mean people have this kind of romanticized view like I said how glamorous and how things go down and actually I was it didn't cross my mind the moment you know borrow not borrow but Martin Popov it did his documentary book biography on merciful fate and he called me up and we just had a little chat and he said I heard it Hank was recording the parts over a click track and then I added the drums and at that point I didn't really reflect on it I said yeah of course that's what we're talking about eight percent of all albums are done like that and nowadays I mean it's not like we're together all playing together oh that's what's a good take it if each instrument is recorded individually so that's how it works you know yeah and you know what you can do it in any order now you set up the click track you can do you can do everything and you can do drums last yeah I think sing people think singers sing a song top to bottom of course not it'll line by line by line by line but it doesn't work yeah but there are all kinds of those those things that you know I'm let's call it occupational what do you say damage to whatever I mean like if you've seen my video not guys for example I showed that to some guy is that wow you get really good sound out in the forest I was like what you really think we play we just tried to look cool and post there I'm playing all the instruments yeah but I see you have like four guys with you or three guys with you and they're all you know for the video they're all miming to the song being played back on an iPhone you know yeah but that's how it works I forget that sometimes that do you really think like stand-up comedians wow he's so funny he's like so with it just come up with all the funny jokes on a spot nobody has a script for God's sake he's been doing the same show like in every fucking city for two years so do you think it's like totally spontaneous you know well yeah that that's the illusion that artists create that kind of illusion but that's right very very far from it and live shows nowadays it's not like made in Japan the purple 1971 it's not like that at all I mean there are no room for improvisation or flexibility like that pretty much you know maybe the big about rolling stones maybe they do that I don't know but for the most part I mean you have like 80 out 80 minutes to perform the show and I mean you have the time to talk in between the songs and and and I think it's kind of stale and that is also why I got a little tired of playing live because it's so just go through the motions it's like like a musical you know you know like a see a snowy snowy speaking of that do you think you're that ghost ripped you off in sort of that yes I do no you're both you're both from you're both from Sweden you're both both theatrical you both have the ghouls on stage and the first thing I think of is he kind of took your idea and he ran with it or maybe he didn't I don't know yeah but it's kind of funny I mean I think everything you know what I'm saying you understand what I'm saying you're certainly not the first one to ask about that I mean Gus you know Gus G the guitar player he's like what the fuck I mean this bad is getting so popular and they're doing what you did with Notre Dame way back okay if you think so but they are touching grounds I suppose but it all stems from let's say Arthur Brown starting out like with Corpse paint and and all that and then it then it was Alice Cooper on to kiss on to you know this theatrical thing so we all sort of take bits and pieces and copy and and get inspired and do our own version of it like me there wouldn't be without Alice Cooper there wouldn't be any monthly crew or was this inspired by case and all that so King Diamond I mean he he's also a result of welcome to my nightmare wow I want to have that kind of theatrical show you know so I would say that ghost hasn't ripped me off but they have certainly managed to make it big which I didn't they kind of found the right formula there yeah yeah but I always sort of I was always fascinated by pioneers sort of the trailblazers whether it's Arthur Brown like I mentioned or Jimmy Hendrix or or Black Sabbath the bands who kind of create something be the starting point for a new era a new genre or music whatever where am I getting at here the evolution that's fine yeah the evolution but it's all stems from the same thing I suppose you know and but they are this is what I was getting at that theorem for example they were probably the first band who who combined heavy metal and opera and but they are not anywhere near as successful as Nightwish who kind of picked up on that I can't say that they stole the concept but they managed to be more accessible and reach a broader audience somehow you know and maybe maybe that's the thing I mean the combination with the kind of music that ghost is doing and the way they present themselves visually it's a good combination yeah and my music was far more it was underneath on the ground you know it's kind of hard to access what about so there's people writing in so I'm just reading a text here K-man says King before spiders lullaby King had a plague album can snowy talk about this planned plague album that was never I've never heard about that you never heard about it maybe he's demos of something of that nature I mean one thing worth mentioning and that you do touch on and the you mentioned in the Martin Popovs book and you mentioned it in your book is that King would he wouldn't come to you with finished songs you wouldn't even get to hear the lyrics in the vocals till it was almost released or you you're rehearsing it right he would only give you but that's how he works I mean he is the visionary and I have no problem at all to to to be his sort of tool okay whatever you have in your mind and I can do my best to to to live up to that to do so you can paint your picture I have no problem with that but I mean he would say like okay you can't play the drums like that it's kind of sort of doesn't match with the vocals okay so how is the vocals I won't tell you there was any any any concept such as an album a concept of about the plague or whatever you wouldn't know anyway right because that would all be lyrics and vocal stuff yeah but I don't know I mean I was only I mean looking back on it I was there for in merciful fate and kingdom and over the period of what is it like six years or something and working off and on and he is the instigator I mean it's his band obviously yeah and so he runs the business whatever he does cooking I don't know you know but what we were presented what a full album that they kind of used to shop for deals with other labels and that was by this lullaby and yeah let me tell you a little bit about that I mean I was in the studio in Dallas me and Charlie had already finished the drums and it was time to do the bass and King called for us to have like a little meeting and he said okay you both in King Diamond and merciful fate and we had probably Brian Slagle sort of complaining there are too many similarities between between merciful fate and King Diamond at that point three out of five the only exception is like the guitar players so he said since you've already done time out them now we're gonna sort of remove you from King Diamond and we're gonna replace you guys with with others and then I asked how about Mike Weed who was the new guitar player for King Diamond at that point yeah but he's also out of the picture yeah but he's not in merciful fate which is now I mean you see it's like so much incestuous touching basis here or something yeah but but so that is why I kind of left or we were removed from King Diamond because we couldn't be in two bands that are so similar and and I think spider's ladder bag it's a great album it could probably be a lot better if it was executable performed in a better way I think it's kind of lacks something there yeah yeah I mean Andy Laracca is great he's been on this show many many times he's fantastic huge talent and I'm sure it's a pleasure I'm sure you are friends with him too I'm sure you guys yeah but he I gotta say I mean I've been working with him in his studio mixing my own stuff and all that and we went out to dinner and I said yeah I gotta tell you through my life I mean you're the most normal guy I know I mean you're such a nice regular guy and you know that's a compliment I mean I know a lot of weirdos and you know psychos and shit but I mean he's like very regular normal guy you know do you know that he gave me the shirt yeah he gave it to me he was nice enough he goes Jimmy hold on a second he went there got sure he goes here what size are you large here you just gave me sure that's how nice is that on a live on a live stream like that no no that's in person this is in person this is what I went to see him in person you know before the show and that's he's he's a super nice normal guy and he's super talented and great studio and great producer and yeah yeah yeah yeah well it's I mean again it's it's all in the book and you know what if you want to hold the book up again there snowy so everyone can see who's just joined us can see what we're talking about we're talking about the snowy shore the book of heavy metal the greatest rock book since davidly rocks book check it out by it the one thing I want to ask is you mean you've worked with what you've worked with one legendary vocalist you've worked with several but one that a project that almost never gets talked about these days is is my mentor more you work with Messiah Mark Collin which again I mean if you I'm sure you're a candle mass fan I make you I was a huge candle mass fan how did that all come together and what was that like like I mentioned when we were when king diamond was after the eye in this hiatus for and it kind of took a lot of longer time than we expected all of a sudden and he wanted to make a soul album and and I was supposed to be in on that playing the drums and also write the lyrics and stuff and things what's happening on the side I had my own things you know and then Mike weed who was the new guitar player he called me up and asked me I'm thinking about starting this technical do metal band and you know any good drummer and I thought about it for like a couple of seconds and I said nah not really except me so and he wanted me to be in that band but being such a massive cannabis fan as I am I said the genre do metal I mean if you ask me there's only cannabis that's that's that's the top right so I said but who's gonna be the singer because that is kind of a very crucial thing for me I think the singer is like the front of the band and and what people listen to in general and all that so so that is essential that it's gonna be a the right kind of person there and he said I was thinking about messiah because because he was fired from he from cannabis at that point been out for two years or something year or something but anyways I said yeah that puts the whole thing in a whole different light because I loved cannabis they were supporting King Diamond on a European tour conspiracy and and it was such a pleasure to just see them we might you know like soundcheck for two hours playing kind of technical music and they they had no time at all they just put up their stuff he put on his his monk suit and they start and then they they just kill it and I was like wow this is the greatest band on the planet so after the first show and we were partying I said this is not right I mean we've got to swap positions you gotta be the headline because I really loved cannabis so much and I still do but to me with messiah I think he was like the most that he called up lay fiddling back in the day he said I want to be the singer in the band but you live down south no not anymore he called back a week later and then moved to Stockholm so so and that is like what do you say I mean that those two meet those combination miss missiah Markle in and cannabis that was the perfect combination so so when he was gonna be in memento more I was like wow this is wonderful this is going to be so great that I had like put him on a pedestal and thought he was God himself but after a couple of days in the studio I could see first of all I couldn't understand how can it fire such a such a such a character such a great singer and all that but like I put in the book and I said after working with him a couple of days in the studio I could see oh now I understand you know you have to read about that in the book he read it and he unfriended me and he got so pissed off did you get a lot of that did you get a lot of unfriendly I kind of thought to myself that I don't want to be okay here I'm sitting in my room and I can be saying that's the things about all my old friends and stuff I made sure not to be like it's not like that it's not like yeah but I just wanted to tell the truth from my point of view and I think a lot of people share that point of view when it comes to certain people so it's it's just not me in getting back at them or anything like that I love how he sang and all that but to work with him I'm sorry I tried to bring him into opera diabolicus and and to invite him to my own solo show so we can do some of Manta Mori old tracks and all that but it's kind of impossible you know and he's such a nice guy I mean when you meet him hanging out drinking beer and all that you cannot think of a nicer guy but you've got a separate business from pleasure I suppose you know were you a little upset when when when Merciful's fate announced that they're gonna play some shows and they didn't call you back or were you a little disappointed maybe not upset but but I think my wife she called me from work and I saw Merciful fate is getting back together weren't you involved in that band yes I was so but who's what lineup is it so I've called Mike Weed because he apparently he's gonna be there so it means that Michael Denner won't be there so who's gonna is it who's playing the drums then asked is it Björne who replaced me and he said yeah it's Björne yeah but yeah but we're gonna continue on the last album 9 or whatever it was called that came out in 1998 or something yeah and we're gonna pick it up from there and I said yeah but how about Charlie D'Angelo then now but we haven't contacted him it's gonna be Joey Vera I think you know but there's been so much talk about that I don't know I don't want to get involved in that so I wasn't upset I mean I haven't been in that band for many years but would you would have liked it right tell me to ask you maybe maybe so I don't know I mean I have I kind of want to move forward and take on new challenges instead of trying to not to say cash in on all stuff but but of course it could be nice to do that but I mean I'd rather move forward to take on new challenges and instead of going backwards just like you don't go back to an old girlfriend that you dumped 20 years ago right yeah you know I get it I get it if you're not if you're smart people do that people do that people do that it doesn't seem to work out the second time around either um I don't know is there anything else you want to talk about uh you know my sex life well maybe not too much about that well I mean you did the two I mean you did the two records of the moment so Mori um the initial two and I thought no I thought they were fantastic doing metal I thought that was a brilliant band that obviously didn't really live up to its full potential for some reasons that you mentioned in the book so we can again it's in the book buy the book get the book um I mean we could let's talk about your your current plans yeah you've got some cool stuff going on you've got some cool some you know we have the yeah but what I did I mean during this damn pandemic shit that's you know affected everyone all over the planet uh I put out this album no I didn't I I figured in this day and age the record industry is kind of dying or changing drastically nobody downloads a full album for example and they certainly won't buy any physical albums I mean of course vinyl had a good renaissance and all that but it's it's it's uh you know it's still very very small numbers I think or volumes uh so I figured why not swap things around why should I put out an album with 12 songs and it has the longevity of let's say a month in the best of cases so why why do I don't I put out one single each month instead throughout the whole year digitally and then I collected all by the end of the year like in December in this case then I put it out on a on an album which I did with extra bonus tracks like this this is heavy metal plain and simple you know uh unfortunately the vinyl production all over the planet's been kind of delayed due to to lack of plastic or or even to print a lack of wood even for for for the album covers and so forth so it's been delayed but now on Friday 6th of May then I'm going to go pick it up the vinyls and so I can actually have a proper release for it but that's basically what I've been working on and to to to do those kind of things in the pandemic uh going back on how you record I mean I had a lot of people like Dan McCafferty he was supposed to be on one of the songs but he apparently I talked to his manager and he was like you know a bit older and couldn't deliver or whatever or I didn't want to do it or something you know I wanted to talk bring in a lot of guest stars to appear on this for each and every song and it was a lot of my old heroes and uh colleagues old friends and all that that so I have Thomas Wigstrom and Gus G uh I talked to the guy in Saxon uh Paul Quinn should do this soul and I'd rushed the boss and I had a lot of different people there so I wanted to make something quite unique about that in the past you could say that oh I don't have time now we're on tour but during the pandemic no you're not so now it's the time to do that you know and everybody turned off the song and they recorded that home you know in their home yeah I thought it was an incredible concept when we you know we've been talking quite a bit over the last year you and me and you and you told me about your plan to release you know one song every month for 12 months and then and then at the end put it all together and make a record you know a record package with some bonus tracks you've got the CD right there the vinyl is the vinyl we're gonna have next week it's gonna be available to everybody soon snowy shawl this is a battle of planning you can get the album you can get the book so there's a lot of stuff going on for fans that want to catch up with what snowy shawl is doing right now and I recommend they do or someone's gonna get hurt snowy do you find that model like I notice other bands you know they try that one song and then another song and then another song that it's sort of just like anything just like an album you know it releases it's got the highest sales but then after the second single it kind of dips and then the third kind of dips it never has that same it never captures that same momentum but maybe I'm wrong but I find that we still haven't found that formula yet you know yeah but that's very true I mean I've been thinking quite a lot about this on one hand we're stepping into the future I mean there this kind of you know internet age everything is everything is streamed people don't buy buy physical albums in in that sense but at the same time it's also back to the 60s when they put up singles like the first sweet album that I have for example it's greatest hits it's papa joe and wigwam bam and all that and then some extra songs that weren't released as singles just to to you know have a good selling point for people to buy the LP the long play and so so we're back at that at the same time because people I guess they create their own playlist on Spotify and so forth and they just pick the racing from the cooking they're cooking they don't they don't listen to the entire album so to make a concept album with some sort of story cohesiveness running through like that it's kind of shooting over the heads of people they don't maybe don't want that of course there's a fraction of people that still want to put on an album and sit there totally focused and just actively listen to that but for most people it's so convenient to have it your library of music in your phone and you can just switch and you put on the list that you want so everything's changing and you've got to adapt to that or or you're just going to be in the past I guess you know yeah well yeah you have to I mean it's always that thing you see people saying well you know I still buy the vinyl I buy the cd only physical is real okay but these people are a minority so you can you can part and you can be that way and you can say fuck digital and don't do this and no Spotify but you just you're gonna be like that crazy old guy in your apartment with 27 VHS tapes and then you know trials you do you do you do have to at some point say this is the way forward this is the technology otherwise we will still be listening to music on a cylinder and uh you know the pre-vinyl thing it is what it is there's people in Detroit that don't make cars anymore yeah yeah but that's the way it is you may not like it but okay adapt or die that's the way it is I mean it's very accessible I mean I remember when I put out my first solo live album like that captured that live show and I went on tour with Therion and I was speaking in the lobby of the hotel in Mexico and this guy said why don't you put it out on a physical cd so so we can buy it I mean it's just digital and I said I don't want to be rude but maybe we are a little bit ahead of you here or something so I took my phone I said say mention one song from everything that you want to hear I need pick some song with night wish and okay here it is anything else you know so Spotify is so you know so accessible you can have it have it all I'm not you know the problem is isn't that I mean the problem is that you you won't earn too much money from that from the streams that is the problem I think for for artists and bands but as their consumer it's very accessible I mean that's what I've listened to all the time yeah yeah yeah me too me too I guess you know people are excited that vinyl is sort of taken off but I don't think it's taken off where you could actually quit your day job you know it's just putting money in your pocket that's about it I mean it's so hard to make it I mean if you would print I mean you still have the same kind of it costs just to start the process to print vinyls and in the past if you always starting small when printing 25 000 okay now it's down to 300 and that's the limit or something that's a minimum yeah and and still there are not many people that buys that and and that goes for everyone I think because it's for collectors it's nostalgia and it's all kinds of other things these statistics are a few years old but let's say four years ago the statistics says that 80 percent of those who buy vinyls they don't even have a turntable a record player you know they just keep it you know they don't even open it because they collect it put it on the shelf it looks good I love the artwork it big and all that but it's very convenient to you know take a walk in the forest or sit in your car and listen to it when it's streamed you know exactly exactly it's like stamp collecting my day you know people used to collect stamps you know they have books and books and stamps right they didn't mail them they just collected them I you know I collect souls yeah but I gotta say that surprisingly you can see there's actually young girls and and teenagers collecting vinyls but because they grew up in a in a digital age and they never saw that for a lot of guys our age it's probably nostalgia and the way it's supposed to be you can smell it when you open it and all that but but I think it's a guy thing I mean it stems back to when we were cavemen collectors hunters and collectors we like to collect stuff you want to have a full collection but once you have the full collection of something oh I collect tinctin books or something wow I don't have tinctin in Africa or whatever yeah but once you do once it's complete what you're going to do then then it lost its value then you throw it out you know there's also something else that's changed back in the day we didn't have phones we didn't have computers so what else are you going to do you're going to sit there in your living room and put on an album and you'd sit through it because you couldn't really change the needle right yeah so what else you either went outside or you listen to music inside or you watch tv and you you know that's those are the limitations now you have just so many things you know I gotta I gotta reveal the thing I mean my an album that I've been working on for for years in my mind I've been writing songs for and all that and I was thinking I'm gonna fucking stick it to them like fuck you you won't pick the razor from the cookie here cookie here because I'm just gonna put out one song that's like 50 minutes long because I mean everything that's I mean it's like cohesiveness I mean it's one long thing like that and people are gonna be really pissed off at me for that I mean why I mean I love that song yeah but you have to fast forward I am of this opinion that if I read a book I don't start on on page 122 I start from the from the beginning and read all the way through the same thing with a movie I don't start like 20 minutes in oh well who's that guy yeah but if you watch it from the beginning then you would understand same thing with music but I don't think that people consume music in the same way as we did when we when we grow up and I think that's my point my point is we don't consume because if you want to hear the new song by a certain band you'd have to wait by the radio for hours you'd be waiting at the radio okay and the DJ knew this and he made you sit through everybody else's albums and you just sit there and wait and wait until they play the new rush song and then you finally hear it and you tape it and you know but still you have to sit through yeah but that is also the charm of it to wait yes the attention span I think it's like minimized probably like hundred times less now and it was 15 years ago yes I mean everything is just a click away so it loses its value the same way I mean just remember when you went out okay it's Friday like buy some chips and then we have like a set home and watch films you know videos and you went out and rent it because wow this looks cool look at that and then you did that on Netflix I had like maybe 15 minutes that I started was oh fuck that shit and I went I choose something else you know easy car but I'll tell you something else you know back in the day there was also this mystique okay who's this guy and who's this guy that's all you had you had the pictures from the albums right now everybody is on social media and you're just telling all the artists off and the artists are telling off you and you know there's arguments happening online we have access to to artists and artists have access to their fans and that's sort of mystique that that sort of there was this buffer before now that buffer is gone in ways it's good and ways it's bad right just like anything it's not our fault it's just what it is right yeah but going back on that I mean ghost I can understand that kiss managed to pull that off in not showing their faces or they threw identities in the past in the 70s and but that ghost managed to do that in this modern times you know for a while for a while yeah and that was really good I mean that's so impressive and that is probably why it added on to the mystique and and what a mysteriousness like wow who are these people blah blah blah even her room was that I was the drummer in the band you know are you good you're a ghoul you're a ghoul for yeah but I gotta say kudos to Dubai us I mean he's such a such a clever guy he was putting on the mask and do an interview as one of the ghoul or something and I thought wow he's really well spoken and he understand it all I mean that that member of the band but it was to buy himself of course you know you know what he played it and he used he used today's technology and you know today's social media to play it up yeah very few people could pull it off you know you know very few people could do it and he pulled it off so hats off to him I have nothing good things to say you know that's it well I think I mean I think we've kind of covered it I mean let's let's let's get that book on screen again and let's get that cd up there if you want to show those off so you can see just to remind everybody you can get snowy show the book of heavy metal where he goes into great detail about his lengthy and illustrious career and then we also have the cd there this is heavy metal plain and simple which is which is his new record some of you may have heard some of you have may have heard the singles that he's released over the past years you can now last plus 12 months you can now get it all in one package with some bonus tracks I gotta say I mean to make that album that is why I call it heavy metal plain and simple because I allowed myself normally I write with sort of like a very clear direction of what it should be here I allowed myself to do pretty much everything like more a little bit more pop your more melodic or death metal or every kind of thing I just allow myself to do that and some of the songs are songs that were for one of the other reason not used with removal for example that kind of that song we can warrior for example but I couldn't remember it I just remember the the chorus I rewrote the verses and all that but it felt good to sort of you know go full circle with this so I gotta say that a song that I wrote the oldest song that ever picked up I wrote that when I was 16 it was me and Charlie playing and I wrote this on gladiator based on my my fascination for this Swedish man called torch and I also have Michael moon who was later on in in a king diamond so I invited him to do a guest solo there and we haven't played together since we were 17 or something and I also invited on guest vocals Dan dark to the singer from this band that was inspired by that actually they also had a song called gladiator so it was a lot of let's say catharsis in the same way the book was like collecting everything and tying all the loose ends together you know and we should also mention the book of heavy metal you know the cd from dream evil the book of heavy the book of heavy metal is is a phenomenal album and gusty of course plays on it who's a great guitarist it's it's just one of my favorite dream evil albums I think so too it's actually my album you know well yeah you wrote a lot of it so yeah going back on that I mean people like oh who's drum who's playing this and okay now we're now snowy froze Charles frozen the frozen internet he was doing good he was doing really well for for about 20 minutes yeah I think we should probably wrap this before we put people through too much more yeah frozen internet but thanks I mean yeah do check out snowy's new book the book of heavy metal check out the cd this is heavy metal plain and simple all of this can be easily accessible on his facebook page snowy's easy to find he's a great guy I've been working with him you know on and off for the last year and I hope he comes back where's that he's frozen they he's dropped out totally he's gone and now we are just you and me that's just you and me on that note dream evil the book of heavy metal was a great record and it was a little snowy's record he was on the initiated that all right all right it's been good