While in Chicago, IL in 2009 to attend a wedding my old buddy Dick Lövgren was passing through town with math metal legends Meshuggah. Dick and I grew up together playing music, listening to heavy metal and rioting in school. These days he plays the bass in one of the coolest bands there are and I am still a schmuck (but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends, right?).

I decided to document our bumping into each other on the other side of the planet for our home town newspaper on the west coast of Sweden and they jumped at the idea straight on.

I think the article was an honest and personal one and the photos all came out great. The wide-angle lens warped Dick’s allready warped bass in a cool way. I think Warwick Basses ended up using one the pictures for the NAMM promotion or something like that and just now I saw one of my pictures on the Warwick site and one the official Meshuggah site.

Published in Hallandsposten and Hallands Nyheter, march 2009.
Daily printed newspapper (Sweden).
Circulation: 62.000/day.

Rays of light reach from the tiny windows of the cottage and the silhouette of a man can be made out. Therein sits Pilgrim Bestiarius – frontman of Crimson Moonlight, Scandinavia’s grimmest viking metal outfit.

”The fascination with vikings and the middle ages stems from the music,” Pilgrim says inside the cottage as he strokes his fiery beard.
”In black metal there is a common interest in past times. And passion for the barren and plain.”
(From the article “The Divine Darkness”.)

It was in 2008 that I met Simon Rosén, also known as Pilgrim Bestiarius. We spent a few days together in his cottage out in the woods where he has neither electricity or running water, and still lack nothing at all. During my stay he taught me quite a bit about the connection between hard labour and mercy. And why it is that the more we understand God, the better we understand that we don’t understand anything at all.

The two of us soon became good friends and the article is quite possibly the best piece if have had published to date.

Published in Dagen, october 2008.
Daily printed newspapper (Sweden).
Circulation: 19.000/day (average 60.000 readers/day).

Published in HM Magazine, february 2009.
Bimonthly printed magazine (USA).

A while back I had a wonderful ask-all-tell-all interview with Dug Pinnick. He’s really a nice guy and his story, much as the band’s, is very interesting and humbling. I shot the live pictures below at a later time so the editor of the newspaper went with the current press picture. Worked well as they were good photos!