Those three months that I was away, there weren't any radical changes in the village. On the other hand, everybody realised that it was ME the one who had changed and that I wasn't the little girl anymore that people had known. In the beginning, I thought that this change of mine was really serious and negative, but I soon understood that everybody was growing up and was gradually leaving the immature parts of their character behind.
It was the same night, when I had come back home, I heard a knock on the door. After a while, mum came downstairs in my room and told me: "Some friends of yours are here".
"Tell them to come in".
It was Timo with his friends, who had come over so we could have a little talk. They asked me about my time in Australia and how everything was. In the beginning, we were talking about nonsense, but then they turned into an allegedly serious expression and Timo started telling me: "Err, you know that we have a band with the guys, but we need some keyboards and..."
"I won't join anybody's band", I sharply interrupted him. "I already have my two own groups, I can't join a third".
He raised his hand to make me stop. "Wait, I'm not asking you to become a member".
"Then, what?"
"Well, we're touring in Germany and we need keyboards. Could you come along?"
A journey again? I sighed. "When and for how long?"
"7 days. From the second to the eighth of January"
"I'm in", I said and we shook hands.
After a while, though, I said somehow skittishly:
"Could I also bring my...ehmm boyfriend with?"
Timo shrugged his shoulders in a sign that he was uninterested whether I would bring someone or not.
Finally, I phoned Josh, who would follow us with pleasure.
Timo had a band, called Nattefrost (meaning Nightfrost in Norwegian). Their style had ambient elements, but also metal noise and it wasn't bad at all, however there was a reason why I misinterpreted his word in the beginning, in the thought that he was trying to make me a member of his band. When we were at school and we were fanatical readers of Metal Hammer, I used to be a Nattefrost member for a while. However, the way, in which they would compose music was really extraordinary and didn't really match to my own preferences. In a nutshell, Nattefrost believed that a band should have a 100% togetherness and that they should write music all together. Alright, acceptable. However how would they work? According to them, we have to sit all together around a table along with our instruments and each one of us brings forth ideas and sounds. However the sound produced out of this was similar to a ragbag, which had no cohesion at all. So the result was the opposite from what expected. Just think that you're trying to make a recipe. And you just throw all the ingredients inside. What you get out of this is no mixture, but scattered ingredients inside the saucepot, with no consistency. That's what was also happening with Nattefrost and I was jokingly calling their style of songs primordial soup. Let alone that I can NEVER write, when the others are above my head. I just need my own solitude, in order to write the story and then decorate it with some music. For those reasons, I refused to become an official member of Nattefrost.
After the New Year coming, I started the tour with Timo's band. We wouldn't fly there, but there was a caravan to take us, which we would travel from Norway to Germany with. Every night we used to play in another city, so it sounds logical that we would spend the rest of the day in the van. I was often staying only with Josh, talking about anything and in general I spent most of the time with him. However, I had a good time with the other guys too, because we were going wild in there, we were screaming, singing loud, we were growling like death metal singers and in general we had destroyed every brain cell left in our organisms. Fortunately Josh and Timo's company got along well with each other. And yeah, it's indeed true that I spent my happiest days ever at that era.
During that long journey, we were playing several albums. The others would usually play hardcore metal and they were headbanging. However, at some point Timo had enough of all that shit, he opened the window, grabbed the albums and threw all of them in the highway, during the time when the vehicle was moving. Then the others complained about their precious albums and started shouting, so he told them: "Enough with that bullshit!" Then he turned to me with a wide smile and told me: "What about you, dear? Have you brought any album with you?" I smiled widely, because I wasn't listening anything of what they did. I had always with me Selling England by the Pound by Genesis, which was one of my favourite albums. However I didn't want to play it at all, because I was sure that this would be also thrown in the highway. And I wouldn't take it. But in the end they had me in (because they wanted to listen to something different) so I brought Timo Selling England by the Pound and I said: "Well, I don't know if you will like this, but for me it's one of the best records ever made. Now this is progressive rock music. In case you throw it outside, I'll smash the rest of the albums remaining, in your head. It's precious". Then he laughed and said: "Alright, in case I don't like it, I will smash it in your own head".
And while I was expecting him to smash it in my head, considering it too corny, suddenly there was total silence in the van and everybody was absorbed listening to it. That seems that they considered it to be a serious album of essence and not just like the noise they used to listen to, only in order to have a good time. At some point, I overheard them murmuring something like It's beautiful or It kind of reminds me of your own album and I was extremely satisfied with that, only to know that they wouldn't snob progressive rock. The truth was that everybody in that van was listening exclusively to metal, apart from Josh. To tell the truth, even though I like metal, I'm not in very good terms with metalheads. And the reason is that they're sort fanatic and consider this genre to be too sacred, as if it were a religion. Furthermore, as I've previously said, a great part of the Norwegian metalheads I'd met were neonazis and fascists.
On the other hand, metalheads are very sexy guys and it's no secret that the 2/3 of my relationships were metalheads. And Timo's band was really good, not only concerning their music, but also their performance. We used to play in clubs at night and there was such an energy and adrenaline, that even though I was a quiet person, in front of the keyboards I just couldn't stand still as a statue. I wasn't singing at all this time, as I wasn't the songwriter, but I didn't hesitate to start headbanging in front of the keyboards on my own, even though the audience could see a young girl gone wild, while playing wildly with her small hands on the synth and her hair spinning around like a windmill. And I would never get dizzy, when headbanging. I mean that this would make you feel free, it gave you the sense that you could eventually break free, you could show the wild side of yourself, show anything that you couldn't do for 17 whole years and I didn't even care if I was banging harshly the keys. These were wonderful gigs and yes, I was playing heavy music live for the first time.
However, this tour didn't end up that well. Even though I said before that during those three months of my stay in Australia, everything remained the same in Norway, something changed and that was distressing for me. Timo had always been my best friend and we had been listening to metal, as you know. However, he was totally influenced by all this and his preferences into metal music had been developed completely different than what I had expected. While we were in the van, he was playing black metal bands, that were talking about the Aryan race, ethnic cleansing, to send illegal immigrants back to their home countries etc. He would also show me videos of Varg Vikernes, who was talking nuts about the theory of evolution and why all this is a fable. He was talking about how good national socialism and such similar nazi stuff. I really didn't like the song lyrics, nor was I into that style generally and I had no idea about the fact that Timo had those opinions too.
"Those bands have such strong nationalist opinions and I would also say fascist too. What's the reason why there should be such a strong hate between cultures?"
And his reply came in a totally natural way: "But our own government should accomodate things in such a way so all these illegal aliens be forced to go back to their own countries. And this concerns all those jihadists and the gypsies". I have to mention that during those times there was a mass immigration of Syrian people, due to this religious war. Many people would settle down -if I can call it so, because of the government's awful reception- to our neighbour country, Sweden, but they would also leave to Russia, through Kirkenes. Timo despised them, considering them to be subhumans, and that's the main reason, why I walked away and lost every contact with him.
"Why should we force them back?"
"Because they take our jobs and even rob us?"
"Have you ever been robbed by any immigrant?"
He looked at me for a while, and then he said: "No, because I'm rather careful".
"Then, you have to know that they are no illegal aliens, as you say, but the government itself won't offer them any residence permit. Furthermore, they can't take our own jobs, because nobody gives them any job".
"Ingrid, I think you have become brainwashed by all those anarchists, that you've hooked up with in Australia. Our own country should consist of 100% Norwegians".
I got really insutled by what he said, so I replied with an obvious vexation:
"So, which country should I reside in? My mum is Russian and my dad is Greek and Romanian. And the majority of the Romanians are gypsies".
"Yes, but you're born in Norway. And your roots are also Norwegian".
"So what? My genes are not Norwegian".
"And who cares about genes? This is a discussion for your mother, who failed in becoming a biologist".
And as you could see, that was a great insult to me, so I said:
"YOU believe that everything is a matter of biology, as long as you talk about ethnic cleansing. You should have a DNA test and after finding out about your origin, you'll stop talking about this bullshit. However, I don't want keep on with this discussion, because I don't agree with your opinions and they are also opposed to my own personal opinions about life".
"I suppose that your friends and the books you're reading have turned you into an anarchist", he said in an ironic tone.
Then, I thought to myself It's better to be an anarchist rather than a nazi.
Fortunately this incident didn't happen again, but during the tour I avoided having political and social talks with Timo. We had a good time altogether and I didn't let this put me down, at least for the time being. Concerning my own nature, however, I realised something crucial. Considering that I was doing similar stuff in Australia, I had started to believe that I was a completely changed person. (That's my point, when I say that this was the second phase of my life). I wasn't feeling just liberated, but also happy. I was happy with myself and proud about having started to form my own style and preferences and most of all I had stopped feeling scared. I didn't care about the way that I would be judged by others and for two and a half years I was very self-confident and I was trying to accept myself the way I was. I had dreams about my future, about which I would regularly discuss with my friends. Of course, I was still too modest and shy, but I wasn't afraid of others' criticism and I would even make a self-criticism, trying to change anything I didn't like about my nature. And for this, I believe that the fact that I lived on my own played a major role and of course the fact that I also met those anarchist friends of mine (as this asshole Timo used to say) in Australia, where I travelled again in Easter time, in order to go hiking with Josh.
But when we went back to Norway, I felt a sorrow inside about everything that happened with Timo. I intended to stop having any kind of contact with him, because I couldn't be friends with a fascist anymore, let alone being best friends with him. I even phoned Johanna, almost in tears, to tell her all this and she replied to me:
"Oh, come on. Didn't you know what kind of person Timo was? This is the kind of people he hooks up with and also the style of music he likes".
Well, when people say A man is known by the company he keeps, they are absolutely right. And of course, this was another reason why I stopped being friends with him. I was afraid that he could brainwash me and....can you even imagine me applauding ethnic cleansing - me, the one who believes that the planet's biggest disease is nationalism. Then, I remembered my best friend Ivanna and what she was telling me about Timo all those years. Oh, she was so correct. And that's why I don't have such a great fondness about fanatic and hooked metalheads (and in general fanatic people), but instead I think that progressive rock lovers are more open-minded.
Being upset, I ended up howling to Monica and I even cried a lot about my former friend, then I realised that I wouldn't dwell. I went back to school and I started getting involved again with my band and my subjects.
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