The other night at work, at the bar, I had the good fortunate of meeting a hero of mine. It went like this.
At the start of the shift, around 6PM or so, someone walks in who is clearly a metalhead. The place is rather dead, so I’m pleased, as I suspect he might sit down for a beer, and we’ll get to have a chat. (Yes, sometimes it’s the bartender who’s dying for company.) To my chagrin, he wants only change for the meter. I acquiesce.
Later that same day, around 11PM or so, he walks back in the door. I walk over to the register, thinking he needs more change, but this time he heads for the fridge and pulls out three bottles of Heineken. Says that’ll be all. I ring him up, and while stuffing the bills in the drawer, ask him, “Where are you coming from?”
This question made a lot of sense, because there’s a venue just up the block from the bar, and when shows are over, the bar I work for typically gets overflow. I wanted to know which band this guy had chosen to see.
He misunderstood the nature of the question, however—damn present progressive tense!—and answered me in an adorable Swedish accent, “From Sweden, actually.”
“Oh, really? That’s awesome, man. What kind of music are you into?”
“Well, you know… metal, mostly.”
“Awesome. What kind of metal, though? I mean, if it’s from Sweden, it’s probably melodic death metal or something, right?”
“Yes! Yes, it is! Melodic death metal, yes. Actually, I play in a band.”
“Cool, man! What do you guys sound like?”
“Um… have you ever heard of Arch Enemy?”
“Ha, yeah, man! That’s awesome. Do you guys have a website?”
“Er… yes.”
“Great! Write it down for me, I’d love to hear your guys’ stuff.”
It was at this point that he writes carefully, deliberately, in all lowercase letters, arch enemy, and then excuses himself to piss.
I’m standing there, staring at this slip of paper, reading “arch enemy” over and over again upside-down, trying to piece this together. Maybe he thought I wanted to know the name of the more famous band? No. Maybe they’re a cover band! But with the same name, instead of some lame pun? Unlikely.
Then his girlfriend walks in and stands near the register, waiting for him to come back. As comprehension percolates through my mind, I grip the edge of the bar.
“Who was that?”
“That? That was just Chris.”
“WHAT IS HIS LAST NAME?”
“Amott. Chris Amott.”
This is the moment in the movie when the woman, wearing a corset, swoons. Fortunately, I had left my corset at home that day, and so was able to soldier on through consciousness despite my absolute certainty that the universe was playing tricks on me. I swear there was a second when I entertained the Lovecraftian suspicion that I had fallen asleep at the bar, was already fired, and merely dreaming of meeting Chris Amott.
When he came out of the bathroom, I nearly attacked him, shook his hand, told him I’d been listening to his riffs since I was a kid. All in all, I played it about as far from cool as a guy can get. I even mentioned that our bar was having an open mic night on Wednesday—he laughed, flattered, and his girlfriend poked him, meaningfully—but he didn’t come.
He did, however tip me a dollar.
\m/
Did you spit in his face?
I drooled so hard he nearly slipped on it, which is close.
And for the record, I almost called this post “Leader Of The Rats,” which would have been much better suited to the subject, but simply a less fun title for a post.
It’s all about the zazz.
I hate you and love you. Simultaneously.
That is precisely the response I was looking for!
Did you smack him for making “The Root of All Evil”? You know, the mockery of the wonderful album that was “Burning Bridges”? Christ that album makes me angry.
Ha! No joke, his girlfriend told me while he was in the bathroom that she now writes some for the band. She said both lyrics and riffs. Very possibly that was all talk, while he wasn’t there—I certainly had to fight hard not to raise an eyebrow—but given the utter shamefulness of The Root, well, I almost believe her!
Also, just had a friend who’s mostly into hip-hop start trying out metal bands, and he listened to The Root and really liked it. It was an incredibly depressing experience for me. Like when your best friend’s younger sister finally turns 18, and then she falls in love with a meathead.
Imagine my dismay, having worshiped Dream Theater’s “Scenes From a Memory” since it came out, to learn that Dream Theater and Linkin Park now write similar riffs.
The terrible thing is, I didn’t mind the new lineup (Angela’s a pretty good growler), but The Root just downtuned and muddied the guitars, and Angela had none of the inflection that Liva did.
It’s becoming hard to find metal bands doing good things nowadays.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! I’m as curmudgeonly as the next guy when it comes to decent metal, but that is a wildly inappropriate statement to make.
It occurs to me that I haven’t blogged about metal in ages. I’ll prep a metal post sometime soon—mostly for your sake, but also for mine!
I once saw Arch Enemy at a venue so small that my hair got tangled with Angela’s via headbanging.
Good post, fantastic adventure! I can only imaging how surreal it must have felt.