PART 1
Nordmark pod translation Swe-Eng
First third of the interview. I have left out Per Nordmarks moments of reminiscens..
-Please excuse things lost in translation and lack of knowledge in the English language🙈
Enjoy, fellow Ghostie's 🖤👻
N: Tobias Forge. Welcome to the Nordmark pod.
T: Thank's for having me.
N: How's it going?
T: Fine,fine.. It's fucking boring to speak of the weather and such,, but shit! What a great weather we have?
N: Do you get the blues during the winter season?
T;, Ee mm.. Like this.. Like all kids i had, at least some, restless feet and thought it was relatively fun to be outdoors. But at kindergarten and such i was often the one left last. Single mom, had to work you know. Eem, so i liked to be on my own, last, and indoors. I could sit there and have all the Lego for myself and i could sit there with the tape recorder with a bunch of kasettes i brought. And i. I like to be indoors in the nature. If i go to the mountains i like to watch the outside from the indoors. Snowcovered slopes..Being out on the country side, being close to nature but not in it. I'm not an outdoors person. But! I am a very season effected person and so. But when i started going on your, for real. And when i, for the first time, had a shock from when in January going to Australia. Then you noticed like,, my back pain is gone all of a sudden. My body doesn't hurt. What's going on? And because of me going back and forth to Los Angeles during the year i notice, purely physical, that smaller leaps (season wise) feels better. One last thing about weather.. I can say the upside of living north of a certain latitude is that it will take a lot for Sweden to "stop" because of the weather. And i don't know, maybe you didn't go to school at that time. Out,, I'm an -81,,
N: Yeah you're a bit younger than me.
T : Most people remember 1995, when it was one day when baisicly all of Sweden was covered in snow. And it was stated, -Today you don't have to go to school.
N: School for you,,was it a catharsis for you?
T: He he, as in a had a revelation of not wanting to be there? Well yeah. I guess i felt it was pretty boring. As, I found myself socially in a twilight zone, because i was an outsider, like by choice. I had friends, plus i was like… I come from Linköping. Its a small town, or smaller town at least. And when you start in first grade and onwards, and you don't move around, you end up knowing everyone who was around from the start. Like so. And there.. One can say i had wind in my sails in that sense that i knew the "right" people, and people who…But most of the people i knew and was around were of the same age, or one year older. They were,, almost none of them were interested in music, listening to music maybe, but not playing. And then I ended up sort of outside. Plus i wasn't just interested in music, but extreme music that nobody liked and my interests became very specific and i had a laser focus on it. Early on. And that lead me to slipping further and further apart. And at the same time becoming tiered of school and turning teenager. With all that comes with that. And um, eeh, i was pretty messy, both outsider and maybe not that nice to everyone.. It was a messy time.
N: Is the boy playing alone still in there?
T: Aah ey, i,,,I think i create myself a lot of time alone when on tour. I don't know, i'm pretty much in between all the time. But i really need to walk away to charge the batteries. And i have to, ehh,,i go nuts if i don't get to be alone. So basically i make sure of it. If its only to walk the other direction, walk around and return. Just to have some.. But, well, as a grown up i have power over my life and have made sure to get an amount of space. Em, And need to, Emm.. As a, it sounds boring but i'm kind of the boss over a bunch of people, like that, Ee, Now, of course i have hired someone else to be tour leader, to boss over others. So i don't have to be the executive, telling people.
N: But in the end you're the narrative..
T: Yes, and that means to carry a social responsibility to some degree. Like, i can't behave like everybody else does. And I can't.. When were on tour we are like 40 ppl or so. And of course you're not best friends with everybody. And many of them are there because they are very good at what they DO. While if you sat down to talk you find out you don't agree politically and aren't remotely alike. So its kind of easy to, -you go your way and i go mine. I got my stuff over here, and then participate sometimes. It suits me pretty well,.. Oum,, When i'm at home… I've got two kids, wife,, so, So of course it's not… Of course i can just go for a walk, and i do. But you don't have the same possibilities to be solo. To just stay awake all night and just watching.. If i have a day off, like on tour, if i have a day off i can spend the whole day and night in a hotel room just watching You Tube.
…..
…T: It's a plus to come to a city you know..
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T: But i like Stuttgart. There are some great record shops.
N: Are you a big record collector ?
T: Aaa,ah, I am, but the collecting, or the record store visiting frequency has become less because, Ehh, partly from a knowledge of what it is. So when i come to cities i know where i want to go. In the beginning i went all ower. I could take a cab to go to all the record stores in the city. A whole day. Even if it was a gig in the evening. I was totally exhausted when the evening came. But today i've taken that into consideration. Damn, if i'm in Stuttgart, we're playing in the evening. I can't be out sightseeing. In that case i can make an estimation the day before and say - tomorrow i want to go to a place and make arrangements for that.
N: You do pretty long shows..
T: Nah, ah, well, Yes.. One hour forty five minutes, somthing like that.
N: How does it work those days when you don't feel like it. Are there such days?
T: Well sometimes of course you can be physically and mentally tired, Eem, We had, when we just started this tour cycle now, a little bit over a year ago. We did a,, At first we did a US tour that lasted six weeks or so. Six weeks is pretty normal, i have to say. It's not like shit, it's pretty normal and the amount shows you have to do to cover enough land, and economical aspects aswell. Ja,oo,, if you do shorter tours it tends to be crew quitting. Because they want lasting jobs, and short breaks but no breaks preferable. So one must think holistic what's most efficient for all, so people don't end up quitting. Its a pretty advanced show. We can't, it's disturbing if we have new people in the crew -if they're not awesome that is. It's always like -Shit! we have a new guitar tech. And stuff happens and you hear it goes wrong, and it's the wrong guitar and wrong tune. Ehm, but we did the US tour January, February, March. Pretty dark then. And it was exact in time for covid to be seen as "passed". Concerts was allowed. As far as that it was a go. But rules varied between the states. Almost equal to if it was red or blue. Red state -All is fine,, and blue, it was EH! From a touring perspective my reactions was almost like opposite my political standards. It was pretty tough coming to a city and everything is forbidden, you can't do anything. You're only allowed to leave the bus and walk into that air lock and everybody are supposed to be tested. To me this became so troublesome because now we've decided to do this tour and, -Damn ! It's 7000 people coming.. -And they're NOT! supposed to be tested. You know,, AAAHH!! But in the end we had a deal amongst us, and Volbeat was on the tour too, -We will not test everybody, everyday. As was the plan at first. Because what happened was, we just ended up sending people home, it was such a mess. People getting scared of being fired, hiding they were sick, -you know..such a mess. So we said, well, lets make this tour work now. But we stayed in "bubbles", like many did When you've been in a bubble and not been outside in three weeks,, and to the advantage if our success we're playing in hockey arenas. -Hockey arenas. You know? -it's not many windows, and like, it's somewhat like a being in a cellar, -like this almost. Storage rooms, boiler rooms, long corridors, tile, kitchen, industrial kitchen..Then, you really had to make an effort to just keep up some level of serotonin. So, i walk, everyday, 10.000 steps before the gig. Just to get..I have to walk. And when on tour the easiest way to do that is around the arena. So i was standing by the entrance in a lobby, in front of these huge windows, just standing there to just, i don't know, get some d-vitamin. I felt like i have no reason to be sad but i don't feel happy. I feel tiered and want to sleep, can't take no more ..
…To be continued
Translation by Ulrika Linderoth from the Ghost Sweden Facebook group
