When we started, we started hard and went all in and hit the ground running.
To get that first show I had to break the catch 22 of promoters only wanting to book bands that had live experience. So I got a few friends who were in film school at the time to come and help us create a fake LIVE concert video to send to bookers.
We borrowed a lighting kit and fog machine which we set up in our rehearsal space and we played a full set for the crew and got video footage and photos which we uploaded and used as promotion material. The photos even became our first posters.
That video was exactly what we needed and we booked our first gig.
In preparation for our first show I rallied together all of our friends and family and we all sold tickets like crazy. We sold tickets as if our lives depended on it, as though each ticket was sacred and that each one sold would give us an extra breathe of life here on earth.
That first show was one of the greatest experiences of my life. We sold out the entire venue and had people listening from outside on the street in Gamla Stan, Stockholm.
I took a page out of Mötley Crües book and used my charm and blue eyes to get the girls in my circles to help promote our show. It worked a treat. The girls came to see us and the dudes came because they wanted to hang out with the girls. It was that Rockstar feeling of having girls wanting to be with us and guys wanting to be us. I also got our film team friends to follow us around and capture the whole thing. I felt like a star. It was incredible, like no other high I had ever had previously.
I wanted to feel like that all the time. So I booked us back to back weekends, playing every show at every venue in Stockholm that I could get us booked at. I sent emails and called all the promoters in town saying that Our Untold Story was the biggest band to exist since The Rolling Stones; Pretty big words for a band with only 1 show under their belt.
Those first few months were insane. We were everywhere (in Stockholm) and we had a blast. The free drinks were flowing, the food was good, the girls were dancing and the after parties were crazy.
My Ego and I became best friends and he grew up real fast. He became so big that he started demanding his own room backstage and became a real diva. He was my idol and I wanted to live up to his expectations and be just like him. We thought we were the coolest rock and roll stars in the whole world. Drinking Jack straight out the bottle and treating everyone like shit.
I wanted to be the biggest rock band and I wanted right then and there. I wanted everyone around me to push as hard as me and go as fast as me and give it 100% of their time and energy and if they didn’t do as I said it was byebye, my way or the high way.
I used to say; It’s not IF we make it. It is WHEN and WHO will be there with me when it happens.
I still say that and believe that to be true. But the way I say it and the true meaning of those words has changed for me over the years.
Back then it was more a threat than a statement. I would tell Johan and Oscar that the girls flirting with them only did so because I wasn’t available and that everyone came to the shows to see me. I said that the parties and the success was all because of me and they wouldn’t have any of it without me so they better do as I say if they want to keep being a part of it.
That shit got old pretty quick and caught up to me and bit me in the ass.
In December 2012, just 3 months after our first show, we booked a gig at Snow White bar in South Stockholm. It was time for sound check and Mamud was late. I called him and told him to get there as fast as he could. After hanging up I called him a Cunt for the entire room to hear and continued my dickhead rant, taking it out on Johan, Oscar and our film crew.
We had booked a support band to open for us at this show and when it was time for them to go on, the venue was empty. Nobody had bought a ticket. Our time slot crept closer and closer and eventually the promoter told us the night was cancelled and that we had to pay for our food and drinks to cover the bar for the night.
Deflated and disappointed we started packing up ready to head home. That’s when Mamud came up to me and told me he was quitting the band.
He said that his studies and work combined with tutoring and running was becoming more than he could handle with the commitment of the band on top of that. He told me that he loved my passion and drive and was happy to have been a part of the band and to have had the experience of recording, touring and being a part of something so special and he wished me the best of luck.
In hindsight he was super genuine and gracious about the whole thing. I did understand and I thanked him for his time and wished him the best of luck and stated that he always had a place in the band should he choose. However I couldn’t help but take it personally and again took out my emotions on the remaining 2 members.
After a series of events and emotional breakouts Oscar finally told me he too wanted to quit the band. His reasoning was that he wanted to play different kinds of music, but ultimately I knew I had pushed him away with my actions.
Johan also decided to leave and told me I needed to get my shit together. If I was so sure that the band was just me, then I would have no problem continuing alone.
I was devastated and embarrassed and angry, at myself more than anything else. My actions had caught up to me and to add salt to the wound my girlfriend of the time found out about my debauchery and confronted me on it. I admitted my wrongs and instead of owning up to my mistakes, I cowardly blamed it on the band. To save my relationship I told her I was quitting the band and focusing on her, leaving out the part about there not being a band to quit.
Shortly after all of this I got incredibly sick. I ended up in hospital and had an operation on my throat. Following the operation my doctor prescribed me morphine and antibiotics for the 6 week recovery period and told me that I could not under any circumstances drink any alcohol during this time.
Of course I did not listen and I drank snaps on Christmas Eve with my family, causing me to pass out and sleep through the celebrations that year.
In a Charles Dickenesque dream I saw how my actions were causing so much destruction around me and that I needed to change my ways if I were to survive and become the person I always dreamed of being.
That was when I made the decision to get sober.
Our Self-Titled EP was due to be released worldwide on January 1st 2013. I contacted Johan and apologised for my behaviour, begging for forgiveness and sharing my decision to stop drinking. He willingly accepted and we started making plans for the band and the New Year.
Our first major decision was choosing the first single and planning our first music video.