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The Sanctuary was the recording studio where musicians made their albums. It was a separate building from the office where I worked for Suspicious Activity Records, the label that produced the albums.
Theo had a one-man act called Mad Alchemy that was signed with Suspicious Activity, and he was the one who had gotten me this job.
“Good timing,” Sven said, as I came into the booth.
“Thanks.” I handed him the second cup of coffee and he winced as he took it from me.
“The coffee’s still hot. Did you speed?”
“Near enough.”
“Good girl.”
After sipping the nectar of the gods, making sure to step out of the booth to follow his own rules, Sven did the rounds one last time to make sure everything was ready. He hadn’t thought to tell me which band was coming in for a last-minute session, but the equipment that was present on the floor served as a clue. Especially the two-foot spikes protruding from the headstock of the bass guitar, making it look more like a medieval melee weapon than a musical instrument.
“That should do it,” Sven said, dropping the cup into the wastebasket on the way back into the booth.
“Let’s hope.”
“How are you doing with Theo away on tour?”
“It’s a bit lonely, but I have friends at school, so it’s okay for the moment. I just hope he gets back soon.”
“He’ll be back before you know it.”
“Sure. I know,” I quickly said.
It was a secret, buried in the deepest depth of my heart and mind, far from even my parents knowing about it, but part of my impetus for moving to Seattle was that I missed my brother. Or at least I thought it was a secret, but I guess it was so obvious that Sven and everyone else knew about it no matter how much I tried to hide it.
I really thought that I’d be okay enough without him, especially when he first left Norway. It wasn’t until he came back there to visit and then left again that I realized the sad reality of the fact that he was really gone.
When he had just been gone for his tour, there was always the expectation and hope that he’d come back. Once he had Becca and their child in his life, existence as he knew it was over. An existence which included me. I was happy for him but sad for me.
Our parents let me stay at Theo’s old place in town, helping with the rent, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t as if I was in love with my brother, of course. I did love him, but like a brother, and as the only guy who had ever genuinely cared about me. My dad and I had never been close. So that sibling relationship was really hard to let go of.
He was always there, and then it became difficult to adjust when he wasn’t. I decided to try to forge my own path for myself like he did so that I didn’t sit at home in Norway and mope. Of course, the best place I could think of to forge my path was the same place Theo had already gone, so, here I was in Seattle, except homesick now to boot and still having difficulty adjusting when Theo was on the road.
I guess it was so apparent that even Sven saw it. Fortunately, he also saw it for what it was and there was no judgment apparent in his manner.
“They’re here,” Sven announced now.
I was glad to be able to turn my attention back to what was going on in the studio so that I didn’t think too much about whether I seemed like a loser pining away for my brother, for my home country, for some sort of companionship or distraction from homesickness.
I tried to guess which band was coming in. The sound was my first clue. All Gods Are Bastards— or AGAB as they were known to their fans and merch designers— had declined to have Seth buy them a new vehicle. Their ‘Death Wagon’ helped to sell their image. I wasn’t sure whether the nickname of the 80’s era transit van came from the Black Metal airbrush paint job, or the sound it made every time it started up or stopped.
One by one, the parade of leather and spikes passed me by. The band members resembled warriors of Sauron, a few going so far as to put in creepy looking contacts. They all filed into the main room and then started taking up their instruments as though preparing for battle.
Theo told me I’d meet some colorful characters at Suspicious Activity Records, even as he’d put in a good word for me with Seth Black. Little did I know how colorful things could really get.
Sven, weird as he was, seemed almost normal by comparison to some of the musicians who were signed to the label he did sound engineering for. We’d done a recording with Lords of the Sacred Shadow once and I felt like the studio needed a touch of exorcism.
