Was this metal fan hounded to death?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-02-04 10:40am

http://www.metalcity.org/archives/000032.php

Take a moment, if you will, to study the image above. It's going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Maybe you look at it and smile, thinking of your headbanging youth, as you slashed up a pair of Levi's, patched an old denim jacket, and hoped that your mother wouldn't catch you with your spiked wristbands as you headed off to a gig - a gig that you just know will render you deaf for a week. Or, maybe you scoff - recoiling violently at the thought of cheesy metal, bad hairstyles, lyrics about dragons, dinosaurs and war, and endless, turbo-charged guitar solos, each one duller and more predictable than the last. Do you think that it is simply puerile, an immature relic of a dead era, even though secretly - even if only on the inside - it makes you want to smile? Or are you simply neutral - recognizing the name of That Band With The Cool Album Covers, but being too young to remember their heydey, you're satisfied with forking the sign of the devil at the awesome artwork, while leaving the actual music out of your stereo, lest it take up precious Korn time?

For Anton Gustavsson of Sweden, Iron Maiden was the entity that both cemented his place in history, and very likely ended his life.

I remember first reading about Anton on Portal Of Evil, a site dedicated to collecting the weirdest, most bizarre sites on the internet. Anton's homepage archived his legacy - the recordings he made during 1998 and 1999 as his alter-ego, 'Anton Maiden'. Anton loved Iron Maiden. As any metal fan knows, enthusiasts of bands like Maiden, Judas Priest, and the rest of their New Wave Of British Metal brethren are particularly rabid about their idols - taking their obsessions to levels only matched by fans of the almighty Springsteen. These people live, breathe, and worship the music - keeping the flame alive in a world where genuine metal circled the drain in roughly 1991, obliterated by the onslaught of grunge rock and the so-called 'alternative revolution', a phrase which now has about as much credence as 'rapcore'. Anton, like all metal fans, was passionate about his love for the band's work - and decided to pay tribute in a novel, yet heartfelt manner. He was nineteen at the time - and, plugging a microphone into his PC sound card, he downloaded a bunch of MIDI files of various Maiden tracks, and proceeded to record himself singing along with the music. Badly. With a cracked, tuneless wail which had absolutely no hope of emulating the incredible vocal acrobatics of Bruce Dickinson - a vocalist who is very likely the greatest technical performer of the rock era. Anton's thick Swedish accent bent and contorted the phrasing of Maiden's admittedly ponderous, elliptical, and verbose lyrics - resulting in twelve tracks which are quite unlike anything you have ever heard before. And, uploading them to his website, 'Anton Maiden' went live - sharing his tribute to the greatness of Iron Maiden with the rest of the world, trying to connect with Maiden's fanbase, and letting them see just how much he loved the boys, and loved the music.

And this was probably the last mistake he ever made.

On a documentary filmed for Swedish youth television in 1999, we see a smiling, gentle young boy in an Iron Maiden pullover, with one leg up on his computer chair, cropped blonde hair parted neatly on the left and glasses perched on his nose, wailing happily along to 'The Number Of The Beast'. Obviously not taking himself seriously, Anton is filmed running around a rolling mountainside in the idyllic Swiss countryside, his arms outstretched as the soundtrack blares his bizarre, karaoke version of 'Run To The Hills'. Clearly, he is a fan in fan's paradise - he's done something to draw attention to his status as a follower of a band, and he is being recognized as more than the average, run-of-the-mill 'person who bought a best of'. And, as Anton's infamy grew throughout the newly-minted D.I.Y Internet community, where his MP3's were traded - and the CD's that he pressed in his bedroom were quickly snapped up by rabid fans of the obscure, he began to receive legitimate recognition. 'College' radio in the U.S began playing his renditions of 'Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son', 'Children Of The Damned', 'Flight Of Icarus', and the rest of the tracks on the 'Anton Maiden' album. Anton was the first star of the D.I.Y era - adored as an innocent, sweet-natured boy who did what he had to do to show the world by his supporters, and loathed as a violator of the good Maiden name by his detractors - who, by now, were preparing to strike back.

Nobody seems to know, exactly, where it all started to unravel. And nobody seems to know why he let it affect him so deeply. Anton began to receive hate mail. Buckets and buckets of it. Vicious, cruel emails from rabid metal fans, who were incensed at this perceived 'mistreatment' of Their Band. Who was this young upstart - this DORKY little bastard, who didn't even speak English, taking the music of Maiden and turning into a laughing stock for the entire world to see? Who did he think he was?

In a June 2000 interview in Swedish newspaper Expressen, Anton told Martin Carlsson that the fans were expressing their disdain, and that they "think that my interpretations are a disgrace to Iron Maiden. But that was never my intent." Anton's guestbook on his website began filling with abuse, Maiden fans honing in on this innocent boy like a quilt of sharp-toothed rodents, intent on tearing him to pieces for his perceived indiscretion. Eventually, Anton pulled the plug - taking the 'Anton Maiden' section off his website in 2000. As he told Expressen, "It just feels silly to continue. There will be no more records, [and] there's no point in trying to convince me [to change my mind]."

Three years later, something happened. Something horrible. On November 8, 2003, Anton Gustafsson was declared missing. The 23 year old boy was believed to have vanished from his apartment in Hässleholmen on either October 31st, or in the early hours of November 1st - wearing a Goretex jacket, jeans, and a pair of heavy shoes. He trudged out into the snow, and somewhere, for some reason, killed himself. He was found shortly afterward.

I remember reading about this back in November, and feeling close to tears by it. And that feeling was compounded when I went to his website . See, I thoguht of Anton as a kind of kindred spirit. After all, what teenage boy hasn't held that hairbrush and wanted to be their hero? Who hasn't closed the bedroom door, put a towel over the gap at the bottom, cranked up their favourite album, closed their eyes, and pretended that they were doing crazy leaps in the air, impressing the girls at Wembley Arena? Anton took this to the logical, deeply isolated conclusion - and he recorded his flights of fancy, and let all of us stare through the window and smile. Metal fans are often lonely weirdos. After all, Iron Maiden is hardly what you'd call the most 'well adjusted' music on the planet. For all of Bruce's bluster, and Steve's galloping basslines, and the Dave/Adrian interlocking guitar pyrotechnics, it is impossible to forget that most of their songs are about mythology, science fiction novels, and epic, heroic battles - the sole territory of the ubergeek. But Anton didn't care - and he let us watch and listen to him as he kept his childhood dream alive. Maybe it didn't matter how 'bad' his vocals were - what mattered was that he bothered to record them in the first place, and that he gave them to the world in the second.

If anyone reading this has the time, go and see his website. There is a photo gallery there. His sister, Malin, his parents - Ingemar and Lena feature heavily, in a photo album spanning 1987 to 2003. The thing that struck me, and had me swallowing back the huge bubbles of emotion that rose up from my heart and popped in my throat, was the sheer innocence of it. Here is a 23 year old boy, and his website isn't a self-aggrandizing ego trip. He doesn't have it covered in cyber-trinkets. There's no self-serving blog - such as this one. You know what's on it? Photos of things that are important to him, with captions. That's it. And what was important to him?

Photos of his family. His sister. His grandma. Photos of windmills, and cows, and his train set, and his computer, and him in his Iron Maiden windcheater - and the endless, emerald countryside of his beloved Sweden. A countryside he'll never see again. I'm glad that I can't read the captions. I think that they would just be too sad for me. I'll tell you this, though - I have to blink away the tears every time I see the words 'mama', 'papa', and 'Malin'. I look at those photos - pictures of Anton with his Dad as a young kid, playing with an electronics set, or eating popcorn on a hiking trip - and it is hard not to see that the reward Anton recieved for being so honest was not what he was due.

Maybe there was a lot more going on that drove him to take his own life. We'll probably never know. But maybe, if he'd been left alone, and if those bastards hadn't hounded and hounded him until the end, he would still be alive. When his body was found, I remember reading reports of it online, and they were still there - posting their vile, vicious bullshit as reader comments, talking about how glad they were that he was gone, and how he deserved to die, and how they wished that they could have killed him themselves. Obviously, those comments are simply beneath contempt - and it is hardly necessary for me to explain that these bastards should bake long and hard in the hot sun, just for being so worthless.

The point here, loyal, long suffering reader, is that what I'm driving at is innocence. Go through Anton's photo album, and despite the utter lack of pretention, and the curious abundance of love and respect for his home and family, the one thing that you'll see is missing is - advertising. Anton's body, with the exception of his loved Maiden gear, isn't a walking billboard, schilling for the multinationals. He wears pants. Shirts. His sister, a pretty girl, is dressed the same. It is interesting to see that Anton appears relaxed and comfortable with that - and that his attacks all come from the west. America. The boy's total lack of self-consciousness was his undoing - and there is something about that which makes it all the more tragic.

Above all else, though - I see myself in Anton. A tragic, obsessed fan - sitting in his bedroom in the middle of the night, playing his beloved records over and over and over again, dreaming of the day when he might meet his heroes - and thinking about what it would have been like if he could have been a part of it all - alone, insular, and utterly satisfied by the music.

I guess I'll never forget him.

This happened more than a year ago, but I only heard about it just now. I remember Anton Maiden's terrible warbling renditions of Iron Maiden songs, and I remember my brother and I having a good laugh about them, but I had no idea that he was deluged with hate mail and hounded by angry Iron Maiden fans over it for years. It's one thing to gloat over the death of someone that you think is actually evil, but a kid who did off-key renditions of your favourite songs?!? Some people need to step back and ask themselves if they've been taking their music way too fucking seriously.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2005-02-04 11:35am

Well, frankly I don't know. I ain't no metal fan but the article mentioned about Anton's singing quality (with a "cracked, tuneless wail which had absolutely no hope of emulating the incredible vocal acrobatics of Bruce Dickinson"). The fact alone should enrage fans anywhere, and I think it's fair enough for anyone to throw the truth to his face about his horrible "talent" in singing. After all, it was himself who were looking for trouble on the first place by making, ahem, "his own version" of Iron Maiden tunes available to public. Thus if people criticized him, then though shit.

But still, we don't know the WORST thing fanatical fans could do, metal or no metal. We can't be sure if there are NO rabid, enraged Iron Maiden fanatics deliberately pushing him (directly or indirectly) to actually kill himself.

At one hand, we have a rabid Iron Maiden fan who took it that far by commiting suicide. On the other hand, we have TONS of rabid Iron Maiden fans endlessly flaming the poor kid.

Human psychology never ceases to amaze me.....

EDIT: sorry I missed the gloating part, Mike. This is me take on the case, though. While it's true Anton has been hounded over and over again by some rabid metal fans, I think he should shrug it off and doesn't give a shit about what they said (or wrote) instead of commiting suicide.

I mean, instead of commiting suicide, why didn't he just say, "I'm worshipping Iron Maiden *MY* way and as far as I'm concerned, you're all welcome to jerk your own schlong with a sandpaper. And please remember to keep your webcam on while doing so, I'd like some entertainment".

The gloating, on the other hand, is utterly disgusting. Those rabid fans should at least feel sorry for that kid, instead of dancing on his grave like what they're doing now.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2005-02-05 01:58pm

Hey! I think I saw that television programme. I know I've seen a programme that was about computers and games, called "Sajber" (pronounced like "cyber"), and one time they featured a guy that would record himself singing to Iron Maiden songs and put it on his website. I had no idea that he was dead...

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2005-02-05 02:15pm

Well, here's a hearty "Fuck You" to all those assholes who bombarded him with hate mail.

So what if he couldn't sing worth a damn? It's not like he was urinating on old LPs while humming along to Nirvana or something.

I really don't know what it is with a lot of American Maiden fans. That's basically the reason why Iron Maiden doesn't like touring the USA very much anymore. At their last New York show some drunk-ass moron chucked his beer onto stage and blew out the mixer, meaning that they couldn't play their encore. And at the last Los Angeles show, again somebody threw beer onto stage, causing Bruce to slip and fall onto the drumset in the middle of a song.

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2005-02-05 03:49pm

Dooey Jo wrote:Hey! I think I saw that television programme. I know I've seen a programme that was about computers and games, called "Sajber" (pronounced like "cyber"), and one time they featured a guy that would record himself singing to Iron Maiden songs and put it on his website. I had no idea that he was dead...

Yes, that was on ZTV, wasn't it? I vaguely remember it.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2005-02-05 04:00pm

Here's to the assholes who sent him hate mail:

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-02-05 05:55pm

Well, music, like anything else, can grow into a weird, dangerous obsession. I mean, Dimebag was shot recently by some fucker with no apparent motive, but chances are it was music related, or band breakup related. Weird people, very weird people. Very childish stupid people too.

Jawawithagun · Post by **Jawawithagun** » 2005-02-05 06:10pm

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:I mean, instead of commiting suicide, why didn't he just say, "I'm worshipping Iron Maiden *MY* way and as far as I'm concerned, you're all welcome to jerk your own schlong with a sandpaper. And please remember to keep your webcam on while doing so, I'd like some entertainment".

For some people this is just not possible. They cannot detach themself like that.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2005-02-05 06:21pm

That's awfully fucking sad.

A cautionary tale for obsessive types, too. Back off when you invest too much, emotionally, in your hobby.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-02-05 08:10pm

A lot of people, for some bizarre reason, attach their sense of self to a video game, band, movie, whatever, and treat any percieved insult on it as an attack on themselves. Hell, last year I was physically attacked for insulting Tool. A lot of people are just idiots.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-02-05 08:16pm

That's seriously obscene

. People care way too damn much about music, especially in little pissy ways. Of course, people in general aren't very good at demonstrating patience or even thinly veiled irritation as opposed to full-blown angry idiocy. It wouldn't have killed people just to ignore him.

...And then they gloat. Sickening.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2005-02-06 05:26am

HemlockGrey wrote:Hell, last year I was physically attacked for insulting Tool.

WHAT????

I know it's a little bit OT but how did that happen? What tool were you insulting, by the way?

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2005-02-06 07:29am

It' alled kareoke folk and I really need a new keyoard....

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2005-02-06 09:55am

HemlockGrey wrote:A lot of people, for some bizarre reason, attach their sense of self to a video game, band, movie, whatever, and treat any percieved insult on it as an attack on themselves. Hell, last year I was physically attacked for insulting Tool. A lot of people are just idiots.

Wow. A tool fan physically attacked you? That's a combination of:

and

No offence.

I can't really see why anyone should get so up in arms over these matters. It's one thing to go ballistic on someone over bulletine boards like this, which in itself is pretty damn stupid, but to initiate violence? That's not only weird it's fucking stupid.

Julhelm · Post by **Julhelm** » 2005-02-06 05:21pm

Disgusting, but not surprising. There's an alarming lack of respect for your next among today's youth.