Steel is a heavy metal project that was started over a lunchbreak during the soundcheck for the Opeth album "Morningrise". Me, Mike Åkerfeldt and their drummer back then Anders Nordin was having something unhealthy at the pizza place right by the studio and I came up with the ida that we should record something to put up against the drums to see that the drumsound worked together with guitars, bass and vocals. We agreed to do so, but we couldn't figure out what to record. After a while we cracked up and decided to record something that was so "out" that we laughed our asses off only talking about it. The genre we decided to celebrate was the German Heavy Metal sound of the 80's. At the time it was incredibly unpopular and not even Hammerfall had arrived on the scene to totally change the face of the metalscene. Said and done. We wrote and recorded a track called "Guitars and Metal" lasting for about 1 minute and later on this track became a cult classic after playing it to some of Mike's friends at a party. (This track is lost, I have searched for it like a maniac but it' s nowhere to be found!) After the reaction from all the poeple at the party, we decided to give Steel a proper recording and with the addition of Peter Lindgren on bass we nailed 3 magic songs in 2 days. At the time we wanted to use it as a joke, but before we had the chance to decide what to do with it, every band seemed to play old school metal again and Accept and late 80's Judas Priest was everybody's faveband!!?? After that surprise I refused to release Steel in any way. I hated the idea of people calling us trendfollowers. It wasn't until Near Dark offered us a deal with a picture 7" that I decided to let go of the master. The EP contains 2 tracks, the third and previously unreleased ballad "Say Goodbye (To Love)" was left out because it..I don't know..listen for yourself!!! Steel will most likely never record again so download the stuff and headbang your eyes out!!