It began to be a weird time for me. 

In 1986, the European tour ended. I turned 20 years old. I isolated myself more and more from everybody. I became a loner. I lived and breathed music now, and I had discovered a few new sides to my personality. One was my interest in the human mind, psychology, and more. Deep subjects that made me look at people in a different way, including my favorite artists. 

I learned a lot about myself. I started to go after the big collectibles, too. KISS still had me. I was still hopeful for the impossible to happen - that the masters would return and claim their crown of rock n roll, in full make-up and costumes. But more than ten years would pass before that happened. 

The years of 1987 and 1988, I remember I collected a fairly huge lot of all kinds of Motley Crue related things. It became more and more of an obsession, but KISS still took the cake when it came to my shopping habits. There was a line of cool, new things happening in the Motley camp in 1987, and another new album that I truly loved. A few songs on it that I didn’t quite get, but all in all, a cool album. My problem with the release was that it had several songs that I desperately wanted to know more about, but didn’t. You see, I had passed the point where I could just “listen” to music. Now I had to “study” it. It was an amazing time. So I started to read everything I could on Motley Crue. I loved the biographical books, and the books that depicted the music industry. It was never enough for me. 

Up until now, I had never been in a serious relationship. I had honestly never really been interested. Until one day, at Def Leppard concert in Copenhagen. I got there early. Met three Swedish girls, and one of them, Joanna Koppe, simply took my breath away, like being hit by a bullet train. My first love ever. I was 21!

I spoke briefly with her outside the venue, and then we ended up next to each other at front row. She kept taking pictures, and was over and over told off by the bouncers. It ended abruptly when one of them took her camera and pulled out the roll of film and kept to himself, and that was it. She was in tears. I told her I could get pictures from a professional photographer, and that I could share them with her. So I did. I got her address and all. We stayed in touch as pen-pals. We talked about going to Germany in 1988 to see the Monsters of Rock tour with Iron Maiden and KISS. The biggest reason why I wanted to go was because I wanted to see David Lee Roth. Her friends backed out, so we ended up going alone. The trip and show was perfect, and on our way back home, things… happened. 

I had a girlfriend. I never would have guessed it. But this was the first time I had ever been knocked out by a girl. It was hard. Are you kidding me? It lasted until 1992, she and I were much too different to make it last. The years between 1988 - 1992 also took my collecting to a new level. I just couldn’t step back to enjoy everyday life even though I had a girlfriend. I still wanted to do and get everything that was available in the world of music. 

Going into the relationship, we both knew we had to be patient with one another. We were simply too different. We had the love for music in common, but I was FAR more obsessed than she was. It would never have worked in the long run. For the little over four years we were together, she always wanted to go out on the weekends; something I hated. I would much rather spend my hard-earned cash on music related things. Again, I live and breathe music. I live a life of passion. Take that away from me and I would rather die. 

I am an addict. But I hardly ever drink and have never done drugs or smoked. My addiction is solely related to music in general and Motley Crue in particular. And it suits me just fine. 

But Joanna simply got fed up by the fact that I never joined her on her nights out. So we got to the point where it just wasn’t going any further. We broke up. Or rather, she left me. For several reasons, I had a few difficult years ahead of me. The year was 1992 when Motley Crue seemed to just disappear off the face of the earth. Vince Neil left the band, and I’m pretty sure you know the story. I felt the world was coming down hard on me. I had lost my girlfriend, the band had lost its voice and frontman, and I just felt nothing really mattered anymore. I sank into a deep depression. I felt like nothing was worth fighting for anymore. 

The thing about living life like I do is you put yourself up as an easy target for disappointment. I think most people just don’t realize this. I do what my heart tells me to, and sometimes that is the right, smart choice, and sometimes it is not. 

Most of 1992, 1993, and 1994, I was lost, ill, and even hospitalized a couple of times. I was not interested in life anymore, it just didn’t seem attractive. The CD player was still spinning my favorite music, which was the only thing that I cared for and wanted to deal with. It has always been like that for me. It is the only medicine that has any effect on me. 

I felt I was stuck in a downward spiral. I knew I had to move out of the apartment I had shared with Joanna, and needed to get away from our shared surroundings. So I got rid of everything I had and bought new things and furniture. It was hell to have to spend so much money on that when I really only wanted to add to my collection. This was also a time in my life where I had a

lot of items stolen from my collection. Records, posters, books, toys, and more. You can only imagine how I felt. I didn’t have the tools to sort out the mess in my head. My body started sending me signals that I was on the wrong path. 

As the year 1994 came around, I was even more lost. The band released their self-titled album, and I thought that was it for the band, it was over. It was a great album but just not the right time or right place for it to be released. Today it’s one of my top-3 favorites. Vince Neil’s solo debut album, “Exposed,” was like Motley Crue at their best. No wonder it got so well recognized.