I am in the midst of listening to AE for the first time in something like a year. I'm up to 'Away' and when he started singing "It's hard to be back here in Sweden again" I started to think, "I wonder if this is in reference to something that happened during Vai's Sex and Religion tour".

Then next verse he gets to "As above and so below my friend" and there is that little harmonized guitar lick... which I never noticed sounds fucking heaps like Steve Vai (especially the big wide glissandos) Then it smacks me in the face that I should have picked that because of the Hermetic statement "as above so below". Everyone here is aware how into the mystic arts Vai is, right?

I can't believe I never picked this before. So I could just be extremely trippin here and be finding evidence because I want to find evidence, I'm not sure that vai's tour ever took them to Sweden. But it would be interesting to find out.

[Blazingmonga]

This is an interesting thought...though I was under the impression that the line about Sweden was referring to when Devin was producing Soilwork, which was around christmas time and when he would have rather been at home. Though I suppose this could be true if it means that he had a hard time the last time he as in Sweden....hmm.

I think there is only one man who knows!

FWIW, I had always heard the same regarding Sweden and Soilwork with regards to Away.

However, Greg makes some compelling arguments. It's true that Vai is into the occult, but I've never quite heard him make referrence to the "above so below" statement. But, the guitarwork in this song strongly refers to Vai. I totally agree with that.

Hmmm.

I had never thought of that. Really interesting idea though, I hope we hear from the man himself one way or another.

I bet the Vai tour led them to Sweden.
They played in Copenhagen in Denmark, and Denmark is a smaller country than Sweden.
But we won't find the answer unless if we ask The Dev himself!

I saw them in Helsinki on Sex & Religion tour so I bet they went to Sweden too.

This Sweden lyric was discussed before and I remember the conclusion was it relates to producing Soilwork's NBC.

I always just figured that it was a song about being on tour and being away from his family and loved ones.

Well, I thought it was a parody on this Dutch interviewer who asked him if he was from Sweden.
But on the other hand, that was my first impression of AE anyway; "whoa, this sounds like Vai", especially the solo's, so you could be right.

It seems so hard to tell. On the lyrics page it lists the '(I'm an idiot) WELL DON'T BE AN IDIOT THEN' thing as well and I can't remeber if thats in the booklet or not. Anyway it seems that he may've done something really regretable in Sweden and he can't go back there without thinking about it. I dunno just another mountain..... i mean theory