When Soilwork frontman Björn “Speed” Strid was out doing press for his new classic rock band, The Night Flight Orchestra, in 2012 on the strength of their debut album, Internal Affairs, nobody could have predicted he would be locking in a seventh record and doing yet another NFO press run in 2025. Not because the music was sub-standard or in any way inferior, but rather due to the fact that sparkling clean retro ’70s / ‘80s this-was-your-life acts don’t generally have legs beyond a few years. Certainly not in this great dirty world we’re currently living in.
The Night Flight Orchestra has defied those odds, however, offering up yet another collection of sunshine & happiness yesteryear rock with Give Us The Moon that, somehow – and some might say impossibly – carries some serious weight. Warm, welcoming, infectious, and a guilty pleasure for a large number of metal fans judging by the shirts one sees at any given NFO show (Battle Beast, Suffocation, Powerwolf, Testament at the one attended two weeks ago). Ultimately, the band’s dedication to their musical path wins the day, and their highly anticipated live gigs are the icing on the cake.
“If somebody had told me back at the beginning that Night Flight was going to tour Latin America and Australia, that there was going to be seven albums, I don’t think I would have believed that,” says Strid as the band is gearing up for yet another European tour. “I knew we had something quite special from the beginning, and it was something that we definitely wanted to continue doing. I don’t think we expected to get so much positive feedback from the metal world, but I think people really appreciate what we’re doing. They can feel that we’re really sincere about it. We might have a lot of gimmicks and tongue-in-cheek stuff, but we’re super serious about the music and we’re balancing it in the perfect way. I didn’t expect it, but so many metalheads love Night Flight as well. And, we’ve noticed that a lot of people will come up and say, ‘We just heard that some of you guys are in metal bands as well,’ which is really cool. There’s definitely an exchange going.”
“Night Flight is definitely nothing I took for granted at the beginning. I just knew that I had to do this, and not as a vanity project and not as a bunch of metal musicians saying, ‘Oh, look at us; we can sound like Foreigner in 1978.’ It’s way more than that. It’s something we needed to do, and even if I had gotten a bad response from the metal community I wouldn’t have cared. I’m really happy and grateful that people understand what it is we’re doing with The Night Flight Orchestra.”
Give Us The Moon is unique in the band’s catalogue in that it’s the first one written and recorded without guitarist / co-founder and Strid’s right-hand man, David Andersson. Sadly, Andersson – who also pulled double duty in Soilwork – passed away in 2022. The Night Flight Orchestra released the one off single, “The Sensation”, in 2023 in his memory. Strid admits it was hard initially getting into writing new music, but admits he’d gotten used to Andersson’s creative absence even before he passed away.
“David wasn’t touring with is for the last two years before he passed away because he was in a really dark place,” Strid reveals. “It was frustrating to witness it as a friend, and it left me feeling powerless. At the same time, we had to move on somehow, and that’s where (new guitarist) Rasmus (Ehrnborn) came in. He knew David, and David was completely fine with Rasmus filling in. I guess, in that sense, it became a transition with Rasmus joining the fold and being a part of this album. Songwriting-wise, it was a challenge because David was a very unique musician and lyricist, so to take his world and his heritage with us… we were really close, so I had to take that with me in Night Flight because I knew that was needed. I just managed to include that somehow.”
“I think there are elements of David in the new songs. He was melancholic in his musical expression at times, and in his lyrics, so there’s a dose of that. But we also felt that we needed a reaction on this new album to those years when we witnessed him getting on that dark path. It needed to be something uplifting and more of a celebration, so I think that became the guiding star after we grieved and regrouped and were able to find joy in the music again. It wasn’t easy at first, but we wanted to make him proud, make ourselves proud, and show all the doubters out there we could pull this off. It was a lot to take on.”
Strid continues to be the band’s ringleader, but songwriting duties are ultimately a group effort, particularly in the latter stages of arranging the music.
“Rasmus wrote two songs for the new album, and the rest is mostly me and Sebastian. We were writing a lot of material together before also when David was still with us, so we just had to widen our pallet and write more. We had to explore our own abilities as songwriters, and that in itself was an experience. But, everyone is very involved in the studio. That’s where everything comes alive with the demos, with the keyboards and the girls, so everybody is very involved in the whole thing. A song might change completely by the time we get to the studio with it.”
Strid is fine with the press labelling The Night Flight Orchestra as being “retro”, but he draws the line at suggestions that the band forces the musical direction they’ve taken. From songwriting to production, everything happens naturally and organically rather than having one eye on the prize.
“I think it’s just the way the music comes out,” Strid counters. “We want it to sound organic, where you can listen to it in the ’70s and you can listen to it now and it holds up. It needs to make sense in this day and age. That ’70s way of performing and mixing and producing, that’s been lost, and to us that sound is timeless. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1978 or 2025; that sound makes sense to us. This current state of the music scene where everything is so loud and crisp, where there are no dynamics, we try to stick to that organic sound instead. We might be a bit stubborn, but I believe our music wouldn’t sound the same if we compressed everything. The dynamics in our sound are very important. Yes, it sounds retro in that sense, but we feel this is how it’s supposed to be.”
Asked if, after all these years, keeping the separation between song ideas for The Night Flight Orchestra and Soilwork has become easier or harder, Strid leans towards the former.
“For me, they’re very different musical expressions, but I think for David they began to meld together a bit. Then again, I’ve been with Soilwork since the very beginning as well, so it’s really important for me that they remain two different things. Of course, your sense of melody is something you take with you wherever you go, so maybe you can some similarities in the melodies here and there, but that’s about it.”
On the live front, The Night Flight Orchestra had just wrapped up their European tour for the new album at press time, with more dates planned for 2025. Talking about those plans leads to a look back on NFO supporting KISS in July 2023 for the band’s last shows ever in Sweden at the legendary Dalhalla.
“That’s another thing I wouldn’t have believed at the beginning if you told me back in 2012 it would happen. That was a great experience. They treated us really well. Gene Simmons came into the dressing room and started dancing with one of the ladies, he talked with is, he hung out with us, and that was five minutes after we arrived at the venue. Paul Stanley came and talked to us for a bit as well, Doc McGhee came by and introduced himself and told us he was a big fan of the band. We had one hour for soundcheck, the crew was super nice… it was a fantastic experience.”
“It was surreal. Unfortunately, we had to leave right after our show on the second day because we were playing a festival. It was like, ‘No, don’t take us away. I wanna stay…’ (laughs). We were on our way to the airport and it was like, ‘Did that actually happen?’ Because we left while KISS was playing. It was so surreal.”
“This year touring-wise it’s all about The Night Flight Orchestra. There will be some shows with Soilwork, but no full tours. We’re gonna write a new album with Soilwork and the touring will begin again. I’ll need to rest somewhere in between, which isn’t easy, but I will be more selective in my touring with both bands. I don’t see Night Flight going on a six week tour unless it’s something crazy, like opening for The Rolling Stones (laughs).”
(Björn photo – Carl Begai)
Source: bravewords.com
