Present yourself to the readers
Night League is a new wave of traditional heavy metal (NWOTHM) duo from Norway. It was started in March this year (2020) by Marita Sundet Solheim and Trygve Johan Solheim. Marita and TJ share lead vocals in this band. Marita also plays bass guitar and TJ plays lead guitar, drums and synth.
What’s the story for NIGHT LEAGUE (album) ?
We've been working together on music and lyrics since 2005, and have recorded different albums and songs under other band names. This year (2020) we wanted to do an old school, gritty NWOBHM kind of project, with the both of us on vocals.
We just started writing the first song one evening based on the band name we settled on, and 3 months later we'd written and recorded a whole album. We even did a music video the first week.
It all happened really fast, but with the right inspiration, it can happen, and it did for us.
Who composes ?...How does it work in the duo ?
Most of the songs start with a vocal idea or a riff from Marita. Then TJ takes over and is charge for building a complete song out of it, connecting riffs, ideas and filling out the blanks. Also adding his own riffs in the process.
A couple of tracks for this album ("Viper" and "Fallgate To Hell") was already written some years ago by TJ and his brother, Geir Arne Solheim, but was "Night Leagued" for this band and album. The rest is almost a 50/50 collaberation, which makes the songs kinda unique and what they are.
Who writes the texts ?..What are they talking about ?..How does inspiration come ?
Marita writes almost all of the lyrics, with TJ only adding a few things. The songs on the album draw inspiration from various subjects, both metaphorically and literally.
Most of the lyrics are inspired by real life events, experiences or things we've seen, read or heard.
The best songs and lyrics we write comes from a spark ignited by someone who doesn't really believe in us, or the society in general that won't give creative people a chance to put their mark on the world. Watch us!
What are your personal musical tastes and your influences ?
This album is inspired by classic, melodic hard rock and heavy metal from the 70s and early 80s. Mostly the NWOBHM-style. We wanted to nail a genuine 1979-experience, so we made sure to not include any modern guitar styles or lyrical themes that weren't relevant back then.
A few of the bands we love and are inspired by are Samson, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Girlschool and The Runaways. We only try to draw inspiration from that whole era of music, not to follow a certain formula to the letter, to then create our own style and indentity within the genre.
In studio, what was the atmosphere for your album ?...etc.…
Great atmostphere. We knew what we wanted to achieve and 100% shared the vision for this album, so it all went along smoothly. To fit in with the NWOBHM-1979-menatlity we had a few "rules" we had to follow, so it made the process easier. As soon as we had nailed that old school drum and guitar sound, we were on a roll.
How does it work for the design of the CD ? and why this title ?
The painting on the cover is by Tithi Luadthong, and it perfectly captured the look we wanted. It had to look like it could have been painted in 1979, and it also needed to be dark, evil and fit with the "Night League" title.
The "Night League" band name, and the song with the same name, came from a song idea Marita had a some time ago called "The League Of The Night". It was inspired by the movie "The Warriors" from 1979. We thought it sounded cool, and we needed a band name, so we figured; "Why not?"
How was the shooting of the clip NIGHT LEAGUE ? and why this choice ?
We did that ourselves in our garage one cold evening in March. We knew we wanted to be a very audio-visual kind of band with lots of videos, pictures and everything else, because we love to find everything there is reagarding our own favorite bands and decades, so we were super-eager to get something out there. We wrote and recorded the song and filmed the music video within two weeks time.
With Management and booking, how do you work ? And with whom ?
Right now we are doing everything ourselves. We pay for the digital release and pressing of vinyls and CDs, and hope that we will sell enough to cover the expenses. We don't aim to make money on our music, just to get it out to the people who want to enjoy it.
It's a financial risk we're willing to take, something we enjoy doing even if it falls through, because you just have to hope for the best, and hope dies last.
We hope we can collaborate with someone in the future though, so we can just focus on being creative.
What are your projects ?
We are working on 2-3 music video ideas from our album, and have already started thinking about the next album.
We also might do a few cover songs for fun, to put our duo vocals touch on a classic metal song.
What do you expect from the future ?
If everything goes right, I think you can expect a whole lot of gritty, catchy and heavy tunes and albums from Night League. We love this style of music, it comes very natural to us, so we have a ton of ideas.
We also hope to do some live shows and maybe even a tour, but right now it's not something we focus on. If there's an audience out there, we're sure an opportunity will turn up in the future.
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Thanks for the upkeep
Hugues B.
