by BRIAN GIFFIN
THE Night Flight Orchestra are about to land in Australia to tour on the wings of their seventh album. Recorded after a period of reflection and mourning in the wake of the death of founding guitarist David Andersson in 2022, Give Us the Moon has won strong plaudits from both fans and reviewers as showing growth and resilience in the face of tragedy. As melancholic as it is bright and shiny, for singer Björn Strid Give Us the Moon is the culmination of the band’s journey so far.
HOT METAL: Great to speak with you again, Bjorn. I went through my archives from over the years earlier and I think this will be the eighth time I’ve spoken to you.
BJÖRN STRID: “Really? Wow! That’s kind of insane.”
HM: I think that’s some kind of testament to how prolific you are as an artist. This will probably be the second or third time I’m interviewing you about The Night Flight Orchestra. You’re up to album number seven now – do you lose count of the number of things you’ve done?
BS: “I definitely do! But as far as coming to Australia, this is going to be my twelfth tour as a recording artist. I believe I have been to Australia more than to any other country outside of Europe.”
HM: We could almost give you citizenship, you are here so often!
BS: “I know! That would be great!”
HM: What brings you down here this time is, the latest album from TNFO. This was the first album you’ve done since David passed – was that a difficult process for you, personally, to move on with this band, and this album, without him?
BS: “It definitely was difficult, and although we could see that his last years were quite dark, we could see where things were heading and you feel so powerless as a friend, and as a band member. The new guitarist Rasmus would step in even when David was sick, to help us do it. It was a rough time. Then when he passed away, it was quite surreal. And it still is. I miss him everyday. I think about him everyday. But it was important for me… I had a talk with him when he was basically on his deathbed, and he said that for him it was important that we continue this journey. That helped a lot, but still… It’s super difficult when someone like that, you’re so close to, passes away. Obviously music helped, and being in this band, which has such a great vibe and such great people, helped a lot. We had to pick up the pieces and try to continue the journey. We just needed more time to grieve. You can’t just continue and that’s it. You need time to grieve, and then we went to the same studio we always have and booked some weekends to start recording the album. We had some demos… David had a very unique expression, both musically and lyrically, and we had to take him world with us. You can’t copy it. We had to take his world with us, and make it a part of our own, which was the biggest challenge. We had dig deep. It was one of toughest challenges I’ve had, but it was worth it and I felt that he was present, and I’m sure the other guys would agree. Coming out the other side, and putting this album together, I couldn’t be more proud and I hope we made David proud, as well. There’s a lot of emotions running through the album and I think you can hear that. It’s very multi-layered, I would say.”
HM: The reviews I’ve seen of the album have been nothing short of spectacular, really. Reviews don’t mean anything in some way, but at the same time with this having been such a challenge, that must really validate your belief in moving forward with the band.
BS: “Absolutely, it definitely means something. I knew that we couldn’t be better than this, and that’s a great feeling to have. You’ve done everything you can, but of course it helps when you’re really proud of something and you want to share that, and you want people to really connect to that. Especially in this time where you’ve come through areas where you doubt yourself as a songwriter, as a singer, everything… it just happens, and when somebody close like that passes away, that a big part of your musical life, so there’s going to be times when you doubt yourself. But I just felt like, I can do this, so I really just had to push myself. Coming through the other side, that’s why we named the album Give Us the Moon, because it’s like we’ve gone through this journey and now: give us the moon! It’s a tap on the shoulder for us. We did it!”
HM: Someone asked me who I was interviewing today and I told them, “The Night Flight Orchestra”. They weren’t really across your band at all so they asked what you were like and I said it was a modern take on late 70s melodic rock with some Swedish pop influences. Then I said you were like a cross between Toto and ABBA. I said it as a joke, but it’s also not, really.
BS: “No! We are both very influenced by ABBA, and Toto. It’s all in there, you know. Especially with ABBA, the way that they could write something so direct, but the arrangements are so complex and it’s also multilayered. People slag them off as a sappy disco band, or whatever, but they’re so much more than that. If you really listen to their albums, it’s quite melancholic but uplifting at the same time, and I think that’s a guiding star right there. That’s something that’s been really influential for us.”
HM: How does this album – or does it – fit in with the over-arching story of the band?
BS: “This album has a lot of real-life stories on it. There’s a lot of escapism on it, but it’s also real. ‘Paloma’, for example, is about a good friend of me and my wife’s who is a real-life stewardess who married a pilot that turned out to be a very bad person. I felt very frustrated watching it, because she kept coming back to him. I decided to write a sort of liberation song for her. I actually wrote it on a flight home from Spain to Sweden. I wrote the lyrics in the air. ‘Melbourne, May I’ – there’s a story behind that. The first time we toured Australia when flew in from Doha and I got a phone call from my mum and she said that she had breast cancer. I was on my way to the other side of the world, and I had to keep it together through that tour. The crowds really helped me so much because they were amazing and the vibe of the band was incredible because we were together in Australia for the first time. It lifted me up. It culminated in Melbourne. I kind of broke down a little bit after the show.because it was such a beautiful moment and I had to stay strong. I felt like I was surrounded by family, so I had to write a song about it, dedicated to Aussie crowds, and especially Melbourne that night. It was something special and it all culminated there.
HM: That’s going to make the Melbourne audiences very happy. Melbourne is a very inspirational city. Are you going to play that for us when you’re here?
BS: “That’s what I’m asking myself? Would people in the other cities want to hear that song? I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.”
HM: We can be a bit partisan, from city to city, but when a foreign band writes a song about Australia, in any form, we’re going to love it.
BS: “Well, we’ll think about it!”
THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA MOON OVER AUSTRALIA 2025
MAY 29: Max Watts, Melbourne (+ Orpheus Omega + Dead City Ruins)
MAY 30: Crowbar, Brisbane (+ Catalano)
MAY 31 : Crowbar, Sydney (+ Big Red Fire Truck)
