In the Viking days, Danish longships were the vehicles for conquest, exploration, and warfare. They were usually constructed using clinker-built techniques where overlapping planks were fastened together by iron rivets.
A millennium later, Salomon Segers constructed an album by overlapping influences such as Unity, Death Side, and Judas Priest. Fastened together by his band Night Fever, their battle cry is the album Dead End, and it serves as their proverbial longboat for world conquest and domination.
State who you are and what you do in the band.
My name is Salomon and I sing/scream in the band. I make all the music for the band, even though I’m a terrible guitarist. I rely heavily on my very talented friends in the band when arranging songs.
I hum the riffs for the band to play. Kasper, our bassist, still thinks it’s the funniest shit everytime we make new songs. I think I read sometime that Jello [Biafra, Dead Kennedys] did the same thing.
Was Night Fever named after the Bee Gees song?
[Laughs] No, it was our old bassist, Andreas, who came up with the name. We had already booked our first show and Lasse Ballade (Amdi Petersens Armé) was booking it. He was getting pretty sick with the fact that we couldn't come up with a name for the band so he just put it on the flyer and the rest is history.
When you rock the no shirt + gloves combo, does it give you hardcore superpowers?
I actually did a dark ritual years ago invoking the grotesque spirit of Pazuzu and trapped his ugly highness in the gloves, giving me the powers of the southwestern wind whenever I use them. So yes, my hardcore superpower is the power of flight, though only momentarily as it is very taxing on the body.
After each show, I must lie down backstage and be fed green pea soup, all while shouting the most sick and vile obscenities at the band.
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When I first heard the Night Fever singles from last year, I described your sound as Zoli Teglas (Ignite) singing for 1987 RKL. After listening to the whole LP several times, I feel like there has to be some Burning Spirits influence on the band, especially with the guitar work on a song like “Waiting for Death.” What influences are you pulling from for this LP, both musically and vocally?
Oh there's a lot of influences, musically stuff like Raw Power, Leeway, Death Side, Poison Idea, Unity, RKL, Judas Priest, and Outburst. There are also more aesthetic influences from bands like Life's Blood, Blood For Blood, Sheer Terror, and Antidote.
Vocally, I just try to mix in some rock 'n' roll attitude with the songs. There's not really one artist I can say I’m influenced by. There's too many to name.
Other than Amdi Petersens Armé and the three Electric Deads 7”s from 1982/83, I’m pretty ignorant to Danish punk and hardcore. What are the most crucial bands and records that I should know about?
Okay…here we go, there's a lot! Let's start with the bands i grew up with and saw live, which were dubbed the "second wave" of punk bands: Amdi Petersens Arme, Asbest, Young Wasteners, Hul, Gorilla Angreb, No Hope For the Kids, Snipers, Hjertestop, Death Token, Tæve, Incontrolados, Lokum.
The first wave of punk bands: Sods, City-X, Gatecrashers, Brats, War Of Destruction, Lost Kids, Before. I implore you to check out all the bands.You will lose out on some seriously good records if you do not do this.
Where does Night Fever fit into the history of hardcore from Denmark?
I don’t know, it’s a tough question. It’s hard not to sound full of yourself. All I hope is that we have succeeded in getting some people a time and place to unwind, take their minds of the shit they walk around with, and let them feel like they were part of something special.
I need a Nordic opinion — what is better: Swedish Hardcore 1982-1984 or Finnish Hardcore 1981-1983?
Swedish HC 1982-1984. They have always been better at everything music wise, that's why we hate them so much. There are several other reasons why we don't like them. They still have Skåne [County], which used to be a part of Denmark, and they put a dog on the Danish Viking throne to rule over the country in the 6th Century. We don't forgive and forget here.
What is the incident that led you to write the song “Lone Wolf?”
There hasn’t been an isolated incident. I would just always get in fights. People who feel like shit will always gravitate towards each other. It would always usually be me who would have to deal with it alone - not always, but mostly. It would usually be me against several people, hence the “lone wolf."
The second verse is a real incident, though. Some young gun drug dealers were trying to fuck me over and it ended up with me robbing them blind. Imagine Butch in the toilet scene of the movie Bullet. Fortunately, I don’t have a death wish anymore — not as severe anyway.
You take some pretty cool vocal risks on this album like on the chorus of “Numb the Pain." What makes you want to take chances like that when most bands would shy away?
Good question. I just don’t think I would be able to write a full album with just hardcore scorchers all the way though, so I have to mix it up and make it a bit more interesting.
Your first record came out in 2009, how much of the original band is still intact? How has the spirit changed in the 15 years since that first record?
Jesper, our drummer, me and Mathaias, the guitarist, have been with the band from the start. We had Andreas, our old bassist who wanted to pursue a career as a pinball wizard so he got his brother Kasper to fill in for him instead.
We have maybe just gotten more mean spirited and disillusioned than we were before. I think it comes natural with age.
What are your goals with Night Fever?
Total world domination and in the end the creation of a totalitarian state where we rule with an iron fist.
Final words?
We got a new record out now called Dead End on Svart Records. Buy it now from Svart Records or directly from the band!
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Tagged: night fever
