INTERVIEW: Jørn Viggo Lofstad from Northward

Northward is the reactivated modern rock outfit that features the talents of Pagans Mind guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad, and Nightwish vocalist, Floor Jansen.

The self-titled debut album was originally tooled in 2008. Scheduling conflicts shelved the project, however the material beckoned for Lofstad and Jansen to revisit. In 2018, the album is finally available to the public.

Lofstad joined the writer for a conversation on the same night the Sydney Roosters saw off the Melbourne Storm in Australia’s National Rugby League Grand Final.

“Yeah, that’s fine. Haha… I heard some rumours”

Lofstad laughs at the writer’s proclamation that a few amber ales have been consumed while watching the big game. Down to business, the affable Loftsad is keen to discuss the merits of the ‘new’ album.

“It is definitely more accessible than Pagan’s Mind or Nightwish material. This is material that you need to let grow on you. There are a lot of nice musical arrangements and elements in the music that you can’t just (get) by listening to it once. I think that music that is not like that, you listen to it… and you just leave it alone.”

That was Lofstad’s response to a statement that the Northward album requires more than a cursory listen. This alludes to the depth of the song writing that he and Jansen mined. Northward has vastly different characteristics to Weezer’s epic, genre creating album from 1996, Pinkerton, however the pair share qualities that endear the music to a listener; soaring choruses, meaningful lead breaks and refined arrangements.

Music this essential needs to be heard, so why the long hiatus between recording and actual release?

“The songs were written in 2008, with the plan of releasing it at the beginning of 2009. The project was put on hold because After Forever stopped (Jansen’s other band), because she (Jansen) then wanted to release music that was similar to After Forever. Then we just, okay, let’s just put this on hold… and (then) she formed ReVamp, then she joined Nightwish… she gets very busy! The years past, we never knew that it was going to be 10 years but we kind of always knew that at some time we would pick this up again.

It just felt good listening to all this stuff and we just basically decided to continue right where we left off. I just continued in 2017 where I left off and we did the bass and she did the vocals. (There) was only one song, the last song on the album that got completely new lyrics. But otherwise the songs are like 99.9% the same.”

Given the album was created during a rare vein of form for radio played hard rock outfits, the sounds of Daughtry, Alter Bridge and Evanescence are noticeable.

“It was funny that you mentionedAlter Bridge because back in the day that was kind of one of the bands that we can have that myself and Floor had in common. I remember listening a bit to Alter Bridge at that time. (Jansen) was a big fan of Alter Bridge and she asked Myles Kennedy to do a duet on “Drifting Islands”, he said yes, he wanted to do it. He really loved the song, so he was supposed to do this!”

Northward is out on October 19th via Nuclear Blast. Pre-order the album via iTunes here.