The Night Flight Orchestra discuss the joys of a big gay chorus, on the new HBFM

The Night Flight Orchestra discuss the joys of a big gay chorus, on the new HBFM

- By Tom Dare

David Andersson of The Night Flight Orchestra (and also Soilwork) talks to the LGBT+ metal podcast about playing camp music and making LGBT-supporting music videos. The queer relevance of Vallenfyre's 'Desecration' gets discussed. Plus the HCGB jukebox gets additions from White Ward and Trna.

The Night Flight Orchestra (who are very camp) did a video earlier this year which was clearly pro-LGBT+. Which meant Hell Bent For Metal (given that camp is basically where they live) had to talk to them. So this week, NFO's David Andersson (also of Soilwork) speaks to Matt about why it was so important for them to show their support for the LGBT+ community.

Naturally, the conversation moves from there onto how they came to embrace the camp with NFO, and the joy of a big gay chorus. There's also some chat about how fans react to all this, and why the nature of their two fan bases (NFO and Soilwork) seem to have given them a lot of license to do both of those things.

Back in 2011, Greg Mackintosh of Paradise Lost did the first album by his death metal side project, Vallenfyre. That debut album, 'A Fragile King', has a special place in Tom's heart thanks to his history with it, from his days working on the Terrorizer staff. Which means that, not only does he know precisely what it's about, in full grim detail, but he remembers it very clearly.

Yet despite this, the song "Desecration" from that album has taken on a very queer-specific meaning in his head. He and Matt chat about why. And Matt, who's rather newer to the band than Tom, has finds he has a totally different reason it speaks to his queer experience as well.

The resulting conversation does discusses aspects of relationships that are completely unique to the experience of gay and bi people. But it also discusses things that will be familiar to be people in many relationships, irrespective of the gender combinations of the partners. But if you're queer, they can make you read a seemingly unimportant use of a pronoun as specifically speaking to your experience.

Plus this week's additions for the Hate Crew Gaybar jukebox are 'Debemur Morti', the new EP from Ukrainian jazz/black metal (amongst lots of other genres) band White Ward, and 'Istok', the latest album by Russian shoegazy black metal band Trna.

Coincidentally, two members of Trna are the entirety of a band called Olhava, whose album 'Frozen Bloom' was put into the jukebox by Matt back in HBFM #23 in April. Tom, sadly, couldn't quite match Matt's enthusiasm for it – but surprisingly, Tom's actually the one who's repping Trna this time round.

Listen to Hell Bent For Metal on Spotify here, listen on iTunes here, or choose one of the other ways to listen here.

Back to blog
1 of 3