THE GOSPEL (ACCORDING TO REVENANT NORSE).

I was always a sucker for cool intros when listening to albums back in the eighties. And when I started work on this album I wanted to have that.

I got a song called "Dipstick Joe" placed in a movie called "Happy Hunting" a few years back. One of the actors in that movie was US actor/author, GARY STURM, and we became friends on Facebook after that movie. Gary does a lot of different stuff, also voice-overs. I checked his voice-over section on his website www.garysturm.com and his low frequency voice was so cool!

To make an intro like this, for an international release album, you need to have the real thing. It would not have worked at all with a Norwegian accent. In fact, it would only have sounded fake and silly. I was at work when those lines appeared. I wrote them down and sent them to Gary asking if he could record them. He did so, and I could not be more satisfied with the result! My producer, Hallgeir Rustan, then put Gary`s voice together with the effects I had in mind at Stargate Studios in Trondheim Norway. I am truly delighted with this intro! And..thanks to the voice of Gary Sturm:

If "Revenant Norse" doesn`t sound like one you should listen to, I don`t know who does! LOL

The intro takes the listener straight from church and into "Here Comes Rock And Roll"...

1) HERE COMES ROCK AND ROLL.

If you want to make a cool album, you have to have a cool opening song!

Before the streaming days took over, it was crucial! These days many artists and bands release their albums only digitally and then people download whatever song- and in the order they want to anyway, so it`s not that important as it was, but I wanted to make a physical edition as well and so I had to come up with a cool opener for the CD edition and later on vinyl. I had one song already at the time called "Loud & Proud". I was planning to use that for an opener until one evening I got the HERE COMES ROCK AND ROLL idea in my head. The title, the groove, the lyrics..."Here I am, I`m back again. Gonna plug it in, turn it up to ten". It was perfect! I was very happy with it! MAGNE VIKRA, from Åkrahamn in Norway put down some blistering lead vocals on it and it also has background vocals by JOSTEIN ALMÅSBRO and Norwegian rock queen, BENTE SMAAVIK!

It was the first single to launch THE NORSEMAN COMPANY and it did very well in doing so. It will also be the natural live show opener!

2) MASTER OF THE DARK.

This is one of the last songs I wrote for the album. I kinda had all I wanted but I remember I was looking for a heavy Dio-like song. And then this one turned up in the middle of the night! I had to get on my feet of course and write it down. So there I was, at 3 O`clock in the morning, with my guitar writing down the chords. I had n lyrics at the moment, but in a writing break I was watching the news and this was around the time the Syrian war went on at it`s most explosive. I am not a big fan of politics in rock. I think rock should be about having a good time and not about telling people what to do, say, or think. But this time I could not help it when I saw this ISIS-idiot on the news claiming we "lived in the dark", we were "sons of witches" and so on. So I wrote these lyrics as an answer to that guy`s blablabla...! He will probably never hear the song so it probably won`t do much good but the lyrics fit the music perfectly and I actually don`t think the song would have worked out quiet so well without a set of lyrics like these. This song also has, what I think, the best guitar solo from JARL IVAR ANDRESEN n the album! eaching the end of recording the album, we missed a singer for this song, but at the same time Norwegian rock star Åge Sten Nilsen (Wig Wm/Ammunition) was in Stargate Studios recording some solo songs. Having a break producer Hallgeir Rustan played this song to Åge and he loved it and said he would be happy to sing on it. I remember Hallgeir calling me one day and the conversation went something like this...:

"I have Åge Sten Nilsen in the studio. He like Master Of The Dark a lot and want to sing it. Is that..."

"Yes! Do it!" LOL

Åge laid down all vocals, lead- and backgrounds on it and it turned out great! It didn`t hurt my project to have Åge onboard either so I was very happy with that of course! I was lucky!

3) WHEN THE HAMMER FALLS.

This song is a downright tribute to- and a reflection of me being a huge Kiss fan. I love the groove on "Detroit Rock City" and wanted some of that in it. I wrote this song while running my previous band Humbucker, and it was intended for our third album, but when that didn`t happen, I was determined to record the song for my THE NORSEMAN COMPANY album!

Jostein Almåsbro, a sought after studio- and live singer from Trondheim did the lead- and background vocals and I am super happy with it. You can also check out Jostein with his band "Hollywood Scandal".

The lyrics for this is a bit similar to "Maser Of The Dark". I was watching the news about the Syrian war again one day and this 4 years old, charming kid, was looking for is family. The bombs had wiped out the entire block and here he was, keeping the faith, looking for his mum and dad. At that time I thought someone could maybe push the red button to end that war so it really got to me.

Luckily nobody did and I have often wondered what happened to that 4 yrs old boy...

4) SINCE YOU`VE BEEN GONE.

Every classic rock album need a ballad! I was trying hard to write one and I came up with a couple that might have worked. But then I remembered this song. I wrote that for a female artist a few years back but there were too many people involved in that project after a while so I backed out.

I remember when I wrote it, I felt that I had written a real song.

I rewrote it a little bit and then I knew we had the ballad for the album.

At the time when we recorded the music for this one I had an advertisement on Facebook saying I was looking for a singer for one of the rock songs. I got eight or nine replies and one of them was from singer/songwriter RUDI REMME from Lier, Norway. He sent me a song showing his voice and I could not believe what I heard! Like after ten second I said to myself. "Man! This guy has to sing the ballad!"

Luckily Rudi said yes to that and we flew him up to Stargate Studios in Trondheim and we recorded his vocals the vocals for this one and "Stone In My Shoe" during a couple of days. His voice is absolutely perfect for this song and it has also turned into a hit for my project with a lot of airplay and it is now been downloaded more than 300.000 times and counting on Spotify alone! I wanted a guitar solo that would keep singing the song after the singer stopped and I could not think of a better man to do that than Jo Henning Kåsin. And he totally nailed it!

He used to run the band "Come Taste The Band" and is now running his own band KAASIN. Check them out online and live! When it comes to classic rock, it doesn`t get much more classic than what those guys are doing! 

5) STONE IN MY SHOE.

This is a really cool rock song. I love this one! The groove, the tempo... another song ment for Humbucker. We actually came as long as rehearsing this one with that band but I don`t think nobody else but me really liked it, so we never got the swing of it. I refused to give it up though, convinced it would be cool, and Hallgeir really got this song going with his arrangements. Rudi Remme sang it and his voice wasperfect for this song as well as the before mentioned ballad. It has this fat Hammond B3 sound on it that Hallgeir layed down and I got Tor Erik Myhre (Ex JORN) to record the guitar solo for it. I have wanted to do something with Tor Erik for years, he`s just a great person and guitarist, and finally we could make it happen. We recorded the solo at JUKE JOINT STUDIOS in Notodden, Norway and it came out great! I could not be more happy! This is one of the songs I look most forward to playing live! Can`t wait!

6) DIRTY NELLY.

This was actually the first song we recorded for this album! Again a song I wrote while in Humbucker and it was recorded on the album "King Of The World".

I was never quiet happy with it though because I wanted it more groovy, tighter and blues based, with less distortion on the guitars. I had one guy only in mind when wanting to re-record the guitars for this: Norwegian blues-rock hero Peer Taraldsen (Peer Gynt). I did not contact anyone else for this one and luckily Peer said yes right away too! I was thrilled when going to Stargate Studios for the recording of this one and Peer did not disappoint of course! He recorded a super tight rhythm guitar groove and an awesome guitar solo and he was the nicest guy to work with as well! That was one of the album`s highlights for me! Danish power house singer MARTIN STEENE has the vocals on it. Martin was singing in Humbucker the last year I was there so he already knew the song. He did a great job! Martin is the voice of Danish metal bands EVIL and IRON FIRE but he can sing anything and he was perfect in Humbucker and was perfect for this song too!

I also wanted some classic Jon Lord-ish Whitesnake-like rock piano playing on it and I got my friend Olav Ajer to do it. He lives only about 20 min from where I live and I know him well. We recorded it at NFL Studios in Notodden, Norway. Olav also delivered a cool piano solo on this one! A classic rock song with both a guitar- and a piano solo...it doesn`t get much better than that! Hallgeir re-arranged the background vocals a bit too and suddenly the song was as intended!

7) GIMME SOME ROCK AND ROLL.

This is just a plain, real party rocker. A straight forward rock and roll songs and I do like these kind of tunes. I wrote this one thinking about future live shows. That`s why there is all these choruses! I think the audience would sing along very quickly on this one. That was the whole point with it, to have that kind of song on the album. The lyrics are very eighties, about partying and having fun, and I don`t think there are anything revolutionary about them at all! LOL

I asked my mikser, Beau Hill, if he could give this one a more live-arena-sound than the rest and he sure did!

Ex Dio guitar player, Rowan Robertson, has the guitar solo on this one. I really wanted him on the album so I friend requested him on Facebook, he accepted the request, and then I simply asked him if he would be interested in laying down a guitar solo on my album. He heard the song and said yes right away and was a very nice person to work with indeed! I am honored to have him on my album!

8) DON`T WANNA LOSE YOU.

I wrote this one to my girlfriend. I think we all have at least one person that we will never forget and this is my version of that. This song is based on a true story. It`s one of the more commercial songs on the album but to start with, it was even way more poppy than this! In fact we recorded it with my previous band Humbucker and we entered the Eurovision Song Contest with it but never heard back... I asked my producer Hallgeir Rustan to "rock it up" for this album and he re-arranged the entire song to fit the album more. Danish singer Martin Steene allready knew the song from singing it on the "Eurovision version" while we were in Humbucker together and he gave it the right sounding vocals. Martin is probably the most metal guy on the album, and with this one and Dirty Nelly, he is singing the least metal songs on the album! That says a lot about Martin as a musician! An awesome guy on and off stage!

9) IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD.

I am a huge Stage Dolls fan. That`s probably my favorite Norwegian band. One`s work is always colored by one`s inspirations and heroes and I think this one is colored by me being a huge Stage Dolls fan, with no more comparison whatsoever. It`s just that kind of song. I live in a small community and the lyrics is about that. Having dreams even tough you`re not in the centre of the world!

Magne Vikra is singing on this one and I think he did a fantastic job! His voice is perfect for it and Jarl Ivar Andresen also does some amazing and beautiful guitar work on it. 

10) LOUD & PROUD.

This is the first new song I wrote for this project. I wrote it in 2016 and it is all about handling things yourself. If you can`t get any hekt, get out of the mess, and work hard! For the two Humbucker albums I wrote songs with the same groove and I wanted to continue that. In fact, this was supposed to be the opening song! Full speed ahead right away! And it was the opening song in my mind for a long time. In fact, if Here Comes Rock And Roll had not shown up, it would have been that way. Jarl Ivar Andresen play all guitars and did a great guitar solo on it and it is the second song on the album that Åge Sten Nilsen (Wig Wam/Ammunition) is singing. I am super satisfied with it and It`s also a historic event this one: It is the first and only song ever by me, featuring double bass drums! LOL!   

BONUS TRACK:

1) ONE STEP BEHIND.

When I had written eight songs for the album, my producer Hallgeir Rustan, sent me two songs without lyrics that he had written. He said that if I wanted to, I could just write lyrics for them and use them o the album. At that time I was already playing with the thought of writing a whole album myself. I mean, it desn`t matter if you play guitar, drums or whatever...if you write songs you write songs. So it`s not a big thing but I thought that a whole album written by a drummer would be a cool thing. So when Hallgeir sent me these two songs they kind of messed up that thought. The first song was good too but not exactly what I thought would fit the album so I could not do much with that one, but this one inspired me to write the lyrics right away! I thought the song was super cool and I don`t think the lyrics took much longer to write than the actual song really is! I absolutely loved it! So I knew right away that we had to record it, but what to do...? It would mess up my plan of having an entire classic rock album written by a drummer for the first time! AHA...but of course! A bonus track! Then I would still have written ten songs to fill a whole album! Jostein Almåsbro sang it and I am not sure I have ever heard him sing better than on this one... When I heard it I was like WOW, that`s insane! I am very happy with it!



All songs written by Geir Arne Dale, exept bonus track, One Step Behind (Written by Hallgeir Rustan - music / Geir Arne Dale - Lyrics).

All songs recorded, engineered, and produced at Stargate Studios in Trondheim, Norway by Hallgeir Rustan.

Drums recorded at Juke Joint Studios in Notodden, Norway by Njål Frode Lie.

All songs mixed and mastered in the US by Beau Hill.

The Coming Of The Chord released world wide on Perris Records.

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There you have it! The story behind the album and the songs. Thank you for taking time to read about it and thank you for your support! It is highly appreciated for sure!

Cheers from Norway everyone!

-Geir Arne Dale, December 27th 2022.