Longfield & Super Skeleton: ‘We do this because it gives us something – you take a little piece inside you and you put it out there’

Norwegian independent alt-rock band Longfield & Super Skeleton return with their fourth album Every Saint’s a Bigot, and Monsters Only Men, a dark, cinematic and deeply human fourth studio album shaped by existential tension, physical performances, and the uneasy contradictions of modern life.

The album follows the singles “Human Being”, “Ponderosa Pine”, “Whip and Crackle”, and “You Say Good Night, I Say Good Morning”, expanding the band’s sound into something heavier, stranger, and more emotionally charged than their earlier material. Conceived one sweltering summer night a decade ago, Longfield & Super Skeleton comprises Jarle Langåker (vocals and guitar), Dean Christiansen (bass), Ken-Tore Kallevåg (synthesizers), Christian “Sally” Sæløen (guitar) and new drummer Andreas Mikkelsen.

As a band, they are brilliantly hard to pigeonhole, mashing up rock, disco, punk, synth pop and new wave with gleeful abandon. Langåker and Christiansen are old friends and the rest of them largely met on the local scene. The ‘Longfield’ part of their name is Langåker’s surname translated into English and the ‘skeleton’ part comes from some ‘inside humour’ from their former drummer. Christiansen is Irish and joked last time we chatted that his mother met a Norwegian man ‘who kidnapped us’ and has lived in Norway ever since.

Sæløen describes the album as ‘very diverse’: ‘We tried to make it so that each song has its own vibe and its own feeling, so that you have some similarities between some songs, but mostly I think we tried to make it more dynamic than before. On this album, most of the songs are written by Jarle but when we recorded and made the songs, I noticed that we focused more on the drum sound at first,’ he said.

‘At the end of the day, the worst monsters in the world are still just human beings – nothing more, nothing less’

Lyrically, the album moves through themes of morality, ego, isolation, love, instinct, identity, consumer culture and spiritual exhaustion without ever settling into simple conclusions. Across songs like the riff-driven ‘Human Being’, the cynical garage-rock attack of ‘Modern Man’, the hypnotic, experimental Americana of ‘Vessel in the Void’, and the tragic fable-like ‘Ballad of a Bite’, the band explores a world where people continuously struggle between empathy and selfishness, instinct and reflection. The album title itself reflects that ambiguity: ‘One man’s saviour is another man’s oppressor,’ Langåker said. ‘At the end of the day, the worst monsters in the world are still just human beings – nothing more, nothing less.’

‘Ponderosa Pine’ is an opener that achieves that rare thing with its loud punk vocals, raw sound and sheer force: it hits you with the energy of a first take and you understand just how magical it must sound live. Its cinematic Wild West-like guitar line created by Sæløen, coupled with the song’s lack of a conventional verse-chorus structure, made me think of a traveller driving along a long, forest road where the story is about to begin. ‘It’s the song that Jarle had actually recorded a version of for a solo project some time ago,’ Sæløen said. ‘This was a song that he thought that we could record and do a better version of it. It was actually the last song that was recorded for the album. We rearranged and recorded the song during one weekend. There were several thousand hours, especially on Jarle’s part, spent on completing this record. This song has sections to it, moving from new part to new part and we felt that dynamic was very representative of the record and that it would make a good opener.’

For Langåker, the song has a deeply personal provenance: ‘I don’t have a perfect picture of what this song is but I feel it’s about accepting fate and transitioning through hardship and the different phases of death in all its wonderful forms,’ he said. ‘I just lost my mother, so I’ve experienced it very closely, and, you know, there’s a difference between having anxiety around what’s going to happen and reaching the point where you come to terms with things. That’s the whole point of this record and why it took so long to write the lyrics because the older songs we have, many of them are almost novelty songs. They’re fun to make and it’s not such a big deal, and nobody can really point out us trying to be pretentious or anything like that but that gets boring pretty quickly, it doesn’t really invite any new inspiration. It was important for me to feel a sort of truth in these songs, so I get a kick out of performing them.’

As the track kicks off: “The sun won’t shine through the Ponderosa Pine. Won’t shed no light on me and I’m running out of time. Come crooked knees, come rain and summer breeze. Come love and innocent life through gallons of disease.”

‘I find myself every day just scratching my head and wondering what are people doing’

However, there is nothing preachy about the way they reflect on this and Langåker says he doesn’t want to place them in any particular camp: ‘We’re standing on the side observing, and I’m an idiot, right?! I don’t have answers for anything but I find myself every day just scratching my head and wondering what are people doing. Little things that people spend years on, wasting their lives on a screen or worrying whether they fit into this group or that group and if they have the right clothes on or the right decor at home. All this meaningless stuff that is totally robbed of identity.’

Half the record was tracked live at Artilleriverkstedet in Horten with producer Fredrik Fagerli Dahle, while the remaining songs were recorded in Haugesund. The album artwork and vinyl design were created by Langåker himself. Front and back cover photography was shot by Sophie Steffens, while additional gatefold photography was captured by Langåker and Sæløen. The album was mixed by vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Langåker, with mastering by Steve Kitch.

Musically, the album pulls from alternative rock, art-rock, blues, garage rock and cinematic indie, carrying echoes of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, St. Vincent, Radiohead and Jack White while maintaining a sound distinctly its own: tense, dynamic, organic and emotionally unguarded. With Every Saint’s a Bigot, and Monsters Only Men, Longfield & Super Skeleton are not interested in offering easy answers. Instead, the album sits in uncertainty – searching for meaning somewhere between tenderness, violence, beauty, absurdity and noise.

‘Human Being’ is one of the hookiest tracks on the album with a punky, defiant energy matched only by the equally rambunctious guitars. I tell them that the first time I heard it, it was my ear worm for a week that got me humming it down the street and they seem genuinely delighted. ‘That’s wonderful!,’ Langåker said. ‘That song is maybe one of the first songs that was written for this album, wasn’t it, Christian?’ Sæløen nods: ‘Yeah, I think it was the first that was actually done and we played it that same summer, didn’t we?’ Langåker jumps back in: ‘We always have a week where we write new material every summer and Ken-Tore, who you met last time, he was going through this synth-heavy period where he was trying to figure out all his synths (laughs). He was scrolling through different sounds and, you know, never really going anywhere, so I went out of the room and wrote the whole song in about 30 minutes out of frustration (laughs). No more synths, please! The lyrics came later. This was actually in 2022, so it wasn’t long after we talked to you last time, I think. That song lingered and it was the first song we started working on when we started working on this album. It’s a rock song, in every way! A lot of our previous songs are rock songs but I think this has more bite to it. Christian really gets going in the middle of that song! That’s what’s so wonderful about Christian. Sometimes when we write solos, or we want a hooky solo, I just hum melodies and he plays them on the guitar. He can do that. I can’t do that.’

‘Just a lot of guitar, whatever you like, the notes don’t matter as long as you just do it quickly and in a way that’s overindulgent because we really don’t do too much of that but it’s really fun to do sometimes!’

I say that last time we chatted, someone in the band said that however you imagine Christian will play something, he actually does it 10 times better. ‘Yeah, that’s correct,’ Langåker said enthusiastically. ‘Christian is like a living, breathing tool for me. I don’t care about anything he feels,’ he joked. ‘We’re pretty different types of guitarists but we fill each other out. He practices, I don’t (laughs). I take chances. He doesn’t have to because he knows what he’s doing. I started playing guitar to sing and write songs.’ Sæløen interjects: ‘And you learned by yourself, didn’t you?’ I say that Sæløen’s guitar playing on ‘Human Being’ is one of my favourite thing on the record and he grins: ‘I remember that we played it live once, without anything happening in the guitar parts, except the backing guitar. At one point, Jarle said that he needs something that is “widdly widdly” in there (laughs). One evening, I just sat at home and widdled with it. I was trying to find how fast it should be going and to be flowing at the same time and it ended up being like a tapping solo.’ Langåker agrees: ‘This is actually a perfect example of what I’m talking about, because I just said: “I just want something crazy in this middle part. Just a lot of guitar, whatever you like, the notes don’t matter as long as you just do it quickly and in a way that’s overindulgent (laughs)” because we really don’t do too much of that but it’s really fun to do sometimes!’

On the single version of the track, it sounds as if they have an army of guitars on it, so I ask how many guitar lines they tracked: ‘On the single we released, I think both of our guitars are doubled, so there are four main guitars and also there’s the clean guitar, so maybe six or seven guitar tracks, which is completely unnecessary!,’ Langåker said. I say that it strikes me as very necessary and they laugh: ‘When I remixed it for the album, it sounds similar but there are fewer guitar tracks on it,’ he said. ‘The first time we did it, you just ooze on to the song so that you don’t suddenly forget something, or think: “Oh, man, we should have put that on”.’

As the song goes: “Tune in, turn on, drop out, third rock from the sun. Looking for love in the pitch black soil but you won’t find none.”

Unlike much contemporary rock production, Every Saint’s a Bigot, and Monsters Only Men avoids artificial polish. No MIDI drums were used, and there is no auto-tune or pitch correction anywhere on the record. Most of the songs were recorded live in large rooms, with room microphones intentionally left prominent in the mixes to preserve the sense of physical space and human interaction.’It was important to me that the performances actually happened in real life,’ said Langåker. ‘That they came from human hands, hearts and brains. I didn’t want perfection. I wanted presence.’ I say that, as a listener, this gives you a much greater insight into what the tracks would sound like live and they agree: ‘It’s a break from what we’ve done earlier,’ Langåker agrees. ‘We nearly always track the drums first and then we sit in comfort and do the other parts, and scratch our non-existent beards (laughs) but this time, me and Christian, or Sally, are the main components in this whole record. It’s been me and him that do the Cinderella to the other bandmates, so it was important for us to make it sound like we’re in a room and we’re playing together. And the answer to do that is to be in a room and play together. Sometimes, we’ve dubbed extra guitar tracks over if we needed something a little extra but most of the record is one guitar here and one guitar there and an extra solo there or something. It doesn’t make it less punchy, actually, I think it makes the record breathe more. It makes it a bit larger sounding because each guitar gets more space, they all have more room.’

Musically, they bring a lot of different influences into the mix, although they all share a common love of older country music by Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams – as well as a shared love of tracksuits, Nick Cave and Queens of the Stone Age.

‘One of the fun things about that song is that the drums go straight the whole song through and that’s not an easy thing to do – just ask our new drummer!’

One of the standout tracks on the album for me is ‘Modern Man’, a defiantly anthemic track that takes a hard look at toxic masculinity. Its feverish tempo, and howling guitars, combined with Langåker’s impassioned vocals, would make it a brilliant choice for an action film: ‘It’s also one of my favourites on this album,’ Langåker said. ‘One of the fun things about that song is that the drums go straight the whole song through and that’s not an easy thing to do – just ask our new drummer! It’s a kick snare, kick snare, and also the bass is all down strokes like Dee Dee Ramone (bass player for The Ramones). That does something to the whole song. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll song to the max! We talked earlier about things aren’t that funny but that song is kind of funny. Lyrically, it’s cynical, but also there’s some truth in there. And I don’t know how it is where you’re sitting, but men are everywhere now and they’ve always been everywhere but the last few years, they got their feelings hurt. So now they’re really mad. You can’t get rid of them, so let’s make some fun of them instead.’ Was it inspired by any particular men? ‘Did you see the new Louis Theroux documentary, ‘Inside the Manosphere’?’ I say that I did. ‘It was inspired by those Joe Rogan fanatics and their shock value (The documentary, which came out in March, explores a rising ultra-masculine, mysognyistic network and its polarising influencers.) Alice Cooper shocked his fans 40 years ago but his intentions were rooted in something completely different than just “put yourself first, win, and other people’s emotions don’t have any value to you”. It’s horrible, actually, to watch young people accepting this as truth.’

As the track wryly observes: “He’s got on all the right shit and white veneers. Pocket full of pills and a great career. Heart full of nails and a brand new face. Everything you lack in the human race.”

‘Vessel In The Void’ is a beautiful closer, it feels like the sister song to ‘Ponderosa Pine’. I tell them that the lead character in the song gives me a lone cowboy feel and that everything they’ve said about the album sitting in uncertainty – searching for meaning somewhere between tenderness, violence, beauty, absurdity and noise – is best summed up by this song for me as it feels that whatever his fate is – or indeed whatever our own fate is – it’s going to be wrapped up in all of those things: ‘They’re nice bookends for the album,’ Langåker agreed. ‘That one is way out there, it’s a religious fever dream (laughs). I wrote the lyrics about a year ago. I was reading The Bible at the time – it’s my summer book!,’ he quipped. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by religious writing, I’m a Jesus fanatic! I’m not a Christian but I’m drawn to the stories and symbolism. Jesus, he was a wild dude (laughs). It’s esoteric. I like things that give me an uneasy feeling and that can be interpreted in infinite ways. I have all these associations that I don’t think anyone else will hear when they listen to this song but that’s a goal for me. I’ll always be happy with this song, in 10 years, it will still feel timeless for me. The song, for me, starts with everyday life then transcends to blinding light, elements of Jesus and where are we going, what becomes of all of us in the end? This song sums up the album for me. The person has listened to the nine songs, then he gets to this tenth song and his own journey begins.’

The song talks of a “million dead civilians”, which Langåker describes as being about ‘people herded like sheep’: ‘People consume and buy things and have aggressive arguments online,’ he said. ‘It seems to me that often the cause isn’t so important, it’s more of an outlet. Social media is really a negative force on people.’

‘Me and Christian are talking about setting up all kinds of different things in the studio, so everything is within reach, and then just jumping from one thing to the next, and switching instruments, and feeding off spontaneity’

Next up, could be an entirely different album where they take a new kind of leap: ‘Me and Christian are talking about setting up all kinds of different things in the studio, so everything is within reach, and then just jumping from one thing to the next, and switching instruments, and feeding off spontaneity,’ Langåker said enthusiastically. ‘If you listen closely to ‘Vessel In The Void’, it starts with an ambient sound and if you listen closely right at the beginning of the song, you can hear Christian plucking his strings, and then he uses a volume pedal with his feet to glide in the sound. The whole backdrop of the song was recorded in one take without the actual song. It was recorded in an old chapel, actually, where we also recorded ‘Modern Man’, ‘Human Being’ and ‘Ponderosa’. About half the record was recorded there. And that was recorded about three in the morning,’ Langåker said laughing. ‘I’m pretty sure I have it on video – I have to find out where that is!’

I say that it seems fitting that an album featuring a religious fever dream was partially recorded in a chapel and Langåker agrees: ‘I don’t know what my fascination with the whole thing is,’ he said. ‘I”ve always been drawn towards it. It’s always given me an uneasy feeling but also a bit of comfort. The stories are symbolic and they’re there for a reason. I like reading and I like to reflect on things that I read. It’s the same with music when I find new music for myself. I don’t really listen to the music, I listen to the delivery of the vocals and the lyrics. They don’t have to be deep but I have to feel that somebody means it. You have to connect with it. I think when albums are very dramatic and cinematic, you know that something’s going on, that the lyrics are not going to be lighthearted and throw away, that there’s going to be something in there. Therefore, you want to listen to them so you can figure out what that thing is. I feel that way pretty strongly, actually. But also, they can just have the ability to drag you into whatever their reality is or whatever their humour is. The Ramones had songs where they just sang about “I don’t want to go down to the basement” (laughs) but I believe those guys because they were nuts!’

If he could go out drinking with any musicain for the night, Langåker is quick to pick Nick Cave collaborator Warren Ellis: ‘He’s been in The Bad Seeds since the mid-90’s, I believe. He’s the wild man with the long hair and the violin (laughs). He’s a really fascinating character and his musical ability is incredible. He feels music the way I feel music. I saw a documentary about Warren Ellis where during the pandemic, he started to fund a wildlife shelter where they rescued different animals from poachers. He finally travels down to meet these people and at some point in the documentary, he plays the violin and he starts to cry because he feels so emotional expressing what’s inside of him. He’s not moved by himself or saying ‘Oh God, I’m so great”. I want to be able to some time be able to do that because that’s why I’m doing this now. If we wanted to be rock stars, we wouldn’t make six minute long songs from in a church with Sally making atmospheric soundscapes (laughs). We do this because it gives us something – you take a little piece inside you and you put it out there. So that’s why I would definitely pick him.’

Endearingly, Sæløen picks Langåker ‘because if you get him to drink, I think that’s quite rare’: ‘That would be quite fun, getting Jarle to drink,’ he said mischievously. ‘Getting him to “drink, drink”, I mean, not just have a glass of wine!’ Langåker is laughing: ‘I’m not a big drinker, it’s true, although I do have a drink. I’m already a moron, I don’t have to be any more stupid (laughs). I’m not against it at all. After a concert, I’m really exhausted, I don’t have the energy to go out and have a lot of beers and talk to everybody. The best case scenario after everything is packed up is just to sit down with and just talk about what we want to do next. Sally is my best friend and and we really enjoy each other’s company, we have our own little bubble. Many of the ideas that are worth mentioning come from me and him just sitting around talking after a concert where we sort out the rest of the world. Or when you’re laughing so hard that you can’t breathe, what do you call that? When you lose your breath and you’re cramping up. We had that this weekend because we were staying, in of all places, at an alpaca farm. We both love animals, although I eat them and Sally doesn’t,’ he quipped. ‘It was his job to check if we had bedsheets and towels, which we didn’t. My pillowcase was my denim jacket and I was sleeping fully clothed because I don’t want any bed bugs (laughs). We were sharing a room and that’s the greatest thing about us two, that we have these moments where we still laugh our asses off. And that was when I said, other people our age, they have nice vacations with their wives and children and they sleep in nice hotel rooms. Here we are at an alpaca farm and no bedsheets, no towels! I had to dry myself off with a used t-shirt but you know, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. If we wasted it on being out, being pissed and talking to people that we don’t know, we would just feel awful in the morning. People often measure success by money and people envying you. For us, success is having moments that you enjoy, whatever they are. If you’re lucky enough to find moments that don’t cost any money – which this certainly didn’t (laughs) – they’re the best, I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Most people don’t get in a car with four other men in their mid-thirties and get to travel all over the country and sometimes to other countries, to meet people and play shows and just experience other things. It’s the greatest thing ever.’

(Cover photo for the album is by Sophie Steffens, press photo and live photos by Loise Dahl Scharling).