Exclusive Interview with THE NORTHERN LIGHT

The Northern Light is a Seattle-based indie/alternative rock band. They compose songs with themes of desolation and salvation. The band has been described as sounding like Neil Young fronting RUSH. The tunes come from a singer-songwriter perspective that has been adapted to the freewheeling and sometimes heavier sounds that a three-piece band can provide. The Northern Light is characterized by introspective lyrics and outstanding musical skills. David Pollon on guitar and vocals, Kip Rondorf on drums, and Carl Larsson on bass make up the band. Check out their latest single As Stars Burn and the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT:

The Northern Light (TNL for short) are an indie/alternative rock band from Seattle, WA, USA. Actually, we’re from a small town near Seattle called Woodinville, but it’s easier to just say Seattle!

We are a 3 piece band with David Pollon (songwriting, guitar, vocals), Kip Rondorf (drums) and Carl Larsson (bass).

The band started out after I wrote a bunch of songs that became a solo acoustic EP in 2016, engineered by Jeremy Serwer at Etruria Studio. I played a lot of open mics and songwriter showcases around Seattle, developing the songs. I recruited Kip on drums and Arnaud Hugonie (our original bassist) to build a bigger, electric sound for the music and we released their first full length TNL record in 2019. Arnaud moved with his family to France and so we found Carl Larsson and have remained creative and active. The pandemic shut down music in Seattle eliminated shows for over a year but as a band we’ve continued to write and evolve. At this point, we’re releasing a series of singles that will culminate in our 2^nd full record in the summer of 2023.

We’re a band that is at the point of trying to break out of the bubble of its home town. We are starting to organize our first shows outside of the Seattle area and we plan to go on the road first the first time for a short tour of Western US states in the summer of 2023.

2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT: David is classically trained on piano, although ironically TNL doesn’t include any keys in its current arrangements. For our primary performance instruments, we’re all just self-taught over a lifetime of playing music and seeking out skilled people to share music with.

3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘THE NORTHERN LIGHT’?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT: I’m an expat Canadian, born in Northern Ontario and growing up in the Toronto area. I moved to the Seattle area in the early 90s. I was heavily influenced from the 70s to the 90s by a variety of artists such as Neil Young, RUSH, The Tragically Hip, early Genesis, UFO, The Catherine Wheel etc.

The name “The Northern Light” is a great way to describe our muse. There’s a lot of melancholy, despair and regret in our songs. We’ve always thought of our songs as being based on themes of “despair and redemption”, although we’ve struggled to find the redemption part so far.

Really, there is no “light” from the “North”. It’s a cold glow that creeps around the corners, just an ember in the haze with no warmth. It’s a sense that we try to create in our album art…a feeling of the surreal with hope just lying outside our fingertips.

4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT: We care deeply about our words. I think the band has a very singer-songwriter approach and over each release I work harder to become a better story teller. From the side of the music, I love to give the instruments a lot of space to move so you’ll hear influences of RUSH there with very active and prominent bass. In the past, I played in bands that featured a ton of guitar and over the years, I’m trying to do less improvisation versus tighter highly composed solos that serve the song’s message.

5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as ROCK?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT:

As an older musician, on the wrong side of 50, I’ve played in a lot of bands mostly covering other peoples’ music. I think that was helpful in building a level of technical skill but life is short and I had musical truths that I wanted to speak that couldn’t be achieved by living in the past as a musical jukebox.

Our songs both the music, words, arrangements evolve like living beings. From their very first recordings on an acoustic EP 7 years ago, I am stunned by how different we play the songs. Not just by the interpretation by new ears and talent in the band but by life experience. Our last two singles feel like we are just starting to get to the sound for TNL that I’ve always heard in my head.

6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT:

Our 2022 single Waiting For the Flood was the first song where I incorporated any thoughts on social justice or politics based on the obvious tension in the USA since before 2016. Most of my early songs were based on personal experience and I don’t really want to write any more breakup or relationship songs haha! I’d like to grow beyond that and evolve my storytelling. That said, the three guys in the band (Kip, Carl and David) have a beautiful technical musical chemistry and I sometimes think people like to come to our shows to hear us play our instruments more than anything that might be in our words.

7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT:

The amount of work required to push an indie band forward is huge and expensive. All of the effort that would be delivered by a management team or a label in terms of marketing, distribution, booking shows are done by the band…that takes away so much time that should really be spent on writing new songs and connecting with people. We all have day jobs too…because life is expensive.

For me, music is who I am. I have no choice but to create and publish, it’s life to me. I would do it even if no one listened. In terms of expectations for the future, we’re a nostalgic sounding band. No one could describe us as cutting edge. But we have found an audience for our music and are presenting ourselves as professionally as we possibly can.

8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT:

Up to now TNL’s creative process has been David writing the first versions of songs on acoustic guitar or ukulele. A first version will usually include a riff of some sort, a verse, a pre-chorus and a chorus in a very early form. I’ll chart it out and send it to the band, sometimes in a phone voice-memo. Most songs take three months or so to fully gel to the point we include them in a set list. Very few songs write themselves quickly although our 2020 single Scars pretty much wrote itself in one sitting. Our 2022 single Waiting For the Flood was a re-working and re-imagining of an acoustic song from my open-mic days and came out completely different and far more powerful.

9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT: Everyone in the band feels that they’ve had good lives so far, almost charmed lives…we’re comfortable, we have families and we live in part of the USA where you can see mountains and touch the ocean…and where there is still a bit of a social veneer of reserve and politeness to keep the divisions of US politics from boiling over. But we’ve all had family members deal with serious health issues ranging from cancer to dementia and that weighs on us.

From a music industry perspective, we’re not a very cool band, we don’t have any hype, we’re sort of lumped in with the sound of 90s grunge and it can be a barrier to reaching a larger audience. In the Seattle area, the COVID pandemic annihilated so many of our favorite venues and seems to have washed out a generation of musicians who have, for now, left their talent behind to focus on family, careers and just trying to make a living elsewhere.

10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT: We’re all Dads in this band. Successfully launch our kids on their lives far outweighs anything we can do musically. But I think we’re all proud that we managed to survive the pandemic with our health intact, new music written and recorded and in the final stages of getting our next record launched. Ask me again in six months! 😊

11. With social media having a heavy impact on our lives and the music business in general, how do you handle criticism, haters, and/or naysayers in general? Is it something you pay attention to, or simply ignore?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT: We haven’t really had haters to deal with. We’re a small band. I think the biggest thing for new indie bands is simply the sense of “no one is listening”. Friends and family can help to a point but most bands struggle with indifference and breaking out to a larger audience that takes your music to heart.

Seattle is a relatively supportive environment with bands helping each other out. But I you look on the friends and followers lists of the FB and IG for small smaller bands, you’ll find mostly other bands. On our social media channels we just try to be positive and excited about what we are producing.

The USA is indifferent to rock music. We’ve been finding a much more enthusiastic audience in Europe. We have more listeners in Switzerland and Finland than we do in the USA.

The biggest criticism the band has had is that it should get a real singer. The fact is, that the person who writes the words and tells the story gets to sing the song. So we try to ignore it…or point out that the same things were said to Neil Young.

12. Creative work in a studio or home environment, or interaction with a live audience? Which of these two options excites you most, and why?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT: We love and live to play live. I don’t experience stage fright really, I just find that I am super happy and excited to play for new people, just grateful for any opportunity to make music and share it.

13. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?

THE NORTHERN LIGHT: This is an awesome question. I have been trying really hard to write words that are maybe more opaque, perhaps more open to interpretation. I’ve been told that my songs can be very literal and I’m trying to grow as a storyteller and to incorporate more imagery and senses in the songs. That said, I’m wired in a way to include more words in a song than might be sensible.

I also think that folks of different age groups will definitely interpret songs in different ways.

And also, the longer the songs exist their meanings can even change dramatically to me as the writer. We have a song that we love called Pyre, it’s an old song of mine that pre-dates the band but we arranged it on our record. It started out as a breakup song but now represents to me a battle for mental health and an ultimate resting in piece for someone who was deeply loved.