NUTTY NORDIC KNIGHTS

NUTTY NORDIC KNIGHTS

Harold DeMuir

“I hate to sound over-confident,” says Tony Harnell, American vocalist with the otherwise-Norwegian quartet TNT, “but I really think that this band is going to be big. The general consensus of the band is that someday we’d like to be known as the biggest band in the world, or at least the biggest band doing this type of music. We want to be at the level where we can write our own ticket and have faithful fans. We want to be a supergroup.” Well, really, who wouldn’t?

TNT’s U.S. debut, Knights Of The New Thunder, is actually their third LP overall. Despite their status as Norway’s biggest hard-rock act, the band (which also includes guitarist Ronni Le Tekro, bassist Morty Black and drummer Diesel Dahl—cool names, huh?) have had a difficult time breaking out of their homeland’s minuscule rock scene. The addition of Harnell handily bridges the gap between this bunch of foreigners and the lucrative U.S. market.

The 22-year-old San Diegan ex-surfer, whose mom is an opera singer, moved to New York at age 17 to attend college, but ended up singing in a succession of local bands (15 in three years, by his count). When TNT needed a new singer, they got hold of a tape that Harnell had given to a manager, in hopes of landing a spot in the Michael Schenker Group. Harnell accepted the band’s invitation, mostly out of curiosity. But when he heard TNT’s eclectic style, he decided to get involved. “When their manager played the tape for me, it was exactly the music that I’d been hearing in my head for two years.

“I was actually looking for a European band. American bands are usually influenced by American rock, but European groups are usually influenced by a wider range of stuff—classical music as well as early rock ’n’ roll. I think it’s a hell of a lot more interesting when you take those influences and combine them with something new, rather than just rehashing American rock.”

By the time Harnell joined TNT, the band had already laid down the instrumental tracks for Knights. Much of the album had been written by original vocalist Dag Ingebrigtsen, whose raunchier style was a far cry from Harnell’s smooth delivery. Harnell came in and rewrote some of the lyrics for easier Stateside consumption. He explains, “Because of the way the album was done, a lot of the songs are in keys that aren’t quite right for me. So this album only shows one side of the band. There are a lot of other sides that will pop up later, and other sides that will develop as we continue working together.”

He continues: “It’s virtually impossible to do something really different in a hard-rock context, but I honestly feel that we’ve captured some element that no one else has done before. What’s unique about us is the mix. Rikki is very classically influenced, the bass player’s influenced by jazz and stuff, the drummer’s a pretty straightforward rock drummer and I’m an American singer. I think that this is a band that’s gonna grow musically for a long, long time.”

Although Harnell expects TNT to benefit from his American orientation, the band’s former manager actually considered trying to pass him off as a Norwegian to maintain the band’s exotic neo-Viking image (in fact, the singer is credited as the moreNordic “Tony Hanson” on European pressings of the LP).

But, Harnell opines, metal music is no place for reality. “When I listen to music, I don’t want to be told that there’s terrorists in Lebanon and shit like that, because I already know that. I’d rather listen to some fantasy or adventure, and that's what this album is. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. It’s an escape, like Raiders Of The Lost Ark. ”