Saturday morning, and Håkon received this message from Kathrine.

“Are you awake? I’m in the city center, wanna meet me for a coffee?”

Of course, Håkon always answers the call when there’s coffee involved. And he brought his guitar, as you do when you’re supposed to meet Kathrine, always bring your guitar. In this case the lovely Yamaha FG 820 acoustic, pre red wine marks and dings.

After a nice coffee at Cafe Opera in the middle of Bergen we decided that we needed to find somewhere we could play the guitar and do some work on the latest riff Håkon had come up with.

Naturally, we went down to the harbour were we spotted a bench with our name on it.

“So the riff goes like this..dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-da-dum-da-da” Håkon started playing the riff on his acoustic.

“I’ve played this riff with an octave pedal and a lot of fuzz, sounds killer. That’s the sound I want for this”

After some back and forth exchanging ideas and going through some of the lyrics we already had before, Håkon suddenly comes up with this line.

Try singing this just after the riff ends “See the girl in a white dress looking at me”

Boom! There it is, there’s the opening. Flag of Fire was born there and then on that bench looking out over the harbour of Bergen.

Now, all we need is only the 98% remaining parts of the song..

“See the girl in a white dress looking at me

She smiles so beastly

See the suits walking down the street

The sea of unity”

Håkon came up with the riff and the first line of the verse, then Kathrine came up with the rest of the lyrics, or at least most of it. We always bounce ideas back and forth between us, and this way we manage to tweak it into a finished song.

This is our typical method of operandum, one of us have an idea, often just a tiny little bit of lyrics or a riff on the guitar. Just a little seed to be planted. Once in the ground it springs into, very slowly we have to admit, a full grown three that is our new song.

Flag of Fire is a song about being different, to stand out from the crowd and going your own way, even if you’re ridiculed for it. It’s a battle song for the misfits. That said, the song is in no way political or a statement for certain politics. This is a song for the individual. “To Thine Own Self Be True”

“I raise my flag of fire”

We had the riff, we had the lyrics, what we needed now was bass and drums.

Thankfully, in the NEGATIVIUM universe there are sometimes satellites and comets passing by, and this time the drumming satellite of Kjell Arild Birkeland and the Bass comet of Erlend Hope came flying through the universe.

The line up was complete. The song had a beginning and an end, now started the hunt for the bridge and dynamics. The”bridge of dynamics” you could say. Several evenings we all gathered at the “Crows Nest” for rehearsals.

The “Crows Nest”, the practice room where Kjell Arild had his drum kit and where Håkon and Kjell’s former band “Crows Lament” had practised for six years before they finally broke up.

The feeling of banging your head against the wall should be familiar to anyone who’s ever played in a band, especially if you’re trying to create your own music. We played through the song over and over, but the bridge still refused to appear.

Then, something happened. To this day we still don’t know what, but it was a beautiful moment. An artistic memory to be cherished as a highlight in our musical career.

We started playing the song for the umpteenth time, halfway through it Kathrine suddenly broke ranks. Out of nowhere she started singing “na na na na na na” and the band followed her lead. Bang, just like that, we had our dynamics, we had our bridge. We kept the song going, Kathrine leading with her vocals. For about 10 minutes we kept playing before we finally came to an end. Everyone burst out laughing, it was a moment of pure joy and excitement. We knew this was it. Finally, we had our song.

What had just happened? We didn’t know, and still don’t, but it was magic.

With the song now complete, the magical mythical word “studio” came into the conversation. The time had finally come, for NEGATIVIUM to enter the world of studio recording. It was a miniscule step for mankind, but an enormous leap for us.

Enter Havnelageret Studio. One of the oldest recording studios in Bergen. A studio that has hosted many famous artists, and produced numerous award winning albums. Owned and run by our very good friend Daniel, who was kind enough to let “amateur hour” move into his domain for a day. Risking his good name and reputation in the process. We are forever in his debt.

Being in a professional studio was an amazing experience, something that really felt like taking it up a notch. It was definitely the way forward, no more recording with microphones in a coffee mug from now on.

A few lines for the gear heads out there before we wrap everything up.

Håkon used his Harley Benton SC 450 P90 GT, running through a Joyo Husky Drive – Joyo XVI Octave pedal into a Vox AC 15.

Erlend played his 5 string Warwick Corvette bass.

Kjell A. used the studios own Gretsch drums.

Kathrine played the studios Korg SV1.

Finally, we can present to you the result. Both the original version and the shorter radio edit.

Yes, radio, we’ve been lucky enough to have had the song played on the radio Woohoo! Hurray!

Here it is, we hope you like it.

(and more pictures from our studio day below the spotify links)