‘Saturday Night’ is a creative collab between SonOfOld’s Nic Olsen and his previous studio partner and musician/producer, Daniel Baskin. The single had extra lyrical and musical spice added to the mix by composer Sean Ross from Cape Town and copywriter Mitch Prinsloo from Johannesburg (introduced to Olsen by Baskin). The song was born while all four were cooped up in a studio with a little too much beer which created a “no cares and no worries” environment – just losing oneself in good creative vibes.
‘Saturday Night’ gives a light-hearted feel with its care-free lyrics and 80’s pop beat, amidst a very dark and uncertain time. Lockdown has been challenging in many ways and has especially been hard on SA’s musicians.
Nic Olsen delves into how the current climate has been treating him
“The lockdown has been and still is a big problem for the music industry, and we are all having to adjust fast. ‘Atom Man’ [the previous single] was probably released at the worst possible time imaginable. Although, it is amusing that a middle-aged dude wearing a South African speedo jumping on a trampoline (in slow motion), smoking and drinking beer didn’t catch on here – especially given all the controversy surrounding the alcohol and cigarette ban. If truth be told, it was extremely challenging not to feel like a self-indulged twat trying to promote a single when the lockdown started. At the moment though we were all fighting for a chance to keep afloat and even if things get worse before they get better, the music will not be silenced.”
Who exactly are SonOfOld?
SonOfOld is the solo project of South African singer songwriter, Nic Olsen. Olsen is best known as one of the front men of early 2000‘s band Perez, who enjoyed success with songs like ‘Picture Perfect’, ‘Dreams and Troubles’ and ‘Wasted Out’ – all top ten hits in South Africa and written by Olsen (except ‘Wasted Out’ was co-written with Wilkinson).
Though his song writing had success for his own band, Olsen‘s biggest and most well-known hit was written for another South African band. In 2009, he was asked to join The Parlotones and whilst his time in the band was brief, his contribution was significant because it was during this time that he wrote the song ‘Push me to the floor’. SonOfOld started developing as a solo project between the first and second Perez albums.
Nic Olsen explains how SonOfOld happened
“I decided to start a solo project so that I could have a creative project that did not rely on anyone but myself. Bands are wonderful but it isn’t easy having to rely on others … people’s lives have to share a common purpose and I guess the older one gets the more of an issue this becomes.”
More info about SonOfOld
Around 2008 Olsen released two albums with German indie label, Little Teddy Recordings: ‘Change is how you feel’ (the song of the same title on the album was re-recorded by The Parlotones as ‘Sympathy for the cost’) and ‘3%Baby’. Both albums were well received by Rolling Stone Magazine in Germany (Olsen‘s country of residence at the time) and MusikExpress – the two major music publications in the country. The Third SonOfOld album ‘The Wolf Album’ was released after Olsen‘s time in The Parlotones .
On this record he was joined by well-known German drummer Florian Schanze and for a short while SonOfOld became a two piece rock band. ‘The Wolf Album’ was recorded in Chicago with legendary engineer Steve Albini (The Pixies, Nirvana, Lou Reed and many more) and although it enjoyed critical acclaim, SonOfOld went into remission when Olsen relocated from Germany back to South Africa in 2011.
Olsen continued to contribute to The Parlotones and Kahn Morbee‘s solo material and apart from a brief reunion of Perez at Splashy Fen in 2018, there was not much performing going on at all.
Things started to change in 2019 when Olsen met producer and well-known South African drummer, Tom Hughs (Fuzigish, Vulvodynia). He decided to record a fourth album which is now available on pre-save HERE. The album was recorded over a two week period in Olsen‘s house and once the first mixes became available and shared with friends in the music industry, it became apparent that this album was special.
SonOfOld – ‘Saturday Night’ is out now across all digital platforms. Check out the music video for the song below:
Olsen explains the concept and visuals for the music video:
“This video is really something that just happened naturally, having worked some time with Cornell the performance was easy to capture… I then jumped at the opportunity to have Thom involved; he has a great sense of humour and doing anything creative with him is always fun. The fact that his first visuals consist of a bunch of falling tomatoes gave me the initial impression that he wasn’t into the track, but he insisted otherwise. Apparently even his partner Uli was singing along while editing… be it somewhat sarcastically… Thom assured me that this was a good sign! I still look forward to doing a broken down simple acoustic album with him in the future.”
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