I've always felt like I was different than the people I knew. I had this sinking feeling ever since I was a kid, but after a while I started growing accustomed to it. When I was a kid, I listened to metal music, but played the saxophone. When I was older, I studied jazz music, but rocked a red motorcycle leather jacket and a mohawk. I practiced martial arts, but was never interested in fighting in the streets. And when my skateboarding friends went out to drink and cause trouble, I preferred to stay inside practicing scales.

In the last years my growing accustomed to this status quo has turned into becoming proud of the fact. And I've also gotten to know lots of other people who feel the same, so it doesn't feel that lonely anymore.

Shining's new single "The Last Stand" is about this. About not wanting to do what other people do, and announcing that you're not interested in doing it either. It also touches upon our own unique musical genre "Blackjazz" that we established in 2010 with our album of the same name, with song lyrics such as "I made this, this is my land, and I won't stand where you all stand", and "But I'm here all alone on my Blackjazz throne".

The band tracks for the song was recorded in two studios in Oslo, Norway, before I went to live in Los Angeles for a period, where I finished the vocal tracks between a few European tours. When it was time for mixing, I was still in the middle of non-stop touring, so our trusted producer Sean Beavan (Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Slayer, No Doubt) in Los Angeles bought a software app that allowed him to stream in real time from his studio, so I sit in my own studio in Oslo or in a backstage at a club in Germany and listen to him making tweaks. We had Skype running on one computer and the mixing-software on another, and it worked great! If you're a touring musician and like to also be hands-on when it comes to record production, I wholeheartedly recommend trying out the software called Source-Live.