Tony Gonzalez needs darkness to write and fiction to get away from it. “I’ll Stick to Fiction”, the third single from Velcro Dog’s second album “Fjord Noir” and the video we are premiering today, comes directly from that strange loop. Gonzalez calls the present a “slow-motion apocalypse”, full of inequality, death, decay, corruption, fires and critical thresholds being crossed, and the song follows the urge to disappear into made-up worlds when reality becomes too much to handle.
Musically, it starts almost naked. A clean, natural classical guitar sits underneath Tony’s voice, which is pushed right out front. Live Sunniva Smidt’s cello first arrives in small accents, then becomes more involved as the arrangement grows. The song starts modestly, reaches the violent crescendo Tony wanted, then fizzles out to nothing.
Something in that melody keeps giving me a half-memory of another song that I cannot place. The familiarity is emotional, the kind that comes from years of melodies stored somewhere in the back of your head. Velcro Dog have found a nice way of touching that memory without pointing towards one obvious source. After this one, I want the whole record now.
“In order to write, I need darkness. Luckily, the slow-motion apocalypse we currently live in provides ample material to pull from. It’s a grim reality I can barely handle, a wall-to-wall-shit-carpet of inequality, death and decay. Therefore, I also write to get away from this brutish hellscape. ‘I’ll Stick to Fiction’ is about this strange paradox.”
The single arrived on September 3 through Westergaard Records. Fiction is a sturdy shelter in Tony’s version of the song, a “cozy mausoleum” where you can live happily never after. He knows the shelter is also a form of self-delusion. The arrangement was built to follow the same human trajectory he is writing about, growing from humble beginnings into something much bigger before disappearing altogether.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
We last caught up with Tony in May, when we premiered “The Gonzo Futurist Manifesto”, the first glimpse of “Fjord Noir”. He was already forcing Velcro Dog into places he would normally avoid. Major chords usually gross him out, so he kept working with one until he found a chorus he could live with, then filled the song with depression, missed chances and one of the driest lyric sheets we have heard from him. He also called Velcro Dog his “plague baby” and told us that simple setups, few options and stupid television running in the background help him find the first spark of a song.
That conversation also got properly into the name Velcro Dog. Tony recognised himself in dogs that become extremely loyal, anxious and clingy around their pack, then fall apart when the safety of that pack disappears. The solo project gave him a reason to expose depression and low self-worth in public, including the particular nightmare of standing onstage completely alone.
“Fjord noir” came from somewhere just as personal. Tony grew up on the Norwegian coast around seafarers and now lives in Trondheim. Rock, punk and metal came first in his musical upbringing, with folk, Americana, blues and country becoming part of his writing later. He told us his language comes out “salt-drenched”, full of nautical references simply because that is where he comes from. “If it’s true that you should write what you know, then fjord noir is what I know,” he said.
Tony is also known from Barren Womb, Twin Serpent and Oma Desala, though Velcro Dog gives him a much quieter space. Guitar, voice and slow movement remain the basic vocabulary here, with the second album bringing strings, choirs and extra instrumentation further into the arrangements.
“The Gonzo Futurist Manifesto” showed one version of that expansion. Tony wrote a bright major-key chorus and put depressive lyrics underneath it. Its video went back to the same mixture of sweetness and darkness.
“The main concept behind the video for ‘The Gonzo Futurist Manifesto’ was to accentuate the contrasts between naïve/sweet and dark that are inherent to the song,” Tony said. “This was accomplished by juxtaposing old 8mm footage and colorful clips filmed by my partner, nephews and in-laws, with dour black-and-white scenes of me playing multiplayer boardgames with myself.”
Photographer Ida Muren Olsen shot the video, and Karen Gravås, whose film and television credits include “Makta”, “Ninjababy” and “Nepobaby”, edited it. Much of the colour footage came directly from Tony’s partner, nephews and in-laws.
“Fjord Noir” follows the 2022 debut “Misanthropology”. Its eleven songs were written across a two-year period when Tony’s mental health was deteriorating. Love, death, depression and escapism keep coming back, together with doubt and resignation.
There are stories about people around him too, plus a love letter to Trondheim and enough of Tony’s dark humour to stop the record becoming one long stare at his own problems.
The arrangements stay tight and melody remains prominent. Choirs and strings add another layer around the low-key acoustic centre of Velcro Dog, with Smidt’s cello turning up on “Friends in Dry Places”, “I’ll Stick to Fiction”, “Stranded on Trash Island”, “The Gonzo Futurist Manifesto” and “White Bluffs of Cover”.
Tony Gonzalez and Vebjørn Svanberg Numme produced the album. Numme recorded and mixed it at Piir Studio in Trondheim during autumn and winter 2025, and Alan Douches mastered it at West West Side Music. Douches’ previous credits include Sufjan Stevens, Fleetwood Mac and Chelsea Wolfe.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
Numme also plays percussion on “Friends in Dry Places”, “Like a Guest”, “Roaccutan”, “Stranded on Trash Island”, “The Gonzo Futurist Manifesto” and “White Bluffs of Cover”. Samuel Lykkås recorded percussion and arranged and played electric guitar on “Roaccutan”.
The smaller details spread all over the record. Timo Silvola arranged and performed banjo on “Concrete Kisses”. Ludvig Rølvåg plays Rhodes on “Roaccutan”. Per-Arne Amundsen arranged melodica for “Thirteen to the Dozen”. Live Sunniva also adds backing vocals on “Concrete Kisses”.
Tony wrote the music and lyrics and created the artwork. The exceptions are “Concrete Kisses” and “Thirteen to the Dozen”, where Tony Gonzalez and Vilde Steiro Amundsen share the lyric and arrangement credits.
“Fjord Noir” arrives September 18 through Westergaard Records.
Pre-orders are live through the Velcro Dog store.
Tony is taking “Fjord Noir” around Norway through the autumn, beginning with an in-store in Trondheim three days after this premiere:
10.09.26, Trondheim, Crispin Glover Record Shop, in-store
02.10.26, Bodø, Kom heim
03.10.26, Tromsø, Backbeat, in-store
03.10.26, Tromsø, Bastard
09.10.26, Ringebu, Arnemoen Gard
10.10.26, Trondheim, Antikvariatet
15.10.26, Røros, Ungdommens Hus
16.10.26, Tønsberg, Nidhoggs brønn
17.10.26, Oslo, Salt
13.11.26, Evanger, Rongahuset
14.11.26, Bergen, Rocade, in-store
14.11.26, Bergen, Kolonialen
20.11.26, Lindesnes, Lindesnes fyr
21.11.26, Kristiansand, Kafé Krank
13.02.27, Lesja, Lesja Bygdemuseum
“Fjord Noir” is out September 18.
🔔 IDIOTEQ is ad-free, independent, and runs on one person’s time. If you want it to stay that way: DONATE via PayPal or SUPPORT via Patreon.
NEW: IDIOTEQ Explore 🗺️ Browse 15+ years of our archive by city, country, and style. Find artists on the world map or trace related sounds through the styles map.
Stay connected via Newsletter · Instagram · Facebook · X (Twitter) · Threads · Bluesky · Messenger · WhatsApp.
