Sivert Hoyem

Out of Vesterålen

Sivert Høyem was born on 22 January 1976 in Sortland, a small town in the Vesterålen islands of northern Norway, the son of a forestry teacher and a politician. He went to the local upper secondary school and later took history as a minor at the University of Oslo, but the decisive thing happened closer to home. In 1993, in Stokmarknes, he formed Madrugada with guitarist Robert Burås, bassist Frode Jacobsen and drummer Jon Lauvland Pettersen.

The band spent most of the decade working towards a debut, and when Industrial Silence arrived on 30 August 1999 it made them the most talked-about rock band in the country almost overnight. It won two Spellemannprisen, Norway's main music awards, that year, for Best Rock Band and Newcomer of the Year. The Nightly Disease followed in 2001 and Grit in 2002, the latter bringing another Spellemann. By The Deep End in 2005 the band was collecting awards in several categories, including Spellemann of the Year, and a live album, Live at Tralfamadore, picked up one more in 2006.

The loss that ended the band

Høyem had already started recording outside the group. His first solo album, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Opposition, came out in 2004 and reached number three in Norway. In 2006 he made Exiles with a band billed as The Volunteers, and that one went to number one. He was, by then, the most recognisable voice in Norwegian rock, a deep baritone that critics still reach for superlatives to describe.

Then, on 12 July 2007, Robert Burås died at the age of 31. The remaining members finished the album they had been working on with him and released it as Madrugada on 21 January 2008. They played what was announced as their final concert at Oslo Spektrum on 15 November 2008, and the band stopped.

A solo career that outgrew the band

What followed was a run of solo records that, in commercial terms, matched or bettered anything Madrugada had done. Moon Landing, released in 2009, went to number one in Norway and, unusually for a Norwegian rock album, to number three in Greece, a country that has stayed loyal to Høyem ever since. Long Slow Distance in 2011 was another Norwegian number one and was certified double platinum there. Endless Love in 2014 and Lioness in 2016 both topped the chart too. The Volunteers, the band behind Exiles, disbanded after April 2012, and he has worked with shifting line-ups since.

The Greek connection was formalised with Live at Acropolis in 2017, recorded in Athens, and an EP, Roses of Neurosis, appeared in 2021. Along the way he lent his voice to other people's records, singing on Satyricon's Phoenix in 2013 and on Coming Home by Me and That Man in 2020. His releases have gone through EMI and Virgin.

Madrugada did not stay finished. In June 2018 the surviving members announced a reunion with their original drummer and toured Europe in 2019. A new album, Chimes at Midnight, came out in 2022 and won the band yet another Spellemann for Best Rock Band. Høyem has since run the two careers side by side.

Two albums in two years

After the reunion tours he returned to solo work at a faster pace than before. On an Island came out in 2024 and reached number two in Norway. Dancing Headlights followed in 2025, peaking at number seven at home and number 20 in Greece. It is an eight-track record, one of them a live recording, and it was cut with his band playing together in the room with distorted guitars and very little in the way of digital tools.

The songs named in reviews give a fair picture of its range: Love Vs. The World, The Great Upsetter, Play That Record One More Time, Hurdle, Hollow and Summer Rain. Writing in February 2025, the Dutch critic Wout de Natris called it a more solid and more varied album than his recent solo work, singling out Summer Rain for the way it starts small and builds to full band intensity. He heard in it a return to the dynamic swings between slow, dark ballads and uptempo rock that marked the Madrugada albums of the 2000s and that he felt had often gone missing on the solo records.

The year of round numbers

2026 was always going to be a year for looking back. Høyem turned fifty in January. Exiles is twenty years old and Lioness is ten. To mark all three, a compilation simply titled Best Of was released in 2026 and sits at the top of the discography on his own website, alongside Dancing Headlights and On an Island.

The tour built around it opened in the Netherlands in early February, with a show at Paradiso in Amsterdam on 9 February 2026, and moved into Germany the following week: Hannover on 15 February, the Mojo Club in Hamburg on the 16th, Alter Schlachthof in Dresden on the 17th, Kulturkirche Nippes in Cologne on the 19th, Ebertbad in Oberhausen on the 20th, Technikum in Munich on the 24th and Manufaktur in Schorndorf on the 25th.

The summer was spent at home. He played two nights at Baroniet Rosendal, the manor house on the Hardangerfjord, on 18 and 19 July 2026, then a run of northern festivals: Havnafestivalen in Sandnessjøen from 6 to 8 August, Alta Live from 13 to 15 August and Parkenfestivalen in Bodø on 22 August. The final leg heads south-east. He plays Boogaloo in Zagreb on Monday 14 September 2026, doors at seven and the show at eight, then the If Besiktas Performance Hall in Istanbul on 17 September and the open-air Lycabettus Theatre in Athens on 19 September, a fitting place to end given the Greek audience that has followed him since Moon Landing.

What the show is like now

The current set is a career survey played by an experienced band. Promoters in Zagreb and Rosendal both describe a programme moving from quiet, almost hushed passages to loud electric peaks, built around the solo staples Prisoner of the Road, Moon Landing and Into the Sea, with Madrugada's Majesty in the set as well, plus new material, rarities and, according to the Zagreb billing, some unreleased songs.

The most detailed account of the tour so far is the review of the Paradiso show on 9 February 2026. The room was close to sold out, and the crowd ran from people in their twenties to people in their seventies. What struck the reviewer most was the silence: during the quietest songs nobody talked. Majesty and The Kids Are On High Street were highlights, and the night closed on Hollow, the ballad from Dancing Headlights. The criticisms were specific rather than fatal. The guitarist made a few audible mistakes and was at times mixed too loud. The verdict was still a near perfect show, and the reviewer went as far as calling Høyem's voice arguably the best in rock music. The support that night was King Hüsky, a new name the same reviewer found forgettable. Support acts vary by city and are not listed for the September dates.