Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.03.2008, Blaðsíða 13

Feature | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 03 2008 | 13
I’ll start by congratulating you on your nomi-
nation to the Icelandic Music Awards.
Yes, thanks. I was very pleased to hear of it, and,
you know, I was a bit surprised.
Were you?
Well yeah, don’t you have to say that? To be per-
fectly honest I haven’t really been following Ice-
landic music very closely. I was kind of excited
to hear the nominations now, and had waited for
it, but I really have very little by way of compari-
son, like what music has been getting awards and
what hasn’t. I’ve also been stuck in a lot of older
stuff, and have been listening to a lot of that, and
haven’t really been paying attention to what’s just
come out and what’s considered fresh and what’s
not.
How do you view your success as a band then,
comparatively? What’s your reference?
I’m actually really pleased with everything. I feel
that most people who are writing about us un-
derstand our music close to the way we intended
it. And if not, then still not in any negative way,
they’re still finding something positive that maybe
we hadn’t even considered. I have complete faith
in criticism of music and of art generally. I don’t
think that artists have the last word with their
work – that’s a big misconception that a lot of art-
ists have. But most people still seem to understand
our stuff close to the way we intended it.
Does that apply to your lyrics too then?
Yes. Especially, actually, because despite every-
thing, although a lot of the stuff is really thought-
out, a lot of it is also quite light-hearted, and not
intended to have any great meaning. But then it’s
also just really fun when someone else puts mean-
ing into it. It fits with what I said before: you don’t
have the final word or the decisive perspective on
your work.
Do you see a divide between those fans who
are interested in your lyrics – or in you on
a more highbrow level – and those who are
interested in the more playful atmosphere
surrounding your music?
I don’t see a clear split, that these are two types.
I think it mixes up a little bit. Sometimes people
who enjoy lyrics don’t want to listen only to the
lyrics and sometimes the opposite. There’s much
more interest in the words than I think people rea-
lise. Páll Óskar said the other day that Icelanders
just want to hear music that they can sing along
to. It’s maybe not a really deep intellectual interest
in lyrics, but people somehow have more inter-
est in the music when they start to recognise the
words. That’s exemplified in the fact that we have
a harder time familiarising ourselves with music
that is in different languages, that is, not in Eng-
lish or Icelandic. There are a lot of cultures whose
music is sort of closed to us, and that is first and
foremost because of the lyrics.
So you feel you’ve struck some sort of bal-
ance between the song’s entertainment value
and their more intellectual significance?
Yes, definitely. And that’s also what we’re really all
about. This pure-intellectual stuff... it’s not just that
it’s tiresome, but I think that in its essence it’s not
really sincere. If you’re talking to a normal person,
you can’t separate the two: you have to be enter-
taining so that people will listen to you, and then
you preferably have to have something to say, so
you’re not just some clown. The stuff that man-
ages to become really timeless, and I’m not going
to make any claims that what we’re doing is going
to become classic, because only time will tell, but
I think that things become timeless if they have en-
tertainment value for the moment, and then also
if they leave something behind. It’s like how some-
times it’s said that when high culture and low cul-
ture mix, then you have classic material.
I read an interview you did recently in which
you declared yourself to be on a personal cru-
sade against irony. Maybe that was intended
to be ironic.
No well, of course, it’d be great if I didn’t have to
say anything more than that. If that was the end
of that. But no, no, I’m still actually pretty sincere
about that, even if it was a little hyperbolic to put
it that way. What I mean is; irony is just a rhetori-
cal device, there isn’t infinite wisdom stowed in
it. But a certain double meaning in things, mak-
ing people see things from two sides which you
can sometimes achieve with irony by projecting
some ridiculous alternative, is still a completely
effective rhetorical device, but it’s just one of a
hundred. Those who put a lot of ambition into
something like writing, or just anything, I think
they discover very quickly that it’s neither the first
nor last device in the book. If you look at really
excellent poets and such, they really aren’t that
ironic. Bob Dylan for example, if you look at his
lyrics, and look past the fact that it’s in his nature
to be a kind of a sarcastic personality, to be so
incredibly intellectual but at the same time a total
brat, it’s kind of a crazy contrast, but if you just
listen to his lyrics, you see that there really is no
sarcasm in the lyrics themselves.
After I read that, your song Síðasta blog-
gfærsla ljóshærða drengsins (The Blonde
Boy’s Last Blog Entry) immediately came to
mind. I listened to it again and tried to imag-
ine that you were being completely earnest,
but I couldn’t reconcile it. There is something
lightly comical about it, I’m sure it’s satiri-
cal.
It’s pretty hard to start making distinctions about
it, but it’s supposed to be this guy who, well, it’s
like he’s stepped out of his body and he sees how
he acts and how he is, and is just articulating that.
Of course he has misgivings about it but he’s de-
scribing his approval of it in the song anyway. The
idea is that he’s not describing things that are, yes,
essentially not good. He’s sort of painted himself
into a corner ideologically, shouted “Wolf! Wolf!”
too often, it’s that kind of statement. But he’s also
not saying that it’s wonderful, he’s actually rather
frantic and scared, so I think in the end there isn’t
necessarily any irony in it. On the other hand it’s
true that by projecting this way of thinking, you
know, I’m of course pointing to the fact that it’s not
good, but it’s also not being said anywhere that it
is good.
I’ve both seen myself and heard from oth-
ers that you seem to enjoy talking to and at
the audience between songs at concerts. On
Sprengjuhöllin’s Myspace page it says you are
responsible for “song, guitar and stories.” Do
you enjoy talking about your music as much
as you do playing it?
Yeah, it varies quite a bit though. I would start with
the disclaimer that it all revolves around music in
the end, even music with lyrics, but not just talk-
ing. There are some artists who have gotten ahead
purporting to be musicians but spend all their
time talking about how great they are. Rappers
often end up doing that. No one knows the music,
they just know how mouthy the artist is. But I think
with rappers, and with everyone, that the music
needs to be number one, two and three. When it’s
appropriate though, which is not always, I think
it’s often just as fun to talk about the music as to
make it. At certain concerts, like when people are
just sitting and listening, I feel like it’s just as fun to
talk about the songs and talk between songs and
make a connection with the audience in that way
as when the music is playing. But sometimes it’s
not applicable. I would put it this way; we would
never ever come forward as a band and not play
anything, just talk. That would never happen.
Except in an interview.
Well, yes.
By Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir
Bergur Ebbi
Benediktsson
“I would start with the disclaimer that it all revolves
around music in the end, even music with lyrics, but
not just talking.”
Photo by GAS
The nominations for this year’s Icelandic Music
Awards were dominated by two of the year’s most
celebrated bands, Sprengjuhöllin, (four nomina-
tions), and Hjaltalín (fice nominations). A Grape-
vine reporter sat down with the bands’ respective
librettist and songwriter to discuss life at the top
of Reykjavík’s charts.
Top of the Pop