Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2008, Page 16

16 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 05 2008 | Feature
So, your second album is out, and it has re-
ceived glowing reviews from every critic.
Haukur: Well, I’m not going to tell you that it re-
ceived better reviews that what we expected. We
expected it to receive very good reviews. But it is
still fun.
The punk scene has not been very prominent
in Icelandic mainstream media. It has been
a long time since I’ve seen a punk album re-
ceive such favourable reviews in the main-
stream media. Is this the beginning of a punk
revival you think?
Atli: I don’t know. Music is often difficult to define;
I don’t really know who is doing punk anymore.
Haukur: There is lot of punk bands actually, but
most of them never make an album.
Atli: Yes, you often hear one song on Myspace, or
see a band play live one or two times, and then
they disappear. Nothing happens. Today it is re-
ally easy to make a record, using this new digital
technology, so that shouldn’t be a problem. We
did our first record for almost no money. But we
are putting more into the second album.
Haukur: But I don’t know how truly punk we are.
A lot of bands just make punk music as sort of
a joke. And really, that’s how this band started
initially, until we got more serious about it. But I
think a lot true punkers, the one’s that have safety
pins in their cheeks, they probably don’t think we
are really punk.
I reviewed your album in the last issue, and I
said that there was a lot of influence from (Ice-
landic punk greats) Innvortis on this album.
Haukur: Yes, that is a little strange; you are not the
first person to say that. When we made our first
album, we were listening to Innvortis a lot, and
hanging out with them and we thought they were
really cool.
Atli: They even played on one song on that album.
Haukur: But now, they could all be dead to me. I
don’t see them and I don’t hear from them. And
now we make an Innvortis album. This was not a
conscious decision.
It must have seeped in at the time.
Haukur: Probably. But we are still a lot better
than Innvortis. But we are not unhappy with the
comparison.
Atli: A lot of times when we are working on songs,
they have working titles from the bands that we
think is sounds like. The Pixies Song, The Slayer
Song and so on. Maybe we are not the best people
to judge this.
How did this band come about?
Atli: After Dáðadrengir folded, which is the band
we were all in before Morðingjarnir, we were just
hanging around, the three of us in our practice
space and we wanted to make some music.
Haukur: And Dáðadrengir sure as hell were not
going to be making music.
Atli: No, and Haukur is not a very good guitar
player, and I am not a very good bass player, but
Helgi is an OK drummer, so it made most sense to
make some punk. If we had decided to make prog-
metal, it would probably have been a complete
failure. Or anything else for that matter. Punk was
just a starting point for us, at some time, we even
considered doing something else, but..
Haukur: We didn’t really form this band because
we think punk is the greatest musical genre in the
world. It is just one of many types of music that
we like. We are more accidental punkers. But we
have discussed our ideas for making a ska-record
and an industrial record, and so on. But we just
don’t feel like it.
Atli: Now, obviously, we have become an estab-
lished punk band.
Haukur: We have made two punk albums already.
Our next album is probably going to sound a lot
better but be a little less interesting musically.
That is the usual arch of a punk band. More of the
same, only worse.
I wanted to ask you about a song you wrote
especially for the Iceland Airwaves festival
and Morgunblaðið (Iceland’s biggest daily
newspaper) called it the worst song ever writ-
ten, or something similar.
Atli: Ah, yes. We found that to be a very remark-
able comment.
It was particularly remarkable because it was
written anonymously and did not appear in
relation to any review. It just appeared in the
middle of the page, totally out of nowhere. It
would have made more sense if this was writ-
ten as a review by someone.
Haukur: I still wouldn’t have understood it, because
I think it is the best song ever written in Iceland.
Atli: Still, we were kind of happy with the com-
ment. I think it is a very perky song, perky to the
point where it becomes intolerable. Very in-your-
face. I could understand if people found it intoler-
able, and to get such a harsh comment on it, that’s
a lot more fun than if someone had said it was
mediocre. Being mediocre sucks.
Haukur: The question is if we have created a tradi-
tion. Whether we will make a new Airwaves song
for the next festival or if the radio stations will just
keep playing this one.
Many reviewers have noted the lyrics on the
album especially, which are great. How do
you go about writing the lyrics?
Haukur: I write the lyrics, mostly. The music is
more of a collaborative project, but I have taken
responsibility for the lyrics, at least for this record.
I was either just inspired by something that I want-
ed to write about, but a lot of times I just grabbed
the rhyme dictionary and worked from there.
Some of the lyrics are a very sharp criticism of our so-
ciety; they are not all as perky as the Airwaves song.
Haukur: No, that’s true.
Is that just a part of being in a punk band?
Writing critical lyrics.
Haukur: No, although we are in a punk band, I
don’t think we are your typical punks per se. We
both went to the Commercial College of Iceland.
Atli: I bought this sweater in Jack & Jones.
Haukur: The lyrics as such are not intended to fill out
the punk stereotype. I am just this clever, you see.
Atli: Every time Haukur comes in with a new
songs, he has a little story constructed around it.
‘You guys know this type, right? The drug addict,
he is this old, has a girlfriend that’s a lot younger
and they both wear jogging pants and hang out
at the bar Monaco and shoot up in the toilet.’ He
always has this little scene constructed around
each song.
Haukur: I think the best lyrics are the oldest ones,
and the ones I wrote a quarter to midnight the day
before we went into the studio. A lot of lyrics end-
ed up in the trash. I don’t think I am a very good
poet. Or, I think I am a great poet, I am a very good
poet, but I have excellent quality control.
It is a little tempting to relate your lyrics
to the fact that you have been going to film
school and you are becoming a film maker.
Are your lyrics another manifestation of your
desire to tell stories?
Haukur: I really like telling stories, that’s true. But I
have never related the two, but you are right, there
is probably a relation. But the main thing is that
I hate to punch a clock in the morning, so I just
want to make punk or movies, and hopefully one
of the other will work out and then I won’t have to
work in a mayonnaise factory.
Atli: I want to add that I have known Hakur for
more than ten years, and he is still telling me new
stories. I think there is a lot to the hypothesis that
this is nature as storyteller breaking out. He really
is a great storyteller.
Haukur: That’s probably true. I really enjoy meet-
ing new people for example, because that means
I can start at the beginning and retell all the stories
I know.
By Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
MORÐINGJARNIR
“I hate to punch a clock in the morning, so I just want
to make punk or movies, and hopefully one of the oth-
er will work out and then I won’t have to work...”