Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.06.2008, Blaðsíða 12

12 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 07 2008 | Interview
You may ask yourself: who is this Paul Brannigan
person and why am I reading about him. This bout
of self-interrogation will be entirely warranted.
However, if you are (or were at some point dur-
ing the last three years) a spotty, emo-haired Brit-
ish teenager, you will know all too well who Paul
Brannigan is, and why people would interview
him. For Paul Brannigan is none other than the
editor of Kerrang! – “The world’s biggest selling
weekly rock magazine!” – an institution in rock if
there ever was one.
The almost thirty year-old magazine started
off as a “hard rock” supplement to now defunct
brit music mag Sounds, with the sole purpose
of covering the then-fresh New Wave of British
Heavy Metal. Kerrang! quickly found an audience
of its own and spent the eighties covering hard
rock and heavy metal, the early nineties covering
hard rock and grunge and the late nineties cover-
ing hard rock and nü-metal before progressing to
its current preference of hard rock and emo. The
magazine frequently outsells the NME and wields
enormous trendsetting powers in the UK, often
breaking hopeful rock acts with the sheer strength
of their readership.
So, Paul Brannigan is the editor of one of the
most influential music publications in the world,
and he was recently in Iceland. He was here re-
searching a story on beloved Hafnarfjörður glam-
rockers Sign, who’ve built an impressive following
in the UK over the last few years. No stranger to
Iceland, Brannigan has attended the last few Ice-
land Airwaves festivals, overseeing special Ker-
rang! stages and taking in as many concerts as
possible. The Grapevine met up with Brannigan
during his recent visit and got the expert opinion
on the state of Icelandic rock, and the state of rock
in general.
No One Interferes, Ever
“I think our circulation is around 75.000 copies
per issue these days. It was 85.000 a year ago,
the highest it’s ever been. All the way through the
eighties and nineties we were only selling 40.000
per week.” Brannigan is telling me how Kerrang!’s
readership has nearly doubled in the space of a
decade that’s mostly known for ushering in the
deaths of both print media and retail music. I then
ask him if he personally likes all of the music he
covers, and the need for compromise.
“It’s not my personal fanzine. If it were,
it would sell about four copies. I do like a lot of
the bands that are in there, I feel we feature a
healthy mix of bands that probably no one has
never heard, but we adore, of and bands that our
readers demand to read about every issue. Usu-
ally, with every band we do there’s at least one
person in the office that loves them. Are we under
pressure from our sponsors as to what we cover?
Absolutely not. Otherwise it’d be painful. No, we
basically just do whatever we want. No one inter-
feres, ever.
“If someone in the office likes an album,
we’ll want to cover it in some way, say with the
way we’ve been featuring Mínus or Sign. However,
we do have to take into account that those bands
belong to a certain niche, even within the Ker-
rang! quarters, and won’t appeal to everyone, un-
like bands like My Chemical Romance or Fallout
Boy. So we need to put enough big bands in to be
able to sell copies, but enough of the niche bands
we believe in to keep it interesting.”
Mínus were Ridiculously Loud
Brannigan says that Kerrang!’s first exposure to
Iceland came at the behest of hard rock legends
Mínus. “One of the freelancers scored a copy of
Jesus Christ Bobby and gave it a 5K review, calling
them one of the best post-hardcore bands since
Refused. Then they played London and we all
went and saw them... it was the loudest gig I’ve
ever been to. Ridiculously loud. So we got interest-
ed in the Icelandic scene and then had the chance
to do something with Airwaves. That was a great
introduction. It’s easy to get jaded about scenes,
and they easily get formulaic. The rock scene here
seems to possess a freshness and purity about it
that seemed lacking in the British and American
scenes we spend so much time covering.
“Over there, it’s all about commercial possi-
bilities and marketing – here it seems more organ-
ic. People seem to play music because they want
to play music, not because they want to be rock
stars or make a living out of it. You get none of the
hard sell with the Icelandic bands, like “you’ve got
to hear our band, it’s the best thing since sliced
bread! Put us on your cover!” No one here has that
kind of arrogance, it’s more like “Oh, you like our
band? Really? That’s cool.” They seem surprised
and taken aback that anyone should care. And
there’s a lot of good music being made here.
Bands like Gavin Portland, We Made God, Vicky
Pollard are all favourites, along with Sign and Mí-
nus, of course.”
A Couple of Mini-Sigur Róses
I ask if the Icelandic rock bands get lumped to-
gether as one scene, or one sound, like what hap-
pened with Seattle, etc.? When a Brit hears Mínus,
does he lump them in a category with Sigur Rós,
for instance?
“No, I don’t think people would ever think
about them in those terms, or as Icelandic bands.
There’s no real connection between Gavin Port-
land and Sign, for instance. I don’t think people
think about an “Icelandic rock scene” in those
terms. Our readers have pretty much heard one or
two of those bands; it’s not like the Seattle scene
where everyone wanted to sound the same. If your
fondness for Sign prompts you to buy a Gavin Port-
land album, you’re in for a surprise. I think it’s one
of the Icelandic music scene’s strengths, that ev-
eryone can do their own thing. There seems to be
a big individualistic streak in terms of sound and
sonic approach, even though the musicians seem
quite helpful to one another in other respects.
In Seattle, Nirvana desperately wanted to sound
like the Melvins, and Soundgarden desperately
wanted to sound like whoever... I don’t see that
happening here, and that’s one of the scenes big-
gest strengths, but it might also be a weakness in
certain regard.
If these bands sounded more obviously
alike, it would probably be a lot easier for them
to break internationally. If you had a couple of
mini Sigur Róses coming from here, they would
probably see great success. Obviously labels are
stupid, and when they get one band that works
they sign anyone who sounds remotely similar. It
happened with Seattle and it happened with De-
troit. But there don’t seem to be fifteen Sigur Róses
kicking around here as far as I can tell. I love Sigur
Rós, but that’s probably a good thing.”
Finally, do Brannigan see any of the Icelan-
dic rock bands breaking internationally soon?
“Well we have the bands we like and we try
and help them out. We brought Gavin Portland
over for a Kerrang! tour recently and hope to do
the same with We Made God once their album’s
out. We’ve been covering Mínus, and obviously
Sign has the biggest profile of any of the Icelan-
dic bands with Kerrang’s readers, like Sigur Rós.
Hopefully things will continue to develop for them
and they will do well. They’ve got quite a loyal set
of fans here, a tight knit little crowd that’s into
them. The Sign Army. Their only problem is that
they don’t fall into any specific pigeonhole, which
makes the metal kids think they’re emo and the
emo kids think they’re metal. It happens with a lot
of rock ‘n’ roll bands, but those bands usually get
the most devoted following. But we’ll see.”
Text by Haukur S. Magnússon
Rock n’ Roll Noise Pollution
“If these bands sounded
more obviously alike,
it would probably be a
lot easier for them to
break internationally. If
you had a couple of mini
Sigur Róses coming from
here, they would prob-
ably see great success.
Obviously labels are stu-
pid...”
Paul Brannigan has taken Kerran! a hard rock maga-
zine that used to sell 40.000 copies and propelled it
to sales in the excess of 85.000 copies. He must be
doing something right, right?
Photo by GAS