Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.04.2010, Side 14

Feature | Interview
right away to write my own songs, because
I was so bad at picking up other people’s.
One of the first things I did was working
on playing the guitar while singing, get-
ting those two entities to work together
in harmony, playing guitar and using
my voice to create melodies over them...
I understand how that works; you have
a bassline and a melody, I get that, but I
don’t understand how your mind can work
itself around all those other instruments
and how they all come together.
On never thinking abOut any-
thing at all (and lOving On
each Other)
N: You are sort of a genius at writing
things that fit so perfectly with your voice.
J: It comes very effortlessly and spontane-
ously. How do you work when you have to
do whole arrangements for an orchestra?
Isn’t that too much? It’s over the top, I
think. Do you see, like, a colour palette?
N: I like to think: “What is the emotional
pull of the number of minutes that I have
to do this in?” Let’s say I have twelve min-
utes for orchestra. What can happen in
twelve minutes? Can we go on a trip? Can
we walk? Can we tell a story?
J: This is different from me. I never think
about anything at all.
-That’s our headline right there. “I never
think about anything at all.”
J: I think you should only follow your
instinct. Just write a song. Don’t think
about if it’s sad or happy or fast or slow.
Sorry. I’m just curious about coming from
the school environment and the classi-
cal world. You’ve been in Juilliard, you’ve
studied for ten years, all the formulas and
stuff. How do you think about music? Is it
in the spontaneous way?
N: It’s always an ecstatic process. For me,
school is just a technique to learn how to
do certain things.
J: Exactly! That’s exactly the right way to
think about it.
N: The thing you get from school is: you
don’t learn how to think, you learn how to
sew, how to cut the string, to do the kinda
practical stuff. It’s practical and mechani-
cal. You learn and you learn. Some teach-
ers at school will teach you how to focus
your ideas, for instance. The biggest ques-
tion for me has always been, always, what-
ever I’m doing: is this, this thing I’m work-
ing on, is it preferable to silence?
If someone tells me to write twelve
minutes for orchestra, whatever I make
had better to be so great that it deserves
to exist. If people could spend twelve min-
utes sitting around in their house and have
a better time, then I’ll cut it. You know, a
lot of music is not preferable to silence.
J: I also have this debate with classi-
cal composers and people in the classi-
cal world, about their kind of music and
how it seems formulaic to me. They’re
so learned and schooled, they kinda fall
into this rut of classical composing...
You, however, seem different. You are so
young. And you like to work with differ-
ent kinds of music. It seems so generous
to me, so wide, so broad...
N: For me, music has to always be an ec-
static process. It just has to be.
J: Why do you work so well in all the
genres? Most people stick to pure classical
or pure avant-garde.
N: I think if your attitude is right, you can
do anything. It’s like travel. How can you
have a life in Iceland and New York and
London or wherever. If you think about
genres as different countries, it gets easier
to travel. Everyone still has to pee, they
have foods and menus and rituals of say-
ing hi. I always think about genres as non-
existent, really. For me, the whole musical
spectrum is one big Schengen area.
J: I love that. It’s so fucking true.
N: Thinking about genres is like asking
someone... pretend your mom is from In-
dia and your dad is from Iceland or wher-
ever, and you move to New York and you’re
just a young family trying to make work
and you make dinner, you have kids, and
whenever people come over they talk about
it being fusion-y. “Ohh... this is like India
meets Iceland” and you’re all like “No, it’s
just what we like making for the kids.”
It’s a natural process for me, even
when I’m thinking on a piece and plan-
ning in advance, I stop short of deciding
upon the actual genre of it or whatnot.
J: That’s really important.
N: To be fair, there’s something fun to be
gained from it all. Planning some things
out. One of the thrills of pop music – even
though the creation is spontaneous – is
that there’s a lot of work that happens af-
terwards. Post-production, as you know.
So in pop music, you guys have an army of
people that think about all those things for
months after the music’s recorded – and
even record on top of it – whereas in classi-
cal music, you just take the notes and play
them.
J: This is very true.
N: All the stuff that happened after the
tracking on your new album was as impor-
tant as what happened during the track-
ing. You changed songs around, cut them.
Really, what happens in classical music is
that you do all that work beforehand.
J: It’s very true actually. Say a classical mu-
sician writes a piece, he doesn’t even think
about the recording. The recording is just
documentation, you record it exactly how
it appears on the sheet music, then pub-
lish it. Not like us, who recorded strings,
brass and wind separately, we fucked it all
up afterwards, cut it up and worked it...
On leaving space
N: For me, that was my biggest interest
coming here and starting to work with Val-
geir. He said: “Why don’t you just make
an album?” and I was like, “Yeah, that’s a
good idea.”
So we made an album and it was a revo-
lution for me. Just ingraining myself into
that kind of work method, getting to think
about things both before and after. Before
that time, I was literally in this weird po-
sition where the only documentation of
my music were live recordings of perfor-
mances from 1998, just cassette tapes that
people had recorded and that was it, for-
ever. Valgeir approached me asking if we
shouldn’t do it in the studio, so we could
do stuff to it afterwards. It was a genius,
novel idea.
J: When you record your classical piece,
do you write it all down and spell it out in
notes, perfectly? The musicians play, Val-
geir records and you change everything
around afterwards?
N: Yeah, everything.
J: What do you mean everything? Do you
fuck it up? Reverse it? Change the parts
around?
N: Yeah, but nothing too crude. For both
the albums I’ve made with Valgeir, I’ve
built in a space for him to do things. I’ll
write a piece and leave this huge hole be-
tween voice and bass for him to pick up
and fill up and have fun with. You can
combine things in a way you wouldn’t if
you thought too hard in advance. I think
this is slowly changing for composers,
Daníel Bjarnason’s album is a good ex-
ample of something that’s thought out and
written out perfectly, while still adhering
to the tenets of post-production in a way.
J: Indeed, the good thing about Nico’s ar-
rangements on my album is the space he
left. He didn’t cover the whole songs in
f lourish.
N: And you know, my attitude was always
to turn it up, turn it down, fade in, fade
out, I always try and provide ingredients
rather than answers. Occasionally I would
say things like, “you should do this or that
or double this,” but there was no ego as-
sociated with my notes. You were free to
disregard them if you wanted.
J: That’s probably Nico’s best quality, his
lack of ego. Nothing in how he works indi-
cates a huge ego. Ha! Ego Mueller!
N: It was funny. With some of the things,
I thought: “If they cut it, I will be sad.”
Lucky for me, none of those bits got cut!
On sting and yOga and mOney
J: He’d be in the studio, sitting with the
engineer going “oh yeah, turn up the
f lutes on this baby!” I was like “What
the fuck!? Hopefully he’s not going to be
around when we mix this thing...”
N: I wanted to make sure everything I gave
you was perfect, so when you wanted to
start fucking with it, it couldn’t hurt. One
of the things that freaks me out about pop
music is that sometimes the quality of the
recordings is not good and sometimes
the playing is bad. The worst thing is the
strings. Synth strings.
J: Sting uses synth strings. What the fuck
is up with that?
N: Indeed. He has so much money.
J: Sting is full of money and yoga and he
doesn’t use real strings? It’s weird.
N: It’s a big issue, string samples. A lot
of pop arrangements now are made for
samplers rather than actual players. This
makes a boring, poorly sounding record-
ing and all the violists are unemployed. In
any case, I wanted to make sure everything
I gave you was in tiptop condition.
J: Actually, the demos sounded really
good.
N: The recordings did too. I was aggres-
sive about hiring expensive players for this
project, hahaha!
J: I KNOW THAT! [glares at Nico]
N: As you may or may not have sensed
from me, I thought it really important to
work with people that I could feel comfort-
able with, and that share some of my at-
titudes. This makes the work a much more
pleasant process.
J: It was actually really cool. Nico knows a
certain group of players that he really pre-
fers to work with, folks he loves and knows
can deliver the job. He ordered them in,
we got some Dunkin Donuts coffee and
everyone got pumped recording that stuff.
He had the whip on them real tight.
N: Working with players you know and
trust is important.
J: It is important if you’re a conductor, con-
ducting a group of people. Everyone likes
to be controlled, people like that, and you
are a controller. You manage to control
them and be funny and pleasant at the
same time you are being controlling and
getting things done, that quality you have
is really awesome.
N: It helps when you know the people. You
can say something curt and really awful,
just lay it on and it's OK.
J: I know. You managed to loosen up ev-
erything while being firm on the whip the
whole time.
N: For me it’s awful being in conduction.
Being a young conductor is so awful... for
your album, it wasn’t so scary, but say I’m
conducting a film score...
J: How is that?
N: It’s fine. Girl, it’s fiiiine. Everyone
gives you these stern looks, as if you have
to prove yourself. In England, especially,
you can really struggle. ‘Cause England is
England.
J: They want an old geezer, a big formal
guy?
N: Yeah. And if you’re not some old geezer,
they want for you to, like, totally dominate
them with your brilliance. English people
are such a bottom, it’s crazy. What they
want is for you to go in there with fire-
works and shoot lasers from your fingers
and be like “Girl, you get on the f loor and
you PLAY that cello!” and you just sort of...
Hahaha. I sorta had to lash my tongue out
at them in to get things moving. I’m look-
ing forward to being over thirty.
On negative reviews
-I only ever read bad reviews about you, Nico,
on your own website. And often the articles
will be all upset with how young you are....
N: I only ever put up my bad ones. I get in
so much trouble with the classical press.
We’re fucked no matter what we do. But
press stuff is so secondary.
J: I learned very early on not to read any-
thing about your work. Nico is probably
still reading his reviews... I never read
anything. I never go to my own website or
anything. I have to live in the old bubble.
-What was the last review you read?
J: The last one I read was probably ten
years ago. NME had been really loving
on Sigur rós. And they really love to hype
bands to death before turning on them
and crushing them. When we first came
out in the UK they really loved on us, and
then a year later I read a review there. “Oh
Sigur rós, it’s really boring. Like Pink
Floyd on steroids. Really really boring and
too long...”. I went all “uhmm...” with that.
N: I learn a lot from bad reviews. Some-
times they say the very worst things you’ve
thought about yourself.
J: It can be so unfair, though, that I kin-
da don’t like to read them at all. I like to
get reviews from friends. Like Alex, my
boyfriend, he is a hardcore critic, telling
me exactly what doesn’t work and why. I
like getting word from my friends rather
than some asshole reporter who’s really
grumpy that day and hates everything.
You know?
N: I’ve never really gotten terrible reviews.
I get a lot of nasty reviews and internet
comments, though, but it’s never some-
thing I haven’t thought about myself. But
that’s just a kind of gay self-loathing. The
worst stuff that’s been said has never been
outside of what I’ve thought of myself,
which I like. There’s a certain consistency
to it.
On sharing similar attitudes
and rehearsing a band Of five
peOple
-Do you think you share similar attitudes to
music? Do you imagine you experience and
convey it in comparable ways?
J: I think definitely
N: I would say definitely, yes.
J: I was really happy when I worked with
Nico for the first time, when we met in
my apartment. We sat on the f loors, with
a pillow, and I just was enthralled by the
spontaneity of it all, the no bullshit ap-
proach. I always thought classical people
had to be boring. Too learned, too thought
out or whatever. It was so refreshing to be
exposed to Nico and how he wrote five ar-
rangements in one night.
N: It was such a good night. A good ex-
ample is the song that’s now called Sink-
ing Friendships and that whole bubbling
ecstasy that’s in there. How fun it was, just
the two of us on the piano playing it. You
taught me the chords and I immediately
latched on [starts mimicking a very, very
fast piano player].
J: Did you learn anything from me? Or
like anything that happened?
N: Yeah, definitely. First of all the songs
themselves were fabulous, but I also love
your whole attitude. You have good atti-
tude about figure things out, and which
order they need to be figured out in. You
know when you should work on certain
things, which is a quality I love. “Let’s deal
with that bridge later...” You know what
your strengths are, not just in general but
also at the moment.
Then this last week of rehearsing the
band was kinda weird, dealing with differ-
ent perceptions of how things should be
done.
J: That was kind of hard...
N: It was fine. I was there to be an asshole.
J: I don’t know if you were being an ass-
hole. But you were a foreign element to the
proceedings, and you had to keep things
going and working. It was interesting be-
cause Nico came over to help us with our
rehearsals and help the piano player learn
his parts. Usually – I’m sorry, I might be
talking BS out of my ass here – but usually
in the classical world everything is written
down and you really just have to rehearse
it again and again until it gets f lowing.
With a band of five people, you can’t re-
ally do that. You don’t know where exactly
you’re headed, but you know you want it
to be really good. You need a space to play
around in, time to noodle and tweedle
and be really lazy, just doing this and that.
N: Right, which I don’t really know about.
J: So that work was maybe difficult, but
also cool. It’s like our major difference is
that Nico comes from the classical world
and I... don’t.
N: I believe in notation, and I believe in
parts.
J: ...and I believe in everything being prac-
tical and fast!
On björk, and nOt being an
asshOle
J: Playing in a band is the only thing I’ve
done in my life, ever, and we need this
time to be stupid, to play around, be silly,
hang out and noodle...
N: ...and I was all like, “are we done yet?”
J: Nico on the clock: “WHAT THE FUCK
ARE YOU DOING?”
N: That was good for me to witness, the
noodling.
J: I think it’s healthy. And it’s also healthy
for me. I should speak up sometimes, I
feel.
N: It’s also interesting because a band is
a diplomatic project whereas this thing is
your shit – your actual name’s on the proj-
ect.
J: I know, and I always forget that. I don’t
want to be the asshole that orders people
what to do. I don’t want to be that asshole,
so I wind up not speaking up. I’m afraid I
might have to start to speak up more.
N: In a situation like this, it’s where I’ve
always felt the model for the solo artist
should be that she really gets what she
wants. That there should be nothing hap-
pening on that stage that she does not like.
A good example of this is Björk.
J: It’s amazing that through doing this
project, I developed this crazy respect for
Björk for the first time.
N: Going solo is hard. It’s so much differ-
ent from being in a band. You’re not just
the singer anymore, you’re the artist.
J: It’s so fucking hard.
N: And her ass has been at it for 35 years,
getting the best ingredients from everyone
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04 — 2010
14 Nico And Jónsi GO ALL IN!
“I think people should
be more aware of what
they put in their bodies –
music or food – it’s your
fucking fuel, it’s what
keeps you going.”