Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.04.2010, Side 27

in the world and putting them together.
Really well, I might add.
J: It’s so funny, I’ve been in a band with
four other people for sixteen years. It’s so
diplomatic and democratic – we make ev-
ery decision together. And if you get tired
of some aspect or element, one of the oth-
er guys will take it over and you’ll not have
to think about it. This is so different, hav-
ing to be focused the whole time, making
decisions, pretending you know what’s
best for the project. It’s difficult, and as I
said, it made me really respect Björk and
what she’s been doing. This is what she
has to deal with every day.
N: Since she was like seventeen, that bitch
has been working it.
J: I have really big respect for Björk. Who-
ah.
N: As do I. Remember when we e-mailed
her in the middle of the night. That was
fun.
I always think about her process as
being this thing that involves knowing.
She’ll send people to all the corners of the
Earth searching for ingredients, then she
kicks everyone out and cooks for herself.
She has this amazing ability and talent to
make things awesome with the available
resources. The best resources, really.
It’s all about the right ingredients. And
you can always get better at that process.
My mother goes to the store not knowing
what to cook, she’ll just buy the stuff that
looks good and mixes it all together into
something amazing. And that’s kind of
how you have to be, a mix of instinct and
insight. We might be eating this caulif low-
er anchovy thing; even if it sounds fucked
up you know it’ll be genius by accident.
On being sane
-Do you believe music has a purpose; does it
have one for you?
J: I can see Nico twittering there, he really
wants to talk. But I’ll answer first. I think
music is all about keeping you sane. Writ-
ing music, writing songs and stuff, that’s
also about keeping you sane, about keep-
ing you fulfilled and happy and it can re-
inforce the belief that life has some mean-
ing. It’s really simple.
N: Yeah, quite so. I was basically going to
say the same thing, but forty times longer.
For me, the purpose was established the
first time I ever got full body Goosebumps.
I was eleven and singing in a choir, a piece
by William Bird.
J: I have to go to the toilet.
-Nico, could you describe our surroundings
while Jónsi finds his release?
N: We’re at the Leather Bar in Reykjavík,
sitting at the entrance to the fisting room,
which is currently not being used. Go poke
your head in there and make sure. Over
there’s a gas mask and a bear pride f lag,
and a Scandinavian Leather Man Week
ad. To the right is the cage. And there’s a
pretty good movie running on the TV in
the corner. Jónsi’s been watching it the
whole time.
J: [back from the men’s room] I was actu-
ally very obviously trying not to watch it.
N: Yeah yeah, lemme go [walks off to the
bathroom].
[Jónsi f lips through a porno mag, looking
for the cover model, which looked entic-
ing. We find him, and he is pleasing to the
eye. Nico returns.]
On being a gay nerd
J: I really want to ask Nico one question.
N: What’s the question, then?
J: So, being gay, how has that affected your
music making and your being a composer
or whatever?
N: I mean, the short answer is not at all...
J: Really?
N: ... and also all of the time. It’s kind of
a combination. I love to think it has noth-
ing to do with anything, but the reasons
I make music all stem to thinking about
myself as an eleven year old singing in a
choir, thinking about my very lonely pre-
teen gay boy self, singing in a choir.
J: Did you get any priest action?
N: No, there was no priest action. But I
remember how excited I was to know mu-
sic at that time. And I address my music
to that kid, always. Maybe slightly smarter
a kid, and slightly more ecstatic. Still that
same one. I want my music always to be
that rapturous, how I felt it then.
J: Were you a nerd when you were young?
N: I was such a nerd.
J: Really? In what way? Did you just stay at
home and write songs all day?
N: No, I got into music kind of late. But
I had oddball parents, and I read a lot. I
much preferred reading to talking to
people. I think, for me at least, being gay
imposes a guilty sort of loneliness on your
social life.
J: Exactly, exactly. This same thing hap-
pened to me actually. I grew up in a small
town outside Reykjavík, Mosfellsbær, and
I didn’t know any gays or lesbians until I
was something like 21 years old. That’s
kinda when I came out of the closet. Un-
til you come out, you have this urge to be
happy and fulfilled, but the only way to
do that is to create something. You have
to make things for yourself, to draw, play
music, paint or whatever. You have this
urge to meet another boy or kiss some-
body or hug them, but you can’t, because
you don’t know anybody. You’re stuck in a
small town.
N: And even if you did know someone, it
felt weird.
J: Yes. I kept making this big mistake of
falling in love with my friends. A classic
gay thing.
N: You mustn’t fall in love with your
friends. There is a built in loneliness to
the gay experience, a very intense one.
Just by nature of the number of things, it’s
so lonely.
J: In any case, I think being gay has af-
fected me a lot as a musician. It is focal in
a lot of my music making and... [trails off,
eyes glued to the TV screen in the corner].
-Now, THAT was a cumshot.
On rethinking it all
N: We were all talking about the gay expe-
rience and the straight person mentions
the cumshot! Ha! Alright. I’ve always felt
like gay musicians have this obligation to
make something that’s sooooo good. For
me, that served as quality control, a little. I
felt that as a gay man, I had an obligation
to make good music. It’s served me well.
J: Yeah, that’s definitely good in the long
run. But kind of hard to have on your
shoulders nonetheless.
N: I’ve always felt like everything I did has
to be just perfect. It’s also something. All
my parent’s friends were gay; everyone
was gay around me, growing up.
J: It’s so funny, you grew up in a totally
different landscape. You were just gay
all the way, you didn’t grow up being the
weird guy in the family. I was exactly the
opposite, growing up in the countryside,
really straight parents, really straight fam-
ily, straight friends...
N: But the good news for you is that even
if you’re growing up in a place where ev-
eryone is gay, it’s still fucking lonely and
weird. Which I think is good. The best, in
fact. I don’t know, but it was just as weird
to have a million gay people to be with,
I didn’t want to be just like them. There
were also generational differences...
J: It worked out for me in the end. I knew
I was gay, and had like this special thing
for boys, and I fell in love with all my
friends. I knew there was a definite differ-
ence between greater society and myself.
This made it necessary for me to rethink
everything, the whole of society, the whole
world. The straight movies I’d been seeing
my whole life, the rules I’d been taught
and my whole life. Everything. I had to
rethink it all. I think this is a very healthy
practice for us.
N: It is. You get to re-evaluate all the chil-
dren’s’ stories, all the moral codes... Ac-
tually, I’m still unravelling, all the stuff
you’ve been taught by straight people,
can’t be trusted. Most people’s parents – at
least in our generation – will be straight.
Can you listen to their stories, honestly?
On everything getting darker
J: I feel like being gay and being a musi-
cian helped me a lot actually. I think I
wouldn’t have made as much music as
I did if I weren’t gay; it really created an
urge to create to be fulfilled, to be happy.
And I remember the time until I
turned sixteen. It was such an innocent
and carefree time, I didn’t know anything.
I had friends, for sure, but I only had shal-
low conversations until I met the first boy
in my life, my best friend who I fell in love
with. He introduced me to the feeling of
speaking heart to heart with someone,
to being really close and say exactly how
you’re feeling. Before I had that, the con-
versations weren’t deep.
N: You had to keep it one level removed, so
no one will find out.
J: Of course, that changed my whole life
perspective, everything got darker from
that point, and more serious. More real.
More you had to think of. Before that, I
was so carefree. I will always remember
those first sixteen years of my life. Care-
free and fun. Total freedom.
On deliciOus mOments, always
N: Do you feel like you’re sometimes try-
ing to recreate that period, the carefree-
ness.
J: Probably in some way. It’s such a beau-
tiful moment. Such an ecstatic, carefree
moment. No bullshit – no worries.
N: No sixteen layers of not speaking your
mind. That’s often what I’m trying to ac-
complish. Getting back to that first mo-
ment, right before that first moment, and
write a score for that. That’s the parts of
my music people like, and dislike. It’s an
uncomfortable thing to exist in that land-
scape, before. Just delicious moments,
always.
J: It is so strong in everybody, everybody
loves their instinct and follows it, but they
get caught up in society, slowly you get
caught up in this stampede of information
and bullshit. You get caught up and your
true self gets lost.
N: Thinking about this, what’s funny is
that I feel like now you’re living a life that’s
as out and about as one could hope for, but
it’s also quite a composed life. It’s good.
You have this insane dietary thing... [Jónsi
adheres to a strict raw food diet].
J: I know. The thing is that it’s just really
healthy and fun. With everything you do,
if you live for it, if you don’t listen to any-
thing...
N: I listen to everything, you don’t listen
to anything.
J: But you only like what you like. This is
true for me as well. 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.
N: I only buy expensive food. If you’re pay-
ing an exorbitant amount of money for
something, chances are it’s good.
On buying expensive clOthes
J: I have to make everything from scratch,
like Nico’s mother. Everything I eat. I
can’t go to a store and buy ketchup; I have
to make it from scratch. Not mustard;
I have to make it from ground mustard
seeds, I’ve done that, I make burgers and
stuff like that. A lot of your energy goes
into making food when you’re a raw-food-
ist, but it’s worth it and I think everyone
should be doing it.
N: Part of the reasons why I dress like I
do is if you buy really expensive clothes,
chances are it’s not slave labour. It’s not
made by eighteen children in a Thai base-
ment but some designer in Japan some-
where.
J: Nico only dresses in black. I never wear
anything black. It’s a conscious choice.
Black is no colour at all, an absence of co-
lour. I try and stay away from it.
N: I used to wear orange a lot. I had this
whole orange phase. I’m branching out
from black right now actually. I’m work-
ing with a really good blue, and if someone
were to make me a really good dark red I
would like that. But no one will make it.
It’s a tough process – the whole thing is a
disaster. An expensive disaster.
J: Have you talked to Bára from Aftur?
She could make it. She’s making all our
costumes for the tour and it’s been great
working with her. I don’t like buying
clothes and I don’t like spending money
on them. I’m Icelandic in that way, I don’t
waste money on clothes. It’s funny for me,
when Bára is sewing my stage outfits, I try
to make her do clothes that I can wear in
daily life. To save money [laughs].
On why gay peOple make better
music
-Returning to an earlier topic: do you guys
think gay people make different music from
straight folks?
N: Much, much better music. Because
why? Because it’s informed. The gay per-
son does not have an entitlement to life,
rather a need to make the world into her
image.
J: The gayness forces you to make stuff. I
think it’s so fucked... If you’re going to feel
good in this society we live in, you have
to make something good. So you can feel
good.
N: In my experience, straight composers
get away with not thinking too hard about
things. “It is or it is not, yada yada...” just...
blah. Whereas – and there are of course
many exceptions – I hold true that gay peo-
ple have to make their own garden, kind
of, their own vocabulary, rocks and trees
and plants.
-Is modern composition a big gay scene?
N: No, and I think all of my favourite com-
posers are actually straight. Philip Glass,
Steve Reich and John Adams are not the
gay composers. Benjamin Britten is the
high watermark of how music can make
me feel. He made music... he was a ho-
mosexual and he made the most exclusive
music that resonates so specifically with
me. I don’t know. It’s a weird thing. All I
know is that I am becoming more severe
recently about the importance of being
gay. In America at least, it’s crazy. You
can’t be in the army if you’re a homo; if
you’re gay you’re not good enough to die
for your country.
J: Actually, my big gripe with being gay in
Iceland is that I can’t donate blood. It’s so
fucking stupid.
N: It’s the same shit in America. I tried
donating after 9/11 and they were asking
“Have you had anal sex with a man in the
last twelve months?” My jaw dropped.
I was all like “FUCK YOU! You had sex
with your dumb husband in the last twelve
months, I presume.
J: This rule is a fucking joke. They only
ask gay guys if they had anal sex. They
don’t care if you’re a straight person and
you’ve fucked every woman you know in
the ass. That’s fine.
N: If you one time put it in some guys
pooper, you can’t save someone else’s life.
On being fired by cOurtney
lOve. and icesave.
-For the common reader, could you explain
the difference between songwriting and ar-
ranging. Can, for instance, a Nico Muhly fan
buy Jónsi’s album for the arrangements?
J: It was definitely fun for me to write the
songs and then get Nico to bring it to an-
other level, for me it was amazing to ex-
perience.
N: I’ll say that someone might recognize
my footprints on the album, but it’s defi-
nitely not my album. As I said before, my
job as an arranger is to make Jónsi look
fabulous. It’s to make the singer
[a grinning Jónsi snaps on a latex glove
from a box of complimentary that rests on
our counter]
look great and sound great. Some arrang-
ers try and take credit for writing, which
I would never do. All I am trying to do is
make you look good. It’s not my shit, it’s
your shit. I’ve just put this costume on it.

-I got told to ask you this, Nico. What’s your
relationship with Courtney Love?
N: I think she fired me. I did a bunch of ar-
rangements for her and it was a big fiasco.
I’m pretty sure she’s fired me. Through
Twitter? No, she hired me through Twitter,
but hasn’t called back after we recorded.
-What do you guys think about Icesave?
J: I have no clue what’s happening in Icesave.
N: I do! I listen to BBC World Service ev-
ery day and e-mail people about it. No, I
have no idea. I think people shouldn’t have
invested in another country’s shady shit. It
was like giving Nigerian internet people
your money, really. Did you see the return
rate? It was made up! It was a pool party
– everybody was cheering all this easy,
easy money. It seemed too good to be true,
which it of course was.
The night slowly descends into even more
chaos. Folks hug. We go fetch another bottle
of champagne. The fisting room gets occu-
pied all of the sudden. Members of Jónsi’s
band join us. At the very end of the night’s
dictaphone recording, I later discover an ee-
rie call to arms, Blair Witch-style. It sounds
like it was shouted by the pair in unison, al-
though there is no way of telling:
“GLOVES ARE OFF, BITCHES!”
Nico And Jónsi GO ALL IN!
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04 — 2010
15
“This rule is a fucking
joke. They only ask gay
guys if they had anal
sex. They don’t care if
you’re a straight person
and you’ve fucked every
woman you know in the
ass. That’s fine.”
“Did you get any priest
action?”