Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.06.2011, Side 22

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boring to be cool. I think it's much
more fun to let yourself be a complete
loser".
"That's because we can't be any dif-
ferent," says Árni Vilhjálmsson. The
band lets all this uncoolness come out
during their concerts. Árni Vil names
an example: "We want to start each
show by getting the audience to sing
UB40’s 'Red, Red Wine". Árni Rúnar
continues: "If you sing 'Red, Red Wine',
scream it out, then you will become in-
credibly happy. It's impossible to be re-
ally cool while singing it".
I ask them if they genuinely loved
the song ‘Red, Red Wine’ or if their ap-
preciation is ironic. Árni Rúnar is first
to reply: "I feel it deep in my heart, but
I still feel ashamed to say it out loud".
Árni Vil was the one to make the song
part of the group's identity, as he ex-
plains: "I love this song. My friend
made me a mix-disc that included it. I
would drive around listening to it and
when it came on, I'd scream along with
the chorus. I picked Árni and Lóa up on
Christmas Eve and we drove around lis-
tening to the song, screaming the cho-
rus, and we had goosebumps and were
filled with happiness and goodwill for
all".
GROWING UP IN A BETA TEST
Songs like 'Red, Red Wine' get them in
touch with their preadolescent selves.
Lóa says: "For me to think that UB40
is a lame band is learned behaviour.
When I was a kid their records were
played at home without anyone com-
menting, but then when I was a teen-
ager I found out that they were terrible
and no one could know you listened to
them. Same with Cat Stevens. I think I
know all Cat Stevens songs by heart be-
cause they were constantly played at my
home, but then I learned from the cool
crowd in Breiðholt [the neighbourhood
of Reykjavík she grew up in] that you
shouldn't mention that. You become
so repressed as a teen. This changed
later when I met kids from Hlíðar and
Vesturbær [Reykjavík neighbourhoods
close to downtown] and they'd put on
Cat Stevens in parties. I'd shudder. I
had to break free of the chains. I spent
months of my teenage life repressing
that I liked the Bryan Adams song from
‘Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves’, 'Ev-
erything I Do (I Do It For You)’. Then,
years later, I'm driving by myself in the
car and it comes on and I start singing
along and crying".
"While you were repressing liking
it", says Árni Vil, "I was in Vesturbær
with all my friends, waiting for it to
come on the radio so we could push
the record button at just the right mo-
ment." Lóa responds: "I wish I had been
a teenager in Hlíðar".
"Or 107 Reykjavík [the postcode for
Vesturbær]", says Árni Vil. Lóa pro-
tests: "No, then I would've gone to Ha-
gaskóli [the school for 12–16 year-olds
in Vesturbær] and become damaged.
It's incredible how nice you are consid-
ering you went to Hagaskóli". Árni Vil
replies: "On the other hand, I wanted to
kill many of the people I went to school
with for many years, but I'm free of that
now. I made a mistake before I entered
Hagaskóli at 12. I went to Berlin and ar-
rived halfway through the first school
year. I just showed up one day wearing
green jeans, a blue sweater, red denim
jacket, and Harry Potter glasses, which
were supposed to look like John Len-
non's glasses. I hadn't been there two
minutes before someone took my lunch
money".
I asked Árni Rúnar where he lived
as a kid. "I grew up in Grafarvogur
[Reykjavík neighbourhood], so I don't
have a connection with any of that. She
grew up in a cool semi-ghetto, he in an
old, classy neighbourhood. I grew up in
a beta test", which Lóa considers "a per-
fect description of Grafarvogur in the
‘90s".
"I know", says Árni Rúnar, "what
kind of social consequences can result
from poor urban planning. If you're
building an entire new neighbourhood,
do it over a long time. When you open
a large school, Rimaskóli, and five hun-
dred kids all start in it the same day,
most will be armed, because they all
want to conquer the school. Who can
be the toughest, you know? Then kids
were smoking pot during recess or
beating each other up. I transferred out
of that school after half a school year".
Árni Vil continues: "In Vesturbær
the problem is that there are three
schools for 6-12 year-olds which merge
to form one, Hagaskóli, and no one
knows what will happen". Árni Rúnar
replies: "At least there you have cliques
of people who fight together, so at least
20 kids will conquer the school. In
Rimaskóli everyone fought as an indi-
vidual, it was like the first past the post
system, with only one winner who'd
beat up everyone else."
THEY ARE NOT MAKING FUN OF
YOU, WHY WOULD THEY?
It is important to FM Belfast to be inclu-
sive when they play, to not try to domi-
nate their audience. Árni Rúnar said:
"When we're playing live, we speak di-
rectly to the crowd, tell them that all of
us together will have a party". Audienc-
es around the world respond differently
to this sincerity. All three agree that, for
instance, people in Poland understood
them right away. "Poles are one of the
most fun, thankful audiences you can
play for. It's crazy. It's like they infect
you with this incredibly positive ener-
gy", Árni Vil remarks.
“Usually we have to play a bunch
of shows in a country before that hap-
pens”, adds Lóa. “In France, at first it
was like everyone was concerned with
making sure we weren't making fun of
them. They regarded us very sceptical-
ly. The Swedes were the same. Like they
were worried they were the subjects of
our practical joke. I can understand
that response. If I saw us on stage for
the first time, I'd wonder if we were jok-
ing or not: 'Why are they covering this
song? Is it allowed to like that?' I'd be
sceptical".
"One thing that makes the shows
fun", says Árni Vil, "both for us and the
audience, is that we're open to new cra-
ziness, into the structure we've created.
For example, we were playing in Aus-
tria the other day and just before the
concert starts these three dudes in bal-
lerina costumes offer to come on stage
to dance. We had them enter the stage
during the fifth song and they'd leave
and come back during the set. It put an
entertainingly crazy spin on the show.
They danced very suggestively".
"My jaw hit the f loor", says Lóa, "sud-
denly all these bare-chested, handsome
men jogged onto the stage. I think they
were all over forty. They were clearly all
dancers, very fit, but I could see from
their faces that they were no teenagers,
which made it much more interesting
to me".
"It's open up to a certain point",
says Árni Rúnar. "But once in a while
we lose control. We played Paris when
our record was published on June 3rd.
It was a great concert, with everything
going great. We had some minor tech-
nical issues, but they didn't matter be-
cause the energy was so great and the
audience was in such a positive mood.
We had asked our opening band to join
us on stage during the last song. Then
one audience member comes onstage.
Then another. Then the stage was
rushed by the crowd". Lóa chimes in:
"The stage was shaking. I tried to find a
steady spot, but the whole thing shook".
This is not the first time the struc-
tural integrity of a concert hall has
been tested during an FM Belfast show.
Their friend Bóas remembers when
they played at Q-Bar, around the time
that their first album was released.
"It's the only time I've gone to a con-
cert and been more concerned about
the load bearing capacity of the dance
f loor rather than enjoying myself". Ac-
cording to Bóas, who has seen them
play live around sixty times, there has
been the same energy onstage from
their very first gig. "I don't know what
came first. Whether that FM Belfast are
what they are today because of that de-
but gig [at Airwaves 2006] or whether
the performance had been worked out
beforehand. The main thing was that
they were doing this to entertain them-
“We're always in a hurry to get to the next venue to
do a sound check, then sleep before the show, then
the concert, then back to sleep, then back to driving”
22
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 8 — 2011
TWIN PEAKS
Photo by Jói Kjartans