Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.02.2006, Qupperneq 36

The last 18 months have been
productive for singer and songwriter
Þórir Georg Jónsson (also known
by his interesting stage name My
Summer as a Salvation Soldier). In
2004, Þórir was selected as the most
promising new talent at the Ice-
landic Music Awards for his debut
album, I Believe In This. Follow-
ing the release of his second album,
Anarchists Are Hopeless Romantics
(2005), he is fast shedding the up-
and-comer status and is becoming
the everyman’s favourite. His lo-fi
and melancholic songs delivered in
a somewhat atypical fashion have
garnered rave reviews from both the
domestic and foreign music press,
propelling him into the limelight be-
yond the shores of Iceland. Now, he
is standing at the doorstep of fame
at the very tender age of 21. What
most people do not realise, however,
is that before Þórir duly impressed
with his solo efforts, he had already
built quite a reputation within the
world of hardcore punk, playing in at
least five different bands that all heed
the hardcore ethos. And despite his
more recent success as a solo artist,
he is still a punk at heart.
Þórir is a mild-mannered young
man. He even comes off as a little
shy when we sit down inside an
organic café. He orders nothing, sits
down, almost apologetically, but,
once he settles in his routine, he
speaks freely about whichever subject
I broach him with. Þórir grew up
in the small village of Húsavík
(pop: 2500) in the northern part of
Iceland. It is an archetypical Ice-
landic small town that offers all the
painstaking excitement of watching
grass grow. Unless you want to see
whales. They have lots of whales, but
not much of anything else. How did
a young man from this remote out-
post of western civilisation become
interested in hardcore punk?
“I started listening to punk music
when I was about 10. But that was
more pop-punk, like Bad Religion,
Offspring and NOFX. When you are
a nerd, you start from that premise.
You look up the record labels to see
what else they have published, you
look up bands that other bands refer
to, and that is how you work yourself
backwards in time and to the sides.
Then I started to get to know other
people who were listening to the
same sort of music through the
Internet and we started exchanging
music. That is the best way to learn
about new music. Find other nerds.”
The inevitable outcome would be
that Þórir moved from Húsavík to
Reykjavík in order to follow a path
that music had chosen for him. “I
moved to Reykjavík in 2002. At that
time I had been here more or less for
two years, playing in bands, travel-
ling back and forth for rehearsals
and gigs, staying with friends or on
someone’s sofa.”
Þórir had soon carved his niche
among the hardcore faithfuls, playing
with a number of different bands,
representing various stages of punk
extremity. Currently he is a mem-
ber of four bands: The Deathmetal
Supersquad, Fighting Shit, Gavin
Portland and Hryðjuverk. Add a
burgeoning solo career to the mix
and you begin to wonder whether
there is no limit to the number of
projects this juggler can keep in the
air.
“Now I am starting to feel like I
need to limit myself a little, mostly
because most of these bands are
reaching that level where they are
starting to record and release and go
on tours. Then it starts to become
a little difficult, mostly because it
leaves little time for rehearsals. You
can play and play, but you are always
playing the same songs because you
don’t have the time to come up with
new material.
“Right now, my solo project has
become a little more serious, so it has
to take a certain priority. It is a little
easier to move other things around.
Now I have a label that is invest-
ing money in me, and they receive
many offers for things that are a little
You’ll Be Dead in Three Years:
Tales of Þórir, the only straight-edge vegetarian from Husavík with
four bands and a thriving solo career at the age of 21.
by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
S
TE
IN
AR
H
U
G
I
– “Tonight, for instance, four
bands I play with have been asked
to play a gig. I think I’ll only do
two though.”
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