Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2012, Blaðsíða 21

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN
Jónsi: He is really good at finding new
stuff. Meanwhile I just listen to Mor-
gunstund með KK.
Is there any truth to the rumour
that there is an already-made fol-
low-up to ‘Valtari’?
Georg: That’s just a fabrication.
Jónsi: It’s so strange that Fréttablaðið
just published some rumour without
talking to us. I just think it’s weird.
Georg: We are always working on mu-
sic, though. But we’re not necessarily
recording anything.
What about the rumour that Kjar-
tan had quit. do you know where
that came from?
Georg: No. I don’t know where that
came from. There is always something
like this, someone supposedly quitting
some band somewhere.
But it is decided that he will not
play on the tour this summer.
Jónsi: Yes, I think that’s almost com-
pletely certain... I think he’s not going
to play with us live.
Georg: No.
Jónsi: He was on ‘Valtari’ with us. I
think he’s just tired of touring.
Georg: Yeah.
Jónsi: Wants to do something else.
Spend his time on something else. A
lot of time goes into the tour.
Georg: Which is maybe not exactly the
most productive time.
Jónsi: No. And not necessarily cre-
ative, either.
Georg: Exactly.
Jónsi: A little bit draining, naturally.
It must take a certain toll on your
family life also, especially when
you have children that are stuck in
Iceland.
Georg: Absolutely. You have to always
sow it all together somehow.
Jónsi: Like Goggi has three children.
It’s hard to go away for such a long
time.
Georg: I’m used to it. Sailor’s life.
Jónsi: It is definitely a sailor’s life, go-
ing on tour.
(Laughter.)
Must have been nice for Kjartan
when you toured with Amiina, to
be able to have his wife with him.
Jónsi and Georg (emphatically): Yes.
Jónsi: Damn nice.
Georg: Very lucky.
does that have something to do
with how this four-year hiatus
evolved? The fact that most of you
were having babies. Or did it have
more to do with your solo project,
Jónsi?
Jónsi: Both, I think.
Georg: Yes, all of the above. After the
tour ended in 2008, it was sort of de-
cided to take a year off. That was the
goal. But then right away, if I remember
correctly, by March of 2009 we were in
the studio starting this record. Which
was actually just one month that we
were in the studio and then we went
back to being on vacation. But we have
been making this record, in reality, on
and off since. And we’ve played a lot
together. Even while Jónsi was touring,
you know, when he came home dur-
ing breaks we dragged him into the
studio. So we were always developing
something. But just less than usual. I
don’t know, there was really no reason
to go on tour. No record or anything
like that, so really it just seemed natu-
ral somehow. So much else to do, also.
To what extent do you let others into
the collaborative effort that is Sigur
Rós? Especially when it comes to com-
posing, are you entirely exclusive when
the four of you sit down to write?
Jónsi: Yes, I would say so.
Georg: At least for the foundations of
the songs. It would be very strange, I
think it has never happened that some-
one has composed a song with us. I
don’t remember it ever happening, at
least. Actually, maybe it did happen a
little bit when we were on tour many
years ago and composing ‘()’. Amiina
were always with us on stage, and
some of those songs just came about
in sound checks.
Jónsi: That’s right.
Georg : But I think in most cases when
it comes to the core, the foundations
of the songs, it’s just us four. And then
maybe recently we’ve been letting
people get a little bit closer.
Jónsi: We have become a bit more
open, maybe. Just in terms of letting
different people work with us. Learn-
ing to trust. We’re such bumpkins at
heart; we never trust anyone, no one is
trusted. But I think it’s mostly that you
start letting people in and let some-
one do something and we’re just never
happy with it.
Maybe you also just have a strong
sense of how you want to do things.
You want to have control over what
you’re making.
Jónsi: Yeah I guess it is also that. That
we’re just controlling.
Georg: We are actually very control-
ling.
Jónsi: Difficult to work with.
(Laughter.)
Georg: I think we are getting better
though.
Jónsi: Yeah, we’re a little bit looser
with age.
Georg: More carefree.
Has Sigur Rós’ success had an ef-
fect on your lifestyle when you are
in Iceland? What I mean is, has
your environment here changed at
all?
Jónsi: It’s mostly just the tourists who
stop us.
Right. You said something to that
effect in a recent interview with Q
magazine. In fact you also appar-
ently said that the tourists were the
worst thing about the crash here in
Iceland.
Jónsi: Yes, Goggi was furious about
this. They were saying that we hate
tourists.
Georg: It was a total misunderstand-
ing. We were talking about the reces-
sion in Iceland, and I said—maybe to
answer your question from before—
with regard to the crash and whatnot,
that maybe we have felt the effects of
it less because our daily bread comes
from abroad. So maybe we haven’t felt
it as much. And then we stopped talk-
ing about that and [the interviewer]
asked me what it was like living in Ice-
land, whether we get stopped much
on the street. And I said no, that it was
mostly only tourists that did that. And
in some kind of jest it got twisted into
that we can’t stand tourists. I don’t
know exactly how he did it, but in any
case it was a big misunderstanding.
I want to ask you how you feel
about being interviewed. You have
something of a reputation for be-
ing... well, there are a few epic ex-
amples where things didn’t go so
well for the poor journalist.
(Laughter.)
Georg: Yes, or us.
(Laughter.)
Right. So how do you feel about be-
ing interviewed?
Georg: I think it’s just fine. It depends
on the day. You can land in some ter-
ribly weird interviews, you know. Just
like, seriously weird. But you’re prob-
ably thinking of that NPR interview.
That was kind of a funny moment. I
think we had just come out of some
14-hour flight.
Jónsi: We had just come from Japan;
had just landed in New York and were
driven right up to some radio station.
Georg: Totally fried in the head.
Jónsi: I don’t remember exactly what
the questions were, but it was some-
thing like...
Georg: It was just awful. Really point-
less somehow, and it was something
like 8:00 in the morning.
I remember it being very superfi-
cial. He was asking you guys about
‘hopelandish’ and things like that.
Georg: Yes, exactly.
Jónsi: It was painful for us and for him.
Georg: But if you look at the interview
as a whole, it’s not really as terrible
as it looks when they cut it down. But
that beginning is of course really bad.
Nobody really knows who should start
answering, because everyone is some-
how not totally present, and not really
listening.
Jónsi: We’ve actually discovered that
when we are four in interviews it’s ter-
rible.
Georg: Yes.
Jónsi: It’s best when we are one or
two. But in general it’s just a big myth.
We have this stamp on us now that
we’re really difficult in interviews and
photo shoots. Which is actually really
nice, because then everyone is always
on their toes, everything happens
much quicker.
People are well prepared.
Jónsi: Exactly. Which is just great, for
us.
Georg: When we were first starting
out we freaked out a little bit, because
photographers would want to have us
for three, four hours, changing clothes
and...
Jónsi: Doing poses and stuff.
Georg: That’s just not us. We don’t
feel comfortable doing any of that. So
for that reason we were maybe... we
seemed somewhat difficult, because
we were pushing back a lot, resisting.
I remember one time a photographer
just walked out, furious. That wasn’t
the last time either.
Jónsi: That was for Dazed and Con-
fused.
Georg: They threatened to never write
about us in their paper again. They
were so mad at us. But that was just
because we had been there all day and
we had to put on this and that and then
I remember the final straw for Kjartan
came when the photographer asked
him to open his mouth a little bit.
(Laughter.)
Georg: He just felt like some cheap
whore. He freaked out. But it’s under-
standable, in retrospect. The photog-
rapher, he’s trying to capture some
moment.
Is the summer tour really about
promoting ‘Valtari’? You’re playing
a lot of festivals, I wonder if the re-
cord will work in that setting?
Jónsi: These festivals are just a kind
of circus.
Georg: It doesn’t really work to play
much of ‘Valtari’ there.
Jónsi: No, it’s too quiet. You can’t re-
ally play this kind of album at a festival,
with Rihanna in the next tent. It’s hard
when you don’t have the space. But
we’re going to try and play something
off the new record.
Georg: Yes, some percentage of the
album will be on the tour this year.
Jónsi: It will most likely be when we
have our own concerts, in our own en-
vironment, that we will play more of the
new record. It just has to be that way,
these festivals are just like that.
Have you started practicing for the
summer tour?
Jónsi: Yes, we’ve started planning a
little bit. We don’t know exactly how
it’s gonna be or how it’s gonna end but
we’ve started thinking about it. Goggi
is even having nightmares.
Georg: (Laughing) Yes.
Jónsi: Regarding the tour.
Georg: I have literally been having
nightmares.
And what happens?
Georg: I just get nightmares where I
walk on stage and don’t know a single
song.
Jónsi: People start booing and you
just back off the stage.
Georg: I’m just like, ‘whoops,’ and
walk off. But no, we have started think-
ing about the summer a bit.
Jónsi: We decided to meet up just the
three of us to sort of run through the
songs and see whether we still know
them. We haven’t really played any of
this in four years. But muscle memory
is incredible, when it kicks in. It’s al-
ways there, somehow. You just need to
dust it off a bit.
“We have become a bit more open, maybe. Just
in terms of letting different people work with us.
Learning to trust. We’re such bumpkins at heart;
we never trust anyone, no one is trusted.”