Reykjavík Grapevine - 22.05.2015, Page 17

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 6 — 2015
The five-piece band only stepped onto
the scene a couple of years ago, shred-
ding through their 60s-style garage
rock wherever they could. They’ve
been busy, too, releasing a demo cas-
sette, and recently a vinyl through 12
Tónar’s record label. Their boisterous
attitude on stage is mirrored off of it,
as I discovered when I shared a room
with them at last year’s Eistnaflug
festival—their drunken antics pre-
venting me from getting much sleep
over the weekend.
In 2014 they were on numerous
top ten album lists, received a Krau-
mur music award, and were short-
listed for the Nordic Music Prize.
Not to mention, this magazine picked
them as “Best Live Band” of 2014. De-
spite all of these accolades, Jónbjörn
Birgisson and Víðir Alexander Jóns-
son look at me in disbelief when I tell
them that we’re going to put them on
our cover this issue. “Wow, really?
That’s crazy!” they say, as we sit down
to chat at a downtown café.
But it’s not. PSB has shaken up
Iceland’s rock scene, drawing peo-
ple’s attention to an often overlooked
genre, and delivered a lot of truly
face-melting performances. They
may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but
in the two years they’ve been active
they’ve made a big splash.
Third time’s
the charm
Jónbjörn and Víðir have the same
role in the band, alternating between
playing guitar and bass, yet they look
and carry themselves very differ-
ently. Víðir is the taller and bigger of
the two; Jónbjörn is more talkative.
In conversation, it’s evident that they
are long-time friends, not missing any
opportunities to make jokes at each
other’s expense, and erupting into
laughter every few minutes.
They tell me the band’s roots go
back to Foldarskóli primary school in
the Grafarvogur suburbs, with Víðir
joining the group later on through
his kinship with singer-guitarist Axel
Björnsson. The band’s five members
have since blazed their own trails,
with three of them embarking on film
or art studies, one working as a profes-
sional painter, and one even currently
attending business school. Their
friendship, however, is still strong,
and they meet up and hang at least
three or four times a week at their re-
hearsal space on Skemmuvegur (a.k.a.
“pink street”), in addition to going to
their Grafarvogur neighbourhood
joints to play pool or darts, or just to
knock back a few beers. Jónbjörn says
even when they practice, they spend
the majority of the time hanging out.
“We’re there chatting for an hour,
then we play for an hour, and we chat
for a while after that,” he says. “We
don’t have girlfriends, so we’re never
in a rush to leave.”
Although to some PSB appear to
have achieved overnight success,
Jónbjörn says they’ve been at it since
2006 and that the current band is
the gang’s third iteration. Their first
band was called Kid Twist, which
Jónbjörn says was heavily influenced
by Singapore Sling. “We all loved
them because they were playing loud,
rough rock, but they didn’t have to
scream. We wanted to make that kind
of music—not metal, but something
extreme.” They did just that, and
were even on several occasions the
opening act for their idols. Although
they strived to not copy them, Víðir
says the band disbanded because the
members felt there wasn’t enough
originality in Kid Twist. “You need
to do something new,” Jónbjörn em-
phasises. “It’s not cool to just repeat
what’s already been done.”
In 2009, the gang formed a second
band called Dandelion Seeds, which
was a mellow 60s psychedelic pop
outfit. “That’s the project in which we
learned to actually play our instru-
ments properly,” Víðir says, which
Jónbjörn says they would later have
to unlearn with PSB. They both laugh
heartily.
Since the very beginning, the
group had been listening to a lot of old
garage rock in addition to bands like
Darker My Love and The Vandelles,
so when Dandelion Seeds faded, they
came out with guns blazing as a rock
band that took to heart the MC5’s
mantra of being the world’s loudest
band. And Pink Street Boys was born.
Meeting high
expectations
Right off the bat the guys found
themselves writing a lot more music
as PSB. They have the unspoken goal
of always playing at least one new
song at each gig they play, which is no
small feat given how much they have
performed.
This creativity doesn’t come from
slashing tires or smashing windows
as their daring vibe might suggest,
but from hanging out with each other
and bands they like. These include
Muck, Godchilla, Skelkur í bringu, DJ
Flugvél og geimskip, Kælan mikla, or
“the artsy people,” as Jónbjörn says:
“We play a lot with them and listen
to their music, and we all sort of meld
together.”
Jónbjörn says laughingly that af-
ter about six months of playing peo-
ple started attending their concerts in
respectable numbers, but when asked
why, the two take a moment to come
up with an answer. Víðir eventually
says it’s because they had more atti-
tude. “We started showing up, run-
ning our mouth, and being rowdy,”
he says, “and that got people’s atten-
tion.” Jónbjörn agrees, saying it was
the first time the band had an image.
I bring up an interview entitled
”GO HOME YOU’RE DRUNK, PINK
STREET BOY,” in which inebriated
frontman Axel stumbled into the
Grapevine office during the Airwaves
festival and complained about the
media’s role in deciding “who is cool”
and “who is not cool.” Jónbjörn and
Víðir both dismiss the idea that any
one individual was responsible for
making the band cool or hyped. “You
get the attention you deserve if you
work hard,” Jónbjörn says.
Víðir and Jónbjörn propose that
what fuelled their meteoric rise is
how dangerous they sound. At live
During a break between songs, a friend shouts into my
ear, “They are too loud!” I try to respond, but my words
are lost to Pink Street Boys’ onslaught of guitars, pedals,
unintelligible vocals and loud drums. At a time when cul-
tural export is the name of the game, with local bands
cashing in on the world’s interest in the dreamy and cute
Icelandic sound, Pink Street Boys are unruly, crass, full of
attitude, unapologetic, and as my friend previously men-
tioned, loud. At the end of their song, I turn to my friend
only to see that they’ve left. Their loss.
P I N K S T R E E T B O Y S H AV E M A D E
A M A R K O N I C E L A N D ’ S
M U S I C S C E N E
DA NGEROUS,
LOUD,
IR R EV ER ENT
Words by Gabríel Benjamin
Photos by Hörður Sveinsson