Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.07.2019, Síða 20

“We’ve never been as excited to share
something with people,” says Ragnar
Þórhallsson, smiling broadly as he sips
his coffee. Ragnar—better known as
Raggi—is referring to 'Fever Dream,' the
forthcoming album from Of Monsters
and Men, the band in the band in which
he sings and plays guitar. It’s clear he’s
almost bursting with excitement for the
world to hear it.
The band’s other singer and guitar-
ist, Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, is no
less enthused. “Fever dream,” she states
simply. “That’s what these two or three
years have been while writing the album.
That’s what the process was like.” She
pauses. “For us, it’s a fever dream.”
The
dream
team
The two burst out laughing at the
cheesiness of using the album’s title
in such a lofty statement. It’s just the
way Raggi and Nanna interact. They
talk with a familiarity more common
among siblings, finishing each other's
sentences, peppering their thoughts
with inside jokes, and ripping on each
other in a way only those who’ve spent
too much time together can.
It’s easy to imagine why. Over the
past ten years, the two, along with their
three bandmates, have achieved some-
thing most can only dream of. They’ve
travelled the world, had a number one
single, and made a name for them-
selves internationally as one of the
foremost bands in their genre. With
an uncanny ability to mix the Icelan-
dic krútt sensibility with earworm
melodies, Of Monsters and Men found
a niche that has captivated listeners
around the world.
Now, after a three year writing
period, they’re back and ready to enter
the next stage of their takeover.
Find-
ing their
people
Of Monsters and Men grew out of
Nanna’s solo project, Songbird. Origi-
nally from the small Reykjanes village
of Garður, Nanna began playing guitar
and writing songs at age 13. “I don’t
come from a musical family,” she says.
“So it was a bit of a random thing that
I was interested in learning guitar and
songwriting.”
When asked what type of music she
was listening to at that time, the song-
stress immediately blushes. “Oh Jesus,
at 13? I don’t even know,” she laughs,
only to be immediately interrupted
by Raggi. “Avril Lavigne?” he inter-
jects with a grin. “Yeah, probably,” she
replies, with a shrug.
Raggi, on the other hand, is a born
and bred city boy. “I started playing
music really late,” he says. “I played
around with the guitar, but I only
started writing when I met Nanna at
age 17 or 18. She and [OMAM guitar-
ist] Brynjar [Leifsson] were playing
together and they needed...” he pauses,
doubling back on himself. “Well, they
didn’t need anything.”
Nanna rolls her eyes. “We wanted,”
she states firmly. “I had seen him at
parties. He’d be playing the guitar and
singing something.”
“Something horrible probably,”
Raggi interjects.
“No, no,” Nanna chastises him,
always, of course, with a smile.
Nanna asked Raggi to join them
onstage for her Airwaves 2009 off-
venue show. The trio clicked and
decided to form a proper band, calling
themselves Of Monsters and Men. In
2010, just one year later, they entered
and won Músiktilraunir, Iceland’s
national annual battle of the bands,
which kickstarted their career.
Battling
for a
platform
Winning Músiktilraunir afforded
the group the opportunity to record
a demo. “That’s the great part about
Músiktilraunir,” Nanna explains. “The
platform they give you.”
The two still keep up with each year’s
winners, and admire how the contest
elevates musicians of all genres. “It’s
very cool that a metal band can win one
year and then a rap group can win the
next,” Nanna says. Of her recent favou-
rites, the songwriter names Between
Mountains as particularly inspira-
tional.
Raggi, meanwhile, gives his stamp
of approval to this year's winners,
metal band Blóðmör. “They were just
playing recently by my house in Kópa-
vogur. I could hear them through the
window,” he grins. “They’re good.”
With the studio time furnished by
Músiktilraunir, the band recorded two
songs before the 2010 Iceland Airwaves
on a handmade CD. One was called
“From Finner.” The other was a 4m 24s
minute track entitled “Little Talks.”
A “little”
song
The track would go on to gain more
than 400 million Spotify streams and
270 million YouTube plays. It remains,
even today, the all-time highest chart-
ing single on the Billboard Top 100 by
an Icelandic artist.
“Little Talks” was a kingmaker; one
that set the band on a two-year journey
of touring, interviews, and fame far
beyond their wildest dreams.
“It was crazy. It just happened,”
Raggi says, clearly still somewhat
shocked by the whole experience. “We
got signed. We got a manager. We
started touring, but the song just got
bigger and bigger.”
“We were always catching up to the
song,” says Nanna. Raggi nods. “We
were booking venues and then kept
having to upgrade to a bigger place.
Every time we planned something,
‘Little Talks’ got bigger,” he says. For
the next year, the band spent their time
racing after the ever-growing fame of
their little song.
“Looking back, it was such a cool
experience, but it was definitely very
strange and foggy,” Nanna says. “Every
morning we were doing a session at a
radio station or doing a little concert,
then we had soundcheck, then another
concert,” Raggi relays. “Interviews, no
sleep, loading in and loading out,” he
adds, sardonically. “Yes, it’s very fun.”
My head
is a hit
The release of their debut effort, ‘My
Head Is an Animal,’ cemented their
legacy as bonafide stars. Chock full of
whimsical, heartfelt, sing-a-long tunes,
the album’s folksy duets and soar-
ing harmonies resonated with people.
There was something attractively
wholesome about the group; something
authentic that grabbed people of all
ages and backgrounds. ‘My Head Is an
Animal’ managed to musically bridge
the gap between childlike sincerity and
adult understanding, and it has since
gained a place as one of the canoni-
cal indie-folk albums of recent years.
“‘My Head Is an Animal’ has an
energy to it that is very innocent and
wide-eyed,” says Nanna. Her eyes spar-
kle when she talks about it. None of
that innocence has been lost.
For Raggi, the album evokes a
coming-of-age. “You’re always trying
to figure out who you are,” he inter-
jects. “Also who you are as an indi-
vidual trying to write songs and your
place in the band and what that is at
that moment. Thinking about that, we
wanted the album to be very cheery.”
Neither can contain their smiles
when discussing the album. Those
early years, while busy and overwhelm-
ing, are clearly awash with happy
memories. It seems the excitement of
the ‘My Head Is an Animal’ era is still
with them.
In a weird
place
Four years and countless shows later,
Of Monsters and Men returned with
their sophomore effort ‘Beneath the
Skin.’
Often referred to as their intro-
verted album, ‘Beneath the Skin’
presented a darker tone. While it still
contained the fantastical lyrics and
wilderness themes of their debut, it
had a distinctly more adult under-
current. The topics were more seri-
ous, exploring such themes as loss of
identity and regret. It featured their
first flourishes of electronic produc-
tion, using droning guitars and other
sounds alongside their characteristic
acoustic sound.
“It was a hard album to make,” says
Nanna, quietly. “We went in the oppo-
site way. We were trying to figure
things out. You have your entire life
to write your first album.” Raggi nods.
“We were in a weird place.”
The band began making the album
directly after returning from two
years of touring, which proved to be
a difficult transition. “For me, it was
a strange thing, coming back,” Nanna
explains. “When you’re on tour, every-
thing is planned out and you get used
to that. Then you come back and it’s
like, alright, make an album! I got
pretty lost at that time.”
Raggi had a similar crisis. “When
you play every night there’s an adren-
aline high, but when you get home,
you don’t get that,” he says. “We didn’t
know what we were getting into.”
“Overall, we wanted to get more
personal on ‘Beneath the Skin.’ We
wanted to be mature. More mature
than we are.” He pauses. “That said, we
are very proud of that album, and a lot
of it translated onto the next one.”
A new
angle
‘Fever Dream,’ their upcoming third
album, is a coalescence of everything
the band learned from their first two
efforts. It continues the electronic
progression started on ‘Beneath the
Skin’ whilst returning to the fun and
whimsical feeling of ‘My Head Is an
Animal.’ A whirlwind of ethereal elec-
tronica mixed with stadium rock, with
nods to their more acoustic roots,
it’s a new angle for the group. It’s Of
Monsters and Men at their most weird,
but also at their most alluring.
“It’s playful,” grins Nanna. She
attributes this to how they wrote and
recorded the album, which was a dras-
tic departure from their first two.
“We got rid of how we’ve always done
things, and our roles within the band.
How we wrote the first two albums
was writing something on an acoustic
guitar and then bringing it into the
space, and moulding it together. Going
into the third, I thought ‘I can’t do this
again.’ It didn’t feel inspiring.”
“You limit yourself,” Raggi adds.
“It limits you to the guitar you have in
your hand. For the two of us, we’re not
amazing instrumentalists,” he laughs.
“We need more time. So for this, we
wrote more on our laptops.”
Nanna nods. “Instead of just having
a piano or guitar, you can say, ‘I am
going to make this rhythm, or loop this
thing, or chop up this vocal,’” she says.
“It gives you a new way to find that ‘Oh,
that’s interesting!’ feeling.”
“We opened up the process,” Raggi
concludes. “It opened up a whole new
world for us.”
Shining
stars
Writing separately using computer
software allowed for the creation of
more varied songs, and freed the band
up to play with structure and tone.
“There are songs with no guitar in
them, because that’s what the song was
meant to be,” Nanna explains. “If we’d
recorded together in person, we’d say,
‘Oh, but I’m a guitar player, the piece
has to have guitar.’ So it’s things like
that which changed it.”
Changing up their writing process
also allowed the band to progress lyri-
cally. “We separated a bit,” Raggi adds.
“We’ve done a lot of the lyrics together,
which is fun, but it does limit you in
20 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12— 2019
“A
fever
dream—that’s
what these two
or three years
have been.”
“We opened up the
songwriting pro-
cess. It opened up
a whole new
world for us.”