Reykjavík Grapevine - feb. 2020, Side 13

13 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 02— 2020
“It’s good to be back in the daily life of
Klemens,” Klemens Hannigan says, a
small smile brightening his face. He
sits cross-legged on the floor, forgo-
ing the couch, leaning back against
Matthías’s bed. “My older daughter is
back in kindergarten and I’m finishing
some renovations on the house. Just
normal life.”
Goodbye
humanity
As we speak, we're days away from the
release of ‘Neyslutrans’ (‘Consumption
Trance’), Hatari’s debut album; just
weeks before Klemens and the rest of
the band embark on their Europe Will
Crumble tour. For Klemens, this is the
last bit of normal life for a while—the
calm before the storm, you might say.
“‘Neyslutrans’ is a sort of hymn
or memorial to the 21st century,” he
explains. As he talks, the smile previ-
ously gracing his face disappears. “A
goodbye album to the Earth or, rather,
to humanity. The Earth will do just fine
without us.”
While others get angry or impas-
sioned by the current environmental
crises, Klemens just seems upset. “It’s
a bit sad. You get a lot of anxiety-driven
thoughts about how you, as an indi-
vidual, can actually make an impact
or change, and what you should actu-
ally be doing to maintain the human
race,” he says. “Me, as an individual, I
don’t know what my contribution is. I
try to recycle. It’s a bit counterintuitive
to be organising a European tour but
yet again we describe the counterin-
tuitively through the name of the tour,
Europe Will Crumble.”
He pauses. It’s clear this issue is one
of great importance to him. “Although,
we did carbon neutralise our last tour
on this website where you can pay X
amount for the distance travelled and
then they plant trees for the carbon you
used,” he explains. He seems happy at
the attempt, but definitely quizzical on
just how much of an effect something
like that actually has.
Building
a world
At all times, Klemens encapsulates the
word ‘artist.’ He takes every remark
seriously, calmly reflecting on his
words before he speaks, and when he
does, projecting a raw sense of vulner-
ability with them. A lesser man might
mistake this openness for fragility,
but they’d be wrong to do so. As you
speak with him, it becomes clear that
Klemens is intensely connected to
his thoughts, emotions, and artistic
desires. Building, creating, and inno-
vating is more than important to him,
it’s fundamental.
“I never really found myself in this
industrial route that you’re forced
into,” he explains, thinking back to his
schooling and teenage years. “Educa-
tion, then having to choose a career,
and fulfilling your 30-40 years of
8:00-17:00. Reading and writing never
comes easy to me, but being very physi-
cal and visual comes easy. Doing things
with my hands—molding, sculpting,
making music as well.”
He laughs—gobsmacked—when
asked what a younger Klemens would
think of his work in Hatari. “I would
have been pleasantly surprised, I don’t
know,” he grins. “Art can always start,
or often starts, as some ridiculous idea
you get with yourself or with others.”
Hatari, he emphasises, was no excep-
tion. “I had just started making elec-
tronic music and I asked Matthías to
shout something over this beat. We
enjoyed the entertainment of creating
the concept and the imagery around
the band—making this other world.
It’s just a coincidence that it ended up
being a band rather than just us two
concept artists.”
Digressing
into BDSM
In these early days of Hatari, the group
donned military costumes, which even-
tually evolved into their current BDSM
aesthetic. “It was a natural progres-
sion, like you do, to digress into BDSM.
Everyone does it,” he laughs. “The
dynamic onstage between the three
of us has progressed, yes, but it is still
very similar to the way we imagined it
in the beginning. Matthías as the dicta-
tor. Me, the resented foster son, the
empathy, the emotional side. Einar, the
hidden trauma or pain, the general of
the dictator’s army, the Gimp.”
Eurovision, as Klemens explains,
pushed the Hatari world even further,
in ways the group couldn’t have imag-
ined, and perhaps might not have
wanted. “We maintained more mystery
before Eurovision. We refused all inter-
views and all kinds of connections to
media were either staged or produced
by us hands-on,” he explains. “Eurovi-
sion forced us to present the concept
of the band. We’d never had such a
demand for us to explain our art. I feel
that it’s unnecessary for an artist to
explain the art that you produce but,
going into this very mainstream TV
show, a lot of our humour and comedy
leaked into the band then.”
2020
trance
Thankfully, the demands on the group
to prove themselves have lessened
since the competition, and the three
are now looking forward to the next
stage: the Consumption Trance.
But for Klemens, 2020 will be a
trance of more than just music. Along
with continuing his schooling in
conceptual art, he’ll be getting married
in April to his longtime girlfriend,
Ronja. And there will be moments of
returning to daily Klemens life. “Hope-
fully finishing renovations in the house
soon,” he says. “And of course, striving
to be a good father to my two beautiful
daughters.”
Einar Stefánsson has never done an
interview as a member of Hatari. For
years, the elusive, submissive CEO of
Svikamylla ehf. (Hatari's parent corpo-
ration) has refused all press, staying
silent, preferring to skulk in the shad-
ows in his white contacts and spiked
face mask. The Gimp, as he’s referred
to, is the ultimate enigma.
It’s unclear, then, why he’s decided
to speak up now to the Grapevine, and
to be fair, his answer to the question
is fittingly shady. “I was given permis-
sion.” That’s all.
Finally
balanced
While Einar’s character in the band
is voiceless, stoic, and impassive, in
person, Einar is rather sweet. He’s
impeccably dressed and handsome.
When he speaks, he uses no filler words
and fiddles with his hands, speaking
so articulately that it often feels like
he’s dictating an academic essay. We
sit in his studio—a cosy, lived-in flat
peppered with bits and bobs of Hatari
merchandise and Red Bull cans.
“I’m balanced,” Einar responds, zen,
when asked simply how things are
going. “I am 27-years old—when a lot
of musicians die—but it’s going well so
far. I have nine months left.”
The artist grew up bouncing
between various European countries
and began playing drums when he was
13-years old. Music, he emphasises,
has always been a visceral experience
for him. He instinctively remembers
his early experiences with sound, like
the first album he bought with his own
money—Rammstein’s ‘Mutter’—and
can describe vividly where he first
listened to it. He even plays me the first
song he ever wrote.
“The wonderful thing about music
is the nostalgia," he muses. "It can
immediately transport you to a certain
space and time. It’s really powerful.”
The freedom
of anonymity
As a teenager, Einar met bandmate
Klemens in Brussels. There was a two
year age difference between the two.
Being older, Einar immediately took
young Klemens under his wing. “I
remember thinking he was a bit of a
kid, but I liked his spirit. He had a really
unique radiation. There’s something
good about him. He’s a good person,”
Einar explains. The two were fast
friends and quickly began collaborat-
ing on music together.
Because of this relationship, it was
natural that Klemens would later go
straight to Einar to show him the early
Hatari recordings he made with his
cousin, Matthías. “It was new, fresh, and
weird, and something that I couldn’t put
my finger on, which was really intrigu-
ing. If you can’t put something in a box
and you’re so desperately trying to find
a definition of what it is and you can’t, I
think that’s probably a really good posi-
tion to be in, especially as a producer,” he
says, reminiscing on those early listens.
“I saw great potential.”
Einar immediately jumped into
the project, and quickly adopted his
role as the silent Gimp. “I was always
intrigued by the idea of being unknown,
of being a mystery person behind the
drums. People would wonder who it
is,” he explains. “Especially in a small
community like Iceland. It’s very diffi-
cult to be anonymous. It’s very difficult
to be Andy Kaufman. The music scene
is very close-knit so the idea was just
to have a masked drum gimp, which
felt very fitting for me. It was some-
body who I felt I was to an extent. And
there’s a freedom in that.”
Business
101
But Einar came to the group with more
than just production experience, song-
writing skills, and a great mask, he had
a savvy mind, honed with a bachelor
degree in business and years of experi-
ence in the industry.
“People associate business a lot
with capitalism and consumerism,
but business is why we started coming
together as people,” he explains, softly
but passionately. “Not that I want to
start mansplaining a lecture on Busi-
ness 101, but I find the whole idea that
together we make something bigger
really interesting. It’s a beautiful
concept. It’s very scientific.”
And from his perspective, the
current musical landscape was an ideal
place for a young, off-the-map outfit
like Hatari to grow.
“We live in the age of information,”
he says. “The major industry is not as
powerful as it was. As an independent
artist, you can get way further without
having to suck up to as many people in
order to get your music heard. You can
just upload it to the world wide web.
The limitations are far less.”
For Einar, this meant a world where
listeners could hone more personal
and outlandish musical tastes. “People
often find their identity through art,
music, and films, and often the way
that it gets formed [depends on] what
access you have,” he continues. “It used
to be there might be one record label or
one record shop that you’d have access
to and then an identity was based on
the curation of that record shop. I feel
like there’s a rise in the development of
subcultures. You don’t have to just stick
to one thing; it’s a beautiful time.”
Punish
me
2020, Einar hopes, will also be a beauti-
ful time, and a big year of business for
Svikamylla. One must remember, the
submissive Gimp is, after all, the CEO
of the scam artists.
“Not a lot of people know that I’m
the CEO,” he admits, grinning. “It’s sort
of a win-win situation. If we do well,
and the quarterly reports are good, I
am rewarded. If we do bad, and our
sales are not good, I get punished,” he
stops. “Which is also a reward.”
Klemens i r
“‘NEYSLUTRANS’ IS A GOODBYE ALBUM TO THE EARTH OR, RATHER, TO HUMANITY. THE EARTH WILL DO JUST FINE WITHOUT US.”