Reykjavík Grapevine - feb. 2020, Blaðsíða 15

15 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 02— 2020
World Famous
Icelandic
Try the
M!t Soup
OPEN 07:30 ! 21:00
WWW.STOKK.IS | +354 595 8576
LAUGAVEGUR 95!99, 101 REYKJAVÍK
Ta
ke
it
on t
he road!
WE ARE
RIGHT NEXT
TO THE DAY
TOUR BUS
STOP!Matthías
“The title of the new album is ‘Neyslutrans’ (‘Consump-
tion Trance’),” Matthías Tryggvi Haraldsson says
mechanically. His eyes are fixed unwaveringly on the
wall as he talks; his voice is monotone yet theatrical,
like a salesman hawking snake oil. We’re sitting in
his bedroom—a bright sun-filled downtown abode
completely devoid of any leather, straps, or other goth
paraphernalia. Instead, it’s packed with books, which
Matthías admits are mainly his girlfriends'.
“The album contains fan favourites such as
renowned nihilist rant, ‘Hatred Will Prevail,’ and
hitherto unreleased doomsday prophecy ‘No Mercy,’
along with other extravagant musical experiences,” he
preaches, his eyes still fixed on the same spot. With a
stone-cold face, he begins to name collaborators, each
with similarly bizarre descriptions.
I ask if his response was rehearsed. He chuckles.
“I just came in from writing the press release. That’s
probably exactly it,” he admits with a boyish grin, the
salesman mask suddenly dropped to reveal the real
Matthías. “It’s just a normal day at home.”

A joke that
went too far
Matthías is, for lack of a better term, curious. Char-
ismatic in a somewhat street messiah-esque fashion,
talking to him often feels like listening to a sermon—
an eloquent philosophical escapade interjected with
satirical statements and off-the-wall ideas. At the
same time, he’s an open book. If you ask him anything
personal, he’ll answer honestly—an unexpected quality
for an artist famous for doing interviews in character.
“I think the precise moment when [Klemens and I]
started Hatari was when we got bored of playing Civil-
isation 5,” he says, when asked about the advent of the
band. He pauses then laughs. “I don’t know if I’ve ever
said that to anyone.”
In fact, before Hatari, Matthías had never made
music. He actually flirted with the idea of becom-
ing a lawyer. At the time he and Klemens teamed up
to create their first songs, Matthías was a poet with
a theatre degree interested in performance art and
production.
“Basically, the process was a joke going too far,
I guess,” he admits. At the same time though, he
emphasises that it was a joke concretely rooted in
each of the band members’ personal experiences of
living in the 21st century. They were unhappy about
the destruction of the environment, disappointed
in leadership and the rise of consumerism, and saw
art as one of the only mediums that could promote
personal engagement with these crises.
The logical
response
“What we say in interviews is that Hatari is the logi-
cal response to the rising populism across Europe and
the rampant growth of capitalism,” he explains. “We
are living in the era of the hyper-individualist and a
lot of what the wider Hatari concept is dealing with in
one way or another is branding and image, personal or
political or as a franchise. An anti-establishment band
living within an establishment. This hyper-individu-
alist time we are living in is such a source of apathy.”
This philosophy, Matthías emphasis, gave Hatari a
grander purpose beyond just making music. The band
would represent a perceptually distorted ideology that
would tread the line between seriousness and irony,
complete with distinctive imagery, manifesto, and
spectacle. To sum it up: the band would criticise the
modern world by existing within it.
“I had a close relationship with Laibach [as a
teen],” Matthías explains. It was then that his love of
controversial satire began. “The fact that you never
knew whether it’s humour or dead serious critique or
whether their use of all these kinds of fascist or proto-
fascist imagery is sincere admiration. Which would be
very disturbing,” he admits. “Or is it this ironic way
of revealing what this imagery entails? It can work as
both, which is a bit dangerous, but also in a way fasci-
nating.”
Winning
awards!
From their early years, Matthías and the band brought
up the contradictions they wanted to explore through
Hatari’s notorious branding campaigns. From their
sponsorship by SodaDream to their ‘collaboration’
with Landsbankinn, the band continually pointed out
the ridiculousness of marketing by, well, marketing.
“I don’t always know if it always comes across,”
Matthías laughs. “I would have thought that saying
you are an award-winning anti-capitalist band would
be a clear contradiction, but maybe we are living in
times where that is normal.” He puts on an announcer
voice. “Yes, they are anti-capitalist but they have to
win awards to sell records!”
capitalism@
hatari.is
It’s here that Matthías gets to the crux of his ethos:
Hatari continually strives to execute the unex-
pected. The band aspires to be a funhouse mirror of
the world—an ineffable swirl of stark truth, cutting
caricature, all packaged with a referential catalogue
worthy of ‘Ulysses.’
So at this moment, on the eve of their album
release, what would be the most unexpected stunt
the group could pull? Upon hearing the questions, the
wheels start turning in the poet’s head.
“I guess if we would hire a super well trained team
of Korean boy band look alikes and become a Korean
boy band. Fire all the Hatari members and replace
them with K-pop members who can dance and sing. I
mean, the brand is still there. It’s still Hatari and they
are doing the same songs. It’s on playback, so it’s my
voice,” he explains. As he paints the rather dystopic
picture, his eyes drift back to the wall—it seems the
snake oil salesman has returned.
“Then the anti-capitalist merch goes to a new
level, and there’s a whole factory where the workers
are exploited producing anti-establishment merch for
the K-pop band that is Hatari. We get a cut of ticket
and merch sales and move to Mexico,” he bursts out
laughing. Even he can’t keep up this charade.
“So if there is a K-pop producer reading this inter-
view, they are free to contact us at capitalism@hatari.
is," he explains. “Yes, it’s a real email. It works.”