The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 08 — 2014
37 MUSIC
society. Everyone’s invited to join us.
Baldur: I can’t really see anything without my glasses.
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Gunnar: And he had blacked out, he had no idea where his glasses were. Maybe he had thrown them into the ocean in his desperate, drunk and love-sick mood. Baldur: I had been shouting at the sea. Gunnar: So, on Monday morning I’m up before everyone else, walking around the dorm when I see two police officers come up the stairs. They’re looking for someone and show me this photograph of Baldur. They tell me that on Saturday evening he had broken into the post office and begun writing a love letter to his girlfriend that he meant to mail.
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Baldur: I’d been writing love letters over the last few days but I hadn’t posted them and that night I decided to finish them and send them all off.
Baldur: Yeah. That was fucked.
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Gunnar: We’re all artists so it’s nice to pay attention to all of the different facets of what a rock group is. Like, I really dig Tom Waits—I think a concert should be Gunnar: They said that then he’d an immersive experience. And Michael wandered into the house next door and Jackson, I love that sort of spectacle. And fallen asleep on someone’s couch and I think as we’ve grown we’ve become forgotten his glasses. So I go and wake more confident and conscious of that him up and say ‘Baldur, the police are aspect. We want to keep developing this, here, you broke into the post office, here build a catalogue are your glasses.’ "The recurrence of and introduce cover songs that we relate ‘Lísa’ on the first record Baldur: The brought to. me in and gave me started out as a joke." coffee and asked me Baldur: The other what had happened. guys—the band— I couldn’t remember are so tight. They’re much but we wrote great musicians so a testimony together. we can just rock I was hungover and out and interact laughing my ass off. with the crowd. Let He showed me this loose. Have fun. If video where I’m in we’re having fun, things are going well. the middle of the post office, writing the We have the lyrics, our songs, our videos: letter until the alarm goes off and I run we’re trying to create a certain universe. away. They didn’t press charges but I’ll And it’s nice to involve your friends. We’re have to pay for the door that I kicked in. lucky to have very talented and creative friends and band members. That way it’s Gunnar: But Baldur and his girlfriend more about cultivating a particular vibe. are back together now so I guess it was We’re not only a band. worth it. Gunnar: We’re a gang. But it’s not a closed
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Over the last twelve months it seems like you guys have really prioritized the performative aspect of the group. Your live shows have become very energetic and quite theatrical. Baldur: During our first shows we didn’t even know the songs. Now we know them inside out and can just keep adding to the performance. Maybe a synchronized dance or something. Work harder to keep us on our toes.
Gunnar: Sure. During Aldrei fór ég suður [annual music festival held during Easter in Ísafjörður in the West Fjords] we were rocking out pretty hard. Baldur was having a rough time in his relationship and got very drunk on the Saturday night. He was trash talking everyone, showing off, insulting Högni [from Gusgus and Hjaltalín] and [legendary rock singer] Helgi Björns. Then he just rushes off and we don’t see him till later that night when he barges into the dorm and crashes on the couch. When we try to move him he wakes up and realises he’s lost his glasses. So on Sunday night, during the main party, he was practically blind.
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So the title is not a reference to the critics’ cliché of a sophomore album being a ‘logical progression’ from the debut? Gunnar: We’re quoting Megas. I don’t know, maybe he was making fun of the critics. He described ‘Millilending’ [his second record] as a logical progression from his self-titled album, which is hilarious, because I’d imagine it definitely didn’t sound like that to most listeners.
Finally, are there any rock’n’roll moments you’d like to share with the Grapevine? Baldur: Should we tell him the main story?
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Baldur: That’s what the album title refers to: Rökrétt framhald [Logical progression]. The next step. See, we’ve run out of ideas. It was funny, on the last day of recording we had recorded eight songs but had some leftover lyrics so we wrote three more songs on that day and totally dried ourselves out. That was a nice feeling. Now we just have to keep writing keep writing songs and see what happens. I fucking love it. It’s so much fun and seems to happen quite naturally.
Baldur: When you have a seven-piece band singing in Icelandic you just know you won’t get paid every month. Making money was never the idea.
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Compared to your previous record, there doesn’t seem to be as much of an overarching narrative or concept on the new album. Gunnar: The recurrence of ‘Lísa’ on the first record started out as a joke. We thought it was pretty funny so we added her here and there and then sold the record as a concept piece. But there is definitely a loose narrative to it. The lyrics on this record are basically leftovers from the last one that we didn’t manage to write songs to.
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Baldur: Those hangover lines. Straight out of ‘Running on Empty’ by Jackson Browne. That’s my favourite record. Could you please include that in the interview? It’s the best album of all time.
I heard you played some killer shows in Denmark. Are you planning world domination? Gunnar: Grísalappalísa is only planning to make music. To be a disciplined band: productive and awesome. It’s dumb to approach international success as a goal. You just have to make good music and then maybe something will happen. Working hard is what matters the most. I don’t appreciate this culture of releasing an album every five years. Our strategy is to keep ‘em coming and press ourselves hard to produce something.
Sk
Gunnar: We like to cover serious topics but still have a punchline. I was mopping the floors at the hotel where I work while listening to a late Leonard Cohen album and I just love these funny and weird bad-ass lines that crop up every now and again. They ease your hangover and I love it.
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