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sánd interview with sigur rós (june 2000)                                

we haven't heard from you in a while, what have you guys been up to?

we've been chilling out, just some business stuff we've been finishing up. we've just signed a deal with fatcat, which is a small record company in england. our album ágætis byrjun comes out internationally in the beginning of july, we've been planning that and we're finally going to make a video to svefn-g-englar. we're in contact with the theatrical group perluna, we've been working on this full time lately and hopefully it's going to be very cool. and orri has just became a father, he's got a little girl and much happiness is going on at his place. hallelujah!

what's the deal with fatcat like?

we're very happy with the deal. we made a rather unconventional deal, it was a license deal in which we got all the rights and did most ourselves. we got an unusually high percentage on record sales and stuff. the deal was to everyone's benefit really, and not just good for the record company like it usually is. especially in iceland, sweet iceland.

we hear you guys have been playing abroad, tell us a little about that and how it's been going

we've been doing pretty well, we've played a few times in denmark and that's always fantastic, great crowd. we toured with godspeed you black emperor! around england, ireland and scotland and that was very nice, I guess. unfortunately we got very short soundchecks out there which was bad but we learned a lot from it. it's also interesting how the crowds in iceland are always much better than the ones abroad, there's always so much chatting there whereas icelanders know how to shut up so we can fly. let's face it, we're not playing noise and we need a little silence to get the right mood.

are sigur rós going to release anything soon?

no we don't think so. we're going to let the world hear our old stuff before we release brand new stuff. like we said, ágætis byrjun comes out abroad in july hopefully and that's new material to them.

has your success changed you personally?

yes and no, more on the inside because the more glares and attention we get the more we escape into the shell and the more introvert we become. nah it teaches you to keep with the material because people's perception changes you automatically, but we are who we are. we try not to let success have affect us but it can be hard sometimes.

do you live off music?

we're not in any regular jobs and we still don't get any real money for sigur rós yet, but the gods are with us and we live on air. trying to live off music in iceland is very difficult because the money comes in when it pleases. hopefully it will come to the point where the music will support us, though that's not really the point. we're having fun and making good music and the money is of course a detail.

what's the plan for the summer?

we're gonna play a few festivals, for example the festival of drifting, roskilde in july and japan in august. then we're thinking about starting to record the next album. we climbed up straumnes mountain and checked out the conditions and if we could record there. we're going to try to record the next album there mostly and it wouldn't be until next year, that is if weather and finances allow.

tell us about krúnk

krúnk was originally founded to release sigur rós albums but it became a label for us to release other music and today krúnk's main objective is to give out good music and think about the artist's benefit. it probably sounds like a typical record label lie but we look at it another way since we ourselves are making music and and we have experience from the right perspective. the goal is simple: to let good music reach as many ears as possible.

what are your feelings about the media?

the media are assholes! most of the time they're obtrusive and inconsiderate. and here's a story about that. [jónsi:] a weekly paper called me on a friday and asked me if I wanted to come to a photo shoot and be on the cover. I didn't want to and simply said no, especially since it was supposed to be me alone. and then the paper came out and they had just cut out an old picture of me and put it on the cover without getting my consent. this is very inconsiderate and this isn't the only example of such. it's like the media don't understand that sometimes maybe you don't want to go to photo shoots or interviews and they react badly and presume you have an attitude or something, without considering that maybe one doesn't care for attention.

what does the future hold for sigur rós?

the future is undecided. we're just continuing being ourselves and doing what we like. making good music from the heart and trying to reach as many ears as we can.

Q interview with sigur rós, july 2000

their time is now: sigur rós - icelandic superstars who are quite possibly away with the fairies...

"the elves.." sighs sigur rós bassist georg holm. 'why do they always have to bring up the elves?'

hailing from the isle of volcanos, auks and bjork, horribly handsome sigur rós (comfortingly pronounced sigger ross [errrm?!] and roughly translating as victory rose) are already fatigued by the whimsical preconceptions of british journalists about their native floe. a top ten album for almost a year in iceland, their ágaetis byrjun (a good start) finally gets a uk release this month.

'magazines always want to photograph us in front of a geyser,' moans naughty eyed keyboardist kjartan sveinsson. 'but its a cliché to us: like photographing an english band in front of tower bridge.'

utterly kookiness-free, sigur rós build a slow, rapturous wash of atmospheric, melodically overpowering rock from the simple stuff of bass, drums (piloted by silent, chimney sweep-sized olle páll dyrason), organ and jimmy page style electric guitar/violin bow interface. cocteau twins, early verve and miles davis' in a silent way spring to mind. singer/guitarist jón thór birgisson (sporting an intense aura and - currently - a cockatoo frond of sticky-up hair) wails in a tongue part-icelandic and part made-up. he calls it hopelandish.

'the country really affects us as persons;' concedes sveinsson, ' and musically too. its a big horizon and i think its good for your mind. everywhere you turn is the sea, hundreds of km of lava, black deserts and glaciers. it makes you humble.'

top sigur rós facts: sveinsson can build violins, holm's dad is a q subscriber and jónsi birgisson isn't looking over your shoulder, he's blind in one eye. emphasising the odyssian aspect of their musical mission, they once took their transit substitute citroen ambulance to denamrk and back, via the faroes, and had their vehicle ripped apart by customs, who thought they were smuggling heroin.

'we want our music to spread everywhere,' says sveinsson, 'but we dont want to be famous. for many years there's been so much....crap going on. musicians haven't been sincere, but i think its changing for the better. that will be good for us.'

later, in a reykjavik bar part-owned by damon albarn, sigur rós seek the advice of the capitals rock aristocracy: namely ex-sugarcube einar orn benediktsson and avuncular, one-time psychic tv bloke hilmar orn hilmarsson. the young band (youngest 21, oldest 24) are buying a house in which to record, in splendid isolation, their next album. but the details of lawyers, surveyors and the like are new to them.

'there's one other thing you have to be careful of', warns einar, weirdly. 'when i built my house, nothing would go right. even the drill head we used to break up the rock kept melting. turned out it was the hidden people, getting in the way. i had to negotiate with them, move them into a pile of stones in the garden...'

'er..the hidden people'? 'you know...the elves.' anyone know the icelandic for 'd'oh!'?

- danny eccleston

ínterrfðiewintervieweighteen seconds before sunrise interview with georg holm

interview by paul mcallister
engineered by chris wray

thanks to mr georg holm for his time.

to hear the interview, you can download mp3s of each seperate question, plus some larger mp3s of a few extended discussion topics. hope you find it interesting.

section one

eighteen seconds before sunrise - whats your favourite place to play at?
georg holm - i think that this place is nice (royal festivall hall, london), but probably some of the places in iceland...maybe because of the crowds. they're a bit more noisy over there, but only after we finish the songs.

esbs - people in the uk tend to talk through gigs, which is pretty annoying.
gh - yeah, but its getting better now.

esbs - so has your favourite gig been in iceland?
gh - yes, i think we all agree that our favourite gig was in iceland, at the opera house. that was great.

esbs - so have you got any plans to play there again?
gh - we'd like to, but no we've not got anything planned at the moment

section two

esbs - we've heard that jónsi is considering singing in english on future releases, is that true?
gh - yeah we're just thinking about it. we might try it, see if it works.

esbs - is that a natural progression, just something you thought you'd try?
gh - yeah it is. maybe we'll have some songs in english and some in icelandic.

esbs - is that an attempt to crack the market over here?
gh - no, we don't think of it like that. its just that some of the hopelandic sounds a bit like english, so maybe its easy to transform the hopelandic into english than into icelandic...icelandic is a little more harsh.

section three

esbs - why did you choose to sign for fatcat?
gh - because they're great guys!

esbs - you preferred that than signing to a major label?
gh - yes definitely. we need to be free.

esbs - what about in america, will you do the same?
gh - we'll maybe start off that way and see how it goes. in japan we'll probably go with a major.

esbs - did you enjoy it over in japan, you've just played the summer sonic festival havent you?
gh - yes..its one of the most brilliant countries i've ever been to.

esbs - did you get a good reception over there?
gh - yes definitely...we were told that japanese crowds dont even applaud you if they dont know the songs, they just stand and look at you. but they did for us. especially in osaka...maybe because it was a younger crowd.

section four

esbs - what do you think of being constantly compared to bands like mogwai and the cocteau twins? does that annoy you?
gh - maybe a bit, but people always do that. maybe to make it easier for press to describe the music. i can understand that but i dont think we sound like any of these bands. we've mostly never heard of these bands.

esbs - so what would you say were your main influences... what music did you listen to when you were growing up?
gh - thats a really horrible question! theres no one band we all think has influenced us. for me, when i was younger i used to listen to leonard cohen and then later to bands like nirvana and led zepellin, but then i grew out of that. i still like those bands, but not in the same way. and the other guys listen to all kinds of stuff, heavy metal etc.

esbs - i heard that you're really into electronic music too, because you've signed to fatcat, an electronic label...
gh - yeah thats right, we particularly like the fatcat stuff. especially 2 guys called smith and ludlow, they're excellent. really good.

esbs - so what are chasm like? they're on fatcat too, arent they... they're the support for your upcoming tour.
gh - they're great...i've only heard one album but its really good.

section five

esbs - we've also heard you're going to be experimenting with electronic music on your new album...is there any truth in that?
gh - probably not....maybe in the future if it fits. but we'd never decide to definitely 'go electronic'. we'll just see how it goes.

esbs - so if it happens it'll be a natural progression then?
gh - oh yeah, definitely

section six

esbs - we've also heard you're going to be experimenting with electronic music on your new album...is there any truth in that?
gh - probably not....maybe in the future if it fits. but we'd never decide to definitely 'go electronic'. we'll just see how it goes.

esbs - so if it happens it'll be a natural progression then?
gh - oh yeah, definitely

section seven

esbs - what albums did each of the band members take part on? wasnt it ágúst drumming on the first two albums?
gh - yes, on the first album (von) it was me, jónsi and ágúst. we've been on both albums, and kjartan was also on the last album. but orri hasnt been on any album yet. ágúst quit just after the opera house gig, that was his last gig...thats also why it was so special for us.

esbs - was that a big blow for you, when ágúst left?
gh - yes it was, maybe we could see it coming but it was still a big shock. but then now we've got orri and he's a really great drummer.

section eight

esbs - the video for svefn-g-englar was shown on english tv last thursday...how did that come about?
gh - it was an idea of jónsi and kjartans to start with. at first i was quite worried....i didnt want it to end up looking like some advert for a hospital or something. but as soon as we talked more about it it was fine. its a very simple idea. we got really good people to work on it, the perlan theatre group.

esbs - so are the perlan group big in iceland?
gh - yes, they're very well known....they're the only downs syndrome acting group in iceland. they're really nice people. my favourite guy is the wind one. he used to just stand around with a cigarette all the time....

esbs - the quotes for the video...who came up with those?
gh - it was because channel 4 asked us to do something for 4later. we just wanted to show the video. they didnt want to do that, they wanted something else too for the beginning, an interview or something. so dave (cawley, of fatcat records) came up with the idea of using these quotes. so i went out with a digital camera and filmed the area where we filmed the video. it took me a week to try and get it off my computer! it was about 1.5gigabytes! we eventually took a vhs video and recorded it straight off to my computer. we then wrote the quotes in. they're dave's idea too. we wanted to do our own quotes but didnt have time to do it, so dave suggested borrowing quotes from elsewhere, so we all sat down and found some we liked. my favourite is the last quote before the film which mentioned angels, which fitted the film perfectly. but we didnt want to be all arty-farty about it...we're not philosophers. we just thought they were great quotes.

section nine

esbs - can you tell us about hrafnagaldur othins. that means nothing to me, so can you explain what it is too?
gh - yes, it its a thing from the icelandic sagas. probably the most famous one. there was a part of the book which was taken out because this norweigan guy said was a fake, but they've recently found out its real and been put back it. its very dark and horrible. hilmar who did the angels of the universe, had the idea of making music from this. we're going to make a whole concert from this if we can.

section ten

esbs - what articles that have been written about you have you been most satifisied with?
gh - theres a lot of cliched stuff. theres also a lot of stuff we dont understand, its too poetic. we dont have a particular favourite, but do have one we like the least! thats the icelandic review. it was awful.

esbs - i havent read any good media reviews yet, its all cliched regurgiatated rubbish, about you and glaciars and stuff.
gh - yeah, we always have to be photographed in front of a geyser. its such a cliche. i like kjarri's quote in Q, about the fact that its like taking pics of english bands in front of the tower of london...

section eleven

esbs - have the instruments that were stolen from you been found?
gh - yeah, they were actually stolen 2 or 3 times, maybe we should be more careful! we always get them back, except my bass is never taken...maybe thats because i have this small medallion inside it thats like a protective charm. it says something like 'their bows will break and their swords will be stabbed into their own hearts' or something. jonsis old guitar was smashed up last time, so thats why he's got the new one.

section twelve

esbs - whats your favourite sigur rós song?
gh - i like the new stuff, pop song, death song and those. from the album (ágaetis byrjun) i like viðrar vel til loftárása. i like the bass in that. but i think we've grown up a lot now. we've been trying to rehearse the old stuff for the union chapel gig. we all maybe think the album is a bit of a cliche now. i think that song is maybe a bit *too* epic.

section thirteen

esbs - mp3s, are you aware of this and the napster debate? whats your view on that? are you pro or against?
gh - i'm definitely pro mp3s. i think that people that do get 1 or 2 songs from napster will then go out and get the cd, so i think its good. i think the music industry has to take a bit more control of it, its kind of out of control right now. if mp3s really did take over, then musicians would be out of money, and we'd be in trouble. but its fine as it is now, really good.

section fourteen

esbs - esbs - what are your favourite films?
gh - i have a few. theres one i saw recently, a very old film called i think veronicas adventures or something. its a polish film from '69...very surreal. when you watch it the first time you dont get it, but the second time round its brilliant. i also like eraserhead.