Gibberish, Blackjack and Handball: A Conversation With Sigur Rós

Every writer wants their interviews to stand out from the pack. I want to ask the question that no one else is asking. I want to get a response out of this guy that no one’s gotten before. I want him to enjoy talking to me and invite me over for dinner when we’re through. I want to be special.

So in my quest to be special and make a lasting impression on Sigur Rós’ bass player Georg Holm, I checked out past interviews to learn what not to ask. What I learned was that they seem annoyed by the press and they hate constantly explaining their music to people who make more out of it than it really is. Hmmm. Great. So now I’ve got to impress my way to a Holm family dinner invitation using my wit, my charm and my knowledge of…um…ice? Land? Handball?

Circle Six Magazine: So you guys have been together for 15 years now?

Georg Holm: Yeah.

C6M: You must have been pretty young starting out.

GH: Sure, I was 16 I think.

C6M: So you probably didn’t have many jobs or anything before music.

GH: No, just school I guess.

C6M: I heard you say before that no one in Iceland will ever start a band to “make it.” Do you think that mindset has had something to do with the fact that you have in fact “made it?”

GH: Well…

C6M: Or do you even consider yourselves as having made it?

GH: I don’t know. I think we’re privileged people to do something that we really like, and a lot of other people actually like it as well.

C6M: I’ve always had trouble describing your music to people who haven’t heard it. I usually just end up giving them a CD and saying, “Here, check it out for yourself, and take from it what you will.” But how would you describe yourself?

GH: Actually that’s pretty much what we do as well. I think all people experience our music in a different way. I think it’s impossible to explain. Most of the time when I’m in public and I’m asked to explain it I just say we play Rock ‘n’ Roll. But I guess it’s more complicated than that.

C6M: A friend of mine says he thinks you’re depressing.

GH: Ha.

C6M: I told him I didn’t think that was true. I find it to be more mood-enhancing than mood-inducing. If you’re depressed, you may find that. But if you’re happy or joyful or whatever, that may be what you take from it.

GH: Yeah. A lot of people say that they find the music melancholic. I think that would be a more accurate way of describing it since melancholy doesn’t have to mean that you’re really depressed at all.

C6M: Reminds me of the Heysátan bit of the documentary on your website with the old man who’s dying but feels peace in an otherwise sad situation.

GH: Yeah.

C6M: Ok, I think a common misconception in the States is that all your albums up until now have been in Hopelandic when in fact the parentheses album was the first pure Hopelandic album, right?

GH: Yeah that’s true.

C6M: So was there a point to that other than the fact that you enjoy watching the press squirm?

GH: It was a concept. I mean, it sort of just happened. It’s a long story. Three years before we recorded that record we’d already written a lot of songs on the bracket record. And it was quite difficult for us to go into the studio and record songs that we’d written three years before and had been playing for three years almost constantly. And we’d been touring them everywhere. But we felt like we needed to get these songs out of our system. So we finished recording them and then we toured them again. Usually the last thing we do in the process of making a record is write the lyrics and do the vocals. When it came to that point we started thinking back on us touring these songs for a long time. You know, we were trying to come up with some meaning in the songs, and we thought they already had a meaning in a way without lyrics. I mean, people have been listening to the songs and they’ve all put their own meaning to the songs. So we almost felt that maybe we would just ruin it by adding our meaning into the songs. I guess it’s sort of like when you read a book and then the movie is completely different from what you’ve imagined. A lot of times it will ruin the experience of the book for you, or you’ll just say the book was much better.

C6M: Why do you think, maybe more in America than anywhere else, that we’ve made such a big deal over the language thing?

GH: I guess it’s because normally you don’t get any music with a different language or no language on radio. I mean, in America you just have to look at like the Billboard top 20 and it’s all like Britney Spears and all that.

C6M: And sometimes you wish they weren’t saying anything.

GH: Yeah, but there’s only a certain type of music that gets through in America. Hopefully that can change a little.

C6M: Were you ever worried that maybe an impatient American audience wouldn’t really get what you were doing or like it?

GH: No. Not really.

C6M: So you didn’t really care either way? That’s awesome.

GH: Well we knew that there would be people here that would like the music.

C6M: Sure. How have the live shows in the States been different than maybe a home show or something in the U.K.?

GH: I don’t know. I think every show is different. It doesn’t really matter where exactly on the planet you are. I think it has very much to do with the city and the venue. The day before yesterday we played Atlantic City for the first time. We played in a casino. It was bizarre. We’ll never play a casino again.

C6M: Did you do any gambling?

GH: Yeah we tried it out a little bit.

C6M: Slot machines? Poker?

GH: Blackjack actually.

C6M: Ah, Blackjack. That’s a pretty user friendly game. I like poker myself, but you’ve got to have some time to really play.

GH: It was fun, but it was the wrong setting for a Sigur Rós show.

C6M: Yeah I guess so.

GH: People are there to gamble and see a show; not come to a concert. It was quite hard because people were standing up and walking out and coming back in. You just felt like a circus freak up there.

C6M: So what are you guys doing on tour to relax? I mean, you have to get away from the music at some point, right?

GH: Well there’s not a lot to do. What we see mostly is the news on the bus, and we watch film on the bus or read books or something.

C6M: I would imagine you brought a few pipes and a football with you.

GH: Well actually we forgot everything like that this time. We don’t have many days off. But on a day off I like to just sit in the hotel room and relax.

C6M: This is kind of out of the blue, but is it true that you can catch trout with your teeth?

GH: Yeah of course it is.

C6M: Ha! Is that a hidden talent passed down from your father and your father’s father?

GH: Yeah, through the centuries.

C6M: Ancient Icelandic tradition, right?

GH: Yeah sure.

C6M: Have you guys ever done any film work other than soundtrack stuff? The music lends itself nicely to visual media. Have you done any visual art? Painting, sketches, film or other stuff like that?

GH: I mean, we approach our videos like short films I guess.

C6M: So you do have a hand in the videos? I love the Glósóli video – pardon my pronunciation.

GH: No you did fine. We did have a part in that video although not as much as we would have liked ‘cause we were on tour at the time. We couldn’t be there for the shooting, but we were involved in writing the script and editing it.

C6M: One of the feelings I get when I listen to you guys is a childlike innocence and hope, and the video struck me as almost exactly what I was imagining.

GH: Yeah thanks. We actually just finished – well it’s not really finished but it’s in the process – a new video for Sæglópur which we directed ourselves.

C6M: Cool. Well, I’m just about out. Are you guys paying any attention to the winter Olympics?

GH: Not really no. They’re all over the place over here.

C6M: Yeah it’s crazy. I didn’t know if it was huge in Iceland. Everyone hoping to bring home the first medals for the country.

GH: No, I don’t think Iceland has a very big team.

C6M: You guys don’t seem to take anything too seriously.

GH: No we do definitely. Football, well “soccer.”

C6M: Oh nice.

GH: Handball we actually got into the finals of the European championship…or was it the World? Handball is something different over here, kind of like football. It’s actually a proper sport. ‘Cause handball in the States is something children play.

C6M: Yeah it’s like a street game.

GH: Right.

C6M: Well, bro, thanks for your time. I hope the States are treating you well.

GH: Oh definitely. We always enjoy coming here.

C6M: Right on.

Wow. That wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. I’m a shoe-in for a reoccurring role as dinner guest at ol’ Georg’s house. I’ve got my phone on vibrate for you, Georgy. You bring the rotten shark and I’ll fry up some liver patties. We’ll drink dark beer and smoke our pipes. And much like this interview, we won’t speak one annoying word about the music or the meaning behind it. We’ll learn to love each other and we’ll grow old together. We’ll speak only Hopelandic until the day we die. We’ll be buried side by side with twin headstones. For months on end the sun will cast our shadows long upon the solemn terrain of your handsome homeland. And when the night settles in for its extended stay, we shall haunt the streets again and remember the days that were.

I’ll say, “Don’t you love it when the night air is so crisp and clean and we can roam free in our spirit bodies without a care? Don’t you wish everyone could experience life and the afterlife the way we have, Georg? Don‘t you want all the world to know what we‘ve known?”

And you in all your eloquence will respond, “Yeah.”

by Jacob Taylor

Jacob Taylor can be reached for question or comment at jacob@circlesixmagazine.com, but please no more Jessica Simpson paraphernalia. If I wanted to see a face like that I’d find a museum with a nice brontosaurus exhibit.