OMAM ARMY INTERVIEW WITH RAGGI AND ARNAR - PART 1
Here is the first half of our interview with Raggi and Arnar from the Iceland Airwaves festival. The interview was conducted at Fríkirkjan (The Free Church) in downtown Reykjavik on Saturday, November 5th, before their Icelandair-sponsored “secret show” in in the church, and the day after their set at NASA Reykjavík. The interview was conducted in Icelandic but has been translated into English. The second part will be published in the coming weeks.
OMAM Army: You played at NASA last night. Why did you pick that venue?
Arnar: We’ve wanted to play there for quite a while, but they closed it down. Then, unexpectedly, we had an opportunity to play there during Airwaves.
Raggi: We weren’t supposed to play there at first. They put us in Gamla Bíó. We didn’t want to play at Harpa. I think the only shows we’ve played in Iceland since we started touring the first album have either been in Harpa or big outdoor shows. We haven’t played club gigs here for a long time. That was the main reason.
A: We wanted to play a sweaty club gig.
OA: You played at Faktorý right before they tore that down.
R: Yes, we played there three nights in a row.
R: I think those were the last Icelandic shows we played that weren’t in Harpa or on a field somewhere.
A: Our first Airwaves was there, of course.
OA: The stage seemed a bit small for you. It seemed like you were having trouble fitting everything, changing guitars and so on.
R: It was less space than we’ve gotten used to, let’s say that.
A: We usually have way too much space. We’re spread out too much. I actually liked being so close to everybody.
R: Steini’s mic was very close to me. I was nervous that I was going to bump into it and break his teeth. But that didn’t happen.
OA: You did get tangled up a little bit.
OA: It looked like the one roadie who had to take care of all the instrument changes was very tired towards the end of the gig.
R: Duncan took care of everything. He was sweatier than we were at the end of the gig.
OA: Your cover of Eleanor Rigby was released yesterday [on the “Beat Bugs” soundtrack]. Why did you pick that song and what was the process with regards to arranging and recording it?
R: They asked us whether we wanted to record that song. They sent us the demo – by the way, we didn’t arrange the music, just the vocals – and I thought the voice on the demo was very familiar. It turned out it was Daniel Johns who was the singer of Silverchair, who were my favorite band back in the day. I enjoyed that.
A: He arranged it, right?
R: He arranged the whole thing.
OA: For everybody who participated?
R: I think so. But it was a neat coincidence, and it was great to be able to collaborate on this project with him, even if we didn’t work directly with him. Then Nanna and I went into the studio, worked on the vocal arrangements and tried different things. It was different from our usual way of doing things, but fun.
OA: Can you tell the fans something about your plans for the future?
A: We are just starting to write new music. The rehearsals for Airwaves were the first time all of us had gotten together to play since we stopped touring. So, we are writing songs, and we already have some songs, actually…
R: There are at least two songs that we have written, but maybe not for the next album. We don’t really know yet. We wrote them while on tour.
A: If somebody wants songs for movies or TV, we have those songs.
R: We do, but the task of writing more songs is now starting for real.
OA: Didn’t you record a song for Game of Thrones that they didn’t use?
R: Yes, we have that one.
R: I don’t know how much time… Arnar and I spent a lot of time in hotel rooms during this tour. Before and after sound checks we would find a nearby hotel room…
A: Even after shows, we would be working in hotel rooms.
R: We had it down, but then they decided to go in a different direction. But that’s the way this business is. The final decision comes down to the final day.
A: But now we have it in reserve.
R: It’s going to come in handy.
OA: So, it will maybe be on the next album, and maybe not?
OA: I assume you’re not planning more shows until the next album is done?
R: Not unless there are some special and exciting opportunities.
OA: Is there a rough timeline for entering the studio?
A: There’s been no talk of that.
R: We’re approaching things a bit differently this time around. We don’t have a timeline. We’re letting things happen.
A: We really haven’t decided yet. Last time around the timeline wasn’t very convenient.
R: We’ve set it up so that we can record in pretty good quality at home. The process is more open, maybe.
A: We’re approaching the writing process a bit differently, but I don’t know…
R: We’re still in the process of deciding how to go about it.
OA: Can you tell us anything about influences on your music or whether you might be heading in new directions?
A: I can say that for me, this machine right here [points to H6 Zoom recorder being used to record the audio for the interview] has been influential with regards to the drums for the next album. Regarding ideas for sounds and such. But I don’t know what to say about influential artists…
OA: Maybe this is something you will find out when you start working on it?
R: We still haven’t really sat down together and listened to music. But like Arnar said, he’s started to work on samples, which influences me also, because I will write music to go with the samples. So, to begin with, that’s something that’s going on.
A: Sampling is entering the game.
OA: Do you feel any pressure, either from yourself or others, to continue writing accessible songs as opposed to experimenting?
R: It’s a lot of fun playing the more accessible and catchy songs live.
A: Seeing people really get into it.
R: I think it’s not always appreciated how satisfying it is for musicians to have that happen. Even though it’s exciting to experiment and try something totally new, it’s still great to see people smiling and excited and participating.
A: I think there is a bit of pressure on us to continue on the same path, because that’s what we have been doing. That’s who we are.
R: But still, we want to keep on evolving and stay true to what we want to do. The pressure is there, but we want to combine both.
OA: That’s what the Beatles did, of course.
OA: One of the most frequently asked questions that we get is about the artwork for Beneath the Skin. Do the symbols for each song have specific meaning relating to the songs?
R: I read meaning into them. I think you can find meaning there, and there is some thought behind each of the symbols. I think it would be great to get Leif Podhajsky [the artist who created the symbols] to answer this once and for all, because we are also…
A: We’ve been interpreting them on our own.
R: I’ve been through all of them in order to figure it out.
A: He made symbols for every song, there must be something…
OA: You were saying you have songs that are already written, but is there a chance you might revisit some of the old songs you never released? Songs like Beneath My Bed and Phantom…
OA: Or on a compilation album, or as bonus tracks, like some bands have done.
A: We haven’t thought about it.
R: We have some of these songs; we’ve recorded some of them. I’m sure there will be an opportunity at some point to release them along with something else.
A: We have to make sure we don’t forget them. I think we have kind of forgotten them to some extent.
OA: Sigur Rós did this when they released “Heima”, there was a CD with songs they had played live but never released.
R: That would be a good idea. We have considered doing something like that, but it hasn’t happened yet.
A: Beneath my bed is a good song. I can’t remember how it goes, only that it’s a good song.
OA: It’s a crowd pleaser.
OA: There were rumors that David Gallardo [the photographer/videographer who has worked with OMAM frequently] had been planning to make a documentary about you. Did that project end up becoming a series of YouTube clips, or is there more coming?
R: He was with us for a long time. I think that’s how it ended up. Like everybody, he probably had bigger ideas. And he definitely has the material to do it.
A: He has a lot of material.
R: He has tons of material, but we’ve yet to…
A: It would be fun to put together a documentary about our first tour around the country, with Agent Fresco and Lockerbie. Somebody that traveled with us filmed a lot of material. It exists somewhere, a document of our first tour in the van. It would be great to give that to someone who could edit it. It would be fun to see it.
R: A lot of material exists, and it keeps accumulating. I’m not sure when we’ll have time to do something with it.
A: There were just the four of us on that tour.
R: That’s right. There were only four of us then.
OA: Fans frequently ask about the touring members, whether they’re official members of the band or not. Have you considered adding official members? Or does your relationship with the touring members work the way it is now?
R: I don’t think we will ever add official members. Partly because of them [the touring members]: They go to school; their investment is different from ours. While we go home to write songs they go and work on building their own future careers, and they’re playing with us at the same time, which is great.
A: It’s complicated enough when it’s just the five of us.
R: Yes, it’s complicated enough. They are awesome; and everybody is happy with the current arrangement.
OA: When they’re done playing, they can go and have fun while you have to do interviews like this one.
OA: Unlike many other bands, you use almost no playback on stage, isn’t that correct?
R: We use it a little bit.
R: In two songs. There’s a click track for us in those songs…
A: Backyard and Thousand Eyes.
R: The playback doesn’t consist so much of instruments; it’s more atmospheric and background sounds that would be difficult to recreate; sound of cardboard boxes and stuff like that in Backyard.
A: The playback for Thousand Eyes has strings and some other sounds. It adds quite a lot.
R: It would be good to have string players on stage, but I think it would bankrupt us [laughter].
OA: Last time I saw Sigur Rós they had about 12 people on stage, although there are only three of them left in the band.
R: But now there are only three of them on stage.
R: I think playback is probably overused. But you can use it in a variety of ways. It can be used to support what you’re playing on stage.
A: I think Coldplay uses a lot of playback.
OA: It’s getting more common.
R: I think this is in part because of how expensive touring can be. There are so many bands, and so many bands on tour; they have to make it cost effective. For some of them, it might be the only way.
A: Actually, I don’t know how much playback Coldplay uses, I was just guessing.
OA: Panic at the Disco seem to use a lot of playback, as an example.
A: It could be difficult for us to compete, if it continues like this, and everybody is ridiculously tight on stage because of playback. But it removes some of the human factor. You make mistakes, sometimes you’re not quite feeling it and have a bad gig, but that doesn’t apply when you use that much playback. All the gigs are the same.
R: I think it’s a good rule that you shouldn’t pretend to play. You should actually be playing the instrument that you have on stage. If there are other instruments, they can be in the playback.
A: You have to publish these playback rules.
R: I think I’ll do that. It’ll be called “Ragnar’s rulebook” [laughter].
