Hryðjuverk (Acts OF Terrorism) is a dysfunctional crust/hardcore/metal band trio from Iceland made out of members from I Adapt/Gavin Portland/Fighting Shit/Bölvun and more. I do not remember who conducted this interview, for what zine it was and what year it happened. But it got published and I found it on my mom's PC last night. Enjoy.
Hello!What's it like to live in Iceland? I imagine that you have a really short summer, that it's cold most of the time and that the winter days are really short. Am I right?Villi: well living in Iceland is just like living everywhere else I guess except that it’s an island which makes traveling to other countries expensive. It’s actually not as cold as most people think but never really that warm either. Winter days are very short though, the shortest day has sunlight for like 3 or 4 hours so yeah, it’s darkness a lot of the time.
Birkir: Living in Iceland is pretty sweet when it boils down to it. Life here is pretty fast so it’s easy to get caught up in store-bought depression and shit. Summer is short, wish it was longer. Winters are ok. I’m used to them so I’m not complaining like my man Villi who likes sun, heat and everything sticky.
Your country is really small. How many cities do you have in Iceland? I just know about Rekjavik. Are there others? I also don't know anything about your punk scene. Can you tell us about it? What was the first punk band in Iceland?Villi: There is only one “proper” city, Reykjavik with about 200.000 people in it’s metropolitan area, the rest is just small towns scattered here and there throughout the country. The largest is Akureyri in the north with about 20.000 people. I was born and raised in a small town up north that has less than 700 people.
The first punk band was Fræbblarnir (Fraebblarnir) who started around 1978 and have been going on and off since then. They aren’t a part of the scene today but just play boring rock music in pubs. They were on some bloodstains and killed by death comps back in the day though. Shortly after they started punk became a trend here like in most other countries with loads of bands, most of them playing the arty new wave style and/or inspired by Crass. The most famous of those would be K.u.k.l. that released some records on Crass Records but personally I think they are boring art wank. There were some good bands in those days though like Purrkur Pilnikk and Vonbrigði.
The punk scene here isn’t a punk scene. It’s just a loosely tied group of people that like to hang out (but then again, maybe that’s all a punk scene is anyway) and go to shows. Relatively few people actually get deeply involved in punk or d.i.y. but just come to shows and listen to boring metal. There are quite a few good bands though that are thoroughly inbred with the same people popping up all over the place, that being the people that actually “get” the idea of punk and are interested in being a part of it.
Birkir: Villi is pretty spot on with the old bands. Many of the bands playing punk rock back then where overrated in my opinion... shitty rock bands with no attitude. More of the new wave bands made way more sense. There are a couple of bands, not linked to the first wave of Iceland “punk” like Sogblettir and S.H. Draumur who deserve To be mentioned and praised.
You also have those hot springs in Iceland. Are they being used or are they just a tourist attraction? Talking about tourists: are there lots of them coming to your country and what are they looking for?Villi: Some of ‘em are used, others are a tourist attraction (which is a type of usage anyway). It’s actually a very good and environmentally friendly way to provide cheap heating for houses and in some cases even electricity so I wish we would use them even more. As for tourists, yes tourism is the second biggest industry in the country and we get quite a lot of them. I guess they are looking for something different because Iceland certainly looks a lot different than your standard european country and also there is a lot of beautiful nature here and then they want to experience stuff like seeing the northern lights or walk onto a glacier.
Birkir: There’s also a new wave of tourists looking for party’s, crazy night outs and men and women that are easy to fuck. Seriously. I’m not being a dick about this. Strange times.
I remember that there were some animal rights activists who were telling people not to visit Iceland because its government still haunts seals. Is that true? If yes, are there any people in Iceland who try to stop this slaughter? What problems do they have to deal with?Villi: The government does not hunt seals. Some people do though, mostly small time fishermen and farmers but it’s not being done that much. It’s definately not an active industry. There is nobody doing anything about it so obviously nobody is facing any problems for it.
Staying with the animal rights issue: I read that you support the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. Is it difficult to be vegan/vegetarian in Iceland? Are there many people within the punk scene who embrace the
vegan/vegetarian lifestyle? How have you become vegetarian/vegan?Villi: It’s not that difficult to be a vegetarian but being vegan is a bit more difficult but still very much possible. It is quite expensive though because the government taxes soy products as a luxury product (a higher tax class than normal foodstuffs). There are a few veggies in the punk scene but not that many I think but then I’m probably not the right person to ask because I don’t really know that many of those kids personally. As for why I became a vegetarian, well I have always since I was a tiny kid had much sympathy for animals and cruelty to animals was the worst thing I could think of. That feeling became so intense for me for a while that I began to be afraid of animals because I was sure that they resented all humans because of their treatment and would use any opportunity to take revenge but that was when I was a little kid. I eventually found out that there were a lot of vegetarians in the world and that it was easy to live that way so one day after having read some information on the internet I just decided to quit eating meat and haven’t done it since. That was almost five years ago. I’m not completely vegan but I aspire to be and try to shop as much vegan as I can.
Birkir: A couple of years ago a healthy number of young people did get concerned about consumption and went vegetarian/vegan as it is one of many ways to step out of line with normal conditioned consumption but most of them dropped it because their mom’s were not buying enough free food for them or something. These days there are some people going vegetarian and getting equipped for that kind of diet. For me it was quite logical for me to take dead animals of my plate after educating me about nutrition. It made sense. I’d been questioning this stuff since I was a kid cause I loved animals but I was told I’d fall to pieces if I didn’t eat them but as soon as I met a “cool” vegetarian that prooved to be alive and kicking, I started to take steps towards vegetarianism. And look and behold, I’m not dead. I’m actually a fucking buff!
During the last two/three years the fur industry has found a new way to sell their bloody products here in Switzerland and many other european countries: they simply added fur parts to normal coats. They had (and sadly still have) a great success and are selling lots of these coats. Do you think it's because the people who buy these products (mostly very young people) are not informed about the issue or because many of them don't care if they are wearing something that once was alive? What do you think is really important to get people to realize what kind of hell the animals have to go through only so that you can wear their skin? What's the situation like in Iceland, are there many people wearing fur coats? Is there a big fur industry? Any campaigns against it going on?
Villi: I think most people don’t care because most people are fucking idiots and I don’t think informing them will make any difference. The fur industry is huge in Iceland, possibly the largest fur industry in europe, fur is popular among trendy fashion assholes and especially among the rich elite. There are at least 3 fur shops in Reykjavik and loads of fur farms scattered across the country. It’s fucking disgusting and I try to spit on these assholes whenever I can. There are no campaigns going on against it because the animal rights people in this country are so few that I could count them on the fingers of one hand and they don’t all agree with methods and ideologies.
Birkir: It’s not until these same people are able to observe what these animals go through in order to decorate their stupid fucking clothes. I don’t know. I don’t want to be too cynical about this because I’m “people” too and got fed up with this shit. I don’t think I’m anything special. If people personalized animals, like, you care for your own animals, and think the same about other animals, maybe that would change their vision. I don’t know. It still baffles me that people go out and wear this. I don’t know. We should all be shot one day... It would be a nice change.
Do you consider yourself a political band? Is it important for you to spread your ideas/messages with your music, trying to reach as many people as you can? Who writes the lyrics? Do you discuss them as a band or is there no need to do so because you all think the same? Do you try to explain the lyrics of the songs when you play a gig or do you prepare a lyric sheet which the people can pick up and read if they want to know what you're singing about?
Villi: It depends on how you define a political band. We sing about political issues yes but were not trying to make any difference in the world, we’re just releasing frustrations. If we wanted to make a change we would form a pop band because that would reach a lot more people. When we formed the band it was very important for me to spread the message but I’ve lost all faith in humans so I don’t really care about it anymore. I just want to scream about what makes me angry. I have written all the lyrics except one so far, I’m still waiting for the others to contribute more material. I always show them the lyrics to make sure they don’t object with what I’m singing about, everything in this band is done by consensus. I used to explain the songs when we played but we haven’t played live for almost a year now so I don’t know what it will be like next time we play.
Birkir: I would like to write lyrics but as Villi lost faith in humans the lyrics came out great so I’m always waiting for more shit from him. He’s a great writer. My writing goes for my other band, I Adapt. If we had a political agenda we would be a political band. But we don’t have an agenda. We’re just pissed. But to people that only sing about partying, drugs and flying mountains and purple spirits in the spiral of the kangaroo we are way political.
Which bands have influenced you, lyrically and musically? Ten records you will never give away?
Villi: oh no, the desert island question! Let’s start with the influences. I’m not ashamed to admit that the largest influence on us has been Tragedy. I know it’s really trendy and people are getting fed up with it but I just can’t help it, their music and lyrics simply changed my life. Another big influence are Artimus Pyle, they played here just a few months before we started Hryðjuverk (our drummer was doing the shows) and got to know them and they were some of the nicest guys I’ve ever met yet played this incredibly furious music full of anger and desperation. But this is hard to answer because we are all musical perverts, we like everything from classical music to radio pop to grindcore and everything in between. Lyrically we aren’t really influenced by anybody, I just write about whatever makes me angry or what I am feeling at a certain moment. Recently I’ve become much more dedicated to writing good poetry instead of just writing plain language so I try to be innovative in my writing. As for the ten records I would never give away, you see, I’m what Poison Idea called a pretentious asshole (a record collector) and I have thousands of titles in my collection so picking just ten is almost impossible but I’ll try: 1. Tragedy – vengeance, 2. Tragedy – can we call this life 7”, 3. Tragedy – s/t,4. Section 8 – make ends meet, 5. Neurosis – the eye of every storm, 6. Grand Funk Railroad – on time,7. Wipers – over the edge, 8. Misfits – walk among us, 9. Purrkur Pilnikk – ekki enn, 10. Botch – we are the romans.
Birkir: About the influences...I agree with Villi. And just the lack of hc/punk in Iceland is always an inspiration for me. Portland, Finland and Sweden has always something cooking so it makes me want to step up my game. I’m not gonna list those 10 records. I’m bad at that. I fucking hate it. No I don’t hate it, just saying.
Have you ever played outside Iceland? If so, where? Which place do you want to visit? Do you think there are many kids in the world who don't know that there are punk bands coming from Iceland? And what would you like to tell them?
Villi: Birkir (our drummer) is in, and I used to be in, I Adapt which is a hardcore band that has done two european tours and two UK tours so we have been all over with them and Hrydjuverk played some shows on one of the UK tours. Þórir (Thorir) is in a thrash hardcore band called Fighting Shit and has toured the UK with them and has been all over Europe and I think to the USA as well with his solo project that is a type of singer/songwriter indie type stuff. We really want to tour with Hrydjuverk, anywhere in the world but we’ll see whether that happens or not since I will be moving abroad after about a year to go to university. I’d like to tell people to check out bands from other countries than just sweden and the usa, there’s plenty of awesome music all over the world that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
Birkir: Yeah, Ingi from I Adapt filled in for Thorir and played some shows with I Adapt in the U.K. It was interesting. I personally want to play any kitchen and toilet anywhere. The word about Icelandic hc/punk is spreading but still, hardly anybody knows. I would tell them that some bands rule and other suck. Well, there are so few hc/punk bands here and 70% of them are damn good. It’s easy to document current Iceland hc/punk so I say, get in touch with us and we’ll get you in touch with other bands, most of them are friends of ours anyway.
What's your opinion about gun regulation? Do you think everybody should carry as many guns as he wants as long as he's not shooting at other people or should there be restrictions? Are there any regulations in Iceland or do all of you have lots of guns at home like the Swiss?
Villi: Hmm, tough one. Iceland doesn’t really have a problem with guns because you have to get a special license to be able to legally buy a gun and only people that are into hunting and gun enthusiasts go through that process. There are very strict gun regulations in Iceland and you can’t buy handguns/pistols in Iceland, only shotguns and rifles. I’m not sure about where I stand about gun regulation because I haven’t really had to think about it. I’m not very keen on the government regulating anything at all but on the other hand guns are very dangerous tools so they shouldn’t be owned by any yahoo that wants one so I’m just not sure where I stand on this.
Birkir: Me neither. I’m just not sure about this issue. It’s not like the police is gonna protect you. And at the same time, guns fall into the hands of people that are gonna hurt others. I for one don’t like guns.
What do you think about violent movies? Do you think they influence the people's attitude towards violence or are they just as harmless as any love story since violence is already a big part of our daily lives?
Villi: I think you have to be a bit disturbed to begin with if violence in movies is to affect you or influence you but then again violence is getting rougher in Iceland and that might be a result of violence in movies, I’m not sure. In general I feel that most people are inconsiderate, violent, braindead assholes anyway so I don’t think violent movies has much of an effect on that.
Birkir: I think they influence people’s attitude a little but I don’t think it influence them to go out and get violent, it’s not that simple. There are many factors, like environment and upbringing as well as mental health. I would never put the blame on video games and movies, it’s a fucking cop out. I think love stories can be just as affective as a super violent movie, but then again, there’s more to it than just being exposed to vision.
Would you ever use violence to resolve a problem? Do you think there are situations where violence is necessary? Is direct action a form of violence for you or do you consider an act only as violent if somebody gets hurt physically?Villi: I don’t think direct action is violence at all. I think violence is only if you mentally or physically hurt someone else, human or non-human. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a strict pacifist, I would defend myself with violence if I was forced to (that includes against cops at demonstrations/protests) but in general I detest violence and avoid it at all cost.
Birkir: I avoid violence at any cost and have been fortunate enough to not have engaged in serious violence. But I would use it without hesitation in some situations that I can picture in my head. Direct action is not a form of violence to me, but violent direct action is. There’s a difference. What a shitty answer this was.
What is your view on religion? Do you believe that there is any kind of life we don't know abou out in the universe? What's the predominant religion in Iceland?
Villi: The predominant religion in Iceland is protestant Christianity but I have to say that most Icelanders aren’t that bothered with religion and don’t practice it at all. All Icelanders are registered into the protestant church at birth (unless their parents insist otherwise) but I (and probably the rest of the band) unregistered when I got older because I don’t want to be registered in a religion that I don’t follow or practice. I’m certain that there is some kind of life somewhere in the universe, and perhaps even on earth, that we humans don’t know about. I think the knowledge of humans is overrated and that we are not as smart and aware as we pretend to be. As for religion, I am an agnostic which means that I don’t believe in god (especially not the religious god that is found in the bible or the quaran (koran)) but I don’t believe that there is nothing either. You can’t prove either theory so it’s up to each individual to decide what he/she believes in and I’m not in a position to say that they are right or wrong. There might be some form of god (whether you want to call it the spirit of nature, Allah or Jehovah doesn’t matter) and there might not be. We’ll all find out when we die won’t we so why worry about it now. Just keep organized religion away from me and then I don’t care.
Birkir: Organized religion worries me. What people do believe in within the confines of their own personal lives in none of my fucking business. I’m not religious. I think there’s other kind of life in the universe. I'm a scientist.
Is racism and homophobia something that is very common in Iceland's society or are the Icelanders more open toward people who have a different skin colour or who feel attracted by people of the same sex?
Villi: Yes, racism and homophobia are rampant here, just like in most other societies. People are idiots in Iceland, just like everywhere else.
Birkir: I can see a change for the better here with a new generation but working with teenagers I’m amazed by the homophobia and racism here. But it’s very superficial. Fucking ignorance. I kinda agree with Villi, but I’m more posi than he is. Shoot me.
Do you have any plans for the future, an album, a tour...?
Villi: I have no idea. We get together and do something when we all have time and/or feel we need to but don’t make any plans besides that. I’d like to make at least one more recording before I move abroad but that depends on the other guys.
Birkir: What I love about this band is that we don’t plan. We are just interested in making this band a band of guys that have a musical connection. We are all quite good at what we do. We just get together and write good songs. When we get together next I don’t know. We’re all fucked up in one way or another. It happens when it happens. We’ll release something good.
Thanx for the interview! Do you have you anything else to add?
Villi: Question everything! Thank you for giving us an opportunity to express ourselves in your zine and if anyone reading this wants to get in touch with us then feel free to drop us a line at: hrydjuverk, po box 18, 121 Reykjavik, Iceland or hrydjuverk@yahoo.com . If you want to hear what we sound like we have a myspace page like most other nerds in the world at www.myspace.com/hrydjuverk
Birkir: “You won’t live forever – You’ve got tombstones in your eyes”. Question this interview. Thank you for being interested in us. Get in touch with Villi about Hrydjuverk, you can also get in touch with me about whats going on around here and shit thru this email, birkirAS@yahoo.com I’m gonna try to put some songs of the 7” on our myspace site.
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