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In 2012, Ásgeir Trausti released an album called Dýrð í dauðaþögn that went on to become the highest selling debut album in Iceland, ever, and produced six top ten singles. The response attracted the attention of U.S. musician John Grant who offered to help translate the album into English. Now simply named Ásgeir, Amelia Barnes chatted to the 21 year old about the global success of the English language release In The Silence and his plans to tour Australia.
For the Icelandic release of your album, you wrote the music and your father [poet Einar Georg Einarsson] penned the lyrics. Is that a relationship you hope to continue in your career?
I haven’t thought about it that much... We’ve done some tracks when we have some breaks from touring and my parents have been involved in some of it. I don’t know how the next album will be but I really liked how we did things on this album. I’ve been using some of my dad’s poetry in my music since I was 10 years old and I felt that it really added something. Like I said I haven’t really thought about it that much, but I definitely know he would love it if we did it like that again.
You’ve said in a previous interview the lyrics you had originally written for the album were in “a made up language that sounded like English.” What does that look like on paper?
Probably really stupid but it’s something I always do when I’m writing a song and what a lot of people do, at least people who I know, when writing a song. Sometimes when you’re doing chords or doing something else when you’re making a melody you want to say something and do something so it makes more sense as a song. It’s more natural to do that than just saying nothing. I just decided to do that because I hadn’t been playing my songs or my music in front of an audience. I was never planning on doing anything with my music; I was just doing it at home on my computer. It wasn’t until two years ago when we started recording the album. A lot of the lyrics were words that sometimes sounded like English... I’m not going to repeat it [when writing the next album] [laughs]. It’s not something that’s magnificent to read.
Has your father explained to you the meaning or inspiration behind his lyrics?
We have talked about it but I can never really exactly know. It’s not the same thing through the whole album... It’s my dad’s way of writing and his style and what he’s been doing for 50 years- writing poems... A lot of it just comes from weather, nature, creatures, stories... and his own mind and that’s something that has always been really strong in his poetry and something that was definitely used in lots of the songs.
You’ve since translated the album into English which I imagine was quite a difficult process. Did you struggle to get the timing right for lyrics to fit the music the way you hoped?
Yeah that was something that was part of the process but I don’t remember it being an issue or anything. We got help from a U.S. musician John Grant and he really helped with the translation. He was living in Iceland at the time and he’s a lyricist and musician... He has a big vocabulary and experience in doing things like this. It wasn’t too difficult for him to put the words in but sometimes we really had to discuss vocabulary and the meaning. Some things were just really hard to translate; like old Icelandic expressions that aren’t used around the world, so that was something we had to focus on. But other than that it wasn’t a big issue trying to get the words in the right timing.
I read an interview where you said you “don’t believe in yourself that much.” I was wondering if this has changed since becoming more successful?
It’s not about believing in something but more about being confident in what you’re doing. That relates to believing, but it’s more about my confidence on stage and things like that that weren’t something I had to really think about until one and half years ago. [It was] something that I never planned on happening and I didn’t feel like I was prepared for it. So for the first two months and for a long time I just really didn’t know if this was me and my right place and that connects to being confident on stage. I really think in the last two months I’ve been getting better and better and just loving playing on stage and doing what I do.
You were listed by many websites as one of the highlights of SXSW this year. Did you enjoy playing at such a large festival?
Yeah we just played there a few weeks ago and I really, really enjoyed it. It was our second time there and the first time was last year and we played at some crappy venues and not so good times but this year it was much, much better. We were playing not too early and were just better prepared for it. It can be really stressful because you only get about 15 to 20 minutes to set up all your gear and start playing. Then you get about 30 minutes [to play] and if you go over that time it’s just turned off so it can be really stressful. This time though everything was dealt with really well and we had a great time.
When you’re starting as an artist in Iceland, is there a focus on building your national presence first or expanding internationally?
Well there’s definitely no one single thing people think about, it’s just what they want to do. But most bands and most artists at some point want to try and go outside of Iceland and tour for a few months... It can be really expensive though. If you’re really successful in Iceland and want to tour the world using the money you make from selling records, in a few weeks you will have no money left... It definitely doesn’t matter how successful you become, you can’t really live off that money for a long time. So when bands are trying to get out there it’s really difficult and they often just quit and maybe keep playing in Iceland for a bit. There are only a few big and important venues in Iceland that bands want to play that and are fun to play at, so you can’t be playing all year long while touring Iceland.
It would just be going back and forth from the capital city to the capital of the north and then back to Reykjavik; it’s just too small, so most people really try to go outside. In my case it just so happened there was a lot of press going on in Iceland about this and it was just really fresh and new. We had a lot of interest from people around the world who wanted to help, so it was just something that most musicians don’t really get and we were just really lucky with that. We just took a chance and sent it to our label and started touring and we’ve been doing this now for a year and a half.
Did you have to play an instrument in school? I’m just trying to work out how there are so many great musicians from such a small country! [Iceland has a population of 320,000 and is home to artists such as Björk, Sigur Rós and Emilíana Torrini.]
We don’t have to learn any instruments but most kids start at maybe six or seven years old learning piano, guitar, bass or something. In my experience I grew up in the countryside in a small class and all of the kids were musical at some point. Usually they drop out fairly early but a lot keep going and get really good. In my case there weren’t many things to choose from; it was either music school or some kind of a sport and that was really everything that you could do. I think that’s something I can say about the whole of Iceland; there aren’t many opportunities. Definitely instruments are important and something most people have in mind in Iceland.
You’ve covered artists from Miley Cyrus to Nirvana. Are there any genres of music you have no interest in?
Well I’m really definitely not into Miley Cyrus’ style; that was just something we were playing at a radio show in the Netherlands... They have this thing where they have an artist come in and cover a song and it has to be one of the 50 most played songs in the Netherlands at the time. We just went through the whole list and it didn’t really matter... But with “Heart Shaped Box” that was something I really wanted to do because it was one of those bands that was really influential when I was growing up and was one of the biggest reasons why I started playing guitar and having an interest in music. I can listen to most styles of music. I can listen to jazz, heavy metal, progressive music and classical music so I wouldn’t really say there’s one style I wouldn’t listen to, but maybe specific artists.
Are you planning on coming to Australia anytime soon?
Yes we’re hoping to make it to there this year... That’s something that hasn’t been confirmed but we’ll hopefully do a few shows.
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Ásgeir's debut album In The Silence is available now through Inertia.
Clik here to view.
