Interview with Angist (28.VI.2011)
Ave Angist! What things inspired you to create your band?
– Góðan daginn!
Edda and Gyða knew each other for a while before the band started and had always talked about how much fun it would be to start a band together. We have both very similar taste in music and since we both played guitar we decided to jam together and that went really well. We are both very passionate about our music and we have the same vision for it which makes working together very easy.
After sitting together just the two of us for some time we realize that the songs were coming very easily to us and we should definitely form a full band. After trying out few people the Angist of today was formed with Edda's brother, Halli, on bass and on drums a mutual friend, Hafþór who used to play drums for the Icelandic black metal band Svartidauði.
Please, tell to the readers more about the Icelandic scene!
– The population of the entire country is only around 320.000 people so it's quite obvious that our scene is rather small but it's also very close knit, everyone knows everyone. But because it's a small scene people try to help each other out so for example when someone is going to record an album they usually put up a fund raiser gig and the other bands help out by playing for free, making posters, lending equipment, advertising etc.
But we have a lot of bands and different styles so within the scene there is a scene of black metal bands, death metal bands, technical death metal bands, hardcore bands etc. and when there's a gig on you get almost every time a range of bands which is great because it can broaden your musical horizon and you can get into a genre of music that you didn't know you liked.
What I would also say about the scene here is that the people are very dedicated and hard working. We have so many amazing bands here and even though we are usually just playing for the same people there's always a gig going on, people recording and releasing records on their own, financed from their own pockets and lately bands are getting more attention outside of Iceland and scoring record deals which is great! We definitely recommend people to check out bands like Sólstafir, Svartidauði, Severed Crotch, Gone Postal, Chao and more Icelandic bands.
I've listened to your 2 tracks from Promo 2010 through myspace and as I know, it will be released as an EP in the end of summer. Have you any plans about a full-length album and when can we expect it from you?
– Our EP contains 5 new songs so we've been concentrating on that since the Promo came out. We are now in the final stages of finishing that EP so now we are just starting to write for a full-length album but we don't know when that will be out. It's very expensive to record and specially release an album in Iceland so we just have to see how the financials of the band will be in the coming winter months.
(dedicated Angist-promo CD -G)
Enlighten us more details about your lyrical conceptions.
– We think that meaningful lyrics are essential and we want to leave people with something to think about. There's so much violence and ugliness out there that is condoned by people and the society so we are trying to raise awareness of these matters. Subjects like human misery, destructive behavior, violence, psychopaths, and lack of conscience, addiction, apathy, self loathing and overall degeneration of humanity would describe our lyrics well. The human race is capable of such cruelty towards other people and themselves and we have amazing ability of destroying everything around us and even ourselves.
Edda has a very strong and greatly harsh vocalizing manner (frankly speaking, I was pretty surprised when I discovered that those are female vocals). How many years she sings in such way and what are the influences/inspirations of her vocal style?
– Edda growled one song with a band called Elegy five years ago, but her growling didn't begin for real until Angist little over two years ago. The experience of clean singing helped a lot in developing her growling style and the enthusiasm for trying out new things and experimenting. Inspirations are singers with lots of sincerity and power like Lane Staley, Philip Anselmo, James Hetfield, Dax Riggs, Angela Gossow, Mikael Åkerfeldt, Beth Gibbons (hahaha definitely more for the sincere part) and many more!! Edda has also studied the vocal techniques of Melissa Cross which has helped a lot.
You, ladies create fairly brutal riffs. When did you start playing on your guitars? What guitarists inspired you on this path?
– As we said before we are very passionate about music and have been listening to death and black metal for a long time so your style of playing evolves from the music you listen to. As influences we'd definitely say old Metallica and Slayer and then more recent stuff like Suffocation, Decapitated and Bloodbath mixed with black metal influences as well.
Gyða is a band promoter in Iceland and one day she realized that she wanted more to play and create music rather than put up the bands so she bought her first guitar extremely hangover after a New Year’s party and it was a point of no return.
Edda got her first guitar and Metallica's first five albums tablature book (from her grandparents!) at the age of thirteen and locked herself in her room playing loudly with their songs pretending she was the third guitar player in Metallica!!
As for me it's a great thing, that in Iceland the Asatru is accepted religion since 1972-73 (as far as I know). What Asatru, Nordic Gods, runes and Edda mean to you?
– Yes you are right, it was accepted in 1972.
Gyða: Generally speaking I think that if people want to follow a belief Ásatrú is our old religion and is more in touch with our nature than Christianity. The poetry is undeniably a part of our history as a country and the Poetic Edda is a favorite of mine with Völuspá being a must read but for example to me and Edda it's more the stories and poetry that is fascinating, religion to us is never an appealing concept.
Could you speak about your beautiful country briefly? What do you recommend of Icelandic national food and drink to us?
– Well Iceland is known for being a country of extremities. We have beautiful, serene landscape mixed with black beaches, majestic mountains and vast lava fields. You don't have to go very far to find beautiful nature, waterfalls and geysers and of course the amazing northern lights in the winter. They are a very common sight because the towns are so small that the lights from the city won't pollute the sight. We get all our energy from geothermal resources and our water is very clean so every house has drinkable water coming from the tap. So we'd definitely recommend to people to try the water! Iceland also has many breweries so a wide range of Icelandic beers is available, for example Viking beer is something all tourists must try. I would also say that despite how small the country is, we do have our own unique culture. We keep old traditions alive and embrace new ones with a very active artistic scene, whether it's music, design, writing, filmmaking and so on.
I wouldn't say this band is very nationalistic in eating habits, Gyða has been vegan for almost 10 years and Edda doesn't eat fish, which is one of our main exports. But fresh fish and lamb meat is a very common and then more exotic things like fermented shark, ram's testicles, sheep heads, dried fish and slátur, which is similar to the Scottish haggis, are things that were maybe a bit more popular 50 years ago or so but are still frequently on people's tables.
(a great gift from Gyða, Angist-vinyl -GF)
You will play 1st of July in club Sodoma in Reykjavik. What about visiting countries of Europe as well? Do you plan/prepare any tours for the forthcoming months?
– This gig is a fundraiser gig for our EP so we are really looking forward to it. We will also have T-shirts there for sale that will have our new logo on it done by the brilliant artist Christophe Szpajdel and will those T-shirts also be available for sale through our web-store soon after the gig.
We definitely want to tour overseas because although it is fun to play here in Iceland we'd like to play for more people and reach a bigger crowd.
We are going on a week-long tour in France in October with two other Icelandic bands as a part of an Icelandic Invasion Tour were we are supporting a French band which played in Iceland last year. We are extremely excited for this tour and we hope this is just the first tour of many.
Have you any hobbies beside music?
– The band takes up much of our spare time and we are all either in school or have a full time job so it doesn't leave much time for extra activities but we go a lot to gigs to see other bands, watch movies (Edda watches a lot of horror movies), Halli, Hafþór and Gyða play a lot of video games and also Angist meets up a lot to make food together, we just love food and partying of course!!
What do you know about Ukraine and Hungary? (about metal bands too)
– Well we know the capitals, Kiev and Budapest and we read in school about the history of the countries like the Mongol invasion for example but I guess we have to open those books again... And Rubik's cube! That's from Hungary! And Drudkh is from Ukraine, I like them.
Takk! I really hope to see/hear you playing live in the near future. Share your last ruinous words for the end...
– Takk sömuleiðis! Yeah hopefully we'll be able to tour more extensively in the future! We just like to thank everyone who has helped spreading the word about our music, every little thing counts and we really appreciate all the help we are getting from people around the world. Stay tuned for updates on gigs, the EP and more news through our myspace site: www.myspace.com/angisttheband.
(Angist: Circle of Suffering, Artwork by Christian Sloan Hall)
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