NPR Was Right, Sigur Ros Aren't Much For Talk

If you saw an old interview for National Public Radio with Sigur Ros, you'd probably have nightmares about squeezing information from the band. I didn't see that footage before talking to drummer Orri Pall Dyrason in late October and I was still edgy about doing it.

It turns out that my fears were mostly justified. Like NPR's Luke Burbank, I'll point out that Sigur Ros are, in fact, pretty great. The buzz around their new film, Heima, which plays Friday and Saturday nights at Toronto's Royal Cinema, is off the charts. And their new double CD collection, Hvarf/Heim, is probably the best work they've done since Agaetis Byrjun. Heima was directed by Canadian animation director Dean DeBlois (Lilo & Stitch) and follows the group as they play unannounced free shows on their home turf in Iceland.

Anyway, it's tough to do interviews with some Icelandic people over cell phones. That's all I'm saying.

ChartAttack: Do you guys see Hvarf/Heim as an official release or is it more like tying up loose ends?
Orri Pall Dyrason: It's like that, yeah. These were songs that we always liked, but they didn't make the albums. We had to get them out sometime. We were thinking about doing a live album to go with the film, but we didn't like that idea.

The second disc, Heim, is acoustic, which is something you guys haven't done before. How did that come about?
There's a part of the film where we go to a protest camp in the highlands wilderness and we did a show acoustic. It was the first time we played acoustic. We had tried it before and it had been no good. So we were surprised it worked this time.

The first disc is something that most Sigur Ros discs aren't — it's short. Did you limit yourselves to what you were putting on the disc?
No. We didn't have any more. That's all we had. It's done.

The second disc songs were done live for family and friends. Were they told not to applaud?
There was so few people. Is there no applause on the album?

No.
Oh, there was so few people. It wasn't deliberate.

Why did you include two versions of "Von?"
They were two very different versions and we liked both of them. Ha.

Would you say Heim is sort of a soundtrack for the movie?
No, it's really different. The first idea was to put out a CD with the movie with a cycle of songs from the movie, but we thought that was kind of boring. Have you seen the movie?

No, it hasn't played in Toronto yet.
Ah, well, the movie is much more electric than the material on the discs.

So not at all like the songs on the recording?
No, there are some songs that are. Three are acoustic.

How much control did you have over the product?
We had this vision that we told the director about. But when we were touring we were so focused on the shows that we didn't really see anything. So when we came back from the tour we looked at all the footage and it was all really bad, just not what we had talked about. We were really thinking about giving up, not doing the movie. And then we got in contact with Dean DeBlois, the Canadian, who went through the footage and told us what we needed to make the film. And we liked him so much we brought him to Iceland to direct the movie. So we did some extra shooting.

Are you happy with how it turned out?
Oh yeah, yeah.

So it was closer to how you hoped it would turn out?
Yes.

You guys got some press for saying Vanilla Sky, in which your music was prominently featured, was a crap film. Can you name some of the Hollywood stuff your music has been used in that you did like?
Did like... uh, I liked The Life Aquatic. That was good.

Do you have much say in what your music gets licensed to?
Oh yeah, we have total control, unless it's for television, in which case we have a blanket agreement. [The music publisher] can use whatever they want for a series.

What's next for the band?
We've been writing songs for the next album. In the middle of November we go into a house in the middle of Iceland to do recording.

You've been playing acoustic shows to promote the film. Do you think that will influence the sound of the new recordings?
Uh, yeah, anything's possible. We don't make decisions before we get together. But I do think playing at the protesters' camp opened us up to a new way to play, and that's how things happen for us. And now we have a new instrument to play [acoustic guitars], so that's inspiring.