Over drinks, the son of Muggi discussed this upcoming tour, touring Canada with Queens of the Stone Age, his latest record, Mugiboogie, playing & touring solo vs. with a band vs. as a duet, the music community up in Iceland, why so many strange acts come out of his home country, króna vs. dollar vs. euro, pooping in his pants on stage, and much more…
QRO: Do you tour solo, or do you have a whole band with you?
Mugison: This tour, we’re a duet. This year, I’ve been touring as a band; I think we’ve done nearly sixty gigs as a band this year.
It’s always changing for me. I used to be a one-man show, for years, either with a computer, or just with a guitar. Sometimes I play with other guitar players. This year, we’ve been touring with a basic rock ‘n’ roll setting – Led Zeppelin kind of rock.
[We just] had our first gig as a duet. So we’re pretty much just pulling things together, just before the gig. It’s a little bit going back to the one-man show, because we’re using computers. So that’s a lot of fun, because I haven’t touched that stuff for years, performance-wise.
We’re really pleased with how it went down. A show full of errors, mishaps, and fuck-ups; I really like that.
QRO: Are you touring just as a duet because it’s such a trip to America?
M: Budgets, budget stuff. It’s my first tour [of America], so I think the venues, promoters, are just taking a chance.
I’ve done a few gigs in New York in L.A., a couple of gigs in each city. It’s such a small name – we’re doing cites I’ve never even been into. It’s just an experiment, really. I’m expecting there to be three people at some gigs.
Hopefully we’ll get things going. It’s just a start – or a start and an end. We’ll see…
QRO: How does touring America so far compare with touring Europe?
M: It’s different, even, within each country, and I bet it’s the same over here.
In general, I really like playing for Americans, because they’ve got an open mind – at least the ones who come to the gigs. They’ve got an open mind, and are willing to have fun.
I bet it’s different between states, or towns within states. That’s the case, anyway, in Europe – you can do a gig in London, and then you can do gig in Glasgow, and usually London is crap, but definitely Glasgow is always a really good kick in the ass and lots of fun.
Everywhere is different, but generally, I think, the Americans are more open, the standard human being.
QRO: What do you do about the jetlag, from the flying?
M: I drink…
QRO: How do you keep your equipment from getting broken or lost in flight?
M: I don’t. Things get ruined all the time. Renting amps, buying new amps, wrecking guitars – it’s unstable. It’s just unstable.
QRO: Back in May, you opened for Queens of the Stone Age in Canada. How did you get in contact with them?
M: We have a mutual friend in L.A. called Robbie Frasier. I sent him a couple of CD’s, like I always do – he’s my gig agent. He’s also the gig agent for Queens and a lot of other great bands.
He had dinner or something with Josh [Homme, singer/guitarist of Queens of the Stone Age], and gave Josh the CD. And Josh really hated the CD, a lot.
QRO: Hated it?
M: Yeah, really didn’t like it. Then, my friend forced him to listen to it, eight times in a row. And, on the eighth listen, something clicked with Josh, and he really liked it. And he asked Robbie if he could check if he could find mutual dates. Luckily for me, there was a spot open in Canada. We did like two weeks across Canada, from one end to the other. Did pretty fantastic shows over there with them.
QRO: When you play another Scandinavian country, like Norway or Denmark, is that more of a ‘home’ show than other European dates?
M: No, not really – not for me.
It’s weird to play in Scandinavia, because they can be really stiff. I think Sweden and Norway, they’re like ‘uncles’. But I think The Faeroe Islands, which is in between Iceland and Europe, I feel like they’re our brothers and sisters. That’s humongous fun.
The Icelandic people have a loose nerve. They’re a bit like the Americans – they’re a screw missing, but in a good way. But maybe the Icelandic have two screws, but the Faeroe have three. They’re the sickest bunch I’ve met, but in the best way possible.
Sweden and Norway, they’re just kind of too educated as a listener or something. They have weird expectations.
So I like late shows there; early shows, or even theatrical shows, where everybody’s sitting down – give me a bullet. In the leg…
QRO: How far up north have you played? Howe close to the Arctic Circle have you played? Have you ever played Greenland?
M: No, I wish. I’ve been trying to play Greenland for three or four years now. I’ve got some contacts. I’m definitely going there – great bunch.
QRO: On November 13th, you’re going to be playing the Big Bang Festival in Lebanon, Beirut. Have you played the Middle East before?
M: No, not that far down. I’m looking forward to going there. I have no idea why that guy – I actually asked my gig agent in Europe, “Why the fuck is he getting us? There’s no reason I should be playing there – or even for people to know of me…”
But apparently, he got a CD somewhere, and loves the stuff, and really wants us there. So immediately, when I heard about it, I was like, ‘Let’s go!’ That’s a great part of the world…
QRO: How do you prevent touring ‘burnout’?
M: Well, I’ve tried to burn myself out. We’ve been touring a lot this summer, and I asked my gig agent, ‘How many gigs could we do with no breaks? Like a gig-a-day thing?’ And he managed to do nearly twenty gigs, a gig a day, and we were driving like six hours each day, at least.
And that didn’t burn me out – I thought I was going to be dead on the eighteenth. I think we did eighteen or nineteen dates, and I still had the voice, and I felt really good. We were playing the last gig in Poland, and I was just… I wish I had booked more gigs, just to test my physical… you know.
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QRO: How did making Mugiboogie compare with making your previous records?
M: Was a lot harder – I don’t want to be a whiner…
My previous two albums, I’d pretty much done on my own. This one, I wanted to do kind of a band album, for the songs on there to have the structure of a normal song. It’s really hard to do a good song with couple of verses, a chorus, another couple of verses, and a chorus. It takes great discipline to do that stuff.
I had also a lot of fun, with the guys. I write the songs, and then I get the guys in the studio – I got a studio where I live. We jam things, and then I’d record the rehearsals, listen to stuff, think about how to change things, slowly develop things along the line. You have a song with a basic chord structure and lyrics; you can play around with things.
There’s a song on there called “I’m Alright”; original, it was a song from Seattle – acoustic guitar. But then, I really wanted to do something else with it. We turned it into this kind of Sepultura song…
QRO: You changed a lot in your life between Mugiboogie and your prior record – moved, raised a family, etc. How do you think that affected Mugiboogie?
M: Great, ‘cause while I did almost three years that I worked on the album, I did two soundtracks for feature films, I had two boys, we moved a couple of times and settled in a small town in the west part, really remote, just between the mountains, small kind of community, 100 people or something in the whole area.
I love it ‘cause having kids forces you to work and to be really focused, when you’re working, because you need a lot of time to have a family. You have to make sure they don’t kill themselves, these young guys.
I think it had a really good influence. Also, it’s partially why I did that ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ album. You don’t want your dad to be a ‘traveling troubadour’, like Julio Ingelsias or something; you want them to play loud, with lots of screams. My boys play drums, both of them – they’re just three and one-and-a-half year olds. Both of them play drums, and they like to have me playing guitar. So I have a lot of influence.
And my wife, too. My wife produces this stuff with me. I work on stuff for days and days, and then she comes in, and I’ll play, and she’ll just give me a hard time, ‘That’s horrible, this is good…’ And also my best friend, who always travels with me, and does my sound, he also produced this album, just commenting all the time.
QRO: Mugiboogie came out last year back home, but only last month here in America. Is that kind of a delay weird, or are you used to it by now?
M: Well, that’s happened with all my stuff. Just ‘cause, in Iceland, it’s only three hundred thousand people. I’ve got my own label in Iceland, Europe, and Japan. PR takes a day – you can go on a bike in the capital, Reykjavík, and there are only like three newspapers, and they’re close to each another, so you can just drop in a CD at all three places; it takes an hour. And you’re pretty sure, the next day, you’ll get a review in the paper. And then the album’s out.
Over here, it’s a big market. You need at least three to six months of pushing things, to make sure everybody knows about the stuff.
QRO: You’ve also done a number of, like you said, movie soundtracks. How do those come about?
M: Those directors I’ve worked with, they’ll just call me up and meet me in a bar, whatever. You know, you get along with somebody, and they make movies or whatever – it’s like meeting people, and becoming friends. It’s just fun.
They give you a script; you map things out in the script, like you’re in school or something. It’s really easy to map things out, ‘cause certain things are coming together, things repeat within the story; it’s really easy to spot things. You know beforehand, you’re thinking, ‘Okay, this girl needs a certain sound… They have a chemistry, so I need to make that chemistry work…’
So it’s just a lot of fun with colors, really, just coloring the script out. Then you start working on ideas. Then you get a rough cut of the film. Take those ideas, mold them together, play with the guitar, play with the piano, whatever…
It’s so easy, because you don’t have to make lyrics. ‘Cause lyrics are tricky. And melody with the voice – the voice is the hardest instrument. The other is just pure pleasure. It’s a nice way to stay in – it’s like rehearsing, in a good way.
QRO: How much new, post-Mugiboogie material do you have?
M: Not that’s out.
QRO: Do you play any of it live now?
M: We’ve pretty much stuck to the catalog, and this album.
I change the versions – it’s never the same version. I fuck around with everything, all the time.
It’s fresh for us as well, ‘cause we’re doing new things with it. I pretty much stick to the old catalog, ‘cause it’s confusing enough, already.
QRO: What is the Icelandic music community like? Is it particularly tight-knit?
M: The music scene is pretty tight-knit. Everybody knows each other.
Like, I have a festival in my village, each year. Been running that for five years now. There’s different festivals, all around the country. Everybody meets everyone. Most of us are in a few different bands, so it’s kind of like a web. You lend gear, you get some gear, swapping music, whatever. So it’s a really healthy situation, I think.
QRO: Canada, Sweden, and some other countries have government programs that give state support to their musicians. Does Iceland?
M: Yeah. You apply for a kind of grant. The last two or three years, it’s gained more weight. There’s these different programs, you apply.
I’ve been really lucky. Like the tour with Queens of the Stone Age, I got a grant to hire a bus, a bus driver. It’s very costly, ‘cause I’m a solo act; I have to pay everyone’s salaries. I’m such a small artist; I very rarely make money off of it. And airlines…
QRO: Oh, yeah, airlines, especially for Iceland…
M: So we get nice deals with airlines. In general, companies and governments are really helpful, but you can’t always… It’s like milking a cow – it gets empty.
QRO: How much do Icelandic audiences know about a native musician’s overseas success?
M: Well, of course, Björk, is… She’s a bit, maybe, controversial, in a way. Everybody loves her, like an auntie, and she sells good amounts of records. Especially musicians and music people, like ‘nerds’, love her to pieces. She’s one of my biggest influences, ever. I admire her so much. And Sigur Rós (QRO live review) as well – they’re like big stars.
But there’s a split in the culture: you have these kind of ‘joke’ bands, bands that are filled with humor, and silliness, and then you have this kind of more abstract art, kind of scenario.
; we’ve got a history of… there’s not kind of… status. If you’re a decent human being, you’ll get along fine. If you’re cocky, they will beat you down. There’s not kind of sense of ‘star’. Unless a huge star, like Elton John, but usually, they’ll rather tell you off than give you compliments.
QRO: Icelandic musicians have had some notable success in alternative music, but are also known for producing unusual music. Do you think there’s any reason behind that?
M: The biggest reason is Björk. A generation that followed her were greatly influenced by her. I’d say it’s the Sugarcube ‘vein’, and that punk era. That kind of crowd was really important – ‘Don’t be anybody’s sucker; be your own kind of king.’
That’s really all the Icelandic roots. Not musical – we have a lot of really independent sailors, who can’t really work for big companies, who have to have their own, small boat. And farmers… So we come from that kind of culture, and that’s translated with Björk and all that, punks.
And they’ve been preaching that. Einar [Öm Benediktsson], the other singer in Sugarcubes, I think he’s the big preacher to us, the later generation, because he really kicked everybody’s ass. ‘Your talent doesn’t matter – it’s what you do. It’s what you deliver.’ And I think that’s why so much Icelandic music that caught fire aboard was influenced by that kind of, ‘just do it.’
QRO: Are there particular venues in Reykjavík that are ‘quintessential’?
M: Not really, cause each year, there are two or three new ones, ‘cause the old ones get bankrupt. It might be the same house, but it has a new name, or whatever.
There’s this one place I like to play, named ‘Nasa’. That’s kind of the biggest venue, seven hundred, a thousand capacity. I really like to play there. That’s a big crowd for Iceland…
I like some of the smaller venues, but they’re changing all the time.
QRO: A lot of musicians have been having visa issues lately, trying to get into the United States. Has it been difficult for you?
M: No comment…
It’s not a problem anywhere else, just America.
QRO: What about traveling in Europe? Iceland isn’t part of the EU…
M: Going to Japan, going to old Europe, new Europe, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland – no problem. It’s not a problem anywhere else.
QRO: When you travel from Europe to America, do you notice the strong euro/weak dollar? What about your currency, the króna? It goes up and down…
M: The króna is in worse shape than the dollar, so everywhere in the world is expensive. The króna is fucked. Rock-bottom…
QRO: Would you rather that Iceland adopt the euro? That’s an issue there…
M: Yeah, I’d rather that happened. A few months ago, the króna was sixty to the dollar – now it’s ninety…
QRO: When did you decide to sing in English?
M: When I started out, when I was doing Lonely Mountain, I was living in London. I was finishing my university there. I didn’t really sing that many songs on the first one, but I wanted to have my voice there, and do some lyrics that I’d been working on.
I really wanted to release it there; I was there, I knew people there, I was playing for friends there. It never came to mind, like a ‘decision’ thing; it just happened.
I also write songs in Icelandic. I’m doing an Icelandic album right now. Everybody speaks English from the age of eight in Iceland, or even earlier. So it’s not a ‘thing’ – at least not in my head.
QRO: Are there any songs you particularly like to play live?
M: It changes, you know? I used to love to play a song called “I’m On Fire”, ‘cause it’s really brutal; it gets things out of my system.
It’s all just different all the time.
QRO: Are there any songs you don’t like playing live, or can’t play live, because you’re a duet, or on a solo tour?
M: No, not really. Even, on my second album, Mugimama [Is This Monkey Music?], there’s a song called “Sad as a Truck”. It’s like a computer song, like an Aphex Twin kind of song. But even if I’m playing it solo, on an acoustic guitar, I can play just a different version of it.
QRO: What cities, venues, or countries have you really liked playing at?
M: Well, I love playing in Dublin, in Ireland. I love playing in Wales, Cardiff. Cardiff is great, and Glasgow is great. They’re really a nice crowd to play to.
I also like Spain, a lot. There are really good crowds in Spain, in general. Barcelona is really nice, lots of nice towns in Spain.
Poland is fantastic. Japan is amazing. No matter where, it’s really weird, and really nice. The few gigs in Canada, the crowd was beyond… Saskatoon was amazing. The crowd there was sick. Did a gig once in the Faeroe Islands…
Yeah, it’s just different. Even then, you come back, and it’s horrible. And it doesn’t really depend on the crowd; it’s like sex: you blame it on somebody else, but it’s your own fault…
QRO: Do you have a favorite tour story?
M: I was doing a gig with two other Icelandic bands, friends, in Belgium, and one evening, I asked a friend to buy me French fries – we were just drinking, and playing pool at the hotel – and he went out and bought me kebab.
Apparently, it had dodgy meat in it; I was really sick. I was just puking, and shitting, just sick – like salmonella. The following day, I tried to do a gig in Brussels, and I did four songs, and then I literally pooped my pants, on stage. In front of four hundred people… In the middle of a song…
I liked that; it made the moment kind of good. And I went to the hotel room and just puked the whole night.
But it’s a nice story…
