We are over in Iceland and this time catching up with Suð – a band that have been together for quite some years (even decades) and influenced by some awesome 90’s rock bands!
Tell us who you are and whats your sound
Suð is an indie punk rock trio from Iceland formed in the late nineties by twin brothers Helgi (vocals and guitar) and Kjartan (bass and backup vocals) and then soon joined by friend and drummer Magnús, with the intention of coming up with original songs in dimly lit and quite dirty rehearsal spaces around Reykjavik.
The songs originally drew inspiration from nineties indie rock bands such as Pavement, Sebadoh and Guided by Voices but of course other artists have inspired us as well.
What exciting projects have you got coming up?
Our 3rd album, Vesen, was released last June and we are very excited to follow up on that and let people know about it.
It has been quite well received, contains 10 songs, 9 in Icelandic and 1 in English because we thought it might be a good idea to let people who are not fluent in Icelandic get a little bit of a different feel for the band. Let’s face it, most people are not fluent in Icelandic 🙂
Where did you grow up and what music influenced you?
All three of us were born and raised in Reykjavik, Iceland. Reykjavik is quite small but as the capital of Iceland and the biggest city it does have a thriving music and arts scene. All of us really started to think about making rock music in the early nineties when punk rock broke with Nirvana, Sonic Youth and other bands and we were soon really influenced by the DIY attitude and lo-fi sound of many american bands such as Sebadoh and Guided by Voices. But Icelandic bands such as HAM and the Sugarcubes served as an influence as well.
What cool places do you recommend to visit in your city (bars, restaurants, etc)?
Because of the tourist boom in Iceland in recent years Reykjavik has seen an uptake in the opening of bars and restaurants. Unfortunately, the building of numerous hotels has also meant that many of our favourite bars for live music have closed. But to name a few, we would recommend you check out Dillon, Röntgen and Gaukurinn for live music for example. For street food there is Grandi Mathöll and for restaurants there is Sumac and Eiriksson Brasserie in Laugavegur.
Iceland has also seen a boom in micro breweries and there are places in downtown Reykjavik to enjoy local beers such as Session bar and Micro bar. A novelty bar called Ice+Fries is a fully robotic bar, where robotic arms make the cocktails. Then for the museum lovers, you have the one and only Icelandic Phallological Museum of course 🙂
We love recommendations – what have you been listening to, watching, or reading recently?
We’ve been digging into Shoegaze and dream pop recently, new and old. Of the newer bands we like Ringo Deathstarr, DIIV and Mass Gothic. Drop Nineteens is an older band we sort of just discovered. Then you have got pretty interesting Irish indie bands such as Girl Band and Fontaines D.C.
From the Icelandic scene we actually made a playlist on Spotify for people to discover, perhaps lesser known, Icelandic indie bands. It’s called Off the beaten track – Icelandic Indie and it is highly recommended 🙂
One of the most recent reads we liked was Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan.
Finally, what was the last thing that made you swear out loud?
People viewing snapchats in public places with the sound coming through their smartphone speakers $#%”#$”#$!”!!!”!
We are big fans of the album and love that 90s rock sound – get following Sud on their Facebook page HERE and do give their excellent playlist a listen too (as well as their album too of course)!
Interview by Alex Minnis
To get updates and content from Minnis2Society, please follow us on:
Twitter: Minnis2Society
Instagram: @_minnis2society
