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Seabear: Music That Makes People Love

Amidst the empty kegs and dust in the Mercury Lounge basement...

Posted 9th April 2010, 4:39pm in Interviews, by Willis Arnold
Seabear Willis Arnold recently had the chance to interview two members of Seabear, amidst the empty kegs and dust in the Mercury Lounge basement. Both bassist Halldor Ragnarsson and multi-instrumentalist Soley Stefansdottir were obliging enough to answer his questions while dodging bartenders in search of plastic cups and sound guys swapping equipment.

As a band how long have you guys played together? I know the first CD was kind of a bedroom project, so I was wondering when everyone sort of came together.
Halldor: It was probably about 2006, something like that. We all just got together, and everyone just sort of did their thing on it. Originally, we were presented with acoustic stuff and we just played over it. And from there it just sort of evolved.

So it was a much more collective experience?
H: Yes, The work is split between seven people. It’s a seven piece album, seven people playing together.
Soley: It’s like a band.
H: Exactly. Like a band. At first we were just asked to play on an album and know we’re together as a band.

So did you know each other before the first album, or how did you meet?
H: Well, Sindri and I were in art school together and I had just given him my poetry book, and he traded me a CD, and it was just sort of a “Could you play on my next album?” sort of thing.
S: And I came in 2006, as a substitute for the violin because Inka lives in Holland and I knew [mumbles] because we live in the same town, my town. And I started playing accordian at shows, and they just asked if I would join the band, and suddenly we were seven in the band. And we kind of decided it was enough [Laughs].
H: It was great. We were six musicians, and then the seventh came, and who knew, maybe it could have been thirty six of us up there.

Well, there are a bunch of different parts to support the melody in your songs, so I can see the group growing.
S: Right. With the new album we sort of did things backwardly. We would take the bass one day, and then me and Inca would do the voices another day.
H: Right, a few of our songs were actual planned songs, but most of the time it was just touring and playing around, and songs just sort of developed. And when we played we would either get great comments or shitty comments about a song, and there was nothing really in between.

What was the biggest challenge about working together as a band? What was the hardest thing to come up with while working as a collective of seven people.
S: Actually the hardest thing was just to get all of us together. To find the time As I said, Inka lives in Holland and we are all doing this between summers and school. Its hard to get everyone together, and while we are touring so much we kind of concentrate on doing the act.
H: Yeah, when your in a band it’s a little different than when you’re a group of artists and are putting together exhibitions. You have to get time together to collect people at a certain moment.
S: We would have to have a meeting! [Laughs]

So you guys keep a pretty relaxed musical vibe for having to plan everything out in such an orchestrated fashion. But I’ve noticed a different tone from one album to the next, was this a conscious decision, or…
H: Nothing was planned. The band was just getting to know each other more and more. It was not like we were making a distinct decision to switch from one type of feeling to another.
S: But we did kind of name songs by the feeling they gave or the way they sounded when we were making them. We had a “Yo la Tengo” song and a “Bob Dylan” song. So we were aware of different feelings we were working out. Someone would come up with a chord progression idea and we would just jam on for a bit and work out. The most recent song, we did in like five minutes.!
H: Seriously, five minutes. But don’t tell anyone!

It makes sense to name them though, as you have a very unified sound, but the songs themselves are very distinctive.
S: It happens completely naturally. We don’t try to sound like one or the other. We just recognize similarities from people that we like.

So did you do anything specific in the recording process of the new album? Did you record more of it in the studio, or on your own?
S: Well we record most everything, the drums, the brass and the drums, at a this great studio. It’s very nicely built….
H: The Sigur Ros studio. The basic stuff , like piano, was recorded by us, and then the rest of it was done in the studio.

As this was such an organic process, developing as a band, were you affected by the idea of writing for a growing audience?
H: Absolutely not, and I can tell you why. We are all friends, and we are in Rejkivik, and Rejkivik is smaller than, well one fucking street in New York, and we just play together.
S: And the art scene is really small, everyone sort of knows each other.
H: And with a small scene we are all playing music for ourselves. Once you have a band, and want to tour, you just kind of do, and then you like playing in other places and just keep doing what you have been. To truly understand, you have to go to Rejkivik. It’s a small friendly artistic environment. If you are doing something and its good and interesting you meet more people and get support. Everyone knows each other and are playing with each other. Nobody is competing.
S: It's very positive.
H: If you’re doing a good job people are going to try to help you. We’re just playing music, I can’t understand why people would fight about it.

Do you have a favorite road story or favorite place to play?
H: [Laughs] We have have a couple good road stories but we can’t tell them. We have this rule that for twenty four hours after someone has done something bad you can tease them about it.
S: Like what were you up to last night?
H: But after twenty four hours you can’s speak about it any more.
S: And when you go home, you can’t talk about it. Back to your question though, it’s always great to play Vienna. And in the States, New York is great.
H: We were talking after the show, me and Sindri, and we were talking about how other than tonight, I’ve never played an instrument without really playing and instrument. But tonight, I was just listening to what all the other people in the band were doing. I was watching how she played the violin for maybe the first time.
S: It’s so good to go into that zone where you don’t have to concentrate, and you’re just playing. We’ve been playing together for a long time and its great to not be nervous when you’re going on stage.

So do you have a question you expect to be asked by interviewers?
S: There’s one: the Iceland one. Now we live in Iceland and almost everyone asks us “does the nature inspire you?”
H: Always.
S: Because people associate it with the mountains, or the alps, or the trolls or something.
H: How music is made in Iceland is more related to the community than it is the place.

Do you have questions you’d like people to ask about your music?
S: Well it’s always more interesting to be asked about what we are doing as musicians, than to ask us about Iceland.
H: I mean many of us live in Rejkevik, a city. And we’re just seven different people, hardcore vegans sitting across from someone ripping into a steak at diner. That’s more interesting than nature.

Okay. And my last question is: What do you think are the best conditions, or the best situation, for someone to be listening to your music?
S: I guess, I read that someone was cycling in the rain and they were listening to our music, and that seemed pretty nice. It’s hard for us to tell because we just make the music.
H: Honestly, people have been crying. When you notice people crying and you’re playing on stage, I mean, we don’t want people to cry [Laughs].
S: But when you’re playing and you can look at the crowd and see people singing along. Maybe that’s it, a really good concert where you can see the people.
H: I think the best environment is when you’re enjoying it with someone really close, when your with a best friend or girlfriend, or whoever.
S: I have seen a lot of couples, kissing… ha, our music makes people love! [Laughs]
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