Things in Iceland, Like New Zealand, Are Kind of Getting Worse

A few years back I was asked to DJ a New Years' Eve party by some people who clearly didn't know that I wasn't—and still am not—able to DJ. I can press play on other people's music for sure, but that is quite genuinely about the extent of it.

So I found myself after one too many drinks on a rooftop under the night sky selecting music for an intimate group of 100 or so with midnight rapidly approaching. For reasons that are still unclear to me, I played my selected midnight track—Europe's 'The Final Countdown'—about 10 minutes early, which in turn threw the proceedings into a state of disarray. There were some pretty fucked up people by this stage so everyone started hugging each other and making out. But it was actually about three minutes to midnight by the time the track finished.

I pretended like it was intentional, of course, found a three-minute-long gem to fill in the time. Then on the stroke of midnight, as fireworks exploded over the city in the warm summer night sky, I pushed up the volume slider and pressed play on 'Gobbledigook' by Sigur Rós. It was a significant departure from Europe's premature smash hit, but it was perfect. It was as if everyone's ecstasy came on at the exact same moment as the fireworks. To this date it remains one of my most memorable midnight moments.

The video to 'Gobbledigook' is a bunch of nymph-like naked people cavorting through the Icelandic woods. Over the years, Sigur Rós have become synonymous with their homeland, Iceland. With seven studio releases under their belt, the band have been touring the world since 1994. They're bringing their extraordinary live show to New Zealand tomorrow at Auckland's Spark Arena.

Reykjavik is exactly 12 hours behind New Zealand. So when I crawled out of bed at 10 to nine on a Sunday morning, slightly hungover, to interview Georg Hólm from Sigur Rós, he was just settling into his Saturday evening.

VICE: Hey Georg. How's it going? Where are you at the moment?
GEORG: Well, thank you. I'm in Iceland at the moment, just in Reykjavik.

Cool. Hey look I'm hoping you'll indulge me with this. There's a writer here in New Zealand that I'm a fan of called Dominic Hoey. He's just published his first novel and it's called Iceland. While he wrote some of the book on a residency over there, the book is actually about a suburb of Auckland not too far from where you're playing on Friday night. It's called Grey Lynn. At any rate, I thought I'd read you some place names, perhaps an excerpt or two from his novel, and get your thoughts on it. Would that be ok?
So it's called Iceland, but it's about Auckland?

Yeah.
Great! Right. Sure.

Ok here's something from the book for you. "What happened to dinner last night?"
Well actually I just came back from Portugal with the whole family. And we weren't really in the mood for a lot of cooking. It was just pizza for the kids. So the question "What happened to dinner last night", I actually have no idea because I don't think I ate anything! I recently made the decision to become vegetarian. I'm trying to be conscious of what I do on this planet, both for my health and, you know, I basically don't think that the whole mass-production of meat is doing anyone any favours.

Here's another one for you. "I was already paying half my wages for the privilege of living in a shitty apartment."
Just about an hour ago I had a conversation about housing in Reykjavik. A lot of people, not even just the younger people, but people my age are starting to leave the area where I live. A lot of our neighbours and friends are selling their houses because it's become so expensive basically and they can now move to somewhere else, to another suburb and buy a humongous house for the same price as their little flat. It means at the same time, obviously, that for younger people who do not have a huge income it's really hard for them to buy anything in an area where they would want to live.

Most of them want to live in the city area which is the most expensive part. It's kind of complicated this whole thing. The Government here in Iceland have been cooking up all these schemes to make it easier for younger people to buy an apartment but it's such a band aid on the wound. It's just ridiculous, they're not helping at all. It's basically saying you can use your pension as a loan. It's all really bizarre. I'm sure the whole thing is going to crash at some point, and there's going to be another huge economic crash. And one of the reasons is because of the ridiculous price in housing I think. It doesn't seem sustainable.

That actually sounds a lot like here. Ok, so here's a final sentence for you: "Outside, you, Rapley and a half a dozen other people stood in a circle looking at something on the footpath. When I reached you I saw a guy lying in a pool of blood, Luke's hunting knife next to him."
Hmmmm. Yeah, well I think this is interesting.

What are the crime levels like in Reykjavik? Is it a fairly peaceful city? I remember from when I was there alcohol was really expensive. Is alcohol-fuelled violence a big issue? Are there strict drug laws?
It's a really good question. Drug laws are pretty strict I would say. Everything in Iceland is sort of based on our neighbours' laws—Sweden or Norway, Denmark. It's all pretty similar. Alcohol is almost exactly like Sweden. You can only buy alcohol in certain stores that are run by the Government, but the weird thing is that they're still running them like stores, not like a government office or anything like that. Obviously they want to sell the alcohol, but there's an illusion that they are trying to be the protector of the people, you know?

It's funny to me though. I've never gone to a wine store in Iceland and had someone say, "No you shouldn't buy that it's bad for you. Are you sure you want five beers?" You know. I think it is hypocrisy really. We still we have it in stores, but you can't buy it in the supermarket. But the stores are right next to the supermarket. I mean, why can't you just buy it in the supermarket? I don't understand the law.
But bars are open very late, and restaurants as well, everything's open really late.

Do the stricter rules lead to less violence?
I don't know. I do feel like I've seen an increase in violence in Reykjavik, that's for sure. I'm not 100 percent sure why that is. I just remember growing up as a kid it felt like the absolute safest place on earth. You know, I would just be out playing with my friends until midnight. You always felt pretty safe everywhere and nothing would go wrong. My parents wouldn't think about it. But today, with my kids, it has changed a little bit.

Just in the past two years, there have been three murders, I think. Quite violent and gang related, perhaps. One of them was like out of a crime novel—a girl abducted in downtown Reykjavik, and they found her murdered. They caught the guy, luckily. But, yeah, for me it just feels out of character for Iceland. Where did this come from, and why? Why's it happening now? And is it just because the world is coming smaller and television and people just do stupid things? I really don't know.

But yeah, there's an underground in Iceland. I've heard stories from people also that there's an underground sort of crime thing that is far, far worse than you would imagine and that's pretty scary.

Well on that happy note, thank you for your time! It's been a pleasure talking with you.
No, it's been great, thank you. We're looking forward to getting to New Zealand.

Sigur Rós play Spark Arena on July 21.