Following the release of the band's debut album, we caught the band while they were over at The Great Escape.
Photos: Hazel Blacher | Words: Lloyd Bolton
We were very pleased to host Spacestation at our stage at The Great Escape last month among some of our favourite new British acts, having caught their electric live show on one of only a few previous visits to our shores. Hailing from Iceland and singing in a mix of English with their native tongue, the band create an exciting mixture of garage indie with the jagged and untameable delay and noise effects better associated with Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. Their debut album Reykjavík Syndrome released in March, and we took the chance to get to know a bit more about the band behind it, covering on-the-road debauchery, drunken Icelandic mayors and pre-adolescent gangsta fashion.
If you could shower in one fizzy drink, what would you choose?
Björgúlfur Jes Einarsson [Guitar, Vocals]: "Prosecco, because it's fresh."
Hafsteinn Jóhannsson [Guitar]: "Does beer count as fizzy? Beer."
Davíð Þór Hlynsson [Drums]: "I would shower in Kristall, that's an Icelandic brand of sparkling water."
If you could erase one mode of transport, what would you get rid of?
Björgúlfur: "Airplanes."
Hafsteinn: "Yeah get rid of Airplanes!"
Davíð: "Those oxymoronic things you stand on and just tilt yourself [hoverboards]… if that could be eliminated from the universe I would be happy."
Ólafur Andri Sigurðsson [Bass]: "I would eliminate bicycles… in Iceland, bicycle people are really annoying."
Davíð: "Yeah, they're just self-centred, pretentious and everyone's an idiot for not accommodating their existence."
Björgúlfur: "We had a mayor who was a cyclist and he kept passing all these rules that were so biased to cyclists… and then he left and it was all a mess afterwards. I met him at Primavera Festival once and he was wasted."
What is the most expensive thing that you've ever broken?
Ólafur: "I crashed a car once, that was pretty expensive."
Hafsteinn: "I broke my guitar once, my Jazzmaster…"
Björgúlfur: "…and you did it on purpose! You were like, "I have to fix it!" [screwdriver motion]… there was nothing wrong with it.
"I ruined a Vespa once… a Vespa I got for my confirmation. We got it fixed but my Dad was so pissed I had to sell it. I was always jumping on my vespa, and this one time I stood up and – its so heavy that if you stand up and land you lose all the balance… I completely messed it up."
What was the last record you bought?
Björgúlfur: "Life Without Buildings, 'Any Other City'… I had it for years but I never had it on vinyl, and I found it in London the other day."
Hafsteinn: "'Lifestyles Ov Da Poor & Dangerous' by Big L… he's my favourite rapper for sure."
Davíð: "The last record I ever bought was also the first record I ever bought, and it was, 'L'Enfant sauvage' by Gojira, the French metal band, when I was twelve years old."
Was that just so good that you couldn't buy anything else?
Davíð: "No, well yes, but also like, I've always wanted to start my journey of buying this vast record collection but I've just not had the money or time."
What's your favourite pair of shoes?
[Band all look downwards]
You're all wearing your favourite shoes today!?
Björgúlfur: "It's an important gig!"
Is there anything you always try and do when you're playing a gig in a different city? Any rituals?
[Band chuckle]
Davíð: "You can cut it out if you want but… we always have this rigmarole with ketamine…"
Björgúlfur: "Yes we find some ketamine."
Davíð: "And exotic places to have cocktails…"
Björgúlfur: "We also go for a beer outside where we can smoke… it's very cold in Iceland and you can't really just sit and drink beer and smoke. You can do it a bit in the summer almost all the time, but not all the time. But when I go abroad I'm always wanting to sit outside and have a beer and smoke.
"Just a disclaimer, we don't use a lot of ketamine when we're at home… It's for the homesickness, you know, I really miss my girlfriend."
To round up, who was your favourite artist when you were 10 years old?
Björgúlfur: "Nirvana."
Ólafur: "Probably like, Iron Maiden or Metallica."
Davíð: "At ten years old I think my favourite band was Escape the Fate, this, like, arena rock emo band from Las Vegas. They had like this look like how Kiss might evolve into those early 2000s styles, two belts and chains, a really motley crew but still polished. I saw them and I was like this is what I want to be and I dressed exactly the same."
Hafsteinn: "I started young listening to a lot of old school hip-hop… used to be a lot of, like, Ice Cube.
"I would always have a hoodie with the hood up. And then if it got cold, I would just add another hoodie with the hood up. And if it got really cold I would have three hoodies."
Björgúlfur: "I was really into West Side hip-hop, like Ice Cube and Dr Dre, so I used to wear like Timberland and stuff…
What happened to the look!?
"It was so goofy… skinny jeans and Timberland shoes. And you're trying to be all gangster… when you're just a white chubby kid from Iceland, you get five meals a day…"
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