Halifax Collect: Sólstafir drummer's art censored and banned. We talk to the accused.

"I want to show the person at it's rawest, most vulnerable an purest state"

Guðmundur Óli, drummer and visual commando of the ever expanding Sólstafir, is no stranger to being compromised, banned and censored on popular social media. Along with some scrutiny about models in his photography, casting and appearance of female breasts in the band's music videos and his photography, homophobic reactions surfaced as well from idiots in metal and youtubeland. But no one expected him or the band to become associated with child pornography.
I talked to Guðmundur Óli himself (his visual side taking on the Heldriver moniker). The conversation turned to body positivity, Testament and - what I'm assuming a lot of you want to spy in on - how Svartir Sandar's successor (slated for an early summer release) will sound like. To shed a light on the musical development of the band, singer/guitarist/songwriter, Aðalbjörn Tryggvason, chimes in as well.

"This video was shot entirely using a manual 35mm SLR camera. It took me over a year, working on and off, to finish it. There is no digital post processing, except that the photos were combined and arranged in Final Cut. All effects are 100% manual and hand made.
When I was already half way through making the video my computer crashed. Stupid me had no backups so I had to start from scratch. Luckily I still had all the negatives though." - The Heldriver

I'm curious about the video's initial reception. Was there a stir around it, were people offended or was the youtube ban/pull down just the result of nudity being banned by default?
I guess someone reported it after it had been up for a while, but most of the reactions we got were positive ones. We weren't as known back then as we are now, so the video didn't really make a huge impact when we put it online. Maybe that was also because the album (Köld) had already been out for a year and a half at that point. The only negative comment I've seen was someone not understanding that it's supposed to be a kind of a stop-motion film (although with live models) and that it's intentionally less frames per second than what people are used to.

You seem to have developed a style or aesthetic in photography that often involves nudity. Do your ideas and motives call for it? I imagine they do, but seeing as I don't view it as pornographic, please elaborate on your choices because some social media members take offense to your work, such as the "She Destroys" video and Heldriver photography series involving small/flat chested models.
A good part of my photography is about my search for the human spirit, which I still haven't found by the way. It might seem like a cheap way to get people to spend a few seconds to look at my work but the real reason is that I want to show the person at it's rawest, most vulnerable an purest state. Pictures like those in my series Ghosts of Lights describe my interpretation of spirits, and I frankly can't see why a spirit would wear cloths.
The "She Destroys" model is anything but flat chested haha...

I was referring to a flat chested model in one of your series that, supposedly, got red carded for "child pornography" or something. Which is bananas.
But, yes, some of the other models in my Ghosts series have small breasts, which is not unusual for small, petite girls, and Icelandic girls tend to be just that. I've had stupid, as you've said, comments suggesting that it borders on child pornography, which I find extremely offensive towards me, and insulting towards girls that don't give in to societies demands that every woman should have big breasts, and if she's not born that way she should damn well get silicon.
Anyway I always say that if people see anything indecent in my photos it says more about them than me.

So you got two factions that see evil in your work: Those that are appalled by nudity on social media, and, people that see "full breasted" women as more real/normal, passable and acceptable than grown women with petite and or small or no breasts. Body negativity reigns...
Yes like I said, I find it offensive towards me and an insult to my models. Women come in all shapes and sizes. One body type is no more a "real woman" than another.

Absolutely. By that token, one could get up in arms about you having a not "ripped" male model in the "Love Is The Devil" music video (depicting a large sexy hunk bear of a man in relations with a skinny one (WATCH))
The funny thing is that we also got some shitty comments from "trve" metalheads for having two men playing a couple in that video. funny really meaning sad

That's another, yet related, side of stupid altogether. You can't win can ya?
There are always going to be prejudice people, and a lot of them like to comment on social media.

So what's new and next in Heldriverland?
I haven't done shit for a year or more. Well I've taken some photos but my scanner's been broken and they can't seem to be able to get spare parts for it, so sitting on a bunch of unscanned films and polaroids is really uninspiring.

But Sólstafir is another story...
Yes, we're just finishing up our new album right now. It will be out in early summer

After all those years of the only certainty you being a band that doesn't know how to die, how's your relationship with Seasons Of Mist been?
It's been really good to work with them, I can't really complain.

Let's be serious here for a minute... Your fans most be the most devoted in the world. For a band that isn't mainstream...
I guess they are.

How do you feel about the fact i'm listening to Testament's The Gathering to help invigorating me to finalise this interview and make it publishable on my blog?
Whatever floats your boat man! Or should I say what ever rocks your boat? I'm no Testament fan myself, but they have a few ok songs. I'm just not a fan of t(h)rash metal in general.

And before I let you go, what would be the defining characteristic of the new material and how does it differ from the hugely successful Svartir Sandar?
I think the biggest difference between Svartir Sandar and our new songs is that the new songs are shorter and more straight to the point.. or at least some of them. Maybe even simpler and more accessible. This wasn't done to sell more albums or anything. We find it more challenging to write "short" songs without loosing that Sólstafir atmosphere. We can so easily write 20min songs. It's more challenging to fit it all into 6-7 minutes.

Aðalbjörn Tryggvason: I'd say this one has more mixture of styles that we've touched on our previous two albums, and some elements that we've tried before, we have taken even further on this one. We have spoken about for years using violins, and this time we did, and I'm not talking about a single violin here. There are over 30 tracks of strings in one song for example. And now that I'm more confident with my singing style, I wanted to challenge myself with more softer vocals. After screaming my lungs out for 15 years, it's just not as much as a challenge to do a full range vain popping scream for 25 sec. There are some new colours in our guitar sound as well, I wont name drop any influences, not that they are secret, but for many it will be obvious where it comes from. We also tried using more down tuned snare, which brings more ambience to the more quiet parts. And there are some real soft quiet parts on this one I tell ya. But then again we also have our guitars tuned down to A(b). So as usual, we have soft stuff and heavy stuff. It's very Sólstafir'ish album if you ask me.
- Birkir Fjalar

*** You can find Heldriver in the following interweb locations: Tumblr Flickr Facebook Etsy
*** Band photography by Björn Árnason (website)

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Monday, January 13, 2014

Sólstafir drummer's art censored and banned. We talk to the accused.

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