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| Picture by Valdís Thor |
"I deliberately wrote a song about a mountain where people go to fucking die"
The concert happened at Bar 11, Reykjavík, January 21st 2015. I felt kimono had again found its form. albeit a new one. Watch the video and after the jump read what the band members have to say about it. And you don't want to miss that. Alison MacNeil gives Metallica's Kirk Hammet a cold shoulder, relives a flawed Beatles haircut, discusses uncomfortable bands and MORE!
I'm watching a video of you guys playing "Wire" at your last Bar 11 gig.
Kjartan (drums): And is it any good?
Alison (guitars/vocals): Oh yeah? Who took it?
I took it. And yeah, it's way good. It's one of your best songs, but like most of your songs, it's no walk in the park making it soar live. It hasn't sounded this good live in a long time. Did something change?
Kjartan: No, I don't think so. We have been playing this song for some time now. It happens when we have been playing the same songs for some time, the vibe of each song changes. Some songs sound better now than few months ago and some worse, but that can easily change although we are always playing them the same. "Wire" has been one of my favorites to play since we wrote it.
Is it because of that sweet sweet breakdown?
Kjartan: It's a part of it. I have to give everything I have to play the whole song and maybe it goes over to the other members. I hope so at least
Alison: Between us in the band? Or between us and the audience? For me... All the new songs are about loss and breakups and they've all come true. and that was the first concert since everything in the lyrics came true, so it was pretty emotional for me. Plus we had just spent an hour and a half on stage talking about our childhoods, so I think playing the show was a big relief from that.
That's interesting and, after the fact, gives my experience a new context. It was a good crowd, a lot of fans, but what I was driving at is that your performance as a whole had more of a force, focus and command. Straight for the jugular kinda a thing and it never faltered.
Speaking of context. This particular event was a part of a radio series for Iceland's national radio 2, which mixes on-stage interviewing with a live band performance, broadcasted live on radio.
Alison: Wow, cool. I'm glad that came across. I also changed some of the songs to be more direct. Like the "Mountain," (listen) which was only vaguely suicide related, became more directly about what would happen if Iceland became a destination for tourists to climb mountains and throw themselves off, which is occasionally what people here do, or so I've heard.
Yeah. People were talking about it. That something had clicked and the band took off way more than say, the last Airwaves festival performances...
Alison: Yeah, Airwaves was a mess. I was really drunk on Tequila. and we had a really weird spot late on Saturday at Iðnó. Tequila and kimono concerts don't mix apparently. At least not for me.
And then there was that Kex show with the Pink Street Boys. The Bar 11 gig towered over it in my mind. This is a pretty nerdy chat.
Alison: Airwaves was a bummer for me this year. I really wanted to see Perfect Pussy and I couldn't get in because we were playing right before in a different venue. It was basically the only thing I wanted to see.
Does Perfect Pussy give you that life-balance you've been searching for all these years?
Alison: I have no idea, since I didn't see them. but I think Meredith Graves is pretty badass. I only listen to music made by women right now. It's a thing I'm doing. Like when I only listened to bands from the 1970s. I've just finished recording the new Kælan Mikla record. And I'm working on our record. And then it's all Sleater Kinney, Perfect Pussy, Ex Hex, Wild Flag, Antimony, Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Beyonce.
I love the uncomfortable tension in Kælan Mikla's music and presence. Some people have a hard time dealing with it.
Alison: Those people should have a hard time dealing with it. I can't get enough of this band. They are the most truly punk rock band in Iceland in a very long time. No pretense.
At the same time, the record is very dynamic. I think that it captures them very truthfully. I made a conscious decision not to do very much to the recordings. And I recorded them very similarly to the way we did Easy Music. All in the same room, very few overdubs.
Speaking of having to deal with shit musically... "Specters" (listen) and "Mountain" sound worlds apart. The former being somewhat spritely, but the latter heavy and mean. Where's kimono headed?
Alison: They are worlds apart.The mountain is mean. It's basically saying "take a walk up into nature and throw yourself off a cliff."
Good grief.
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| Shot by Gabrielle Motola Photography |
"Specters" is a love song. "We've been friends for years and I used to be a boy and now I'm a girl and I've always loved you." It's not necessarily auto-bio, but it's an interesting way of dealing with the gender identity thing. As in, where do we fit in terms of the whole love thing? Who do we love? Who loves us?
Death by mountain is a well-known and little-talked-about phenomenon in Iceland. Like a lot of things here. I thought the Mountain theme was interesting because we've been asked for years about whether our music is influenced by nature. Meaning Icelandic musicians, not necessarily kimono.
So much repression and co-dependance, eh?
Alison: So I deliberately wrote a song about a mountain where people go to fucking die.
I love it!
Alison: I'm trying to create a new genre of "tourist-core"
Tourist-core can suck a dirty poisonous dildo.
Alison: I was totally joking...
I'm fine with people not knowing whether you were.
Alison: But I like a good mean-spirited song every once in a while. Like Queen's "Death on two Legs." It's about their manager who ripped them off. Freddy basically tells him to commit suicide. It's fantastically angry. Maybe I should call it "black Swedish tourism," "Celtic tourism" no that exists already.
Going back to what you said about Kælan Mikla, that Those people should have a hard time dealing with it. Do you think people have a hard time dealing with Alison from kimono as she performs?
Alison: I don't know. I don't know what people's expectations are of us, if they have any. We were recently on KEXP's youtube channel with our Airwaves shows and that's the first time I've experienced full-on internet response to what we do.
Tell me more.
Alison: Mostly people compared me to Merrill Garbus from TuneYards, which I'm not unhappy about, because she's also badass. Or a librarian, mother of four. Basically, once people see a woman, they start to try to put you in a box based on how you look. There was the occasional comment about my guitar playing and whether it was the best thing ever or the worst thing ever. People who listen to Dragonforce seem to think that I'm not a good guitar player, which suits me just fine. Then there were those who took upon themselves to research my gender identity history and correct anyone who referred to me as "she" and post pictures of me three years ago with a beard. All I can say is, oh well.
Huh. I get you.
Alison: That was me then and this is me now. I'll be something else next years. next year... and then next year. Those people will always be several steps behind. I'm not going to stop to wait for them to catch up. Then there were a bunch of boys looking for tabs to the music. Someone should really get on that. I learned guitar from tablature of my favorite songs and I've always wanted to make a book of kimono tabs, but I haven't yet hit that pinnacle of self-indulgence yet. Maybe when I'm fifty. I still have my Metallica tab books.
How does Kirk Hammet feel about tabbed solos of his?
Alison: I always skipped over those. Like I said, we're no Dragonforce.
[Laughs]
Alison: I just learned the riffs.
But I think you should be more mindful of Kirk Hammet and his feelings. I mean, tabbed solos... It must make him cringe, right? Or do you, Alison, not care at all?
Alison: I really don't. None of them made any sense to me. And the only guitar I had was my mother's nylon string acoustic from church. So, I was like, where is the 15th fret?
[Laughs]
Alison: You should have seen my haircut back then. It paints a very funny picture.
By all means paint it, verbally.
Alison: Well, I wanted long hair, so my mother and I would look at Let It Be and I'd be pointing to John Lennon and she'd be pointing to Paul McCartney and I ended up somewhere in between. Hideous.
Plus I had glasses that tinted in the sunlight, so I always looked a bit like Roy Orbison. Come to think of it, it was a pretty good look. I'm all about forgiving that teenage misfit these days.
Can we look forward to anything?
Alison: there will be a new album coming soon. I'm aiming for May 4th. Which is probably ridiculous, but deadlines are deadlines. We want to tour. Especially Canada and the US. I heard Börn is going soon, so I might ask them how they're setting it up. We've got a label now in Boston, so that's making some things a bit easier. We'll probably be doing a very big show in June here in Iceland. for the release. That's just in the planning stages right now, though.
- Birkir Fjalar
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