Sóley Stefánsdóttir, better know simply as Sóley, is a 25 year old musician who’s been making a racket on gogoyoko and everywhere else with her first full-length album, We Sink (out now on Morr Music). The album has made it on the Nordic Music Prize long-list for 2011, received the prestigious Kraumur Music Award, a nomination for best album at the Icelandic Music Awards.. I could go on but it’s too exhausting.
But who’s behind the face on the mysterious artworks surrounding her publicity? gogoyoko’s Gylfi Blöndal set to find out and struck gold, as Sóley talks about an offer to join a respected Circus, how things with her solo project sort of just happened and fending off unwelcome passengers on the tour bus.
What is your background in music? Are you classically trained?
Sóley: Yes, I started in music school when I was 4 years old and started learning classical piano when I was eight. When I was teenager I also played percussion in a brass and and piano in a big band. But I never knew what I wanted to be. It was not for me practicing all day long so I applied for the art academy. I finished composition/new media from the art academy spring 2010. Now I’m also working on finishing FÍH which is a jazz school where I study jazz piano.
When did you start making music on your own? Was it a conscious decision that you’d been planning or was it something that just happened?
Sóley: It kind of happened. I already had started in the art academy and I was already touring a lot with my band Seabear but I never thought of me as an solo act. But things happened and now two years later I’m touring with my own music! I guess I’m lucky…
Your new album, We Sink, has been positively received after it came out. So well actually that we got word that the world-famous Cirque du Soleil offered you a 2-year contract performing in the Circus. Can you confirm these rumours and if so, did you accept?
Sóley: Oh yeah that was weird. So yes I was invited and I asked Seabear’s manager to kind of take care of that because it was too big of a thing to just be invited through myspace! I don´t know at what stage this is at now but I’m not sure if I want to risk my career for two years to sing someone´s else music in a circus. I guess many people think I should jump on that opportunity but I mean if I go, I have to start all over again with my solo stuff when I come back because I think when you are in music and trying to tour and play everywhere you really have to work hard, otherwise you´ll be forgotten. Too much of good stuff going on in the world!
You’ve been touring for a few years now with your band Seabear as well as Sin Fang. Will your personal career be affected by the mammoth task of performing internationally in 3 acts? How do you cope with juggling these three projects?
Sóley: Yes of course, I don´t know exactly what I should expect if i´d never been on tour so that experience was good. After Seabear released We Built A Fire in 2010 we toured the whole year so now we have been on a break for almost a year. Sin Fang and I went on a tour together in September so until now it has been no problem to do all three!
We’ve seen with Seabear the band grow from originally being a 3-piece to a 7-piece as it is today. Currently you’ve been performing as 2 piece.. do you see your live set-up growing from where it is now?
Sóley: I´m not sure yet what I want to do with my live performance, I like it when we are only two and I already started thinking my next album more simple (as in not a band album) but I’ve been thinking a lot to have the third member, I think that would be perfect!
What’s it like being a woman in a tour bus full of men? How do you deal with the bursts of testosterone from your band-mates?
Sóley: First of all it’s great and I’m really happy touring with all these guys because they are very nice. When they say something I don´t like (they know it… ) I just look at them with evil eyes. But as I said they are so nice and I think it´s good that I am there, they realize that sometimes they have to keep their mouths shut! The worst part is when I start acting like them…
From where do you draw your lyrical inspiration?
Sóley: Poems, dreams and my fucked up imagination.
What is the craziest thing ever to happen to you on tour?
Sóley: What happens on tour stays on tour… sorry!
Hmm, so your lips are sealed? Can’t you at least tell the story about the “hidden people” on your bus in Calais, France? That’s sort of what I was fishing for..
Sóley: I had almost forgotten that! Seabear was touring with Múm back in 2007 and we were stopped at this passport check when we were leaving France. It was at 6 am, everyone asleep in the tour bus but we woke up to go to this passport check. As I remember it I was standing in the house in the cue with everyone and I looked out the window and saw Örn Ingi the guitar player in Seabear running to the house. He had his passport in some bag in the trailer where we kept all our instruments and had to pick it up. When he came in he told us: “There are is something in the trailer”, “there are guys in the trailer” and we did not believe him and were trying to tell him to stop saying that bullshit, he was just tired. But no he didn´t stop and with this terrifying look on his face we all came with him to the trailer and he opened it. The first thing I saw were few eyes glittering in the dark and when we had more sunlight I realized that there were actually people in there!
So there we stood, Seabear and Múm against those three guys who were sitting on our merch boxes. I have some memory of them saying to Robbi (guitarplayer in Múm) “please friend, please”… but I mean what the fuck. It all happened very fast, they were arrested and we stood there like some bad rich white western Europeans. I don´t know.
So what they did that they broke up the lock of the trailer, maybe when our driver stopped at a gas station or something and got themselves in. So if Örn Ingi would not have had to go and get his passport we would have opened the trailer in Brighton and we would have had three guys bursting out and run away. Or something… maybe they had guns. Who knows. Maybe they were just crazy fans and all they wanted for christmas was a Seabear t-shirt and a Múm harmonica?
Have a listen or buy We Sink by Sóley
