Of Monsters And Men have been globetrotting these past years in support of their debut hit album My Head Is an Animal. They were building a rehearsal and work space back in Iceland when this interview took place in february. Arnar Rósenkrans Hilmarsson and Kristján Páll Kristjánsson took time out of hammer and nail duty to drop a few short stories from around the globe.
FAME
It was very strange when we went for the first time to the USA. We had only started to notice that we were getting a bit popular back home in Iceland. But when we arrived to the states we found out we had some crazy fans, following us around and screaming after us. At one of the first concerts we remember these two girls screaming constantly the name of our touring keyboard player Árni, the whole concert and also after we stopped we could hear them from the backstage area.
AUDIENCE
We were playing in Manchester, England and there were these four big bald football hooligan types in the audience all dressed in United football outfits. Not our typical audience members but they started singing with one of our quiet songs in this football chant kind of way with their deep voices and accents. It was hilarious because their voices cut through everything. We could hear their singing growl in our in-ear monitors which is kind of amazing considering we are listening to the whole band in our monitor mix. They were definitely fans because once they started singing they kept going through our whole performance and knew every song. In between songs we could hear them screaming our names in that special kind of growl. We felt like football stars for a moment. Very funny moment.
FANS
In South America we experienced fans like no place else. We could not venture from the hotel because they were everywhere shouting our names, trying to take pictures and basically trying to get too close for comfort. When we played the show the whole of the first row were actually crying the whole time. Another group of fans showed up to the concert and started blowing up balloons and later during the show they released the balloons which filled the stage. There were literally hundreds of balloons floating around. That was a pretty cool moment. We later found out that the fans there are so happy that bands come play there (Sao Paulo) that they express their appreciation in these kind of ways.
HOTEL BARS
We were playing the Lolapalooza festival in Sao Paulo and most of the artist performing were staying at the same hotel as us. The hotel bar was very popular as everybody was advised not to leave the hotel as the city is very dangerous. One evening our guitar player Brynjar and a friend were sitting at the end of the bar relaxing. On the other end Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age, Mike Patton from Faith No More and other heavyweight rockers are drinking, talking and pointing towards Brynjar. Josh then stands up and shouts towards Brynjar in his very loud expressive voice, Oi you there, how old are you! Brynjar responded that he is 21 years old. Josh says, well ok then and continued drinking with his buddies. We never found out the reason behind his questioning, he probably thought he´d bust an underage drinker.
CELEB STALKING
We stalked Mike Patton this one time. He was staying at the same hotel as us an we positioned ourselves in the lobby and basically sat there until he showed up. We jumped at him and introduced ourselves believing he would kick our asses and tell us to bugger off but he was really nice and actually knew our band quite well which was a very nice surprise. Another incident happened at Reading Festival. Our german label had made these Adidas track suits with our logo printed on it so me and Arnar were dressed in those outfits walking backstage when we spotted Dave Grohl. We just had to talk to him so we started running towards him very excited but as we creeped up behind him we realized we were wearing these silly outfits and stopped in our tracks and started walking very slowly backwards so he would not notice us. He probably would have laughed his ass off if we had gone through with our stalking.
FOOD POISONING
In Chile we experienced the dreaded food poisoning. Usually the catering on the road is really good but there they were roasting this pig over an open fire in a garden. It was Arnars birthday and everybody having a good time with few beers and roasted pig. Later in the night the stomach pain aggressively arrived and hit everyone but the birthday boy the worst. He needed to change three pairs of underwear before we went to the airport for a very difficult 12 hour flight to our next tour destination.
FALLING OFF STAGE
At this concert in Jacksonville there was a great audience reception which fueled our performance. We were doing an encore and Nanna was very excited and started running towards the crowd. All of a sudden she disappeared from the stage and there was this great panic because the stage height is usually pretty high. Everybody started running to find out how badly injured she was but standing on the edge of the stage looking down we saw her just standing there. She had fortunately landed on her feet and told us, hey guys it´s all right, I´m okay. That was a great relief because it could have been very bad as you can imagine.
POWER CUT
We were playing in Boulder, Colorado in USA. When we had 3 songs left on the set list the power to the whole sound system went out. We use these in-ear monitors and strangely they were still active so we did not notice it at first but soon it was evident that we could not proceed, there was no sound coming out of the speakers. The crew was scrambling in the background to get the power on and we were starting to panic on stage, trying to get Arnar to do a drum solo when Nanna and Ragnar stepped to the edge of the stage armed with their acoustic guitars and started playing a song they had not played before, not even rehearsed it and it was perfect. The audience went dead silent when Nanna and Raggi finished the show just the two of them with just their voices and instruments. Beautiful moment.
BACKSTAGE GRILL
We were playing a festival and our tour bus got parked beside the Grizzly Bear tour bus. Some of us are crazy Grizzly Bear fans so we spent a great deal of time with our faces glued to the window to spy on the Grizzly´s. Kind of creepy but we could not help it. Then we all of a sudden got invited over to a Grizzly Bear barbecue which was very nice. The bass player dressed in leather flipping burgers and meat was a surreal moment for us. We found out that they often do this, invite the bands and artist to a barbecue by their tour bus. It´s a tradition for them. We thought the idea was so cool that we actually stole it from them and hosted our own tour bus barbecue at Roskilde festival. We hope Grizzly Bear forgives us for stealing their tradition.
STRANGE FOOD
We found out that the strangest food was in Japan. It was ok in Tokyo but when we got to the country side it was horrible. Soured onions in vacuum bags is not the ideal food for us. Fish cola and other crazy food and beverage items got us very baffled.
DRINKING
Our tour manager has the ability to loose all control of his body functions when he drinks. Not that he is a big drinker but it´s quite funny after a few drinks he can´t control his limbs and body movement often resulting in Arnar having to pick him up and carry him to his tour bus bunk where he stays for the rest of the drive while we are having fun in the tour bus lounge area. Phil our monitor guy has a part of his finger missing. When he drinks he gets the urge to stroke everybody with his missing finger. It can be very disturbing but at the same time a very soothing experience. He also gets the urge to wrestle while drunk. One time he challenged Arnar to a duel which he accepted in good fun but Phil totally went overboard, ripping off his shirt, howling at the moon and charging straight for Arnar who really did not know how to respond to this situation, was he supposed to fight with him or be submissive, it really was a bizarre encounter. Arnar felt a little like a broken down victim after that duel.
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