ÁGAETIS BYRJUN
A quantum leap, their second album heralds a global breakthrough, a tour supporting Radiohead and three songs on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack. Regularly cited as one of the albums of the decade. HÓLM: We thought we had really, really great songs this time. We got a budget, we got a great producer, Ken Thomas, and we went to the most famous studio in Iceland, with great gear. We bought out the cheapest hours, 9pm until 9am, and worked through the night. At the time I had a day job, so I hardly slept for the whole recording.
JÓNSI: We learned a lot from making Von and knew we had to do better. Kjartan was in the band by then. He’s a driven perfectionist and that brought a work ethic and focus to proceedings – and a lot of beauty. We started to take things seriously like young men do, and think beyond emulating other people.
KJARTAN SVEINSSON: I played with them a lot before Von, mainly songs that weren’t on that album. I told the guys, “I can’t keep helping you out for nothing. I don’t really have time for it, unless I’m in the band.” So I joined in 1997. We did the album quite fast. We recorded all the basics in a weekend – drums, bass, guitars and some of the keyboards. Most of the songs were improvised. They’d play the same riff for one hour, and improvise. It was great. HÓLM: We went back in to the studio, because we felt it needed to be perfect. “This one isn’t good enough, this needs remixing. We need more money!” It was a bit of a struggle. We had to push a lot of buttons with Bad Taste. JÓNSI: We delivered the album to Asi at [Bad Taste] and then told him to wait while we reconsidered what we were doing. There’s a version of the record somewhere without many of the signature finishes and touches that make the difference. Although it was annoying at the time, I think it was the right thing to do. HÓLM: I remember very distinctly the feeling of listening to the record and thinking, “Holy shit, this is amazing.” In our own minds, we had something spectacular in our hands. JÓNSI: Excitement was high on our list of emotions. There’s a positivity to the music that stands apart from many of the bands we