Ahoy! Daníel Hjálmtýsson | ,,My songwriting is like a diary mixed with fantasy, fears and dreams.”

A38 will host Icelandic musician Daníel Hjálmtýsson on October 16th. Before the event, we spoke with him about his inspirations, future plans, and dealing with demons, self image..dealing with life. No dull music can emerge from the overwhelmingly beautiful, harsh, yet tranquil nature of Iceland, and Daníel’s music is further proof of that.

Tell us a little about how your journey into music began. Were there any key moments or people who influenced you to start?

Ever since I can remember I´ve had a passionate love for music and melody, words and poetry. It’s been a part of me since forever, a passenger of sorts.
It has always been there in the passenger seat. I started singing at a very early age, my parents listened to a lot of music in the house and I gravitated towards 50´s and 60´s style melodies like The Everly Brothers and The Beatles later on. My sister says I used to sing in harmony with the radio while I was playing on the floor. That enthusiasm eventually evolved into rock and electronic music, especially where a lot of elements were mixed together. I also dug the attitude of it all. I started studying instruments early, around age 6 and had an ear for music I was told. Clarinet was the first one and vocals via some clubs and choirs and then I gravitated to guitars as I started my first garage band around age 10. My dad loved guitar based rock bands and my mother had a friend who gave me an acoustic guitar at age 9, during a very hard period in my life, so it was like a security blanket in a way, that guitar. A place, a friend that was there. Having an addictive passion for instruments as well I started to teach myself how to play various instruments as I grew older.

You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that you’re influenced by artists like Nick Cave, Radiohead, and Portishead. How have these diverse influences shaped your unique sound?

It´s the way they make their music. It feels honest and true and necessary for them to make it to be able to breath, like they´re making it for themselves and we get to enjoy it.  It works out so many feelings and paints such beautiful pictures and integrates the use of so many various instruments, vocal harmonies, experimentation and you name it. It absolutely connects with us in the way that we are trying to work out various things through our art and experimentation, not to please anyone but ourselves. All of these artists have used their art to work through addiction, emotional issues, life in general. These three you mentioned are all on the top of our lists, everyone involved in the band when it comes to sonic elements or lyricism.

Your debut album, Labyrinthia, has a dark, atmospheric quality that’s been compared to gothic rock. How did the concept for this album come about, and what inspired its mood and themes?

Thank you. The concept came in late. I was making a collection of 10 songs for the record, songs that had mostly been renewed or written during my time getting sober. I decided not to go to rehab but to try and work through my issues on my own and find ways of doing so through methods I knew. Making music, writing lyrics, letting my emotions run wild and…run. I ran a lot when i made this and thank god for the local swimming pools in Reykjavik. During COVID I moved to a very small town 9 hours drive away from my home in Reykjavik. A lot of the mood of the record is related to the fact I was pretty lost out there and lonely. “Coloring a Cloud” is a track that was born there and the main beat/construct for “No Reception” was written on a drum machine in the mountains. I decided that old songs would wait on this one and this would be a collection of songs that came to me and came to be in my labyrinth of emotions and working out things as I got sober. My band also has a huge part in the record as we recorded most of it at our band mates living room during COVID.
We all play whatever we feel like on whatever is around and it works as kind of a ritual. The mood and themes are just dealing with your demons and beasts, trying to stay hopeful and move onwards but finding it difficult. Your past tends to not want to let you go and I´m a very emotional person so this was what made the album so good I think, the realness of it all. No bullshit. The gothic connection was coined by our late great and dear friend Mark Lanegan, who sadly passed away in 2022, when he was asked to comment on the music and also, my vocals have been compared to Peter Murphy and those guys from the gothic rock era, but we don´t try to go gothic or pop. We just make music. I personally think that gothic rock is a better way of describing this particular type of music than alternative rock but to each their own you know. I´ve never been too comfortable with pigeonholing our music. it is what it is and we are very honored and privileged to have found an audience that likes our music and connects with it. That is such a powerful thing.

Can you tell us more about your creative process, especially when working in such unique environments like the old fish factory-turned-art-center in Stöðvarfjörður? How does the Icelandic landscape influence your music?

Well, we only worked on a video there in Stöðvarfjörður but I would love to make a record there. They are absolutely world class out there with custom gear and a pressing plant and everything.. I lived in a place called Fáskrúðsfjörður and was working on demos in Eskifjörður. All of these towns are one municipality now called Fjarðabyggð. When we were working on the record I drove 9 hours to my band in Selfoss and Reykjavik, recording basic tracks and overdubs. During those long drives I would listen back, write melodies, sing harmonies, guitar lines, synths etc. and work on those when I got home. Then some time would pass and I would go back, working as I drove in various conditions, emotional states, watching all of the natural beauty around me and harshness of Iceland. The landscape has a huge affect here as it both plays a part in the mood of the music and the artwork. The weather conditions on the road while I was driving would birth melodies as the mountains and the ocean would bring a synth line or a rhythm. I would often stop on my way, get out and just listen to the nothingness and hum melodies with the ravens, the reindeer and the occasional arctic fox. It was thrilling.

You’ve worked with renowned artists like Aðalbjörn Tryggvason from Sólstafir. How do these collaborations come about, and what do you take away from working with such talents?

Addi is a dear friend of ours and one of the guys from the local scene I look up to a lot in regards to persistence and believing in what you are doing. He’s from my old neighborhood in Breiðholt, where I moved at age 5 from 101 Reykjavik and Sólstafir started there in the early 90s. I used to work in a pub in Reykjavik in my early 20s and back then that place was a very popular hang out for all things music. So I got to know Addi there as he was a regular in there for years as many of the local rockers. When this song started to form I started thinking it needed something different, so I wrote an Icelandic poem with Addi´s howling emotional screams in mind. A style that I absolutely love in his work. Made the call and he came round the studio and did it in a few takes. Just beautiful and so powerful. It was written specifially for him so I really needed him to say yes (haha).

The song „No Reception” touches on feelings of isolation and coping mechanisms. How do your personal experiences weave into your songwriting, especially on darker themes like these?

My songwriting is like a diary mixed with fantasy, fears and dreams. I like to mix my experiences with the mystic and the fantastic to create something that is true and feels right. “No Reception” is basically an autobiographical account of my last drink and how the aftermath hit me. I was on a self destructive path for a very long time, romanticizing self destruction. I was just in a very bad place emotionally and started to stop feeling sorry for myself and just feeling sorry, embarrassed and regretful. That was needed. Much as a song I did with a side project called HYOWLP, “Afterglow” the song is written directly as a way of coping while getting sober and feeling like you lost everything. It is a double edged sword in many ways. The poem I wrote for Addi describes my emotional state during that time.

Looking at your inspirations, they range from rock legends to classical composers like Chopin and Bach. How do you balance such eclectic tastes in your work?

My vinyl collection is asking the same and it’s still very hungry. I just love music. There are certain genres that I´m not very fond of, but they are very few. I feel in order to understand melodies I need to hear them in various forms and genres. Listening to as much music as you can can be so giving and educational in so many ways, but can also have a very bad affect on your wallet (haha). I just like to think about music and instruments in uncontemporary ways, how we play them etc. It is a bit problematic when we are tracking and overdubbing as we hear so much in everything and tend to add a bunch of tracks on top and need to restrain ourselves from doing some of the things we want to leave something to the listener (haha). So we can´t really pigeon hole the music y´know.. it´s music and the way we feel. No matter if its classical or country. Try and listen to Chopin and then some Townes Van Zandt, maybe add a bit of Jean Michel Jarre and then some soul funk, Gojira, At The Drive In.. finish off with some Alice Coltrane, Miles Davis… Billie Holiday.. Brian Eno or Peter Gabriel. It´s all different flavours yet they are all so good and its difficult to choose only a few at a time. Try and listen to as much music as you can and let it influence you yet find your own thing from doing so. My dinner guests usually get a vinyl overview of various different music, whether they like it or not (haha). I also love when friends bring new music to my ears, it can have such a powerful impact on how I feel. Kind of like beautiful, sonic flowers.

Can you tell us about a particularly challenging or funny moment during your musical career?

My ego has often made this a bit difficult for me. I am very shy and have dealt with a lack of confidence for the majority of my life. Self-love and self-esteem is something I work on every day. Mix that with depression and anxiety and you have a pretty tough cocktail that was usually drowned in the excessive consumption of alcohol. I feel I´m always getting better but that little broken boy is not far away. I just try to love myself but it’s proven very difficult. Especially when you need to forgive yourself. Funny moments are a daily thing. The band and I come together dealing with all sorts of things in our lives but we have such a good laugh in between which makes it all so worth it. Its needed due to the often heaviness of the mood of the music, to laugh and to love each other, be supportive. I feel like I am completely safe with those guys and can be as vulnerable and personal as I need as I hope they do too.

What are you working on currently, and can you share any insights into your future projects? How do you see your sound evolving from Labyrinthia?

Yes. We are in the midst of recording our sophomore album and are jumping out of the studio to try out some new music in a live setting before finishing recording. We hope to release a new single before we take off for Budapest and our sophomore album is estimated for release in April 2025. This new one is a bit heavier than our last, angrier and louder I think. The elements are similar but the mood is a bit more brutal as I am dealing with living in a world that seems to have gone a bit too crazy and cruel. So a lot of the themes involve my frustration with not only myself but my surroundings. Its a mix of delicate songs and very heavy songs and I feel we have something very, very interesting going on here. We are recording the album in my basement as well as at Of Monsters and Men´s studio with our friend Bjarni Þór Jensson, who mixed most of Labyrinthia and recorded some of it. We are super excited about this one. We hope to visit Hungary again with our new album also.