Boncyan—Iceland’s resident mature boy band—is composed of Janus Rasmussen, Sakaris and Tom Hannay. After a slew of fun, mature boy band releases, they are finally dropping their first EP. We sat down to hear it out—track by track.
Turn It All Around
Tom: “Turn It All Around” is about the negative effect that social media can have on your life, and the vicious cycle that you can fall into when you spend too much time comparing yourself to images of lives (seemingly) better than yours. Ultimately spending more and more time with your head online, neglecting to appreciate the here and now—it’s a modern cliché, but a good one.
Janus: Writing the song was swift and effortless, and I feel it shows how much fun we had making it. If only making songs was always this easy.
Tom: Agreed! Must have been something in the water that day. Writing music can often be hit and miss, you have to show up and start writing, knowing that what you’re about to write will probably end up in a ‘demo’ folder with some random-ass working title like “Post MaTome.”
Still, you’ve got to show up each day and put the work in because there’s always a slim chance that it might actually be a decent song, and an even slimmer chance that it might be a great song.
Wait For It
Tom: ”Wait For It” is about the feeling right before you make up your mind to drop a truth bomb on someone and give them a piece of your mind.
Sakaris: We had a ton of fun doing this completely unapologetic retro 90s house track, with quite era-authentic instrumentation. We didn’t really know what to do with the thing, until one of us proposed that we call our good friend Guðrun (GDRN) and have her smack some vocals over the top. Then Tom arrived in Iceland so we put him on background ad-lib diva duties, and bam! Instant banger.
Deluge
Sakaris: We found this cheap living room organ sound, which by itself sounded quite comical. We then proceeded to play some melancholy ballad chord progressions on top of a super sparse beat, and it turned from comical to beautiful.
Tom: This song is a great example of how we each use our individual strengths to work as a team, creating a song that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
The decision to sing softly was pretty much the first decision we made. We wanted to write a slow and sensitive song that would fit nicely as an interlude to an otherwise energetic live set. I’m telling you now, singing softly is much harder than singing with power! The lyrics were centred around the idea of ‘life happening,’ where life is a deluge that can sweep you away from someone you had no intention of being swept away from and how sometimes, you just need to hold your breath, let go and wait for the swell to carry you to calmer waters.
Fire
Tom: This song is more about trying to capture a feeling rather than having a clear narrative… pff narrative, who needs one of those anyway? It’s the feeling of being so sexy that you’re on fire and the atomic bomb of emotions that grips you when you come face to face with someone who is fire to you.
Sakaris: This was a simple jam, based on some hefty beats and distorted synths and 808s, but once Tom ad-libbed some vocals on top of it, it turned into a proper song. We decided to just let go of conventional pop-form and do whatever felt right and interesting, ending with that filthy solo in the end.
Tom: Making music is supposed to be fun, we all got into this business because, more than anything, we love creating music.
‘Deluge’ by Boncyan will be released September 17th. Find it on all streaming platforms.
Note: Due to the effect the Coronavirus is having on tourism in Iceland, it’s become increasingly difficult for the Grapevine to survive. If you enjoy our content and want to help the Grapevine’s journalists do things like eat and pay rent, please consider joining our High Five Club.
You can also check out our shop, loaded with books, apparel and other cool merch, that you can buy and have delivered right to your door.
Also you can get regular news from Iceland—including the latest notifications on eruptions, as soon as they happen—by signing up to our newsletter.
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!
