Fists Of Fury!

Fist Fokkers know the five finger deathpunch of rock. Annoy them at your peril.
So you say you want your rock music noisy, angry and verging on the edge of driving off a cliff? Well then, we have just the thing for you. Fist Fokkers are one of the noisiest rock duos on the Icelandic music scene today. They also released their debut album earlier this year, ‘Emilio Estavez’, so named in honour of Martin Sheen’s favourite son (no not that one, the OTHER one!).
All we know is that when they play, cool things tend to happen. We checked up on them as they talked about poetry, bad bass players and evil Hollywood corporate lawyers.

Hi There Fist Fokkers! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself. For example, who are you and what do you get up to in your daily lives. Remember, no detail is too small or banal….
We are Úlfur and Kári, two friends from Reykjavík and have been playing together since we were like 15. We work with kids and mentally challenged people, I also do some computer programming and Kári is learning to become a sound engineer. In addition to Fist Fokkers I play with the bands Swords of Chaos and Útidúr, which is nice. We also write poetry, which we write down on paper, stuff into hot dogs and eat with our families.

How did you come up with the delightfully tasteful name Fist Fokkers? It’s the best name we’ve heard for a band since Shattered Hymen.
It came to us when we were on a lunch break in school and were walking around trying to come up with names for our new awesome band when Kári suddenly started this stream of consciousness which went something like this: “Iron Waffles…Waffle Iron… Waffles Fists… Fist Fuckers!!”

Charming. We won’t have you pin yourself down in a genre, but maybe you can tell us what musicians you hope your fans also like. What music inspires you?
I like noisy stuff, but also quite a lot of mellow pretty stuff to. Bands that inspire Fist Fokkers songs would be bands like Sonic Youth, DFA 1979, Nirvana, Black Flag n’ stuff.

You are a musical duo. Why are so many acts these days come in Duos? Can nobody play the bass anymore?
The reason me and Kári started playing together as Fist Fokkers was because we had become tired of trying to start a band with other people. We had tried a couple of times to put together bands with me on guitar and Kári on bass but everything always fell apart. Then one day Kári’s dad got him a drum set and we set it up in my dad’s garage and started to jam just the two of us. It was a beautiful moment. We realised after just playing for half an hour, that we were quite possibly the greatest band in the world. It was also around this time that I introduced Kári to the art of writing poetry. And stuffing said poems into meat products, hot dogs, mostly. Because of their succulence.

I see… And what would you want to tell our readers, to convince them to come to your show (remember: the more outlandish your claim the more punters you are likely to get)?
We are preparing a very special show for Airwaves this year! It will include things such as aerial aerobics, a guitar, special guests, lights, covers, drums and cool stuff in general. It’s going to be quite epic. Quite.

Quite indeed. You titled your debut album ‘Emilio Estevaz’. A great ‘80s Heartthrob actor. or the GREATEST ‘80s Heartthrob actor? And why would he sue you?
Emilio Estevez is truly the greatest and we love him. Why would he sue us? Because we wanted to name our first EP after him, but his lawyers, whose minds are corrupt by greed and meat products lacking poetry, banned the use of his name unless we paid up 80 American dollars. Obviously we did not have that kind of money so we had to change the name to ‘Emilio EstAvez’ to avoid legal actions.

You bio states that you don’t care about ANYTHING. Would you call yourselves existential Nihilists? Do you agree with Nietzsche’s statement that ‘nihilism as “absolute valuelessness” or “nothing has meaning” is dangerous, or even “the danger of dangers”’?
Fist Fokkers have always (in my mind) stood for the tastelessness and ‘valuelessness’ within society. People are offended by the name and it’s had the effect that we don’t get recognized as a completely serious band, which we are and aren’t. What is serious? Why is one thing PC and another thing not? What’s the deal with people fucking each other with their fists? Nothing has real value, only made up value. You just choose what has value to you and what hasn’t. I don’t know if it’s dangerous or not, it’s just life.

What’s your favourite type of cheese?
John Cleese.

Anything to add?
I was just joking about stuffing poetry into meat. Only Kári does it.
Fist Fokkers will be playing on Thursday 23:20 at Café Amsterdam
Link – http://www.gogoyoko.com/artist/fistfokkers