EXCLUSIVE: We Speak To Frímann Frímannsson And Krummi About LEGEND’s New Video

LEGEND were certainly one of the winners of this year’s Airwaves festival (inasmuch as it can be considered a competition), at least judging by our reviewers’ reactions. Indeed, this post-Mínus project of one of Iceland’s finest frontmen, Krummi Björgvinsson, has been slowly amassing friends, fans and followers since they released their début LP ‘Fearless’ early this year (read Rebecca Louder’s mostly glowing review here). And it’s no wonder: They are pretty great, and their live shows are an ambitious, immersive experience.

The band recently released a video for the track ‘The City’, which is embedded below, and which you should watch for an insight into one aspect of Reykjavík living. Directed by Krummi himself (and edited by his good friend Frosti Gringó (which some of you may remember as the drummer for KLINK as well as another Krummi project, Esja), the video took a loooong time to complete due to various technical difficulties and storage challenges.

But it’s ready now.

You can check it out at the bottom of this post, but before you do you should read on. We thought it would be a fun idea to talk to Krummi about the video, so we sent him some questions. And then we thought it would be equally if not more fun to talk to the video’s uncontested star, Reykjavík’s Professional Hipster™ artist-slash-entrepreneur Frímann Frímannsson about his experiences making it.

Below are their answers to our questions, which we have left out for whatever reason.

Krummi [via Facebook, and telephone]:

This is the first time that I make a music video where I direct and record the whole thing myself. It was a great experience and very educational. A couple of important shots were ruined due to technical difficulties and I had to re-shoot a few scenes, which wound up to be a blessing in disguise, allowing me to add some very beautiful frames that really add to the video.

Creation is like that a lot. You can’t really control it, it controls you.

It also helps to have great people working with you, actors and crew.

The inspiration is my youth, where one would hang out and skateboard downtown while Reykjavík’s punkers stood around bumming change in all their glory. It was a great group of colourful people who danced to their own rhythm and swam against the mainstream. I miss these times, and so I thought it would be great to create a little love story where the punkers wander Reykjavík and embrace it.

The song itself is connected to the video inasmuch as both are love stories set in cities, and both are odes to the city of Reykjavík.

I would love to make videos for other artists. This is something that I could do alongside the music. I am a big cinephile and have long harboured ideas of channelling my creative forces through filmmaking.

We had a great time at Iceland Airwaves; it was one of the best festivals yet for us. We played some of our best shows, and come out of it feeling great, as individuals and as a band.

Our record ‘Fearless’ will be released in Canada, North America and Europe on December 11 via Artoffact records, which is a well known record company that specializes in industrial, goth and noise music. Some touring will no doubt follow, and I believe we will be playing some festivals abroad.

Another video that I made alongside two others a year ago will be revealed this Christmas. And we are already working on our next record, we’re actually halfway through, which is exciting. We are also toying with the idea of getting a guitar player for the band, but we’ll see if something comes of that. I keep evolving our live set, so new things happen as they do… it’s all connected in a way, so you might say we are a bit into concept nerdery.

Thank you!

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Frímann Ísleifur Frímannsson [via Facebook]:

I’m Frímann Ísleifur Frímannsson.

The video is a story about two punks hanging out during the 17th of June. The video basically depicts an average day in Reykjavík.

I think that the video came out fine. It was shot at various places in downtown Reykjavík. After he got each shot, it was time to run to the next location. Looking back it was a lot of hard work. It took around four hours to do my hair if I remember correctly.

I don’t remember much to be honest except that the weather was fantastic. I got paid in weed, pizza and beer. The first time I heard the song was when I saw the video online a couple of days ago.

I relate to the characters carefree attitude. Deep inside, I’m a punk myself, even though I don’t dress the part. To me, punk is a way of thinking and not the clothes that you wear. It’s about being yourself.

I have a solo noise project called Harry Knuckles and I also DJ under that name. I’m in a drone group called Pyrodulia, a noise group called Tom’s Hank, and a noise improv group called Björk’s Vagina. Oh and I’m also in a conceptual rock group called Jarðarfjör. I have a label called Lady Boy Records and I’ll be releasing a compilation cassette soon, as well as my own stuff.

I also publish a zine called Skeleton Horse that features a lot of cool Icelandic artists.

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NOW WATCH THE VIDEO, RIGHT HERE: