Pole to Pole by MiCA Allan Photo by Páll stefánsson
Mica Allan met with the enigmatic <strong>Iceland</strong>ic born, New Zealand based singer, Hera Hjartardóttir, and chatted about parallel universes, Elvis impersonators and soaking in a bath tub of red wine. Mica Allan: You hail from <strong>Iceland</strong> and moved to New Zealand with your family when you were a teenager. How has that affected you, living in two such different but similar island nations yet at the other end of the world from one other? Hera Hjartardóttir: Oh, it’s had a huge effect, I think if I hadn’t grown up in New Zealand, I’d be a different person. There are so many things that are so different and so many things that are the same. New Zealand is such a relaxed and lovely country, it has more of a picnic mentality, it’s coming here but people are very busy in <strong>Iceland</strong>. I’d love to see a parallel universe and to see if I’d have grown up in <strong>Iceland</strong> what kind of music I’d be making. MA: You write your own songs, and there is a real wisdom and poignancy to them and yet you are only 27. Where does that come from? HH: Life experience and I really love the kind of music that tells a story. My music’s inspired by things in life. MA: Your songs explore a woman who tries in vain to stop buying shoes from the internet, an old boyfriend turning up and “biting you in the ass” and a girl viewed as immaculate but who actually goes to bed with her make up on and drinks coke for breakfast. Where do you get your inspiration from for these stories? HH: A lot of these are true stories. I found a nice looking pair of shoes on the internet and they were actually plastic and hideous. “Immaculate out” is about the girl who’s afraid to leave the house without make up on and never lets anyone see who she really is. Yeah, it was good to get that one out, I need to get things out of my system, that’s why I write. MA: What is your natural instinct, to write lyrics in <strong>Iceland</strong>ic or English? HH: Probably English, I started in English but before that I wrote poetry in <strong>Iceland</strong>ic. When I came to <strong>Iceland</strong> people said, “Oh, you have to release an <strong>Iceland</strong>ic album” and I stomped my foot down and said, “I don’t live in <strong>Iceland</strong>” but then all of a sudden all of these songs started coming in <strong>Iceland</strong>ic and I was really enjoying it. I then released an album of all <strong>Iceland</strong>ic songs. I still enjoy singing in <strong>Iceland</strong>ic and I translate the songs a bit before I sing them in New Zealand. I like to sing the old traditional songs, too, things that mean something from my past. I’ve been singing a couple of songs that my grandmas sang to me, so it feels really good to do them. MA: Your video “The Devil and Me” contains real photographs from your childhood and you dedicated your album Live at Als to your grandmother. How much has your family influenced you as a musician? HH: So, so much. There’s no one else in my family who is a musician but they’ve always been really supportive. When I was really young and starting to write poetry, they took me out to bars and I’d do open mike nights and be performing with drag queens and Elvis impersonators. I was this 13-year-old girl doing live poetry and it was quite rough but it was the best school I could have possibly gone to. When I started writing songs my dad set up the computer at home and got all the software to record my first album and we had a friend in the music industry who came and helped mix it. So my parents are the reason that it’s felt so easy as they’ve always supported me. Of course my grandma, she was awesome, she passed away about four years ago and she always used to sing to me. She taught me everything, really. MA: I loved the song and video “Feel so Good” which featured one of your beloved cats. Can you tell me a little bit about the background to the song and the video, in particular—it looked like you were having the time of your life making that! HH: It was so much fun, the song came when I was feeling a bit naughty, and it’s about things that feel really good. We really wanted to fill a bathtub of kittens but it’s hard to get that many kittens, so we decided to fill a bathtub of red wine and be drinking water from a wine glass in the bath, and other things like be covered in puppies and smashing a TV. It was just all the things we could think of that would be fun to do but that are slightly wrong. MA: Can you give me a hint about what people can look forward to with your new album? HH: It’s going to have both <strong>Iceland</strong>ic and English songs, but mostly English, and the album has a kind of countryish vibe. It’s been two years since the last album, which is too long, and I’ve got far too many songs for it but it’s already here in my head! a More information about all things Hera can be found on herasings.com