18 THE REYKJAVÍK GRAPEVINE ICELAND AIRWAVES SPECIAL Airwaves Rookie Cards INTERVIEW BY YORK UNDERWOOD Name: GKR Band: GKR Hometown: Reykjavík Genre: Rap/Hip Hop Pre-Season: “A lot of people want to make music but never do it. I was making rhymes and listening to beats, but I didn’t know how to make a song. I reached out to NEED- HELP, an artist I really looked up to, and I asked him, ‘Can I record a song with you?’ I didn’t know him, he just said, ‘Okay, I usually charge, but everyone deserves to get one song for free.’ I didn’t release the song, but it was okay. I kept making music and bought my own microphone. It was last February, with my single, 'Ballin’,' that people started to really notice me.” Awards & Achievements: First Icelandic Rapper To Start His Career In Poland—Rapping In Iceland “I played my first gig in March at Prikið—actually, my first gig was in December in Poland, in front of a bunch of students in a culture centre. I shot my video for 'Hello' in Poland. After Prikið, though, I started opening for people, and the ball really started rolling. I knew I had to keep focused. I was finishing school, but then I needed to be on track with my music career. “After Prikið, I needed to know: Am I going to be good? I practiced so much. As a rapper, I’m very skilled. I practice and practice. I jump while I rap until I’m exhausted. Performing has really increased my confidence, not just socially, but with rapping too. My voice has really started to develop. It’s getting stronger, and my raps are very clean and hard-hitting. I’m really satisfied with that.” His Music: “I want to connect with people. I want to connect with people who have the same problems I have. I know what it’s like not to have anyone to relate to. I didn’t relate to anyone musically until I heard Kid Cudi when I was sixteen or seventeen. It gave me the confidence to be who I am. My music is who I am and people keep liking it more and more. This makes me feel like I’m being accepted for who I am. Confidence is the number one thing music has given me. It’s a friend I can trust. When no one is there for you, music is.” Influences: “When I was in the 8th grade, I downloaded this ‘classic hip hop tracks’ bundle online. It had all these classic rappers. I was listening to Wu Tang and Kanye West. Then I heard Kid Cudi. He’s like my big brother.” Plans For The Future: “I hope when people come to see me, they’ll realize that nothing really matters. I want people to escape their problems. I want to make people feel like they are in another world. I don’t want people to feel aware of themselves. I want them to just be who they are inside. If I’m on stage, and there’s a bunch of people there to see me, I don’t want to have to say, ‘Dance’ to get everyone dancing. I don’t want them to need that acceptance from me on the mic. I want them to feel that when they come in. That’s what I want. I want people to be whoever they want to be.” Romantic Entanglements: “My first kiss was at NASA. It was a bad kiss, but it’s a great memory.” Name: Hrafnkell Hugi Vernharðsson Band: Rythmatik Hometown: Suðureyri in Súgandafjörður, the Northern Westfjords Genre: Rock ‘N’ Roll Pre-Season: “For a long time, I was the black sheep of my family. I had no interest in music. My brother started playing instruments way before me, so did my sister. Then when I was around fourteen, I really started listening to music, and I started thinking, ‘Playing guitar would be pretty cool. I better start practicing now.’ I figured, I wouldn’t get any better by starting later, so I started practicing. I was too impatient to learn other people’s songs, so I made my own.” Awards & Achievements: Winner of the 33rd Annual Battle Of The Bands (Músíktilraunir) “My brother wanted to do a project with me, and for a long time we would just play together on a couple of acoustic guitars—struggling to get a band going. Most of the people who’d play with us would only do so as a favour. They weren’t interested in being in a band with us. We finally managed to put a band together a few months before Músíktilraunir, the Battle of the Bands, in 2014. We practiced a lot. We crashed and burned. “Even though we weren’t successful, it gave us the drive to keep going. We felt so motivated afterwards that we practiced nearly every day for the next year, signed up for the competition again… and we won. “I was way more nervous the second time around. We practiced so much, and if we didn't get through to the finals, it would be all this hard work with the exact same outcome.” His Music: “I would like to say easy listening music, but there is probably music that is easier to listen to than ours. We’re just an old-fashioned rock band. I wouldn’t dare to say we’re breaking new ground or anything like that. We just want to make music like what we listen to and are inspired by.” Influences: “Big Country, The Smiths, The Charlatans, Britpop… anything in my dad’s record collection.” Plans For The Future: “We couldn’t keep driving the six hours back and forth from Suðureyri, and we kept getting offers to play more and more gigs, so we decided to move to Reykjavík. We really wanted to use this year, after winning, and devote all of our energy into the band. We’re really enjoying this opportunity, getting to play our music for scores of different people at all these shows, connecting with audiences and ourselves. Next year, we won’t be this year’s winner: we’ll be last year’s winner. “I moved away from home. I'm a kid. I used to come to Reykjavík with my parents on a vacation trip—going to the movies and out to eat. I never experienced living in the city. I feel like I’ve grown up a lot this summer. The silver lining is that living in Reykjavík has made me appreciate my family and home a lot more. I never thought I would miss it this much.” Romantic Entanglements: “Some of us had girlfriends back home, but that worked in my favour. My girlfriend is a year older than me, and when she finished high school she was going to move to Reykjavík and leave me behind. I had to finish high school before joining her. But this Músíktilraunir thing led to me moving here before her. I moved here at the beginning of summer, and she came in the fall for school. That was hard. I was alone in a new city, and I really missed her.” Rythmatik’s EP is set to be released in mid-October.
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