Count Bjössi, the main stage act for 2024 Þorrablót, sat with Iceland Chicago to discuss what this holiday means to him as a native Icelander, what songs language learners should learn now to be able to join in, and about his career in Greifarnir, The Counts.
(speaking in foreign language)
IAC:
Just wanna say thank you very much for joining me today. I wanted to ask you about Þorrablót and you coming to Chicago to perform for us on the 24th February. And yeah, so thank you very much for joining. Could you explain the celebration to someone who’s new?
CB:
Nice Icelandic there.
Well, if somebody is going to Þorrablót for the first time, he should maybe prepare. We are celebrating old custom, traditional Icelandic foods, would it like they had to eat to survive in the old days when there was no refrigerator and stuff like that. So they have to treat the food differently.
So I’m sure that some of the food is quite good for beginners, but others you need to maybe grow into it. Like if you’re going to taste the rotten shark or stuff like that, and then it’s really, really rare that people like it for the first time. It’s just like when you first taste blue cheese, strong blue cheese, you have to grow into it, you have to learn it, you know, like Campari or stuff like that. Also people like the Vikings in the old days, in Þorrablót, people are drinking alcohol, maybe more than in some other gatherings.
Though it depends on person. And people like to, especially when you go abroad, like if you go to other countries in Iceland, and the people are missing home and they like to hear the Icelandic box song that everybody should know from when they were young and also maybe a new song also, or maybe not quite new, but maybe from 80s or 90s or stuff like that.
When I’m going to Þorrablót and I’m playing my music, I’m just one guy with acoustic guitar, but I’m using some stock box on the floor and I have a vocal equipment so I can harmonize myself.
So it’s a little like a whole band. Some people, most of the time they dance also. So we start the evening and we are taking, you know, the sing-along songs and stuff like that. So then we get further into the evening when we put up the beat and stuff and hopefully people will dance.
And Einar will probably show them how to eat sweets. Svið is the head of the sheep. And he is really good at that. He likes to eat the eye in front of people. And yeah.
IAC:
All right, I will hold him to that. And slightly related, what does this mean to you as a native Icelander What does Þorrablót kind of mean to you in this culture?
CB:
Well, it means a lot to me. I’m getting older now, I’m 56. And the older I get, it means more to me.I like the roots and I actually have been study the old religion, you know, like the Vikings living in Thor and stuff like that. And we had some, you know, the Luther, the most of the Icelandic people there are Christian, the Luthers and so there was a lot of scantas like everywhere else, many other places.
So I left the Christian church and I registered in the old belief. There’s a lot of people doing that. I’m not saying that I think when I hear thunder outside it’s Thor, but the moral in this old belief is that you should respect the mother nature and respect all the religions.
So just be a nice person. And that’s fine. So because if you register to this, you have to pay some money. I liked it. My money went to this culture and they’re doing a lot of stuff. Actually they are building, it’s not called a church, it’s called a höf. It’s a different but similar to church. But it’s not doing very well because they’re always giving the money to some charity and stuff like that.
IAC:
Thank you. I will have to look that up. Austere, Austere?
CB:
Ásatrú.
IAC:
All right, now I want to move on to, you’re coming to Chicago to perform on the 24th of February. I’ve never seen you perform. What is it, what can we expect in your performance?
CB:
Well, I will be playing in the Þorrablót. We play more Icelandic songs, but I will also take some famous English song or something Yeah, but yeah, like I said, I think we will start the evening when people are eating and stuff like that. We will take some, you know, traditional old song when people sing along with and then we will go to more, you know, heartbeat and, you know, more, you know, music that people could dance with and stuff like that.
We have always master of ceremony, which has been but for many times. I don’t know if he’s going to be that this time. He can’t be very funny, very good. And then we have the, what’s the name? Well, this is not lottery, it’s the…
Raffle, the raffle, yes.
And yeah, and it’s always fun. This, I really enjoyed, yeah.
IAC:
Excellent. So also too, as a language learner, you get a lighter use of this group and I don’t want to just be sitting there kind of going, ah, nodding my head and not really participating. Is there something in the next month that, is there maybe a song or two that I or other English learner, English speakers could maybe try to learn to participate?
CB:
We will definitely take, okay, we have this category of song. In Iceland we have this partition, it’s started in Westman Island, where they have this festival called Þjóðhátið, which is always getting bigger. And then it started there, they put up a huge fire and there’s a slope there in the valley that people gather around. And it can be like last year, I think the people that are singing together is 15,000 people. And this in this valley and all these rocks of the sound is, wow. Then it’s one guy with acoustic guitar leading the song, it’s called (speaking in foreign language).
You can translate it to slope song or hill song or something. And that it’s a special category of songs that everybody know and the young people are learning and it’s a magical moment because everybody’s sitting there and there is almost happiness.
We have a saying in Icelandic, nobody sings in bad news. You don’t sit angry and sing. When you’re singing you are happy and it’s a lot of like when you’re laughing, there’s something chemically happening in your body and it’s a positive thing.
So it’s getting really popular in this weekend we call it the Westman Islands. There’s a holiday on one day also. So it’s a three day holiday and everybody everywhere is singing this, Prechkusenkur. And I can definitely say that if you want to learn one or two song, it’s a song called Ég er kominn heim or somebody called it “Ferðalok”.
It means travel around the world and you’re so happy and you’re coming home and the sun is my intuitive. So that’s a song everybody in Iceland know. It got famous with, actually it’s an Italian. It’s not an Icelandic song but an Icelandic lyric. And it’s the same song everybody sing when the Icelandic national teams are like handball or football. Competing, this is the song that people sing. And also another song from Westman Island. Yeah, in Westman Island they only has this competition.
So they only has the one special song which is made for each year. So they have quite a lot of, because it’s been there for more than 100 years, this festival.
“Ég veit þú kemur í kvöld til mín” in the English word. I know you’ll be at my home tonight.
Yes. It’s about two guys, they had an argument and the other one goes out in fuss. But then his friend wrote this song, you know, feeling sorry and it’s not the love song. It’s a, but it’s a, could be a love song, but it’s actually like that.
So “Ég er kominn heim” that’s definitely going to be.
IAC:
Awesome. All right, I will try to look those up. That’ll be fun to sing along to that. And now moving on. So have you been to Chicago before? I think you have performed at other events for us.
CB:
This will be my 11th time. That’s, I’ve never been in a sort of lot in any other city so often. I’ve been to Phoenix, I’ve been to Boston and I’ve been all around Europe and stuff like that. But in the beginning, I went four years in a row. So Chicago and then I took four year break and then another four year. So that’s the eighth time and then COVID came. Then it’s now the last five or six, six times out. My wife has joined me and she is always having a lot of fun. And people are always asking me, “Oh, and goodness, she is coming also. So she will be following me this year also.
So that’s 11.
IAC:
Excellent.
And I was doing a bit of digging around about you and you’re also in a band, Greinfar in it, The Counts.
Can you talk about that a bit?
CB:
Yeah, that’s a band I’ve been in. I’ve been there from the beginning in Greifarnir as we call it, the Icelandic Counts. And in the beginning, we were just four friends, actually three friends. I was 15 and my other two friends, they were 17 and we were just playing around and we made this band called Special Treatment. All the lyrics were in English and we were going to make it worldwide or something. We dreamed about that. Then we decided to go ahead and play at some music competition, like not like the Eitel, but it’s a band competition. We had all those in Iceland and the biggest we went there and we get the drummer. We borrowed him from another band. We were all living in Húsavík and he was in a heavy metal band called Lucifer. And we got him borrowed, but we never returned him. And we went to this called Musikt Hilarin. It’s like a musical experiment. And we ended in second place in 1985. Our Special Treatment. But then we decided to go back the next year and change everything to Icelandic. And we thought about Icelandic names […]. And then we decided to get one more, one other guy with us. And we heard about this person in one of the high school and he was singing, you know, “(speaking in foreign language)” They had the show in the high school and he was singing the main lead in “(speaking in foreign language)” in Felix. So we approached him and asked him if he wanted to be the frontman in the band. Just the week before the competition was over. And we get into the final and we hired the smoking and because the name, you know, we have to, it’s very expensive to be a count, you know. So, and we won the competition. And it was 1986. We were really lucky to win that this year because Reykjavík had their 200 anniversary, 1986. And there was a lot of thing going on. So the prize for winning the competition was, you know, you know, some studio hours. And then we got to play in a rock festival in Iceland in the biggest concert tour with a band like Madness, Simply Red, Lloyd Cole and the Comotion. So we really, we really rehearsed that. And then there was the biggest concert at that time. And I think it’s still one of the biggest concert in Reykjavík in the whole outset. And the prize was also to play there and it was all in live TV and stuff like that. So in just one summer, everybody knew the band. So it was one of the fastest, you know, success.
And then ever since been playing in Iceland, we had this, we had the Commitsvätabot. Everybody go into the country and there was this, Piela Seymeli, it’s a house where they play bingo and, you know, do everything in the country. And then maybe 500 or 1000 people came there, you know. And you brought your own balls with you. And everybody was, you know, dancing. It depends on the band, some bands were cover bands, but we were playing our own stuff. So like more maybe like the end of it concerts or stuff like that. So, but now we are just playing maybe five or six gig every year. The same guys from the beginning, only the lead singer, he left the band because he always thought he wants to be an actor. And so, yeah, but four or five have never always been the same group. Actually, we are meeting together because we call it Þréttandag. The holiday of Christmas, we always get together. I thought we need to just have a dinner. Things might be or stuff like that. Really because nobody is doing website anymore, but we have an old website with all our songs there. It’s I think it’s about 70 songs or something we haven’t published. So you can listen to them on the website and then a little information for that.
IAC:
Definitely. Could you put that link in the document? I’m happy to post that. That would be fabulous.
CB:
Yeah, I will do that.
IAC:
Okay, so I’m an American, a language learner. You’ve seen, I think I posted into the document what I listened to. My favorite artist by far is Emmsjé Gauti. So what would you, what am I missing? What artists should I be listening to today?
CB:
Well, it depends on the music style you like or stuff and what period. My favorite band in Iceland has been since I was just, you know, 16 or 17 was a band called Stuðmenn.
And they, all their song is in Icelandic. And actually they speak extra good Icelandic in the band. Maybe it started as a humor or something, but it go into them and listen to those guys talk. Sometimes it’s amazing.
IAC:
That’s great because I think for a lot of language learners, music is a really accessible entry into the language. You can see the text here, the rhythm of the music and kind of internalize it more.
BC:
If you’re listening to, you know, those rappers, they’re saying a lot, but they always talk really fast or maybe it’s different, more difficult.
IAC:
Thank you very much for joining us. We look forward to seeing you on February 24th at the Swedish Museum in Chicago. Tickets are available on IcelandChicago.org and they are running out. I’m watching the tabs now just to let folks know if you want to go, there’s a limited amount and they are selling out. So get them while you can. Thank you very much for joining today. Thank you for speaking to me and I’m looking forward to meeting you at the Þorrablót.
(speaking in foreign language)