Icelandic TV-special about The Sugarcubes.
(Shown with subtitles on Swedish TV 1994)

This is a translation of the Swedish *subtitles* on the program. 
There's bound to be something missing of the actual spoken words in 
Icelandic, and there could be errors in the translation done by 
Swedish television. The parts with Derek Birkett is of course a direct 
transcription. 

Translation by Stig B. Nielsen, stigbn@pip.dknet.dk

The members of the Sugarcubes weren't interwieved simultaneously, they 
were interviewed at different locations. The interviews (except where 
indicated) took place in spring 1993.

I = Interviewer
N = narrator
-------------------------------------

Icelandic program about The Sugarcubes.

Intro-Text: Icelandic bands have dreamt of world fame for a long time, 
many have toured abroad with various results, but The Sugarcubes have 
broken through with success. The heterogeneous group of musicians were 
nearly unknown in Iceland before appearing in foreign magazines. Now, 
The Sugarcubes represents Icelandic music abroad.

[clip: Birthday video + various clips of The Sugarcubes]

N: The drummer Sigtryggur Baldursson got into a rockband, pretending 
to be a drummer. He had never played drums, but he'd always known that 
he could. He played in various schoolbands, and for a while in the 
band Their. Later he was a member of Kukl, a band formed for a radio-
show. Einar Orn Benediktsson, singer, formed together with the bassist 
Bragi Olafsson the band Purrkur Pillnikk. At that time, Bjork 
Gudmundsdottir was singer in the band Tappi Tikarrass. They all 
appeared in the same radio-show in 1982. This was a fertile period in 
Icelandic rock-music. 

[clip: Purrkur Pillnikk, live]

N: Tappi Tikarrass and Purrkur Pillnikk were very creative. They 
clearly had their role-models in British punk-rock. Yet, it's 
difficult to draw parallels, the bands were very much Icelandic, and 
their music contained much more joy.

[clip: Tappi Tikarrass, live]
---
Clip of interview with Tappi Tikarrass, 1982(?):
I: Is it very demanding to play concerts?
Bjork: Afterwards...
I: Afterwards? How do you mean?
Bjork: Then you think about it.
---

N: When Kukl started touring and make records, things happened in 
Icelandic pop. It was something completely different than the ordinary 
commercial pop of the time. Kukl was long-lived, and broke new grounds 
in music. The band made progress abroad. David Bowie was often seen as 
guest at their shows abroad.

[clip: Kukl playing at a TV-show, Bjork being very pregnant]

N: As an example, Kukl was invited to play together with Einsturzende 
Neubauten, but nothing came of it. Kukl had success abroad, but 
nothing compared to the success Sugarcubes had later. Gram had 
released records with Tappi Tikarrass and Purrkur Pillnikk, and the 
radio-shows had awoken an interest in Icelandic rock-music. To the 
common public, Kukl was a bunch of ego-centrics, who through abusing 
their instruments got an outlet for their emotions. But for those who 
wasn't spoiled by commercial pop, Kukl was new and exciting. They 
weren't afraid of renewal.

---
Clip, Interview, Kukl, 1984-1985(?):

Einar: it has been said that we mostly deal with sex, religion and 
death; this could maybe be discussed, but we're not gonna do that. We 
are six people under one roof and one name, Kukl. We believe in 
working for a common goal. Our goal is point zero. When we're on point 
zero, we can go on.

I: how do you reach point zero?

Einar: Primarily by playing our music, and through having normal jobs, 
otherwise you loose contact with reality, like the pop-musicians 
who've become stars, and don't see anything than their own reflection 
in the mirror. We are a long way from that dream.
---
[clip of Sugarcubes video, Coldsweat]

N: In the autumn 1986, Einar Orn got the idea of starting a big band, 
which would use pop-cliches, but as un-tasteful as possible. In august 
`86, after a couple of weeks practice, Thukl had their first concert. 
immediately afterwards they changed the name to Sykarmolarnir (The 
Sugarcubes). But realising the star-dream, is that a nightmare or pure 
ecstasy?

I: Kukl wasn't very popular, even on Icelandic scale. What was it that 
really made you start the Sugarcubes? Were you angry on commercialism, 
did you want to make fun of it?

Siggi: None of that, we wanted to make money. It was like this: we 
started a publishing firm (label) in spring that same year, that was 
Einar's and Thor's idea. The next idea was to make pop-music on the 
label, and the group formed and made and released cliched pop-music. 
Pop music is based on cliches. We took cliches and put them together 
in a funny way, to make a kind of pop-music, but no ordinary pop-
music. It had to be a bit unusual.

I: What was your first step?

Thor: The usual thing, to rent a garage, make songs, record them, go 
into the studio and release the songs. 

Bjork: We decided to make a band, that's how The Sugarcubes began, it 
was one big joke. I considered it to be a joke that would go on for a 
couple of months, until we could develop Kukl further. We probably 
viewed it like a bit of a joke, maybe that made it special.

I: Did you have long discussions before you started?

Einar: No, no. Most of us were in a particular part of our lives, I'd 
just finished my studies, Kukl had broken up, and most of us had 
nothing else to do - so it was natural to form a band. We had no deep 
discussions, it was just getting the equipment, get somewhere to 
practice and start off.

[clip: Icelandic version of Birthday]

I: "Birthday" was chosen as record of the week in Melody Maker, how 
did you take that?

Thor: There wasn't anything special about that. It seemed natural, 
having released a record in England... We were childish enough to 
expect them to write about it in the music-press. We expected that. We 
hoped people would listen to us , you know.

Siggi: We thought they would, but at the same time we thought it was a 
bit amusing. We all laughed a bit about it. We though we made fun of 
pop-music, what we did was a joke. We had been engaged in serious 
music for so long, so we found it a bit amusing. We were back in 
Iceland, it really didn't affect us, but eventually we came to feel 
it.

Einar: When I was told that we were chosen as record of the week in 
Melody Maker, I got very angry. Initially, I was told that we had to 
go to England for an interview - not just because our record had been 
chosen as record of the week - that's why I was angry. Furthermore, It 
meant a whole lot more work, on top of what we already had.

Derek Birkett: So we started of with Birthday, and that did incredibly 
well in England, it took a bit of time to get going and then it did 
incredibly well. All the major labels came in, `cause they were 
interested in working with the band, and there was never in the 
beginning a vision to set up an independent label, it was all done, 
just to put their records out. And then, when we started talking to 
all the major labels, it became very apparent that they promised The 
Sugarcubes complete artistic control, and as soon as The Sugarcubes 
got close to signing a deal, the majors just changed their mind. 
Warner's promised that they could choose the order of the singles and 
then the day before the signing said they wanted them in another 
order. So the band said, well, you know isn't really what we wanna do. 
Then we went to Polygram, and we spoke to many other labels. And after 
intense negotiations with Warner's and Polygram the band said - look, 
you know, at the end of the day, what we wanna do is make records and 
put them out, so we should do it ourselves, `cause then we have nobody 
telling us what to do.

[clip: Motorcrash video]

Bragi: The first record took a long time to finish. We released 
Birthday and Cut as a single, it was just like we had been used to in 
Iceland, but when we had to make an album, and get into the spotlight 
outside of Iceland, we had to take things more seriously.

[clip: Motorcrash video, continued]

I: How did it happen that you became member of The Sugarcubes?

Margret Ornolfsdottir: It was an offer I couldn't resist. I had just 
finished school, I was young and inexperienced. I worked in a Chinese 
restaurant, and did nothing else. The one day Einar and Thor came in 
to eat, and they asked me, at the dessert - I think, if I wanted to 
play keyboard in The Sugarcubes. I asked if I could think about it for 
a while, and they said: yes, of course, if you just decide tomorrow 
then.

I: when was that?

Margret: In 1988, in may.

I: The ice had already broken for the Sugarcubes then?

Margret: Yes, they were getting started. They had been through all the 
fuss with the press, made the first tour in England, and were just 
going to go to USA. Thing had started moving, and they needed a 
keyboardplayer - and I accepted.

I: Weren't The Sugarcubes considered to be difficult, when you didn't 
want to do as told by record-companies and producers?

Bjork: Well, the question says more about what the business is like - 
Who've said that the musicians should do as the record companies want? 
The music would be much better if the musicians were allowed to decide 
more. Mostly the musicians don't wanna hurt anyone... By the way, do 
you know how the circumstances were? We came from Iceland, we had 10 
years of career behind us. We fought for 10 years in a small 
commonplace city like Reykjavik. We wanted to be ourselves, rather 
than working with Gram or Tasteless(?). We would rather earn less, be 
more independent, work with other bands, release other kinds of music, 
decide for ourselves - that was our ideology - then you'll be doing 
your best, not with 25 whips over your back or the treat of not 
getting paid.

Thor: We had some ethical rules, and we expected others to live by 
them too. But soon we realized, that they though our rules were pure 
naivete.
--
Bjork: As soon as we were labelled "difficult", we got it just as we 
wanted it. It's a kind of respect that we have earned. It's our music, 
we `re creating it, then if you're not getting respect, well - then I 
don't know what! We are very co-operative, and if people don't treat 
us like shit, we want to collaborate. We've always gotten well along 
with whomever we've worked with.
--
I: Was it tiring to be on tour?

Einar: Not the touring in itself, but it was a strain to be away from 
home, it's an unsettling life, so it's difficult to gear down and lead 
a normal life. People tend to think it's a dream come through; it's no 
dream to play, for example, in a tent in Vienna in December, when 
there's -3 degrees (celcius) outside, Hells Angels had been there the 
night before, it was placed up to a highway, we got no opportunity to 
see Vienna - we were like in an amusement park. That was a terrible 
experience.

Margret: It was like in the movies - hyper-tense people from record 
companies and radio-stations came, and they treated us like - I don't 
know what... We tried to laugh about it, but eventually we gave up, 
and kept out of sight for some days. When we arrived at Los Angeles, 
we first had to visit Disneyland together with two winners of a 
competition about The Sugarcubes. Then we went to San Diego where we 
were invited on a boat-cruise, and we were told that 50 other winners 
would have to go with us! it was like that all the time, but we also 
had a lot of fun. All this meant that we were on guard on the first 3-
4 tours. We were opposite, said "no" and were difficult, but later we 
relaxed.

Siggi: During the tour, the record started selling immensely in USA. 
It sold better then anyone had expected. We had closed the circle and 
were back on the eastcoast, we had played in Texas and everywhere. 
Then we got some extra concerts in New York, Washington and Boston. We 
played at the Ritz, a well known music-club in new York. It was a 
great concert, the room was packed, and some of the big ones were 
present. After that we went home, and we were home for a month, then 
we went on tour in Europe.

I: How was the spirit after USA?

Siggi: Very Good.

I: No fatigue?

Siggi: yes, after the tour, the touring-life doesn't fit the band. We 
had children along, Sindri for example. It's OK for a short while, but 
not in the long run.

I: Doesn't the touring keep the band alive and promote the record 
sales?

Siggi: Yes - the work is about... making records, releasing records, 
and then you play your butt off for the rest of the year, you 
basically travel around to sell records.

[clip: Regina video]

I: Your second album didn't sell so well? The first record usually 
break the ice so the second sells better. That didn't happen for you - 
why?

Thor: I don't think people liked it. That's why they didn't buy it. 
Our second album was good in many ways.

Braggi: Maybe it went wrong because it was too long, I don't know how 
many minutes, but there were too many songs. There were several things 
in the music that didn't fit together. Much of it were too shrill, the 
music wasn't really clear (transparent). It didn't function as a 
whole. We shouldn't have released it.

{clip: Regina video continued]

Einar: Many things took a long time to do on the second album. We 
wanted to make a record that showed that we were a band. We wanted to 
sound as a band of six people. Many people who listened and thought 
the second album was bad, thought after the tour, that there were many 
good songs on it.

Siggi: There could have been taken more care of the production. The 
record got a bad reception and a bad press. I was told from people in 
the British music-press, that some publishers of music-magazines had 
decided that this record should be the end of The Sugarcubes. It 
should be crushed in the press before it was released. That's how it 
works, that's how it happens.

Derek: I think the first album were done so incredibly well, and 
they'd been heralded as sort of godlike, and the papers had championed 
them, and the media championed them, and normally when you get to that 
sort of critical acclaim you play the game, and you do exclusives and 
you basically just become like U2, and that's not to derogate what U2 
do, what they do is very special, if you like that sort of thing, but 
they'll play along with the media and... So the record got a much 
harder time critically than it deserved to. I don't think it was as 
good a record, and I think the band, because they'd been under such an 
incredible amount of intense scrutiny in everything they did, and 
because people thought they were so important, and they were important 
to other bands as well, so I think there was an incredible amount of 
pressure there for them. They made an incredibly uncompromising 
record. That record was mixed twice, properly twice, the first time it 
was...I think...and they don't agree with me to this day, I think as a 
fan ..(?).. a legitimacy and a detachment, above and beyond what they 
think, even if they'll kill me for saying that, I think the first mix 
that was done on the record was significantly more commercial, and 
what people wanted to hear, than the second one; but the band listened 
to it, and they said "it doesn't move on sufficiently from the first 
record", and they wanted it mixed and to represent the feel of them 
live, and that was in terms of selling records a stupid mistake, 
`cause the people who bought the last record wanna hear the last 
record again, but with a few changes.

Thor: Mourning over the publics reactions is like hitting your head 
against a wall. Our second album sold very well, but not as good as 
the first one, that was the problem. This was what troubled the record 
company, and then we got bad reviews. Many critics had waited for an 
opportunity to criticise Einar Orn, he was an easy scapegoat, a 
vulnerable spot - both of the voices were prominent on the second 
album. And the pop-journalists wanted syrupy music, and they thought 
that Einar spoiled it. The whole criticism was that Einar spoiled the 
band.

I: The critics they crushed the record. And the British music-media 
don't write fondly of the Sugarcubes anymore, they don't like them 
anymore. What kind of future did you see for the band after this 
little flop?

Derek: Again, because the way it worked, where they did what they did 
and I became involved when they'd done the creative process, (and I) 
tried to make the best of it that I could... I thought it was over, to 
be honest, `cause I didn't see where they could go after that, I 
thought it would be such an enormous uphill struggle that (either) we 
would be unable to finance it, because the record was sold very 
little.

[clip: Hit video]

I: Tell about your third album and when you made it.

Bjork: It was a time of afterthought. We had thought of continuing for 
some months, but after the second album, we felt that we didn't just 
have a whole time job, it took us away from the people we loved, from 
our country, and for some of us, from our children. Most of us had 
started re-evaluating ourselves. We asked ourselves what kind of band 
The Sugarcubes was, there's a danger... You think that you know 
yourself better than the journalists, but when you've read maybe a 
couple of hundred articles about the band, you might get influenced by 
their views. You start to believe the things that are written in the 
magazines. From all the press-clips you can see that the typical thing 
for The Sugarcubes is that it changes every month, no one can predict 
how the next album is going to be. In this spirit we started to make 
our third album. we were at point zero, and asked ourselves what The 
Sugarcubes really was about.

I: Why did you record Stick Around For Joy in USA?

Thor: For several reasons. We wanted to make it abroad to be away from 
the Icelandic reality. We wanted to isolate ourselves and concentrate 
on the album. We thought about recording it in Ireland or France, but 
it would have been too expensive, so it ended up being USA where our 
biggest record company is located, with the biggest resources. They 
financed all of the album.

Einar: We recorded Stick Around For Joy in the summer `91, and it was 
released in 1992, there's not much more to say. We like the album, it 
is heterogeneous like we are, there's a bit of everything on it. 

I: What happened after that - more tours, the same pressure?

Einar: We had agreed upon doing interviews, we maybe did 130 
interviews in connection with that record. We planned 4-5 concerts in 
England and carried through with them. We made 8-9 concerts in Europe 
and then we had planned doing, at the most 11 concerts in USA. That 
was set in spring `92, and then we take a break. Later that summer I 
got a phonecall at Bio-bar where I was working. U2 wanted us to go on 
tour with them in USA.

Derek: I thought they weren't gonna make another record or tour again, 
and the U2 offer came up, and I said to U2: "I don't think they'll do 
it", `cause they were getting offer-tours all of the time by loads and 
loads of bands, which they never did, and I called them up, called (?  
) up, Einar's brother, who was dealing with all this stuff, and said 
they'd been offered it and I turned it down, but I just want to check, 
and I got a call later saying we wanna do it.

Siggi: We hadn't stopped, we had common interests of different kinds. 
We hadn't stopped, `cause even though we didn't think of doing more 
records, there were several things we just couldn't leave undone, 
things relating to economy, contracts and obligations.

[clip: Bjork in the studio, listening to Human Behaviour]

I: You are working on an album here in England. Your first solo-album, 
why did you want to make it?

Bjork: This is a record I've wanted to do since I was eleven...

I: Since the first one went so well?

Bjork: yes, exactly - now it's Bjork who's deciding, it's Bjork who's 
making the record, Bjork decides the instruments that are used, it's 
Bjork's songs, and... It took a long time to convince myself about the 
idea, now I've done it and I'm going through with it.

I: When is the album released?

Bjork: In June, but there's still a lot to do, things like mixing, 
contrasts and so on.

I: Do you think it will be as great a success as the first Sugarcubes 
album?

Bjork: I don't think so. I can only follow my intuition, and I suppose 
people who have the same interests as me buys the album, and that's 
probably not many.

I: Has the band ceased to exist?

Bjork: I don't know, The Sugarcubes lives one day at a time, so I 
don't know... When we decide to make another record we'll do that.

[Walkabout video]