Before Their Cameo, Of Monsters & Men Had Never Watched 'Game Of Thrones'

21 December 2019 | 10:12 am | Cyclone Wehner

Of Monsters & Men commemorate ten years as a band in 2020, and they're starting celebrations early with a stint at Falls Festival. While they're in the country, lead guitarist Brynjar Leifsson wants to give surfing a crack.

The popular Icelandic band Of Monsters & Men will mark their tenth anniversary as a band in 2020. Yet the quintet – fronted by dual vocalist/guitarists Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar Þórhallsson – have much to celebrate. This past July, Of Monsters & Men issued the iridescent Fever Dream, their third consecutive US Top 10 album. Over summer, they're returning to Australia for the first time since 2016 to play Falls Festival and headline dates. And lead guitarist Brynjar Leifsson stresses fans will hear the classics. "We know how it is to go to a show and when the band only plays new songs, so we try to mix it up and give people what they really are hoping to hear. It's not every day that you go to Australia, so, of course, you want to please your fans and the people that are coming to the show. So it's gonna be a mix of everything that we've done."

Of Monsters & Men evolved out of Hilmarsdóttir's solo project in 2010. The group – today completed by bassist Kristján Páll Kristjánsson and drummer Arnar Rósenkranz Hilmarsson – gathered global momentum with their charming and stirring Scandinavian folk-rock. Of Monsters & Men's 2011 single Little Talks, initially championed in the US by a Philadelphian radio station, polled at #2 in triple j's 2012 Hottest 100. Meanwhile, their debut, My Head Is An Animal, eventually topped the Australian charts. But, from the beginning, Of Monsters & Men functioned as a collective. "It's kinda always the same. We always have this democracy thing where like, when we were picking out the songs for the [Fever Dream] album, everybody casts a vote for their top songs. We're all together and we're just all trying to make the best music and best albums that we can make. It hasn't changed a lot. It's only gotten maybe bigger and more recognised, but the feeling in the band is all great, because we're still all great friends." 

"We always just did whatever we wanted – like what we felt was right for us and what we wanted to do."

In 2015, Of Monsters & Men presented Beneath The Skin, a darker, more nuanced album than My Head Is An Animal, bringing in US producer Rich Costey, known for his work with Muse. Was there an industry expectation that they cut another My Head Is An Animal? "I think maybe people out in the world were putting pressure on us, or they were thinking more about it than us," Leifsson says. "But we always just did whatever we wanted, like what we felt was right for us and what we wanted to do. Luckily, we live in Iceland where it's our safe space, so we don't feel what's going on in the outside world. So, when we get there, we aren't involved with the industry or something like that. We are just writing music and recording and do what feels right. If it sounds good to us, we just want to make that. Probably there were people expecting some things, but they didn't get quite what they wanted. But that's how it is sometimes!"

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Led by the stadium anthem Alligator, Fever Dream finds Of Monsters & Men experimenting sonically. They could be channelling Fleetwood Mac for the Major Lazer era. "With the first album, it was just us playing together a lot and doing venues in Iceland. Then Beneath The Skin was like a continuation of what we had been doing. On this new album, we really wanted to break the mould and just see where it would take us. Instead of writing on acoustic guitars and stuff like that, we just went to the keyboards and synthesisers and tried to keep ourselves really excited and invested in everything we were doing." 

Starting work on Fever Dream in May 2017, they later sought Costey to help them surmount internal indecision, or, as Leifsson quips, "just basically kick us in the arse".

Along the way, Of Monsters & Men have enjoyed unusual opportunities, emerging as Hollywood soundtrack faves. The band were flown to Spain to cameo in Game Of Thrones' sixth season as roving musicians, some members having previously hustled to be extras on the show's Icelandic set. "It was super amazing," Leifsson recalls. 

Ironically, the experience turned him into a fan. "I must admit I had never seen Game Of Thrones," he laughs guiltily. "But, then, after that, I started watching it and I was really locked in. I think it was an amazing series, the Game Of Thrones series, it's great. Yeah, you just get locked in, you can't stop watching."

In 2020, it will be ten years since Of Monsters & Men formed. Do they have special anniversary commemoration plans? "I'm not sure," Leifsson responds. "I think we will just be home from Australia and Asia by then, when our anniversary hits. There might be something, but we haven't made a decision on anything particular." 

He's uncertain, too, about Of Monsters & Men's next move, with solo endeavours a possibility. "We are all open to everything, but we still really like to make music together. So I think we'll at least record a couple of albums [more] together. But I've always been interested in movie-scoring and ambient soundtracks." 

For now, Leifsson is anticipating downtime in Australia. "I would love to take a surfing lesson, because I used to be really into skateboarding," he says. "I was told that one of the places we play – I can't for the life of me remember the name – is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in Australia. I thought, 'Ok, they must have surfing there, so I really ought to try that.'"