Quarashi: I Jinx I Can.

Jinx is in stores now.

As unlikely as it seems, Icelandinc quartet Quarashi are busy exporting their unique take on rap back to it’s spiritual home; The United States.

“We’re on the Warped tour at the moment doing some dates in LA,” the bands frontman Hossi explains. “It was pretty weird. We knew people who knew people and here we are. It’s been amazing because this is the first big tour that we’ve ever been on. The most beautiful thing about it is that kids have never heard about us, and they’ll be on their way to another stage, buy they stop and check us out.”

The Warped tour seems appropriate considering two of the band’s members used to play in punk bands.

“Yeah, I know,” he laughs. “Really really bad punk bands. We just realised that we were not making good music at that time. We all got together again this time around to make this kind of music. It’s working better than the first time.”

While their major label debut Jinx and it’s infection single Stick Em Up will be our first taste of the band here in Australia, the band have been a musical force to be reckoned with in their homeland for a couple of years. Their first independently released single Switchstance sold out it’s initial pressing in the first week and their debut album back in 1997 went to gold. Their 1999 release Xeneizes was also converted to gold status before the band entered the studio for the making of Jinx.

We released two big albums at home, so we had established a good name for ourselves back home.”

“We spent about two years making the album, because we had to wait a year for it’s release. When we first got signed up for publishing, we were invited to New York to do some demos because we had recently put out an album back in Iceland. We just got to New York and though it was a big gag and stayed drunk the whole time and didn’t do any work. When we realised it was the real deal we had to go into the studios in New York, LA and back in Iceland, so it took a long time to be released.”

Although the album has been out in the States for some time, we’re only just gotten a release. In the time it’s taken the band’s sound has moved on once again.

“If we went back into the studio right now I don’t think we’d put together another song like Stick Em Up. We’ve evolved. When bands go on a tour like this they experience new things, so you grow. We still have a Quarashi sound, but it’s a lot different. We wouldn’t do this album again, that’s for sure.”

We’re you all into rap and hip hop while you were playing in punk bands, or is this something the band members discovered later on?

“For me I discovered electronic music later on, but some of the other guys were all into electronic music and rap. I was more into rock and roll that punk, but I always like bands like Public Enemy and some other West Coast hip hop acts. I never imagined doing the same kind of thing.”

Did it take you long to find your style or your place in the music?

“Yeah, it took me two albums and one EP,” he laughs. “There are some songs on the other album I really like, but this is by far the best record.”

As well as working on their own material, the band landed a opening slot with The Prodigy back in 1999 and subsequently found themselves remixing some of their work.

“They came over to Iceland and we were the warm up band. They heard us through the dressing rooms and came out to watch us from the side of the stage for the whole gig. They really liked it, and we ended up doing a remix for them. I don’t know if it got released, but we’ve always been big fans of the Prodigy, and in our live show we try to do something similar to that. Big beats and live instruments coming into the whole thing. We’re an electronic band, but when we’re on stage it’s much more of a rock show that it is on the album.”