by Alexandra Mrozowska
— Senior Columnist —
Thinking about staples in any musician’s biography, one is certainly founding a first band while still yet in their teens and the other – starting performing around the same age. This first band rarely becomes anything close to a proverbial rocket to stardom, though, and more often than not, it simply doesn’t stand the test of time. However, there are exceptions to the rule, such as in the case of Óskar Logi Ágústsson. The band put together by this Icelandic guitarist and singer back in 2006, at the ripe age of twelve, is one that remains his main artistic focus fifteen years later. “The Vintage Caravan will always be my first and true love,” Óskar declares. Not too long after the band’s fifth album Monuments saw the light of day, we caught up with him to find out more about what the Álftanes-based power trio is up to these days.
Hardrock Haven: The last time we talked was a few hours before you hit the stage supporting Europe in Warsaw, Poland. Now, six years and two albums later, are you happy with the direction The Vintage Caravan is heading towards?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Yeah, I couldn’t be happier. Being in the band has been my life, basically. It’s been fifteen years – and I was twelve at the time – and the most part of my life I’ve just been in this band. It’s great to see it grow and also, the response to the new album has been overwhelming and just absolutely fantastic.
Hardrock Haven: Speaking about the band’s new album Monuments – according to your social media reports, you couldn’t have avoided some delays and cancellations when it comes to this release. And what were the circumstances of making it?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: With this one, recording in February and March 2020, we actually managed to make it before the pandemic – right before the lockdown and everything. That’s kind of interesting, because a lot of the lyrics seem to be about a post-quarantine life or a life during quarantine – that kind of stuff – and they kind of make sense today… But for the most part, there weren’t any major delays or anything – I guess it only was two months that we pushed it back. It was supposed to be released in February, but we were perhaps a little bit optimistic and we were like, “Let’s release it in April instead and give ourselves two months.” Of course, we had to make a decision about this, I guess, six months prior. The plan now is to follow [the album] up with touring – but it’s going to be the next year. On the positive side, by then people will know the album very well and they will be looking forward to seeing and hearing it live and we will be looking forward to playing it live, so when it happens, it’s gonna be great.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. Monuments is the first band album released on Napalm Records, so do you feel satisfied with having signed to this label?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Yeah, I’m so excited to be with Napalm. It’s great to feel the excitement that they have for the band and the album – they are very pleased and that makes us very pleased too. And you know, communication between us and them has been just fantastic. With Nuclear Blast [the band’s previous label], it was bought out by a larger company and they got rid of a lot of key people in the team – and a lot of the bands as well. Our contract, though, was basically over… we had an option for one more. But I’m very pleased to be on the Napalm team. Great people.
Hardrock Haven: And similarly to your previous albums, Monuments is a classic Psychedelic and Progresive Rock with a modern twist. Your classic influences are obvious, but which modern bands do you think are key inspiration for The Vintage Caravan?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: We listen to a lot of different kinds of music and it all comes in phases, so we aren’t strictly a ‘60s/’70s-inspired band as you say indeed. Bands like Mastodon were a big influence, but so was Red Fang – we listened a lot to this Murder The Mountains album [2011] when we were younger. Also Arctic Monkeys… especially the AM album [2013], which was something that me and Alex [Alexander Örn Númason, The Vintage Caravan’s bass player] bonded over quite a bit – I even reference that album in one of the bonus tracks on Arrival [The Vintage Caravan’s third album, released in 2015], actually. Plus Queens Of The Stone Age, Royal Blood, Foo Fighters – there’s a lot of fantastic bands out there. I listen to the Graveyard’s Lights Out album [2021] a lot as well – it was an awesome album. And then, outside of the Rock thing, there’s Billie Eilish that’s probably one of my favorite artists of the last decade. I’ve been listening to her most recent album on repeat for the last two years, I guess… And Thundercat is one of the artists that I really enjoy. His new album [It Is What It Is, 2020] is fantastic. So there’s all sorts of music and a lot of stuff that people maybe wouldn’t think we’d be listening to, but there’s a lot of varied influences I guess.
Hardrock Haven: Five albums into the band history, you’re said to have established a trademark sound. Have you ever found balancing the classic and the modern in your music challenging?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Not really, because I feel everything that we listen to and everything that we love and enjoy just goes into that one big melting pot – and you know, what comes out just comes out. And it’s best not to analyze it too much when you’re making it. Maybe afterwards you can kind of tell a little bit more – like, “Oh, maybe this one’s a little bit inspired by this or that.” But for the most part, when I’m creating, I just want to do something that excites myself, so there’s never a part when I’m like, “This is cool, but it needs a little bit more of a vintage stamp or more of a modern kind of approach”, or whatever. I think it’s a healthy balance between the two what makes The Vintage Caravan sound like The Vintage Caravan; the balance between the vintage and the modern, but also the balance between the complicated, heavy stuff and Pop sensibility. I’ve said this in a few interviews before already – I love Gentle Giant, but I also love ABBA, so the task is to find the healthy balance there in between (laughs).
Hardrock Haven: Speaking of songwriting, are you one of these songwriters who write just for a particular album, or one of those for who the creative process never really stops?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: It kind of depends, but for the most part, I write for the albums and then it’s me writing all the time… a kind of a mixture of the two, I guess. After an album is made, there’s just silence in my head for at least three months. I may create a few little riffs here and there, little ideas, but nothing serious. And then maybe three months or maybe six months later, then I’m starting to hear music again in my head and then I start working – and it doesn’t stop until I’m completely done with putting everything I have onto an album. And then it’s silence again for a few months (laughs). So that’s kind of how it works for me I guess, but it’s very therapeutic to make this kind of music and it’s the only kind of music that I want to make – we just make the music that we want to hear.
Hardrock Haven: What did the songwriting process for the new album look like?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: It was a quick one, actually. Of course, there are old ideas that date back to 2017 or early 2018 and that kind of stuff, but for the most part, they were all put together in a four-month-period. So even though it’s a pretty short time to make an album – to write it and put it together it’s still a lot of work to be put in. It was five to seven days a week that we were rehearsing and putting ideas together and making different arrangements and really, really trying to make the best album that we’ve ever made and that’s humanly possible – for us at least! On this one, it was a little bit different as normally me or Alex bring in the ideas for the songs and then we work them out together – but this time, there’s a few more songs that were just ready, more or less. It was like, “Okay, this is basically the structure” and then we would play it like that and then, if we were like, “Ah, this is a little bit too long”, we would shorten things… But for the most part on this album we decided there’s two key things, I guess. So one of them is, we wanted to let the songs be what they wanted to be, basically… because sometimes in the past, if we had made something that was a little bit poppy or a little bit too catchy or something, we would’ve kind of fucked it up by putting a really proggy chapter after it or something harder to swallow (laughs). But now we wanted the songs to be what they wanted to be – if they wanted to be long and epic, so be it, and if they were short and sweet, they were short and sweet. We didn’t force them in any direction. And the other approach that we used was also using the studio as an instrument. That was one of the things that we wanted to experiment with, so there’s stuff on the album where my voice cross-fades with the Moog synthesizer, so there are songs where my voice is turning into a synthesizer, like on the track “Forgotten” for example. And there’s me slamming doors in “Crystallized”, and playing guitar through a synthesizer… There’s a lot of experimentation going on, so that was very exciting when it comes to making Monuments.
Hardrock Haven: So having mentioned certain tracks off the album, can you take us through Monuments track by track?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Sure. So, the first song is “Whispers.” That came together relatively quickly – for the most part, it came together as a Black Metal jam at one of the rehearsals… (laughs) I was tuning the guitar and Alexander and Stefán [Ari Stefánsson, the drummer of The Vintage Caravan] just yelled “One, two, three, four!” and started playing this, and it’s just the main riff, or the intro… So we did a little bit of a different arrangement, but it still has that initial kind of feeling, which is a nice little twist for us. And the song is just basically about the nightlife, I guess – just going out and having a great time and just being with a special someone and then the day afterwards, it’s the second verse and things aren’t as great as they were the night before (laughs). So it’s the story behind the song, I guess… up to a certain degree, without giving out too much.
“Crystallized” is a track number two, and this song is about the harsh conditions here in Iceland… In early 2020, there were so many people that unfortunately died here – it was like every few days, there was a tourist that died travelling the countryside of Iceland, because it’s a very unpredictable country weather-wise. Within a half an hour, you can have a snowstorm or a hailstorm, and then sunny skies, and then rain… so it’s pretty insane weather conditions. That song is about the character who’s travelling through a red weather warning and gets stuck in the snow and leaves his car behind and walks out… That was a very interesting song to make – also musically, because it goes through different movements and chapters. I’m very proud of that one… That was kind of like my baby of the album, or maybe one of them, and one of the songs that I kind of mapped out really precisely before we kind of went in and rehearsed it.
The third song is “Can’t Get You Off My Mind,” which is more of Alexander’s song when it comes to the riffs and everything. But I wrote the hook and the lyrics came just immediately – I sat down with an acoustic guitar after he showed me the song and just sang the lyrics that ended up on the album, and Alexander wrote the lyrics of verse right after that. It came together pretty quickly, and we’ve changed the arrangement a little bit in the studio, so you can kind of hear the excitement when I go, “Woo!” when getting the guitar feedback and stuff (laughs). And the guitar intro thing was not really planned; we just kind of did it on a whim.
The next one is “Dark Times” which is one of my tunes – and I’m really, really happy that it came out. It’s just such an exciting take… it’s complicated, but it’s really catchy and I think the balance there is really good. I’m very happy with this one. And it’s just about, I guess, being in a relationship that maybe doesn’t make sense anymore – a deteriorating one you feel trapped in a little bit. Basically, the theme of the whole new album is that we wanted to be very open and kind of share things from our lives…
…and that leads us pretty well into the next song, which is called “This One’s For You,” and that’s a song that I wrote for my brother who passed away in 2018 – you know, that’s the first album we’ve made after his death. It was a cathartic experience to write a song that came straight from the heart, to be very open… to look at the photographs of him and read text messages that he sent me. It was a very heavy session, but very beautiful.
And then, the sixth track is “Forgotten.” It’s about Alexander’s grandfather – or great-grandfather – who was put in a tuberculosis hospital… basically a ward that was built just for people that were dying back in the early 60’s, I think… And he was put there when he was five years old and was supposed to be there for two weeks, but ended up being there for a year, and he was only able to see his parents every other week. So it was a very traumatic experience and that’s basically what the song is about. And it was one of those tracks that we really allowed ourselves to just go full-on in terms of length, as it’s one of the long and complicated ones. It will be an absolute bitch trying to play it live – I’m looking forward to it though (laughs).
The seventh track is “Sharp Teeth”, which in my opinion is probably one of the heaviest things that we’ve ever done. And it’s just about going back to old habits and some old patterns that we used to do back in our past and just kind of falling back into something… a place you really didn’t want to be at… So, like most of the songs on the album, it’s a very, very personal one and also another one of the songs that we really allow ourselves to go very full-on in with tempo changes and intricate kind of chapters. I’m very proud of this song; it’s very heavy, but also very catchy.
Then we go into “Hell” and lyrically, this song’s about a failing relationship, but it’s also about kind of glamorizing the past and maybe past relationships or whatever… It’s one of those songs that we wrote [with such an approach] that musically we wanted to try and make a song the main hook of which was a guitar line, instead of it being a vocal hook. We wanted to try to make a song where the guitar line holds up as a chorus, which is an interesting kind of approach we’ve never thought about before. It was a fun song to record too.
Then it leads us into “Torn In Two,” and it’s like “Hell” and “Torn In Two” are connected lyrically – so it kind of keeps on going with that. Stefán does a fantastic drum fill in there, which is a kind of an homage to Neil Peart of Rush who passed away not so long ago, and also Ásgeir Óskarsson, who was the drummer in Icecross and other Icelandic bands. It’s also one of my favorite guitar solos on the album, actually, and one of the oldest riffs on the album. “Sharp Teeth” was probably the oldest riff idea.
“Said And Done” is the youngest track on the album, written only about two weeks before we entered the studio. It was quite an interesting experience making the song so fast and the lyrics came together from a rant… basically, I’ve read some news that’s just really pissed me off – maybe I’m not gonna say what it was about, but it was a political thing and I was just so pissed that I wrote an entire four-page lyric rant on my phone and I kind of just threw it on Alexander and said, “Please, does this make any sense for lyrics…?” And he was like, “Yeah, sure, I’ll figure it out.” (laughs) And the song uses a very weird meter, so it was a hassle really to find a way to do it with this odd-time heavy riff… That was an interesting challenge and it ends with that alarm clock going off, like a siren or something, and I thought it’s an interesting effect to use – a kind of a wake-up call to take care of the planet. I used a Billie Eilish-inspired trick; on a track called “Sunny,” if I remember correctly, there’s people applauding and it suddenly slows down and leads us into the next song… so I decided to slow down that alarm clock thing and that leads perfectly into the final song on Monuments…
…which is “Clarity” – a beautiful piece written by Alexander. He really opens himself up in this song and it’s a very, very personal thing for him, so I can’t maybe tell you exactly what it’s about… But it’s quite moving to perform that and sing his lyrics. And also, I remember it’s one of the strangest songs in terms of how it came together, because Alexander came to the rehearsal and said, “Okay, I have a song that we should play – but we can’t.” (laughs) So I said, “What…?! We can’t? Why…?” And then he’s like, “It’s just that I have to make a demo…,” so he ended up making it, and then we kind of worked on that together. He played the acoustic guitar – the six-string – and I played the twelve-string, kind of plucking the guitar there, so it’s like he made the core… the basic track with that acoustic guitar, and he played the synthesizers as well. And we had our good friend Magnús Jóhann [Ragnarsson, of Electric Elephant] to play the piano on this track, and he did a fantastic job which really glued the whole thing together. I’m very happy with the final product and it was the perfect way to end the album – so yeah, that’s Monuments.
Hardrock Haven: Right. And as the visual side of what you do has always been pretty important for the band, so what’s the idea behind the cover artwork for Monuments and how does it correspond with the previous albums, if it does at all?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Yeah. So, I guess it’s a little bit of a call back actually to Voyage [2014] and Arrival [2015] with the caravan being back. We took a bit different approach on Gateways [2018] and we thought we were gonna continue in that direction, using photographs and that kind of stuff, but as we started working again with Julian Haas, who made the Gateways cover artwork, we realized we kind of didn’t see eye to eye [with him]. We were not really on the same page. So, we talked to another artist and that didn’t work out, and then we talked to Sebastian Jerke… so three artists came and went – it was a process for sure. I kind of had the idea that the if caravan should be back, we have to have a good twist on it. So because of the album is so open and personal lyrically, I thought that it would make sense that you could see inside the caravan – and the caravan is supposed to kind of represent us, you know. So the caravan is open and you can see inside, and you can see the titular monuments – which kind of comes from each song being a monument of a certain time in our lives. So that’s where it came from, so you can see three monuments in there and I guess they might represent us or some of the songs or something like that. Sebastian did the fantastic job with the cover and I’m very happy with the end product. It really complements the album.
Hardrock Haven: Talking about The Vintage Caravan in general, when we chatted for the first time back in 2015 you declared it to be your first and only band. Is it still the case with you and is it the deliberate decision of yours? What advantages do you think come from focusing on just one band instead of focusing on dozens of projects?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Yeah, that’s still my only band and it is deliberate because I’ve been asked to join the projects and bands and that kind of stuff… But what I write makes perfect sense for The Vintage Caravan [rather than other bands]; sometimes the songs that I write don’t make sense for the band, of course, but I always wanted it to be just a kind of a vessel of – you know – whatever… like whatever we want to create, we can do it in The Vintage Caravan. But it can be risky of course – if we make a Reggae album or something… So I think it’s a healthy thing to kind of keep the loyalty going, you know… as The Vintage Caravan makes perfect sense for me. Of course, I played with a lot of people and I even made a little Blues band that played covers and we played at the Blues festival in Iceland last year while COVID was almost non-existent for the population here, so there was a nice little period of shows and stuff. So yeah, I play with other people and have a good time – I’ve played a few shows and put different bands together for different Blues festivals. But The Vintage Caravan will always be my first and true love, I guess.
Hardrock Haven: The Vintage Caravan is deeply rooted in Progresssive Rock sound and I know you guys to be fans of all these classic bands of the ‘70s. While it might not have been the most popular subgenre of Rock, Prog Rock still enjoys a steady fanbase and relative popularity…
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Well, there were definitely moments when people weren’t proud about loving Yes or whatever… (laughs) But I’ve never really cared about what was “in” and what wasn’t. I think that’s one of the perks about being an Icelandic band, because in Iceland you can’t really make it here unless you have a lot of projects going on. If you only have one band and you make original music, chances are you’ll have to have a day job alongside your musical career if you’re gonna stay in Iceland. So, I think that kind of makes people create the music they want to hear instead of maybe following a fad or something that would let one earn a lot of money… that just doesn’t really happen here, ‘cause there’s not that much money to be made. So, people take that decision just to make whatever they want to hear and that’s what I did – the direction I took the band in. I’ve just played the music that I wanted to hear. I don’t necessarily look at ourselves as a Progressive Rock band; the way I see it is that we’re a Rock band. We have everything from [different genres]. We’re kind of being labeled now by Napalm [Records] as a Prog Rock outfit, which makes sense up to a certain point for sure, ‘cause it’s a lot of complicated stuff that we play… but I think there’s more to it. It’s very varied – there’s proggy stuff, but there’s also poppy stuff and just straightforward Rock’n’Roll… a lot of different stuff. When it comes to this kind of music, there’s just so much to kind of dig into as with its massive and complicated compositions… So, maybe that’s what makes this genre “live,” I guess, as you can always discover something new about this kind of music.
Hardrock Haven: Very true! 2020 was definitely a year of podcasts, so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that you guys started your own as well. Where did the idea for this come from?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Exactly, there was a lot of podcasts [that year] and I just had the idea because I haven’t seen any bands doing it – as a full band. I’ve maybe seen members of a few different bands together, or maybe one band member at a time, doing a podcast, but never the entire band. So that’s why I wanted to kind of try it out. And we were just so busy with the new album that we really haven’t been able to make new episodes in the past few months, but we’re gonna start again now – very soon I hope – and just kind of keep on bullshitting with each other (laughs). I think that’s just we do all the time at the airports when we have to find something to talk about – and we make each other laugh, which I think is one of the things that made it a pretty interesting podcast… us being us, I guess!
Hardrock Haven: And in general, why do you think podcasts are so popular these days that not only music journalists, but also – as you’ve said – musicians and even fans with no experience in the industry launch their own? As a listener, do you listen to podcasts and do you have any favorites?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Yeah, it’s a really interesting time – not really sure why… Maybe it’s because it’s such a free kind of platform and you can just really be yourself. If you go to a talk show or if you do a TV interview, you only have ten minutes to say what you want and this kind of time frame takes away from the natural way of talking, I think. So people hearing people talking in that kind of environment where they are relaxed feel they’re a part of the others’ conversation. I think that’s one of the aspects [that made podcasts popular] – especially in 2020, because people were very lonely that year, most of them at least… So I think a feeling that you’re a part of a conversation between people that are having fun did a lot of great stuff for a lot of people. Podcasts, dare I say it, probably saved some lives… not saying ours did anything like that at all! But when I listen to podcasts like “Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend,” which I listen to quite a bit, and “Your Mom’s House,” they just cheer me up and make my day better. So yeah, I’m a big fan of podcasts for sure.
Hardrock Haven: And speaking of 2020, another staple of that year was livestreams – and it continues well into 2021 too, although musicians I talk with have mixed opinions about them. Having experienced that with The Vintage Caravan, was the general experience positive?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: Yeah, it was. It was great, especially the first two. It was such an amazing experience to connect with people and see how genuinely thankful people were just to have some kind of distraction during those times – pretty early on, in April 2020. So it was quite an experience, but of course it’s kind of strange when you play a song with all your heart and then there’s silence and you’re like, “Oh, okay.” It kind of feels like a rehearsal that thirty thousand people are watching and it’s kind of weird, but at the same time I was just very happy actually and thought it was great. I always say that we play the same if there are five people or fifteen thousand people [in the audience]; we just play like it’s our last show on Earth (laughs). That’s what matters – that I love playing with these guys.
Hardrock Haven: So speaking about playing shows, what are the band’s plans now that the new album is out?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: We have some special shows in Iceland and I hope we’ll make it. With COVID here, the fourth wave was over and the restrictions were eased… the bars were opening and that lasted a few days until somebody who was supposed to be in quarantine apparently went around visiting a lot of people… There are more cases now, so hopefully it will get better. Fingers crossed about that, and about the big special shows in Iceland that we have planned. There’s also a European tour for February and March 2022, so we hope everything will be good by then. And then we’re talking about an Opeth run in September of 2022, if I remember correctly, and that would be our third run with the Opeth guys, so that will be a very exciting thing, and it’ll be great to see them again.
Hardrock Haven: Is there anything you’d like to add?
Óskar Logi Ágústsson: No, I think we’ve pretty much covered it, so thank you so much for the lovely interview!
