b>In HAMFERÐ songs one can find heartbreaking tragedies of a mystical nature happening against the bleak landscapes of the Faroe Islands. We had a talk with HAMFERÐ (also BARREN EARTH) frontman Jón Aldará and discussed their new album “Támsins likam”, the band’s music in general and of course the life on the Faroese. Have a read our exclusive interview!

                    

                    

                    

                    How is the tour going?

                    

                    It’s going well, actually. We had a few bumps on the road, but nothing more than usual. It’s been a long time since we’ve been touring; actually, our last proper tour was three years ago. It’s a certain mode, you need to be in a certain shape, I think, so it always takes a couple of days to get it and to get used to driving and waiting, and how to use your time properly. Now we’re properly into it, it took us a couple of days, but now it’s smooth pretty much.

                    

                    What about any expectations or surprises on the tour?

                    

                    Well, we had quite a rocky start, but that’s because of some restrictions and stuff like that made everything super complicated, but that was before we started the tour, so luckily we managed to find the solution there. Mostly it’s been going quite swimmingly, and the turn outs — at least in some venues — have been very surprisingly large, so that was very good, ‘cause others are maybe not so large, but you can never estimate this things. And it’s very different from area to area, I mean, how many people come. We’re not a huge band yet — I say “yet”, so…

                    

                    That’s the main thing — “yet”. Let’s hope for the future!

                    

                    Yeah, we always do.

                    

                    Tell us more about your new album. How did the recording process go?

                    

                    Well, it’s not just tour that’s taking lots of time; the recording has taking hell of a time. Or maybe not the recording itself, but writing the new album has taken us almost four years. It’s been a really long process, a lot of overthinking things and just trying to do something extremely tight and well-connected throughout the whole album. That part has taken a lot of time, and that’s the first thing I think about it. The album is already getting a little bit old as well, because we were finishing recording it more than a year ago and working with a proper release and everything, so it’s been a very big process all in all to get the album out properly the way we wanted to release it, which was a step out from the last album, and get it even wider promotion and that kind of thing. Recording was pretty easy. When we finished writing it finally, we spent some time on the Faroese recording it the time that we needed. Theodor [Kapnas] works in the biggest studio on the Faroese, he was able to get us the time we needed to record it really well, and then we got awesome Daniel Bergstrand to mix, and luckily Theodor became friend with him a little bit before the whole thing, so we could have a direct line, as you might say, and ask him to take a look at it. All in all, it was a really interesting process.

                    

                    Have you changed anything in the recording compared with the previous one?

                    

                    Yeah, we tried to make it sound as natural as possible this time, both the recording and the mixing. We had to take it to the next level. We’re quite proud of [the first album] “Evst” and how it turned out, but when we have worked with this album for so long, writing it was different, because we had a different approach on it, we wanted to create something more… classically inclined, maybe something similar to a symphony when the songs have different movements instead of being separated songs. The whole writing process was based on it, and the lyrics should reflect it as well. With recording we also wanted to try someone else in the end, because we spent so much time on it. It’s quite easy to get lost in this, it’s a very big job when you’ve been writing something for three years to get into producing it as well, and Theodor could have done it, but we just felt that it was the right thing to get someone else from the outside, someone really experienced to look at it. We’re happy that we did that, this is the first time we had an outside mixer, but he didn’t produce the album. Theodor still produced it and he mixed it, and the result is really great, in our opinion.

                    

                    Yeah, it really sounds like one piece, very natural.

                    

                    Exactly. Maybe some people might not enjoy it so much, but that’s at least the intention. It helps maybe to have that attitude before starting the album, to know that you’re not going to pick out any individual songs as the hits. That’s also why it was also difficult to pick out singles to release one by one, you know, but… yeah.

                    

                    You managed pretty well!

                    

                    Thanks.

                    

                    All your albums are based on the concept of journeys. Why journeys?

                    

                    It’s just a really good way of telling a story, to use a parallel of a physical and a spiritual journey. We’re moving somewhere physically as a representation of where you’re moving as an individual personality or in growth, so it’s a lot of to do with that, but also because we’re all inspired by the Faroese landscapes, the nature, the weather, the hills, the valleys, the ocean. I feel almost required to do something that happens throughout this environment, kind of carried along in these different types of landscapes, so that’s always the way I’m thinking of it, like how can I incorporate the mountains as much as possible. They mostly represent kind of violence and chaos, the uncontrollable nature of surroundings, which is always very useful in telling a story *laughs*

                    

                    Speaking of landscapes, I really loved the ones which were shown in a video for “Frosthvarv”…

                    

                    *at that moment I’m taught that “hv” in Faroese actually sounds as “kv”*

                    

                    Was it your idea of the video, I mean the script, or it was someone else who came up with it?

                    

                    It’s based on the album concept, the storyline, and we started out that way, we wanted to do something that represented the arch of the story somehow. Of course it’s a five minute song, so you can’t really get into the different colors and details, so we in Hamferð sat together and wrote kind of a very simple draft, and then we turned it to our director Franklin Henriksen, and he then was able to device a screenplay from that which was partly his vision and partly ours. But it was generally based on our idea.

                    

                    It’s better than tons of videos where the band is doing nothing but playing…

                    

                    Yes. We see it more like a short film than a proper music video, but of course it’s based on the music and moves along with the music.

                    

                    

                    

                    Was singing in Faroese the original idea when founding Hamferð or you have probably thought about using the English language?

                    It wasn’t said in stone from the beginning. The first song we wrote was both in English and Faroese, we usually play it as closing for the most part of gigs and since it’s a song that we think is pretty cool as the live song, but we never recorded it. The first third of it is in English and the rest is in Danish… oh, not Danish of course, what am I saying? Faroese! That was terrible, just slip of the mind… I was trying the idea once when we were starting that maybe we can try to write something about some sailor from the mid XX century who was sailing to England, and when he was in England we could do the lyrics in English, you know, some kind of a weird story like that, but that never really turned out as I thought about it, so we kept the Faroese, and now we got more and more solid as a part of the concept of the band, now it’s just what we need to do.

                    

                    Yeah, just keep going and be Faroese as much as possible…

                    

                    Well, yeah, there’s a lot of cool things you can get through using your native language. If I was English speaking, of course I would sing in English, right? But since Faroese is my mother tongue, it’s easier for me to express myself in some ways with that language, you know. I think the performance itself becomes more honest with using your language.

                    

                    I actually wanted to ask about the lyrics since it’s in Faroese and most people can hardly understand it. Do you use the high language, so to speak, or is it quite simple? I feel kind of sorry for asking this…

                    

                    *laughs*

                    

                    “Do you write very simple lyrics?” No.

                    

                    Because usually on Youtube, for example, someone in comments asks for the translation, but the answer is like “Sorry man, it’s so complicated that it can’t be translated properly”…

                    

                    That’s the same with us. Languages have their own world unless you write very simple, you know, like this happens and this happens, very straightforward lyrics, it becomes a bit difficult. Basically, the poetry gets lost in translation as it usually does. Sometimes you can translate in a poetic way, bit the languages have their own phrases and their own kind of ideas that are difficult to relate to other cultures, it always gets a little bit hard. It’s a very challenging task to translate our lyrics. I might work on trying to do kind of a summary. I’m working on a novel about the story of “Támsins likam”...

                    

                    Great!

                    

                    …but it’s in Faroese. If I get it finished, I’ll try to get the translation into English as well. Let’s see.

                    

                    That would be nice, because it’s cool to read the description of what’s going on, and it would be really nice to read the whole lyrics with all details and everything.

                    

                    That’s very understandable, but yeah, it can become maybe a bit banal if you translate it into English, and then some things will be like “how is this even meant to be understood”. It’s a challenge, and it takes a lot of time, so I think if we decide to do it we’ll spend a lot of time on it.

                    

                    Maybe you need to hire a professional translator…

                    

                    Yes, exactly.

                    

                    Let’s discuss more Faroese stuff. Your metal colleagues Týr had several shows canceled in Europe because of the whale hunting. Has it also affected Hamferð in any way?

                    

                    I think there was a period in time when there was a lot of commotion around that, especially with this Animal Planet show.

                    

                    Yeah, Sea Shepherd guys…

                    

                    Yes. They were really stirring lots of stuff up which is their job, I guess. It was back in 2013-14, we were on tour with Amorphis, we did experience some threats and stuff, you know, just online keyboard warriors, basically, who’s gonna come and fuck you up here and there, but no one showed up, there was no sign or a person saying anything. We were a bit alarmed by that, because we hadn’t experienced that before, and then we tried to do some kind of press release trying to defuse the situation, but really we should’ve just ignored it, because it’s just people playing tough and going about things in a bad, destructive way. I mean, they have their right for their opinion, but going around threating violence and terrorizing people, in our mind, is not a correct way to do it, and we shouldn’t take it on ourselves. Anyway, we’ve seen a little bit of that back then, but since then there was basically nothing. We’d seen a few really awesome Youtube comments calling us barbarians and stuff like that, that’s about it. With Týr it’s a different case, because they seek out actively the whole conflict and [Týr frontman] Heri Joensen is a crazy guy *laughs*. He has a very strong opinion and wants also to inform people who he thinks are misinformed, and that’s his peaceful way of doing it. He just makes Youtube videos and tells how he sees the situation very rationally, I think. That’s too bad for them; rationality is not always at the forefront in these situations.

                    

                    I watched this show and the way they tried to express their opinion looked kind of stupid. I mean, they weren’t even prepared. When they noticed lots of boats, they decided that it was the beginning of hunt, but it turned out to be just a holiday race.

                    

                    Yeah. They didn’t even try… that’s the problem of coming to a country and from the start being confronting and claiming “we’re here to stop the grind, we’re here to stop your traditions”. People will respond with anger or slight. You won’t get the information you need to get around if you behave this way, so clearly they didn’t have much contact with Faroese people and they didn’t ask what’s going on. There was this regatta where people were rowing from one village to another, it’s held in August, yeah, it was so silly. Basically all their shows are like that, it’s a lot of drama about things that have no real point, so nothing really happens in a bigger whole, but there’s constantly things like “we’re driving to this place, we’re driving to that place”, and we were just laughing at it, because it was cut in such a weird way. “We have to get to Tórshavn”, and then they show a picture of them driving away from Tórshavn. They didn’t care of any details. It’s just a show, you know.

                    

                    

                    

                    If I’m allowed to ask, what is your opinion on whale hunting?

                    

                    Well, I’d rather keep Hamferð away from any political stances, so I can only answer for myself. I don’t see it as anything else then what is being hunted anywhere else for food. It’s an old way of sustaining yourselves, we get food out of it, it’s always distributed equally between people in the village where the grind comes in, so it’s kind of a community thing as well, and of course there are some problems with it. The problem is not as it seems in sustainability, because it seems to be quite sustainable as from the research that I have looked at; most of it supposes that there are quite enough whales in the ocean, so we’re not hurting any kind of population. There’s a situation about health and the mercury, and it’s being taken quite seriously by many people also on the Faroe Islands, so they’re reducing their intake of the whale meat, especially women who are pregnant or in age suitable for being pregnant. There’s lot of complicated things around it, but the actual killing itself to me is not really an issue compared to anything else, but if you have stance that no animals should be killed then sure, it’s fine. But it’s not worse compared to… well, it’s actually much better compared to the meat industry.

                    

                    Yeah, the conditions animals are kept in…

                    

                    Exactly. These are free-living animals, and usually if it goes well, the grind will be killed in a minute. It’s a way of sustaining ourselves, I don’t see a problem here compared to transporting meat from the factories or another places.

                    

                    It would be more expensive.

                    

                    It would be more expensive, and the whole transportation system is an extremely polluting thing as the whole meat industry, plus the animal welfare issue… If you’re able somehow to sustain yourself from your environment in a way that doesn’t hurt the population around you then it’s fine. You always need to look for the numbers and how the animals are doing and so forth.

                    

                    As far as I know, you live in Denmark, right?

                    

                    No, I have been living in Denmark for some years while studying. I’m a biologist and I was finishing my master thesis in September, so I moved back home with my girlfriend.

                    

                    So how was it to live in Denmark?

                    

                    It was different, you know. People in Denmark are quite different from people on the Faroe Islands, and the whole culture is quite different. But it’s quite nice; we had good relationship with Danish people in general. The only difference is probably the environment. Personally I can’t say really much about the social things, because I’m not a super social person, I try to isolate myself a little bit, so I haven’t been so much part of a social scene in Copenhagen. I have a few friends which I found, and it’s enough for me *laughs* And then moving home I was finally like “ok, now I can relax and get away from everything”. The environment is something I really need. I need to be close to the ocean. I have lived right by the ocean for my whole life in my childhood home, and the mountains and everything… It’s just something I need to be close to somehow, so I don’t think I will move permanently anywhere else again.

                    

                    Do you have any jokes or stereotypes about Danish people and do they have anything about you?

                    

                    Yeah, sure. I think Danish people are a bit like… In general, they’re a little bit ignorant about the Faroe islands. They don’t worry too much about the Faroe Islands, it’s not something which is part of their everyday life at all ‘cause we’re quite far away and we don’t really do anything for them. Only when the grind controversy shows up then the Danish are like “oh, we have to protect the Faroese or we have to try the Faroese to change their way” or something like that. I’ve read an article about ten years ago about some people actually thinking that Faroese people live in caves or something. It was something really weird, hopefully it was a spoof article, but maybe it was just a reflection of how little Danish people even know about the Faroe Islands. But then again lots of Danish people come there as well, and we have some Danish people who have contributed a lot to our society. For example, the driving force behind the Faroese music has been Kristian Blak since the 70s. He is a Danish guy, but his family is on Faroese now, and his kids are grown up on the Faroe Islands. He is probably the most important person in the Faroese music. He looks like a down to earth guy, he is a wise man, and he has this kind of incredible spirit of fire to work for music, do everything you can for the Faroese music.

                    

                    In your lyrics there’s lots of mystical and supernatural stuff. Do you actually believe in supernatural and have you ever experienced it?

                    

                    No, I haven’t experienced anything like it. Some people seem to be more receptive than the others; they experience it more often maybe, because they’re more opened to these different kinds of ideas. I’m a scientist, so I have very empirical mind, but I love the idea of it. It’s a way of people trying to sense things in the surroundings back when the knowledge wasn’t really available. It’s something I’m really fascinated with, it made sense back then, it’s such a strange part of people’s life. People have really believed in these things for not so long ago, so it’s something I’m really fascinated with. It becomes a part of culture, if the stories are really good they never really die, it becomes a part of us somehow.

                    

                    Agree. And the last question for today, I guess: it’s believed that you should try everything in life. Is there anything you would never try?

                    

                    Never try?

                    

                    Yeah.

                    

                    Personally me or Hamferð?

                    

                    Personally you.

                    

                    Ok… Well, there are probably lots of things I would never try like… But I really do subscribe to this belief if trying everything once at least if it makes sense or it’s something you want to try. I wouldn’t pick up anything specific that I wouldn’t want to try.

                    

                    I actually asked many people, so I have very different answers…

                    

                     I can imagine that. Some people have some idea about things they don’t

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