Even though Iceland is a land that has managed to give a lot to the heavy music world, with almost every single major metal genre having some well known band coming from this island, until not that long ago it was pretty safe to say that “Icelandic djent” was pretty far from being a thing. But with the ever-growing popularity of this style it was only a matter of time to end up having some Icelandic band playing it, and that was what happened with the guys behind Aaru, a band that recently released their debut LP SWNPL. So that’s why Daniel Escobar Díaz ended up talking with Aaru’s drummer and lyricist Aron Bragi Baldursson, to get to know the band and their music.
Hey guys, it’s a huge honor to having you here with us, a band that I’ve been following closer this last year, and finally, you brought us your new “SWNPL”. So, as my first question, tell me, Who are you? Which are the members of Aaru?
Aaru consists of two guitarists, Alexander Glói Pétursson (28) and Úlfar Alexander Úlfarsson (27), a drummer/lyricist, Aron Bragi Baldursson (32), and a bassist, Gauti Hreinsson (28).
Following your album release; what does “SWNPL” stand for?
For now we do not want to reveal what SWNPL stands for. It will be revealed in due time.
Then, tell us something more about your story; how and when did you met and started this project and which bands inspired you?
Glói and Aron went to the same school since we were children. We were both emo boys, listening to HIM and watching Viva La Bam. But at that time we knew of each other but didn’t really know each other. Then early 2014 Glói contacts Aron, asking if he’d be interested in working on some music. After working on a couple of songs they discussed starting a band. Glói knew some other musicians who could fill their respective roles. Then early 2015 we all met at a KFC in our hometown and had our first band meeting. The only remaining members of that original line-up are Aron and Glói. The original bassist dropped out and the guitarist (Úlfar) from another of Glói’s bands jumped in on bass. Alter a little while the other guitarist dropped out as well and Úlfar switched to the guitarist role. The vocalist of Glói’s other band, Gauti, then became the bass player of Aaru.
We have gone through two different vocalists. Snorri who was the original and Ient his voice to our first EP, Ozymandias, and Rúnar who you can hear perform on The Human Condition. For now we are just instrumental but have a competition/audition ongoing til the end of february to look for a new vocalist.
When we started Aaru Glói’s inspirations were bands such as Sentinel, Erra and Northlane (pre node). Aron had recently started listening to bands like Periphery and Tesseract. The original idea of Aaru was to make Progressive Metalcore music. Since then we have evolved our sound and the bands that have influenced us the most up until today consist of: Humanity’s Last Breath, Allt, Vildhjarta and Invent Animate.
YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ: Aaru – S.W.N.P.L (2024)
I know that nowadays, as a musician, it can be difficult to find your way to getting fans, as the number of bands it’s huge. What do you think is the clever way to build your path on music?
The biggest push we made to build a fanbase was when we started Thall Thursdays. Every thursday we’d release a clip of Glói and/or Úlfar playing a part we recently wrote. The guitarists would write in Guitar Pro, then we’d usually meet on mondays to record the music and then wednesdays to record the video and then release the day after. We have done over 120 of them. This was by far the biggest push for our music to get out there. As we live in Iceland, the metal scene here is small to say the least so it was always our intention to use social media to gain an audience outside the country. Thall thursdays was a lot of work but we had fun making them and seeing the steady growth of our audience was satisfying.
Also, I can say you are one of the first Icelandic bands that I listen to… Is it easy to form a band there? How’s the metal scene there?
We wouldn’t say it’s particularly easy to start a band in Iceland. The first hurdle being that there aren’t as many options as in bigger communities. A lot of musicians here are in multiple projects because of that. Also finding people that 100% agree on what kind of music to make is not easy. The metal scene overall is tight knit, small and everybody knows everybody. We feel there is however a lack of diversity in the types of metal being played. As an example of that Aaru were the first to play Djent and Thall in Iceland. And it remains so.
After discovering you with “The Human Condition” back on 2022, the vocals were one of my favorite aspects of the EP, also the lyrics; what made you choose a fully-melodic album instead of following the line that you did back in 2021 and adding vocals?
The main reason we didn’t have vocals on SWNPL is because we lacked the vocalist. We had to part ways with Rdnar in early 2023. But did not want to go too long without releasing music so the decision was made to do an instrumental album while we look for a new vocalist. We maintain that a large part of the appeal of Aaru is the instrumentals and therefore felt they could stand on their own for now. It was always the plan, and still is, to have vocals in Aaru and we are looking forward to find someone that’s excited to work with us.
We’re arriving to the end on this interview, and of course, I know touring it’s not gonna be easy there but… Is there any intentions on touring outside Iceland? Maybe in Finland with emerging bands like Atlas?
As far as touring goes it’s safe to say it’s not cheap nor easy given that we live on an island. The main thing is that it has to make fiscal sense. We expect little to no monetary gain, however we do have families we need to think about and therefore can’t spend all our money touring. As for Atlas, they are good friends of ours and we’d love to tour with them when the opportunity arises.
…and, for ending this moment with you guys, what does Aaru mean?
We went for a long time trying to think of a good band name. It’s quite the headache coming up with something cool that hasn’t been taken yet. Aron was looking into mythologies and stumbled upon Aaru which is the Egyptian mythology version of heaven basically. It also had two A’s in the beginning so if we ever played somewhere where they’d list the bands alphabetically, we’d be first.
It’s been a pleasure guys, I really wish you the best on your projects and, also, wishing to see you one day!
Cheers!!!
Etiquetas: Aaru, Aron Bragi Baldursson, Djent, Islandia, SWNPL
Even though Iceland is a land that has managed to give a lot to the heavy music world, with almost every single major metal genre having some well known band coming from this island, until not that long ago it was pretty safe to say that “Icelandic djent” was pretty far from being a thing. But with the ever-growing popularity of this style it was only a matter of time to end up having some Icelandic band playing it, and that was what happened with the guys behind Aaru, a band that recently released their debut LP SWNPL. So that’s why Daniel Escobar Díaz ended up talking with Aaru’s drummer and lyricist Aron Bragi Baldursson, to get to know the band and their music.
Hey guys, it’s a huge honor to having you here with us, a band that I’ve been following closer this last year, and finally, you brought us your new “SWNPL”. So, as my first question, tell me, Who are you? Which are the members of Aaru?
Aaru consists of two guitarists, Alexander Glói Pétursson (28) and Úlfar Alexander Úlfarsson (27), a drummer/lyricist, Aron Bragi Baldursson (32), and a bassist, Gauti Hreinsson (28).
Following your album release; what does “SWNPL” stand for?
For now we do not want to reveal what SWNPL stands for. It will be revealed in due time.
Then, tell us something more about your story; how and when did you met and started this project and which bands inspired you?
Glói and Aron went to the same school since we were children. We were both emo boys, listening to HIM and watching Viva La Bam. But at that time we knew of each other but didn’t really know each other. Then early 2014 Glói contacts Aron, asking if he’d be interested in working on some music. After working on a couple of songs they discussed starting a band. Glói knew some other musicians who could fill their respective roles. Then early 2015 we all met at a KFC in our hometown and had our first band meeting. The only remaining members of that original line-up are Aron and Glói. The original bassist dropped out and the guitarist (Úlfar) from another of Glói’s bands jumped in on bass. Alter a little while the other guitarist dropped out as well and Úlfar switched to the guitarist role. The vocalist of Glói’s other band, Gauti, then became the bass player of Aaru.
We have gone through two different vocalists. Snorri who was the original and Ient his voice to our first EP, Ozymandias, and Rúnar who you can hear perform on The Human Condition. For now we are just instrumental but have a competition/audition ongoing til the end of february to look for a new vocalist.
When we started Aaru Glói’s inspirations were bands such as Sentinel, Erra and Northlane (pre node). Aron had recently started listening to bands like Periphery and Tesseract. The original idea of Aaru was to make Progressive Metalcore music. Since then we have evolved our sound and the bands that have influenced us the most up until today consist of: Humanity’s Last Breath, Allt, Vildhjarta and Invent Animate.
YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ: Aaru – S.W.N.P.L (2024)
I know that nowadays, as a musician, it can be difficult to find your way to getting fans, as the number of bands it’s huge. What do you think is the clever way to build your path on music?
The biggest push we made to build a fanbase was when we started Thall Thursdays. Every thursday we’d release a clip of Glói and/or Úlfar playing a part we recently wrote. The guitarists would write in Guitar Pro, then we’d usually meet on mondays to record the music and then wednesdays to record the video and then release the day after. We have done over 120 of them. This was by far the biggest push for our music to get out there. As we live in Iceland, the metal scene here is small to say the least so it was always our intention to use social media to gain an audience outside the country. Thall thursdays was a lot of work but we had fun making them and seeing the steady growth of our audience was satisfying.
Also, I can say you are one of the first Icelandic bands that I listen to… Is it easy to form a band there? How’s the metal scene there?
We wouldn’t say it’s particularly easy to start a band in Iceland. The first hurdle being that there aren’t as many options as in bigger communities. A lot of musicians here are in multiple projects because of that. Also finding people that 100% agree on what kind of music to make is not easy. The metal scene overall is tight knit, small and everybody knows everybody. We feel there is however a lack of diversity in the types of metal being played. As an example of that Aaru were the first to play Djent and Thall in Iceland. And it remains so.
After discovering you with “The Human Condition” back on 2022, the vocals were one of my favorite aspects of the EP, also the lyrics; what made you choose a fully-melodic album instead of following the line that you did back in 2021 and adding vocals?
The main reason we didn’t have vocals on SWNPL is because we lacked the vocalist. We had to part ways with Rdnar in early 2023. But did not want to go too long without releasing music so the decision was made to do an instrumental album while we look for a new vocalist. We maintain that a large part of the appeal of Aaru is the instrumentals and therefore felt they could stand on their own for now. It was always the plan, and still is, to have vocals in Aaru and we are looking forward to find someone that’s excited to work with us.
We’re arriving to the end on this interview, and of course, I know touring it’s not gonna be easy there but… Is there any intentions on touring outside Iceland? Maybe in Finland with emerging bands like Atlas?
As far as touring goes it’s safe to say it’s not cheap nor easy given that we live on an island. The main thing is that it has to make fiscal sense. We expect little to no monetary gain, however we do have families we need to think about and therefore can’t spend all our money touring. As for Atlas, they are good friends of ours and we’d love to tour with them when the opportunity arises.
…and, for ending this moment with you guys, what does Aaru mean?
We went for a long time trying to think of a good band name. It’s quite the headache coming up with something cool that hasn’t been taken yet. Aron was looking into mythologies and stumbled upon Aaru which is the Egyptian mythology version of heaven basically. It also had two A’s in the beginning so if we ever played somewhere where they’d list the bands alphabetically, we’d be first.
