I Adapt
Interview update (2012): I Adapt was an Icelandic hardcore band. They have been quite popular in Iceland’s underground hardcore and punk music community and have relied mainly on live shows to increase their fanbase. The band has played countless local shows and made five Euro tours and two US tours. Their last tour was in the US in October, 2007. The band played their last ever show on February 2, 2008.
Who is in I Adapt, and how did you all get together?
It’s Villi Molotov on bass(he looks like a Zulu man), Ingi plays guitar and so does Axel the Nutt and Smari hits drums. Birkir sings and yells.
Birkir: It was my idea to put together an Icelandic HC band that really sounded HC, if you know what I mean. I had had this idea for a couple of years but I never found the right people to do it with. One sunny day I found out that one of my best friends (Axel) knew how to play the guitar at the same time as we were having the frequent discussion about a a lack of band in the Iceland scene that played a in a really evident HC manner. We were so thriled that we had “found each other” hehehehe, that we started writing songs together and plotted on finding the right people to play with us, wich we did.
First one to play the drums was Bjossi who plays drums for the critically aclaimed progressive hardcore extremists Minus. He´s one of our best friends and he helped us out getting the band started and to play the first two shows but he had to quit because Minus had so many things going on. Ingi comes from an incredible forward thinking metalcore band called Snafu. We loved his playing style and attitude and asked him to come along and he said yes. Thank god! Now our good friend Smari is playing the drums. Andi Villi, well never mind the Villi.
Villi: I was going to Reykjavík from my small hometown for a few months and I wanted to play some punky hardcore stuff for fun. I hooked up with them to help them out until they could find someone else but I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t want to leave the band. They seem to be happy enough with my performance. Since then my enthusiasm for this band has grown so much. It feels great to be in my own favorite band.
Describe the bands music.
Birkir: It´s really energetic hardcore with lot of hooks and a dash of melodies and the occasional heavy breakdowns. We have fast parts and mid-tempo ones but we try to keep things fresh and interesting and that really comes naturally cos of our other involvements in hc and metal in Iceland and seeing that we are into all kinds of stuff.
Ingi is really big on all things extreme and metal and Axel is big on simple HC and punk. So we’ve got a lot of things thrown into the mix from everybody that gives us hopefully the I Adapt edge. the I Adapt sound if you will.
You have some video footage up on a website, are you getting any reactionto that?
Birkir: Well we haven´t gotten any reactions from having our video linked to your site but it is on a Icelandic site too, called Hardkjarni(http://www.dordingull.com/hardkjarni) and people here have been checking it out and trying to figure out the words to that song(It’s All It Is) and asking us about that. That is awsome. We hope that the people that read Hardcore Times will check it out!
Who are your biggest influences and who are you listening to now?
Birkir: As far as influences in our music go we like the spirit and approach of Sick Of It All, Bane, Stretch Armstrong, Raised Fist, Strife, Kid Dynamite, Brothers Keeper, Converge, By The Grace Of God, Avail, Snafu, Reach The Sky, Harvest and a lot of stuff hehehe. But we´re all for the power and aggression and try to keep ourselves and the audience on their toes. What I’m listening to a lot right now is Thursday, Snafu, Kid Dynamite, Hold Regained(from Germany, awsome band!), Martyr AD, Twelve Tribes, AFI. Face To Face, The Anniversary, Jazz June, Burn It Down and of course Sick Of it All amongst other things. Oh yeah. India Arie, she is so beautiful in her music!
Villi: At the moment I’m listening to Stampin’ ground a lot, Poison the well, SnaFu, Earth Crisis, Vigspa (an Icelandic metal band), Bad Brains, Propagandhi, Boy sets fire, Lack (a danish HC band), the new Sick of it all album and lots of old punk like Crass, minor threat, Dead kennedy’s and so on.
You have plans to do a demo – tell us about this – how will you be releasing it…….
Birkir: Well we have´t practiced for a while but things are rolling again right now and we are gonna practice and play a lot. We’ll add 2 or 3 new songs to our set and then we´ll record the stuff when we feel we´re tight enough.
Villi: This should happen shortly. We are so anxious to get it out on the streets but we want it to be good quality so we want to rehearse well before it. We will probably release it in some sort of co-operation with Hardkjarni records. It will sound good so hopefully we’ll be able to sell it abroad. Our second ever gig will probably be on a live comp cd which is in the pipeline but will only be limited to 100-200 copies.
Whats your favourite movie at the moment?
Birkir: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (or was it the other way around hehehehe).
Villi: Once Were Warriors, it’s a classic by now.
What 3 bands/albums are your favourites and why?
Villi: Stampin’ ground’s “an expression of repressed violence” is one of my all time favorites, the best mixture of metal and hardcore so far. Kiss “alive” for making me a rock fan at the age of 7 and it’s just the best live album of all time. Sepultura “Arise” was the album that got me away from glam metal and into the hard stuff.
Birkir: Iron Maiden “Killers” for getting me(age 6) into their world and everything metal(I will never be the same again) and for making me a musical fanatic! I got it from my uncle when I was 5. Sick Of It All “Just Look Around” for getting me into hc and making me “see the light” hehe. The Exsploited’s “Punks not Dead” album for showing me at a young age that there was more to aggressive music than metal. But I gotta say Shay that this question is just totally impossible hahaha!!
Are there many hardcore/punk bands in Iceland? Whats the hardcore/punk like?
Birkir: There are tons of bands! They play diffirent music but most of them are doing all kinds of metal(death, black, grind, noisy stuff etc.). There are some punk bands that aren´t that active at the moment, wich is a shame. Then there are bands that lean to the hc side of things in a modern context like us, Minus, Klink, Snafu and some others. And there is this killer new metal whatever band called Andlat. If you like Disembodied and Obituary, you ‘re gonna love them.
Villi: The Scene here is great. For a country with only 270.000 people we get a lot of people to gigs. When only local bands are playing there might be up to 300 kids there. It is also beautiful because there are no divisions. At the same gig you get grindcore, black metal and hardcore bands and the crowd is equally goths and skatepunk kids and there are never ever fights or brawls. There is also no petty differences between Straight edge kids and drinkers. Everyone here seems to know that it’s all about having fun and respects each others individual choices.
Birkir: It’s like the majority of the people understand that because of how small our country is we can´t afford to fuck things up by splitting the hard music scene into some stupid divisions. That´s why we got all kinds of music going on and you can sometimes see I Adapt play with a black metal band on some night´s. That´s what keeps the scene healthy and interesting. It´s all good and people favour positive over some negative crap. Sure we have the the occasional rotten aples and your standard dicks but they don´t stand a chance!! Suckers, hehehehe!
What to you guys do away from the band?
Birkir: I play in two others bands called Stjornukisi and the larger than life rock band Thundergun. I work three other jobs(garbageman, cleaning floors.) and I write a lot about music. I, Axel and Villi are also active in an newly formed anti facist/rasist organization that´s gonna be doing a lot in the future. I also do a distro here. I clean kittie litter boxes.
Villi: I drive stuff hehehe. I work as painter and decorator and occasionally drive busses and women crazy. I´m bringing Stampin Ground over in July. I stink. I write some about music and politics. I play bass for Vigspa(temporarely) and Lether Beezt.
Like Ireland not many foreign bands play Iceland, when a band does play whats the turn out and reaction like?
Birkir: Sometimes some big bands are brought over here like Rammstein, Suede, Bloodhound Gang and the more commercial stuff like that. Then everybody goes out to those big concerts. We rarely get hc and punk bands over. We got the gods Sick Of It All!! In ’99 and that show was so amazing. It was huge with over 700 people. Fugazi played a great show here and so did Length Of Time. We hardly get any HC/punk bands over here. almost never. Hopefully that will change. Stampin’ Ground are coming in July and that’s gonna be crazy! When these bands play here the atmosphere is just beautiful and people go off. Those bands mentioned were just awe struck by the reactions here. People are into these live shows.
Upcoming plans?
Villi: We are starting to rehearse a lot to get ready for the demo and to play the 2 year birthday of Hardkjarni as well as any other gig we can get ourselves on. Hopefully we will be able to release some stuff on foreign labels as well and we want to try to play somewhere else than Iceland so if anyone is interested in bringing us over then we are game.
Birkir: Yeah. These recordings will hopefully serve as a pretty good d.i.y. release. Other than that we just wanna play in every toilet anywhere. And spread our jolly disease.
The final words are yours
Birkir: Thanx to Hardcore-Times and Shay for doing this interview! Hopefully we´ll make some friends in Ireland. And big high-5’s to everybody that go to shows all over the world and support the music! Also we’d like to thank all our friends in Iceland that support I Adapt and to the whole FMC world wide!! Stay positive and dance hard.
Villi: thanks so much for showing interest in our band and our scene and don’t forget to check out other great Icelandic bands atwww.dordingull.com
Birkir: contact us at: I_Adapt_HC@yahoo.com
Thanks to Birkir and Villi for the interview.