Earlier this year, the Faroese Funeral Doom band HAMFERÐ released their third full-length album after six years. Back in april they played a release show in Sjónleikahúsið, the old theater in Tórshavn. Originally I wanted to do the interview back then, yet we didn’t manage to fit it into our schedules. But in July I was back on the rugged islands for G! Festival, where HAMFERÐ were on the billing as well. So that was the perfect opportunity to do the interview. While the grey, thick fog and a slight drizzle were covering the bay and the village of Syðrugøta and the sound of the waves, that run onto land just a few meters away, mixed with the distant sound from the stages at the festival, we were sitting in the comfortable living room of guitar player Theodor Kapnas, talking about the not that new anymore album and the misfortunate Grind back in 1915 the album is about [for more info about that, see my album review (and use google translate, if needed)]. We were joined by keyboard player Esmar Joensen and drummer Remi Kofoed Johannesen.

As a first question I ask them when the works on the album started and how much their new member Eyðun [Í Geil Hvannastein, guitar] was involved in the songwriting. And while Remi can't really recall when they started, Theodor has all the information in his phone and looks it up.

Theodor: I know exactly. The first demo was done in 2019, with the first ideas of “Marrusorg”.

Remi: And that was before Eyðun joined. But in other songs, like “Abær” or “Í Hamferð”, Eyðun was heavily involved. “Also in “Fendreygar””, adds Esmar.

Theodor: We started in 2019, we worked on the songs for like three or four years, sporadically, on and off, because there was obviously Covid in the middle so we couldn’t all meet at the same time. Everybody was involved with writing the record, it was a pretty collaborative effort, but concerning the core ideas for the songs: Eyðun had a few, I had a few. Everybody was involved and Eyðun was a big creative part for the record.

Anne: So would you say his influence is one of the reasons for the changes on the album?

Esmar: I would say yes, in some parts. I mean, he brought in his style and I think it shows. In some of the songs at least.

Remi: Eyðun brings of course his own creative input and creative ideas, but I also think that we intentionally tried to write something that differed from the earlier releases. So I think it’s a bit of both.

Theodor: A friend of Remi commented on one of the tracks that you could hear very clearly Eyðuns new influence on the record, and that track Eyðun wasn’t involved in writing. There are definitely some of the post elements he came up with and he came up with some of the riffier stuff, but there is a lot of new stuff on the record that stems from all of us.

Anne: How did the writing process happen? Did you meet and write together or do you write like a whole song at home and present it to the others?

Theodor: It was mostly based on ideas. We wrote riffs and melodies, mostly me and Eyðun, to begin with and then we usually send them to Remi [Remi lives in Denmark, not on the islands] who writes drums and rhythms for it and then we put it together. For the older albums we usually had the songs very close to finished before we recorded them, but for this album we had raw songs - we wrote songs, but unfinished songs and then the six of us met up, and we played them together and finalized the arrangements and everybody gave his details to it. So we turned it more into a band record, to get a bit the collaborative feeling in the rehearsal space and they were finished in the studio.

Anne: The songs are now shorter than on your previous albums. Was this a conscious decision or did it just happen?

Theodor: It just happened. I mean, especially the last record, “Támsins Likam”, was very focused on being one cohesive piece of music and on taking time with the different atmospheres and not rushing through it. Whereas on the last one we all wanted to concentrate the ideas a little bit more, maybe with a little bit simpler songs. I don’t know if they ended up being simpler but they were based on simpler ideas. I think it is a natural effect of that, that the songs are also a bit shorter.

Remi adds that they didn’t try so much to write an album, but to write songs, that would work independently, and they were writing them without thinking about how they would work in the context of the rest of the songs. They also tried not to “overwork” the songs and when they had the feeling that a song was complete, it just ended. While doing so they didn’t really care how long that particular song was.
I express that I had the impression, that “Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk” in a way is both harder and darker than the previous albums, and in parts also faster, but at the same time there are much softer moments so I feel like there is an even greater range of atmospheres and moods than on the previous albums.

Theodor: Glad to hear. I think we intentionally set out to make songs which were different from each other. “Támsins Likam” was set up to have songs as different movements of one piece of music. So I think it’s a natural consequence of that, that the songs are more different. We were also maybe a little bit more experienced as a band and cared a little bit less about what it was “supposed to sound like”, so in “Hvølja” for example, we just pushed it to the maximum and we didn’t really care that we probably took it a little bit too far. And then we also have some really soft passages. I think it works really well for the album.

Remi: I think a lot of us, or at least me, personally, like listening to albums with a lot of dynamics in them. So if someone would say “That song isn’t metal” that doesn’t really matter. It’s just a HAMFERÐ-Song. So it can be whatever intensity we think it should be as long as we communicate some kind of emotion.

Anne: You recorded all the songs on the album live. Why did you choose to do that?

Remi: Again to get the band-like expression.

Theodor: First and foremost, we are a live band. HAMFERÐ songs are not individual qualities of certain band members but it’s the six of us playing together. At least for me. That’s the strongest thing which I get out of the band. With the older albums we’ve had a creative process where we had one person at a time being in the studio. And you don’t get the same given take between the musicians as you do in a live setting when you’re just recording one at a time. We have done a few live recordings, we recorded concerts and stuff like that [just remember their live videos during the solar eclipse or from the world’s only roundabout beneath the ocean] and it always grows. I mean I often prefer those versions over the album versions. Because it feels like the songs develop in a more natural way. So we wanted to harness that on the record. We wanted to make a record that sounds like the way we sound when we play together and not a bunch of tracks recorded one by one.

Anne: Would you say that was easier or harder to do than the other way?

Theodor: Easier. Way easier actually. But again, I think if we were like 20 and this was our first record and we were a little bit nervous, have a little bit more performance anxiety it would have been harder. But we are old and grey, we don’t give a shit anymore. Which I think makes the music better. And it’s not true. Of course we care. But the whole imperfections in it is what makes it exciting to listen to, in my opinion.

Anne: When and how did you decide to make an album about an actual happening and not about a fictional story?

Esmar: That is something that has always been on my mind since I am from the place where this accident happened and it has always been a dream of mine to give it life in some artistic way. And I think I showed the idea to Jón [Aldará, singer] many years ago and he was really into it and now that we finished our trilogy of albums - the story is concluded - it was the perfect time to work on that concept.

Anne: On this album you have for the first time a song that bears your name. Did you want to make a song about Hamferð or was the occasion that there were so many documented cases of Hamferð on this special event a reason to write a song about it?

Esmar: Well, I mean the lyrics are of course written by Jón, but I think absolutely that they are inspired by this happening because there were a lot of people that saw other people in Hamferð [for the explanation, what Hamferð is, see my album review. It’s only in German, but google translate will help].

Theodor adds, that there are some really interesting stories around this specific event and asks me if I heard the radio show about it. So we end up talking for some time about this very interesting radio show that was aired in 2015 by the national radio station to commemorate the centenary of the accident. If you speak Faroese, you should definitely listen to it, it can still be found on the broadcasters homepage. In that show they talk about what was happening, they had an interview with one of the survivors, that was recorded back in 1958 and also with other people. In the show they also mention several people that have seen people in Hamferð and it is really interesting, as Esmar agrees on.

Anne: I think the whole topic of Hamferð is very interesting. Why do you think it is so frequent on the Faroes that it has its own name? I mean, it occurs in other countries as well, but it doesn’t have a name.

Esmar: The Faroes are really disconnected from everywhere else and we are a nation of sailors where the oceans are really rough and it has been really common back in the day that men drowned. I think it is also a way to process grief, maybe to be able to say a last goodbye. See them appear in front of you so you can say your last goodbye to them. I think that comes with the territory and the sea being that treacherous - or at least used to be.

Theodor: I think it is - like most mythology and probably religion as well - based on some sort of human coping mechanisms and of course, as Esmar said, the Faroese are a seafaring nation. A group of islands in the middle of the north Atlantic which is pretty bleak during winter and the weather can get pretty rough and this story from Sandvík is one of many stories of the same kind, where whole villages are affected and death is a very natural part of everyday life. I think that’s not just a seafaring thing, that’s a general thing in small communities. It’s still like that today in the Faroes. If there’s an accident, somebody knows that person or knows somebody who knows that person and it affects the whole society in a different way from big metropolitan cities. I think that manifests itself in the soul of a society. And I think mythology and stories like that are a natural part of it.

Esmar: As Theodor said, it is a coping mechanism for the terrible grief that follows loosing someone.

Anne: There have been many disasters in the Faroe Islands over the ages, as you said, and often people wrote songs or poems about it. So are you with this album ranging a bit in that tradition?

Theodor: Not consciously, but I guess. I don’t think people have written songs about tragedies because other people have done it before, but it’s a nicer way to process.

Anne: Yes, it’s also a coping thing.

Theodor: I can’t speak for you Esmar, it obviously still affects Sandvík to this day, but for me it is more of an interesting, fascinating, historical event. And not something which is felt in everyday life. I mean it is a different time now.

Anne: Those poems and songs that people wrote about other disasters are often very directly and you know exactly what they are talking about but you choose to have your lyrics more poetic or more general so you can understand them in different ways.

Theodor: Especially for this album it was really important that it is not factual, it’s not even an attempt of being a factual representation of what actually happened. The songs are inspired by different fictional events that Jón has shaped around how he imagined that an event like this would be like. It is like taking different samples of before and after and how it affects the people. But the actual happening has been so recent - I mean the daughter of one of the survivors is still Esmars neighbor in Sandvík - I think to try to use it factually and turn it into a proper historic work would still be risky. You might represent it in a wrong way and it could seem like we disrespect it. Therefore we were pretty careful and cautious with how we approached the storytelling aspect of it.

Remi: We wanted to avoid… It could easily mistakenly become exploitative whenever you are dealing with a historical tragedy. Like, you know, monetizing. We really wanted to avoid all that. We spoke about different methods of how to approach it and this was what we settled on, so to speak. And I think we are pretty happy with how it turned out.

Theodor: The people seem to have taken it the right way and appreciate that we’ve done it the way we have. So that is really cool.

Anne: There are also already existing songs about this event. I actually wanted to ask if you considered doing some sort of cover of one of those, but I think you just answered that question.

Theodor explains that there are at least two songs that are written directly about the event. There is a recording of these songs, sung my Niels Mørk, the survivor who was interviewed in the radio show, but they were not included in the show. But for those interested: It is still possible to find them on the net and listen to them. “It was pretty emotional to hear him sing the songs in the recording” recalls Theodor. He says, he didn’t know about these songs before he heard them, but he also thinks it wouldn’t have worked because they do not have the right kind of vibes. Which I agree to. Also, the songs are very long. Esmar adds, that those are the songs that Petur í Køkini, one of the survivors who lost both his son and his brother in the accident, has written them as his way of processing. “So no, we haven’t really thought about that”, he says.

Anne: For the first time you also provided translations for the lyrics. Why did you finally do it and how hard was it to translate the lyrics?

Remi: We wanted to do it, for all the earlier albums as well. I don’t know what the process of translating them was, but I can imagine that it wasn’t that straight forward, because in the Faroese lyrics there are words you would not use in every day speaking. Laughingly he adds: “I don’t really understand all of them.”

Anne: I checked them and thought I would have translated them differently. But then again my Faroese is of course not as good as yours.

Remi: It’s always hard to translate some sort of poetic language to a different language. It can have multiple meanings and/or implied meanings and all the kind of stuff. And the more or the less direct the words originally are, the harder it is to translate everything. I don’t know if Theodor has any input on that topic. Where you involved in the translating?

Theodor: No, not really. I think - at least for me - the most important part to translate was the excerpt from the interview for the last song on the record, “Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk”. We put the song, with the edit of the interview with the survivor Niels Mørk, last to give some sort of context to the whole record. Especially as the songs are just loosely based on the event and they are written in a poetic language. You know, it’s all good for us to have a meaning and special ideas behind it but sometimes it gets too stuck in our own heads and it doesn’t really translate to the listener. But this one, both with putting this song last and with translating the lyrics we wanted to give the listener, or the audience, an actual chance to understand what the songs are about.

Remi: As a context for the music.

Anne: Up until today fishermen die doing their job. Of course not as often anymore as it used to happen. But how present is this topic in the Faroese society today?

Theodor: It still happens. This year there was a ship that sank and two men drowned.

Esmar: We have an annual day to remember those who died at sea. That says a lot as well.

Theodor: It’s obviously not as day to day present as it used to be. The ships are better and the rescue is better and usually things don’t end up going wrong. But the ocean is still pretty rough at times.

Anne: I thought it was kind of a weird thing that just two days after the release of “Abær” that fishing vessel sank where the two fishermen died. I mean, you did an album about it and then it just happened again.

Theodor: A couple of years ago there was another one which sank within an hour. In that case everybody survived. A friend of mine, who lives in the next village, was onboard, and he said they just took the survival vests, jumped in the ocean and got picked up by the closest vessel. It happens.

Anne: How were the reactions of the Faroese people and was it different from the reactions of the rest of the world? I mean, can the Faroese people relate more to the topic of the album?

Esmar: Yes.

Theodor: I think so. I think probably in Suðuroy as well.

Esmar: I personally haven’t heard that much feedback. But overall, I mean, what the people have been saying is that they received it pretty well.

Theodor: Yes, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. I don’t know if it’s just because everybody is being nice. But no, it’s been well received and I think, musically it is just as easy to understand when you’re from somewhere else, but the whole theme and the historical part, the storytelling part of it is… We try to describe it for an outsider audience, but I think it speaks deeper to people who are from here. And also in Iceland, they have the same experiences. On the North Atlantic fishermen’s islands, those stories are a part of our cultural heritage.

Anne: How personal is this specific happening to you?

Esmar: I am from the village where this tragedy happened and there are people still alive who are children of the survivors. And that’s pretty recent to think about it. I think people still talk about it in a sort of tones. It is still something that is a bit sore for people. Still sort of an open wound in some ways. It has a huge presence in my town at least. It’s something that people talk about. With a deep respect. That’s also why I wanted to do something about that story.

Anne: I think it’s very impressive and also very intense to have an actual eyewitness speaking on the album, although it happened so long ago but at the same time I think many non-faroese speakers will not really get it if they don’t make the effort to check the lyrics and check the translation.

Esmar: I think it was just really important for us, too, to have that track on the album. Because that ties the whole thing together for us.

Theodor: It makes the album better. And if it makes it a little bit harder for people to digest then so be it - we’re not a pop band. I think it makes the art stronger and sometimes that just makes it harder for people to get. But I mean, if people are interested – all the info is there, so you can definitely get it.

Remi: I, personally, have read a couple of the reviews and the common negative critic that I have read has been regarding the last track where people say: “Ah it’s spoken word, it’s boring” and those kind of things and that is their opinion and that’s perfectly fine. But like Theodor said, I think that track is one of the most important tracks on the album for me and one I am the most proud of. I mean, I had very little to do with it, but I think it is one of the best tracks on the album. And I think a big part of why some people do not connect to it is because if you don’t understand a word, you are not reading the translation, then of course it’s just some guy talking over a guitar. It gains all of its weight and emotion from the words and the context. So if you don’t have that I get the critic. But that’s the most important track on the album, for me personally.

Anne: How hard was it to pick the parts you choose for the album?

Theodor: For me that was the hardest part of doing the album. I did the edit, I think I spend like a day doing it, cutting down 45 minutes to around 5 minutes which are – well, it’s pretty intense stuff. If this would be a death metal album and it would be an interview from a movie and not from real life, it would have been a different edit. But it was really important to us to make it tactful. So it is as little gory as possible and more a matter of facts. And yes, it took a few edits. First a few edits to get it down and than a few edits to switch some stuff out to turn it into the final version and I think the end result works really well.

I also want to know if the waves that can be heard on this track are recordings of the actual beach in Sandvík. Theodor explains that they are recorded in Klæmintsgjógv. “The world’s largest sea cave!” [under/inside the island of Hestur], he adds with a slight hint of pride. He also says that this is the place where they will go and play a concert once again next week. “Hopefully!” I answer as I have bought my ticket for that show a long time ago but I am well aware of how easily those kind of concerts, where you have to take a boat to sail into the cave where the concert takes place, have to be cancelled due to the weather. And alas, I was right, a few days later the concert got cancelled. That was my third attempt to see HAMFERÐ in a sea cave and it failed for the third time. But back to the interview: Remi amends that the waves, although from Klæmintsgjógv and not from Sandvík, were recorded by Theodor himself. Theodor explains that he recorded them with his cellphone when he and Jón played a concert there. “modern technology!”

Anne: What I found interesting is the interpretation that people put in “Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk”. I mean on the words. Because I read some reviews and everybody saw it as very positive but I, personally, understood it as pretty negative. Also because he says later that there is often a difference between what people wanted to do and how it turns out in the end. So I think it’s rather negative. How do you see it?

Remi: For me, if I remember all sections correctly - and I speak for myself - I find it ambivalent. And that is what I like about it. Because it is both. It was the hand of God that created the storm, but it was also the hand of God that rescued those who survived. All parts of it can be seen through that lens. Neither is wrong in my opinion.

Esmar: I would see it a little bit - and I also speak for myself - that this phrase is how people somehow try to find hope in the darkest times in their lives. They still somehow try and I don’t want to say turn it over, but try to see it in some positive way, too. For your own sanity’s sake I guess.

Theodor: If you listen to the whole interview with Niels Mørk, it’s very candid and a matter of fact when he speaks about the bad things but he gets clearly emotionally gripped when he talks about the boat that survived. So it’s clear that his strongest emotional memory from it - at least for me - is the way he speaks about it, the strongest emotion is the miracle that those men survived. Not the tragedy that the other men died. So in such a tragedy, that somebody still sees a miracle is quite fascinating.

Anne: So is that also the reason why you picked those words from all of the things he said for the album title?

Esmar: I think those words really stick out. And it’s also a pretty cool title.

Theodor: It sounds cool, I think.

Remi: I think it also contains an element of the futility of man. There are forces beyond what we can control. That can be seen as the hand of god or whatever. You can see it as a metaphor or as a religious statement or negative or positive. I think it works on many layers. And it’s all correct in my opinion.

Anne: Your release concert back in April was recorded. Will there be a Live-DVD or something like that? Or what was it recorded for?

Theodor: It was recorded by a friend of Esmar who does video, he recorded from a few angles and we multi-tracked it from the desk. I don’t know if we do anything with it. Maybe do a few songs for the internet. I don’t think there will be a DVD. I think I can pretty confidently say that there won’t be a DVD, unless DVD is gonna come back. You can see it on Disney +, in the middle of September! [Hey, I know I am old and behind when it comes to technology, you didn’t have to point it out that explicitly!].

Remi: We never spoke about any physical media release, but we had some discussions about what to do with it. And it has a lot to do with how it is tied up and how much work it would be to get it done and all those kinds of evaluations. But I think some of it will be released.

Theodor: At some point at least.

Anne: My last question isn’t really a question but I, personally, found it interesting. I read the article that Gunnar Sauermann has written for Metal Hammer Germany and he was comparing the impact that this accident had on the society with mining accidents in Germany. As I come from a mining region I found that really interesting due to I always thought that the Faroese society is pretty similar to my society because we have kind of a similar background. Because in former times men did a very dangerous work where accidents could easily happen. In mining it could happen that dozens of men died at the same time and it was the same situation back then. Whole villages could lose their men and also you were dependent on others. You can’t do mining alone, you can’t do fishing alone. You need other people to survive. And I think that creates a special kind of society. I found it interesting that he saw it in a similar way.

Remi: Off course these kinds of turbulent smaller villages or societies aren’t exclusive to fishing or seafaring places. If it’s mining or - I don’t know there are lots of other dangerous occupations - people doing oiling is also very hazardous… But I think, as you say, the societal impact is the same, so to speak. It’s the same nervousness or precarious relationship we had with life and death.

Anne: But also the will to share things...

Remi: Yes, to embrace each other in a different way.

Theodor: We live in pretty easy times in the Faroes now and the society has been pretty sanitized, but...

Anne: ...you can still feel it.

Theodor: Yes, you can still feel it, but you have mining, you have fishing, you have stuff like disease, war, famine... which have affected people throughout the ages.

Anne: I also found it interesting that in my region, there are also songs written about mining accidents. So that’s also a parallel. And I just found this quite interesting and it fitted to my feeling I had for years, that our societies are not that different and it feels somehow closer than other regions of Germany.

Theodor: This melancholy, where you truly can’t take anything for granted, where you have to live through hardship – it does something with the art and the tone of the music. Which for me is a perfect balance between sadness and beauty and dissonance and harmony.

Esmar: I would say that a lot of Faroese music has a hint of melancholy.

Theodor: Yes, definitely.

Esmar: It’s the Faroese - whatever you call it - spirit or soul; it is part of us and it is something that is still…

Theodor: There is not enough sunshine for happier songs.

Remi: I was also going to say: Part of it is just a practicality. It’s raining. It’s dark. It is an a bit more depressive atmosphere than maybe in Italy.

Anne: And you can hear that in many musical styles, even in Faroese pop music.

Esmar: Exactly.

Remi: I, personally, have always gravitated towards melancholic art of all forms, so I don’t know if that is from culture or from nature, but I think it’s a general Faroese thing. Or not just Faroese, also Scandinavia and many places and many people.

We finish the interview and I am glad and thankful that HAMFERÐ took the time to sit down with me and have this super interesting conversation. Now I will go back to the festival and enjoy the other bands while I really look forward to the HAMFERÐ gig later that evening. (Anne)