Iceland’s Kaleo Journey Across the Sea to Live the American Dream

Photo by Alexandra Valenti

When you were nine years old, the few things you cared about were Sega Genesis or catching a Disney channel movie on a Friday night. But the guys in the Icelandic quartet known as Kaleo were learning to speak English at that age.

“We learned English pretty early on,” says vocalist and guitarist JJ Julius Son over the phone. The 26-year-old actually has a pretty spot-on American accent, as his band started in their hometown of Mosfellsbaer in the southwest of Iceland, a 15-minute drive away from the country’s capital Reykjavik. Before making the trip across the pond to live in Austin, Texas, a little over a year ago, Kaleo started writing songs in 2013, which quickly attracted the attention and support from people throughout Iceland. In a matter of two years, the band became well-known in their home country, with heavy radio airplay and opportunities to show off their bluesy-acoustic folk and mix of rock and roll songs at music festivals in Europe and Iceland. Their success occurred so fast and early in the band’s career, and ultimately making the decision to move to the U.S. seemed like a bold arrangement. But Kaleo made it happen. They put in the extra effort to make it work.

While the momentum has continued in the U.S. for the past year, it’s been nothing but constant touring for Kaleo. Now, the guys are about to release their full-length Atlantic Records debut A/B. It riffs off classic vinyl sequencing, separating the record’s sound on each side like you’d flip over an album. Once you place the needle at the record’s edge on the A side, it’s nothing but powerful yet not so rushed standard rock and roll. The first five songs are adrenaline-enriched rock in its purest form. Once you flip the record to the B side, the last five tracks are slowed, acoustic-folk ballads, each presenting JJ’s aggressively delicate vocals that sound as if the musician was born and raised in America. The record stands as a perfect example of Kaleo having universality in good songwriting that works across countries.

We talk to JJ about growing up in Iceland, playing inside of a volcano and living in America.

NOISEY: Kaleo in Hawaiian means, “the sound” or “the voice.” Do any of you guys have a Hawaiian background?
JJ: We do not, that’s kind of the funny thing about it. We don’t really have a connection with Hawaii, whatsoever. It’s a volcanic island, I guess, like Iceland. We just really liked the name and the meaning and it got stuck pretty quick.

So out of anywhere in the world, why did you decide to move to Austin, Texas?
We thought it was logical to relocate to the states and we were looking at a few cities in the states. Austin seemed like a perfect spot and I wanted to be in the south. There’s a lot of music from there. It’s a great live music city and it also played a part that our management company is based out of there so it kind of helped us settle in as well.

What other cities were you looking at?
Nashville. We don’t know, we might relocate to Nashville, too. Those were the two we were really looking into.

Your initial trip from Iceland over to the U.S., what is that, like a 10-hour trip?
Usually we go to New York, which from Austin it’s like 3-4 hours. Then from New York to Iceland is about five and a half hours. It’s not too bad but it’s usually a full day of travel.

Your Icelandic song, “Vor í Vaglaskógi,” the translation of that is “spring in Vaglaskogur,” is that right?
Yeah, well, it’s spring and (comes from) the name of a forest in the north of Iceland. It’s originally a love poem that became a song in the 60s which was very much like a pop song in the 60s. I’ve always kind of loved the song growing up. So I did this kind of very different version and altered the melody a little bit on some of the chords and slowed it down to half tempo of what it used to be and made my own version of it which became really successful back home.

So you would say that you guys making this song your own was the starting point as far as attention for you?
Kind of in Iceland, I would say. We already had some radio play on some earlier songs but that was a big hit for us back home, which is funny enough because it’s the only song we do in Icelandic.

Why is that the only song in Icelandic on your new album?
I don’t really write music much in Icelandic.

Your album A/B, the first five songs are very rock-oriented where as the last five songs are very slowed down, acoustic and I wasn’t sure if this had any …
Yeah, exactly. That’s the concept, that’s my concept for why I call it A/B. I think of it as a vinyl back in the day when you had an A side and a B side.

That’s exactly what I thought with the title and the way the songs are in order.
We have very diverse songs and I write very different kinds of music and people label it, you know into genres and whatnot, but it was kind of a way to show both sides and show the diversity in that way and I came up with that concept A/B just like you said, man. At first, the A side is pretty much rock and roll-blues I would say and the B side is more of the ballads, more of the folk stuff.

Are you 25, 26?
Yeah, 26.

The album works because it seems like people in our generation are all about having vinyl records.
Exactly, it’s coming back. It’s probably going to be more popular than CDs in just a few years.

Hearing you sing, it sounds like you have a perfect American accent. How did you learn to speak and sing in English?
When I was growing up we didn’t have overdubs on TV so I would watch American cable back home. I think that’s kind of the way my generation really did learn and why we speak English as well as we do. Back home the computers at that time or your mobile phones, cable TV, everything at that time was in English and you just had to learn how to speak the language or understand it or be left out on a lot of things. That’s the big part in my opinion, but it’s different for every Icelandic musician that sings in English. Maybe the reason is that I did listen to a lot of blues and southern singers growing up and maybe that has something to do with the accent, I’m not quite sure, I guess.

What kind of southern music did you find yourself listening to at that time?
My dad had a huge vinyl collection and so I grew up listening to all of those that was mainly music from the 60s so I kind of got into the classic rock. Everyone in the band pretty much that’s how we connected at first. Exploring the 50s, 60s and 70s music and then dug deeper for Delta blues and soul.

You guys played inside of a volcano. Was this before or after you moved to the U.S.?
It was after moving to the states. It was exactly almost a year ago. We recently finished recording “Way Down We Go” at that point. I don’t think we realized how much trouble it was going to be. It is a live performance inside the volcano so we had to bring down all of the instruments and the lighting, and the cables. Luckily there was a power supply down there installed a few years ago so that made it easier.

Did you have any problems with anything?
I’d be lying if I said it was easy. Just standing there because it’s rocks so just standing alone was so hard. My back was just finished, you know, in trying to have the drums set up because there’s no even ground. You’re just trying to not fall and carrying all of the instruments and expensive cameras and stuff and everyone was always tripping. It was fun.

Yeah it looks fun. It’s crazy because you can actually see the steam coming off of your bodies while you performed down there.
It was actually freezing down there, too, like seriously cold.

Have you guys talked about wanting to play at another crazy spot?
Yeah, I think we’re going to have a video coming out this summer. We’re going to go back to Iceland, actually. I can’t really say what it’s going to be yet but hopefully it will work out. It’s quit extreme, as well. We’ll have to see how it goes.

Who knows, maybe one day you guys will be playing on the moon.
[Laughs] Hopefully, man. That wouldn’t be too shabby.

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