Interview mit Eivør

You have just released your live album “Eivør Live In Tórshavn”. How did you chose the songs for this release?
I recorded three shows in the Faroe Islands last year. They were all in the same venue, so I decided to record all three shows. And then I personally chose my favorite recordings. So I chose the songs from which versions and recordings I thought were the best, from the mood, from the way we played and how they came out.

Do you know which songs are your fans‘ favorites? Do you ask them sometimes?
I try to ask them sometimes on my social media, just because I’m curious. It always strikes me that it’s so different. Some people like some songs, some people like some other songs. I think my fans have their personal favorites.

Did you ever think about making a poll among the fans, like “Which tracks should I put on the next live album?“?
Maybe I should do that once. That would be a good idea actually to get the fans to choose the songs.

For this European tour, have you chosen more English songs? Or do you play a good mix of both?
I actually like to mix both, because I write songs both in English and in Faroese, and my last albums have been both in English and in Faroese, so on my tours I do quite a variety of songs in both languages, but we do a lot of Faroese songs on this tour.

For us in Germany it sounds more mystic, if you sing in languages like Danish or Faroese.
I noticed that my fans like it a lot if I sing in Faroese. It’s amazing because I think they don’t understand the lyrics. But I guess that music is such a universal language. Music is emotions and they come across, no matter what language you speak. So I think that’s a very beautiful thing.

Let’s take the song „Slør“ as an example. I received it a bit wrong. When I heard the original version, I thought you sing „Do you love me“, as a question. But in the English version you sing „You love me“.
In the original version it is the opposite. It was translated many times and I ended up with this version which is actually re-written. It says „Nobody can love you like I love you“ in the English one. In the Faroese one it says „Nobody loves me like you love me“.

So do you think it’s unfortunate that a bit of the original sense gets lost in the translation?
I have never tried that before to translate a whole album. And it was quite a journey because you meet so many challenges when you translate languages. It’s difficult to get all the metaphors and the language is such a big identity on its own. So when I worked on the translation with a translator, I decided to just completely open my mind again to the older songs and be open to do whatever I felt like is right. I thought of them as new songs, so that whatever works and sounds good would do. So for me it was just a kind of choice to let it be open to interpret the lyrics again. But I still kept the core of the songs which is about love. So all the songs have the deeper meaning in there, but some metaphors are switched a little bit.

Metal1.info is a metal magazine. And many metal fans know you mainly from your co-operation with Einar Selvik of Wardruna. How did you meet him and how did your co-operation start?
It was very interesting. I can say that actually my fans brought me to Wardruna. I didn’t know Wardruna before. And then I kept seeing on my sites that all my fans were always saying „You should work with Wardruna“, „You should work with Einar“, and I thought „Who is this?“ and I went to listen to the music. And I really loved it. Then I was playing a show in Sweden and Einar contacted me actually and asked whether he could come and join the show for fun and I said „Hell yes, come on!“ That was about a year ago by now. So that’s when we met the first time and since then we’ve been just really good friends, shared music and so on. And then he invited me to come join him on his US tour.

How was the audience on this US tour? I believe, to the Wardruna gigs a lot of different people come, like folk music fans, metal fans, etc.
Yeah, they have a very varied audience, I would say. They have metal fans and more folky fans and all kinds of types of people. And I love that, because I’ve seen that in my audience as well that it brings people from different cultures together. And I think Wardruna does that as well and that’s why we somehow stick together in a way.

Do you have a favorite song of them?
I always loved “Helvegen” of course. But I found new favorites among their new release. One of these new songs that I heard on this recent tours, reminded me of traditional Faroese music, like chain dances which sound a bit like chants. You chant the same thing again and again and it becomes a hypnotizing thing. I liked it a lot. It reminded me of my culture and I fell in love with that song. I have to find out what the title is.

Maybe you also like the pure percussion sounds?
Yeah, Einar builds his own drums and I’m very fascinated by this.

Where does your shaman drum originate from?
I bought it. I was into shamanic drums for the first time when I was in Norway, in Trondheim. I remember it so clearly. I had never played drums before. But I walked past a shaman who was building drums on the street. He was building these beautiful drums and it just caught my eye, so I bought a drum from him. I carried it home and it felt really naturally for me and I wrote my first drum song „Trollabundin“ on it shortly after that. And since then I had three other drums. But these drums I guess you don’t just find them in music shops. You have to go to a person who builds these things. I got one drum from Norway and two from Denmark.

I believe many of your songs have this frank or subtle sadness. And I remember in an older interview you quoted Nick Cave saying: „A love song is not really a love song until it has a sadness to it“. Is that correct?
I remember Nick Cave said all his songs are love songs. I like that. I think I agree. It’s like all these emotions in life: with great love comes great sorrow. If you love somebody you could actually prepare to get your heart broken one day, you know. So I think it’s true.

But even in times like now when everything in your life seems fine, your melodies are still heartbreaking…
I’ve always been drawn to sad love songs. I don’t know why. But also when I write songs, I like to work with contrasts. When I have a really happy love poem, then I write a very sad melody to it. And if I have a dark lyric, I write a more bright melody to it. It has something to do with the contrasts, I think. By playing with contrasts, it becomes bigger or goes deeper.

I’ve read that you like to paint. Have you thought about using one of your own paintings for the booklets artwork in your albums?
No, I haven’t. But maybe I should. I haven’t painted for a long time, though. I should start again.

Furthermore, I read that your father wrote little stories or poems. Is there one that sticks in your mind that you want to share with us?
My father has always been a big inspiration for me, from when I was a little girl. He was always writing poems. When I was a teenager and was dealing with all these heartbreaks, you know, when I had a really hard day, he would often write me a little poem which would be an uplifting poem, something with a little bit of hope. He would say something like that behind the clouds the sun is shining, this cloud would eventually disappear. He would write me little notes and little poems and that is still with me very strongly. And when I write lyrics, I think that I like to keep in my songs that little color of hope, even if the songs are often quite dark, having a little glimpse of light somewhere, a way out of the sadness.

Some time ago you wrote a song as an homage to Mother Theresa. Of course, Mother Theresa was trying to make this world a better place, but also she was questioning God before she died. I wonder if or how far „God“ has found any way into your music. Or are your roots completely heathen?
Although I grew up in a Christian home, I never felt attached to any religion. I’ve always seen religion as a tool that people use to get closer to „God“ or whatever that is, you know. As an artist those big questions of „Why are we here?“/“What’s going to happen?“ and all those big questions, that we ask ourselves, I think about these things a lot in my music, and that’s also what you reflect when you create your art, I guess. My Mother Theresa song was more like an inspiration. Like you said, she was questioning God and I think we all are in a way, no matter what our religion or believes are. The way I find a divine connection is not through religion, but it’s more through nature and reflecting on the universe, you know, the essential questions that pop up again and again. And it’s hard to grasp and you can’t really put your finger on it. You just know that it’s a miracle that we’re here. And for me that’s enough. It’s good to have these metaphors you can use to get closer to it.

Do you want to introduce your current live line up for this tour?
Since my three last albums we have the same band. We are four people, one sound engineer and two members with me on stage. The bass player is called Mikael Blak and the drummer is called Høgni Lisberg. We’ve known each other ever since I was a teenager. The first band I played in (I must have been around 13 year old), was with my drummer actually. And later on we played in a rock band called Clickhaze. I believe I was about 16 when we founded that band. We were eight people in that band, so it was very difficult to write music together. We all had such strong opinions about everything. It took ages to get a song done, because we never agreed on anything. But it was a great band because we were all so different. What came out of it, was quite unique, to my opinion. When we finally managed to get along with everything, then unfortunately the band split up at one point. But later in my life I got together with the drummer and the bass player again. We’ve been touring together now for years. It’s nice to play with people who really know you. There’s a very deep connection between us when we play together.

What are you working on right now?
I’m a bit manic when it comes to working on music. Actually the past two years I’ve been reflecting and working on my upcoming album which will be out in 2019 and I’ve written a lot of songs.

So the recent live album was just a bonus?
Yes. This is more like a celebration of what’s been going on the fast few years. A few years ago I did another live album. It often happens when I feel I’m done with a certain period of creativity. I think this album symbolizes that as well, that past four or five years of touring. This is like the stamp I’m putting on it before I do my next album which will be different from my last one. After this tour I’m going to choose the songs, because I have written about 40 songs. So I will take my ten favorites to go on my next album and I’m planning to finalize it in January/February 2019.

How many songs have you written over the years that are in your archives that have not been published?
Probably many. I write a lot of songs that I don’t release.

Have you thought about giving them to other artists? To new, upcoming artists or so?
Yeah, maybe I should. I have thought about it. I just haven gotten to it yet. I haven’t done much of this like writing for other artists. Maybe I should. It’s crazy to have so many songs laying around. The song writing is so much different from playing live. It’s like two completely different things for me. In the song writing phase I’m always very depressed, I don’t know why. But I think it’s just the struggle to write songs. Sometimes it takes me a long time to really be satisfied with them and to feel that they are completed. And often I don’t even know what to feel about them before I play them in front of an audience. It has something to do with communication that music does. Like you asked me about a proper love song. I wouldn’t know before I get the reflection back from my audience. They are like my mirror. A song doesn’t really come alive until it meets its audience.

Do you sometimes cry to your own songs, when you write or sing them?
It doesn’t happen often that I cry to my own songs. I would have to be very, very sad. But I remember when my father died eight years ago, when I had a tour right after, that was very hard, because every song I sang reminded me of him somehow. And I think that’s what I feel if the power and the quality of a good song can be about all of us. It’s not my song anymore, it can be your song, it can be someone else’s story as well. I think when you go through difficult times in your life, you can see yourself in many songs. That’s the beauty of music. That’s why I love music so much.

These were great last words. Thank you so much.
Thank you.

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