Music
Interview
Stage Times: Of Monsters and Men
From playing a mini Icelandic Sodom to rocking a supercharged crowd in Brazil, we’re flipping through the pages of OMAM’s gig history
It’s just a couple of weeks before All Is Love And Pain In The Mouse Parade, Of Monsters and Men’s fourth album, drops; and anticipation is in the air as we catch up with the band’s lead guitarist Brynjar Leifsson. It’s OMAM’s first record in six years, one that finds different members with young families and various solo projects – a much-needed break that, ultimately, made their ties grow stronger.
“We always love to have the isolation. Iceland is our free space, our fortress of solitude,” shares Brynjar, still catching his breath after dropping his kids off to kindergarten. “When we go abroad on tour it’s just another life that we have. It’s really important to us to have this place here that we can be ourselves and have normal lives.” Now, they’re eager to embark again on a UK record store tour upon the album’s release before an extended tour in February 2026, including two dates at the Roundhouse.
That sense of rebirth, community and nostalgia that inevitably comes with time and big life changes, is ripe for exploration on this album. It’s been 14 years since their signature “Little Talks”, from their lauded debut My Head Is An Animal, blew up, bringing their richly layered, bittersweet alternative folk-rock to audiences across Europe, the US and beyond. Self-produced in their Icelandic studio, their new LP is very much a family business in the literal and figurative sense: “I think it gave us more room to experiment and home in on the details of what our sound is,” Brynjar explains. “We were always checking in with each other that we weren’t getting carried away and some nonsense. Because you can work on every song to death, just trying out stuff that doesn’t add anything to it.”
‘Dream Team’ fittingly appears in the Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell new romantic fantasy film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey and, across 12 more tracks, the band go through stagnation and renewal, embracing the chaos and giving free rein to their imagination. At over eight minutes, the key-laden ‘Fruit Bat’ is probably the longest, and one of the most evocative songs they’ve ever done.
Between playing big festivals and beachfront local stages, the touring life has gifted Of Monsters and Men with some truly unforgettable, and some admittedly strange moments. Let’s dive in.
The gig that made you want to be a musician
I think my brother was in bands when we were both younger. He’s four years older than I am. I was 13-14 and always going to see his band play and thought it was the coolest stuff ever. I always wanted to be in a band.
The first
The first gig as Of Monsters and Men was in 2010. It was the Battle of the Bands here in Iceland. A competition that we won and, actually, it was another reason why we were like, “Oh yeah, let’s see where this goes”. Because it was only the four of us in the band then and it was more acoustic, there weren’t drums or a bass. It was just me and Nanna – she was playing acoustic guitar, and I was playing some electric with her. And Raggi was doing back-up vocals and Arnar, our drummer, was playing shakers and Glockenspiel and stuff like that.
What bands were you playing against – something wildly different, like punk?
Yeah, there was a black metal band and a hip-hop band. This competition has been going on for probably 30-something years and it’s always a very broad spectrum of music that you get there. There are a lot of bands that have gone through that competition, like the Icelandic band KALEO, they are pretty big in the US and Europe. I think they competed the year after we did. Back then, I was 19 years old, and I was maybe going to university or doing music. But it gives you the confidence to say, “okay, yeah, we have something that we can maybe work on!”
Photo by Bill McCay/WireImage
The smallest
It was probably one of these local bars here in Iceland. I remember, a week or two after we won that competition, it was a place called Sódóma [laughs].
…as in Sodom and Gomorrah?
Yeah! It was tiny. We played a lot, I get all this mixed together. For a while it was me and Nanna, just the two of us, and then it was me, Nanna and Raggi and we did some tiny, tiny gigs at bars that, if they were completely full, it would be like 50 people. We did a few bars here in Iceland where the intention was that people would sit and have a cosy night. Sometimes it was maybe five or ten people and they were drinking and not listening. But it is what it is.
Did your confidence dip from “Ooh, we won!” to “uhh, this is going to be hard…”
Arnar and Nanna, I think, I remember them saying that the reason why our sound grew into this full-band sound was because we kept playing these bars and people kept being kinda rowdy. So, we were just trying to get the energy up to overpower them talking over us.
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
The biggest
All of the festivals we’ve done, Glastonbury, Coachella, Reading and Leeds, Rock Werchter, Rock en Seine. We’ve been lucky to play big stages, and you always have to pinch yourself. One of the most memorable gigs was probably when we finished touring our first album. We came back to Iceland, and we talked to our local government, they were gonna get us a house for a studio, that we’re actually in now, and we played a free show for them. There was, like, 20-30,000 people and it was all free for everybody. Everybody had been so supportive, so we wanted to do something for everybody here. It was so much fun because everyone was so happy!
By Iceland’s standards, that’s a really huge number.
It’s, like, 10% of the population were at our show that night!
The weirdest
Wow, that’s a difficult one. I remember playing for some football tournament, it was a TV set-up and we were on a stage set halfway out in the ocean. That was pretty weird! Between the games there was a live thing happening, the TV presenters were talking, and it was for some reason on a beach – there was probably some connection. It was pretty strange, but it was fun! I met Oliver Khan, the German goalkeeper. I don’t watch football at all, but when I was growing up, he was the best goalkeeper in the world.
The worst
We did a Christmas show for some US radio station and there was a bunch of bands playing. For some reason, the radios that one of the crews for the other bands were using were coming through the PA system when we were playing. So the crowd heard our songs and then, in between, there was like [in American accent], “Hello, I’m just going to the bus everybody, OK? Yeah, great. Cool!”. The crowd heard everything. That was like absolutely the worst gig I’ve ever played.
Radio shows are always hard because some of the people are there to see the band that’s playing next, after you or before, whatever. I get that. You kind of always have to win them over. But to have something else coming in and fucking up everything for you… We were all so mortified, and also mad. Like, “How could this happen?! What’s going on?!””.
It’s probably been 10 years since but I think that was absolutely horrendous, because there was nothing we could do at the moment. Usually our crew can help us and fix something, but this was just some guys out in the parking lot or something. This is just terrible!
Interview
Danai Molocha / 17 October 2025
Interview
Stage Times: Of Monsters and Men
From playing a mini Icelandic Sodom to rocking a supercharged crowd in Brazil, we’re flipping through the pages of OMAM’s gig history
It’s just a couple of weeks before All Is Love And Pain In The Mouse Parade, Of Monsters and Men’s fourth album, drops; and anticipation is in the air as we catch up with the band’s lead guitarist Brynjar Leifsson. It’s OMAM’s first record in six years, one that finds different members with young families and various solo projects – a much-needed break that, ultimately, made their ties grow stronger.
“We always love to have the isolation. Iceland is our free space, our fortress of solitude,” shares Brynjar, still catching his breath after dropping his kids off to kindergarten. “When we go abroad on tour it’s just another life that we have. It’s really important to us to have this place here that we can be ourselves and have normal lives.” Now, they’re eager to embark again on a UK record store tour upon the album’s release before an extended tour in February 2026, including two dates at the Roundhouse.
That sense of rebirth, community and nostalgia that inevitably comes with time and big life changes, is ripe for exploration on this album. It’s been 14 years since their signature “Little Talks”, from their lauded debut My Head Is An Animal, blew up, bringing their richly layered, bittersweet alternative folk-rock to audiences across Europe, the US and beyond. Self-produced in their Icelandic studio, their new LP is very much a family business in the literal and figurative sense: “I think it gave us more room to experiment and home in on the details of what our sound is,” Brynjar explains. “We were always checking in with each other that we weren’t getting carried away and some nonsense. Because you can work on every song to death, just trying out stuff that doesn’t add anything to it.”
‘Dream Team’ fittingly appears in the Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell new romantic fantasy film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey and, across 12 more tracks, the band go through stagnation and renewal, embracing the chaos and giving free rein to their imagination. At over eight minutes, the key-laden ‘Fruit Bat’ is probably the longest, and one of the most evocative songs they’ve ever done.
Between playing big festivals and beachfront local stages, the touring life has gifted Of Monsters and Men with some truly unforgettable, and some admittedly strange moments. Let’s dive in.
The gig that made you want to be a musician
I think my brother was in bands when we were both younger. He’s four years older than I am. I was 13-14 and always going to see his band play and thought it was the coolest stuff ever. I always wanted to be in a band.
The first
The first gig as Of Monsters and Men was in 2010. It was the Battle of the Bands here in Iceland. A competition that we won and, actually, it was another reason why we were like, “Oh yeah, let’s see where this goes”. Because it was only the four of us in the band then and it was more acoustic, there weren’t drums or a bass. It was just me and Nanna – she was playing acoustic guitar, and I was playing some electric with her. And Raggi was doing back-up vocals and Arnar, our drummer, was playing shakers and Glockenspiel and stuff like that.
What bands were you playing against – something wildly different, like punk?
Yeah, there was a black metal band and a hip-hop band. This competition has been going on for probably 30-something years and it’s always a very broad spectrum of music that you get there. There are a lot of bands that have gone through that competition, like the Icelandic band KALEO, they are pretty big in the US and Europe. I think they competed the year after we did. Back then, I was 19 years old, and I was maybe going to university or doing music. But it gives you the confidence to say, “okay, yeah, we have something that we can maybe work on!”
Photo by Bill McCay/WireImage
The smallest
It was probably one of these local bars here in Iceland. I remember, a week or two after we won that competition, it was a place called Sódóma [laughs].
…as in Sodom and Gomorrah?
Yeah! It was tiny. We played a lot, I get all this mixed together. For a while it was me and Nanna, just the two of us, and then it was me, Nanna and Raggi and we did some tiny, tiny gigs at bars that, if they were completely full, it would be like 50 people. We did a few bars here in Iceland where the intention was that people would sit and have a cosy night. Sometimes it was maybe five or ten people and they were drinking and not listening. But it is what it is.
Did your confidence dip from “Ooh, we won!” to “uhh, this is going to be hard…”
Arnar and Nanna, I think, I remember them saying that the reason why our sound grew into this full-band sound was because we kept playing these bars and people kept being kinda rowdy. So, we were just trying to get the energy up to overpower them talking over us.
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
The biggest
All of the festivals we’ve done, Glastonbury, Coachella, Reading and Leeds, Rock Werchter, Rock en Seine. We’ve been lucky to play big stages, and you always have to pinch yourself. One of the most memorable gigs was probably when we finished touring our first album. We came back to Iceland, and we talked to our local government, they were gonna get us a house for a studio, that we’re actually in now, and we played a free show for them. There was, like, 20-30,000 people and it was all free for everybody. Everybody had been so supportive, so we wanted to do something for everybody here. It was so much fun because everyone was so happy!
By Iceland’s standards, that’s a really huge number.
It’s, like, 10% of the population were at our show that night!
The weirdest
Wow, that’s a difficult one. I remember playing for some football tournament, it was a TV set-up and we were on a stage set halfway out in the ocean. That was pretty weird! Between the games there was a live thing happening, the TV presenters were talking, and it was for some reason on a beach – there was probably some connection. It was pretty strange, but it was fun! I met Oliver Khan, the German goalkeeper. I don’t watch football at all, but when I was growing up, he was the best goalkeeper in the world.
The worst
We did a Christmas show for some US radio station and there was a bunch of bands playing. For some reason, the radios that one of the crews for the other bands were using were coming through the PA system when we were playing. So the crowd heard our songs and then, in between, there was like [in American accent], “Hello, I’m just going to the bus everybody, OK? Yeah, great. Cool!”. The crowd heard everything. That was like absolutely the worst gig I’ve ever played.
Radio shows are always hard because some of the people are there to see the band that’s playing next, after you or before, whatever. I get that. You kind of always have to win them over. But to have something else coming in and fucking up everything for you… We were all so mortified, and also mad. Like, “How could this happen?! What’s going on?!””.
It’s probably been 10 years since but I think that was absolutely horrendous, because there was nothing we could do at the moment. Usually our crew can help us and fix something, but this was just some guys out in the parking lot or something. This is just terrible!
The best
Always when we play South America, Brazil and Argentina… We haven’t gone there a lot – I think we’ve been there two or three times and the fans are so welcoming and so happy that you’re there. I remember the last time we were there they had prepared a surprise for us during the show, which is hard to pull off.
We were playing a song and then, suddenly, these big balloons started floating around, and we were like, “Who brought these?!”. And it was just the fans that added to the production of the show [laughs]. It surprised us all, it was crazy! I’m really scared that I will hurt somebody’s feelings, but I think it was either Rio or São Paulo in 2016.
Of Monsters And Men play live in Dublin & Belfast in February 2026.
All Is Love And Pain In The Mouse Parade is out now on Skarkali Records, buy and stream here
On the lookout for more gigs happening in Ireland soon? Head over to our Concerts & Tours guide to see what else is coming.
