Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men have been together for 15 years, but they took a bit of time off before recording their latest album, All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade. When the band reunited in the studio to work on the album, they rediscovered the joy of playing together.

When Of Monsters and Men visited St. Paul in November, they played two back-to-back nights at the Palace Theatre. Between those shows, Of Monsters and Men visited The Current studio to play songs from the new album and to chat with host Gannon.

Watch and listen to the music performances above, and watch the interview below. Beneath the video, you’ll find a full transcript of the conversation.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity.

Gannon: It's The Current. I'm Gannon, here in the studio with a band that came a long way to be here today, all the way from Iceland, got three members of Of Monsters and Men, joined by Nanna, Brynjar, and Ragnar. How you guys doing?

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Great, yeah.

Gannon: Welcome back to town. Oh, I'm doing great. Thank you! It's been a little while since we've seen you in here in the studio. Six years, I believe?

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Yeah.

Gannon: 2019.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: 2019. Yeah. 

Gannon: How are you spending your two days in Minnesota?

Brynjar Leifsson: Well, I have big plans. I'm going to Mall of America.

Gannon: Oh! There you go. Have you ever been?

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah, yes. Ragnar has been.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I have been, yeah. I went to the roller coaster.

Gannon: Oh, yeah. The Sponge Bob, the big vertical one?

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Not sure. I think I blacked out, out of — I'm kind of afraid of roller coasters.

Gannon: OK.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: So I just kind of blacked out. I'm probably not going with you.

Brynjar Leifsson: No, no, it was traumatic.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, it was traumatic.

Gannon: Well, glad you're getting to see the sights while you're here. I feel like, feel like there's some kinship between Minnesota and Iceland, in a way, you know. There's like the Icelandic soccer team has the skol chant, just like our [NFL] football team does here, the Vikings. I don't know if you were aware of that, but—

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: I was not.

Brynjar Leifsson: Oh yeah, the Minnesota Vikings are of course here.

Gannon: Yeah, I think we technically did it second, but...

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I think we also did not do it first.

Gannon: Oh, really? 

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I'm pretty sure we stole it. 

Gannon: OK.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, but that's the Viking way.

Gannon: That's true, that is the Viking way!

Brynjar Leifsson: Pillaging way.

Gannon: The show last night, I was there at the Palace Theatre. You're doing two nights here. It seems like the energy was high. Do you feel like a special, you know, sense of home when you're in somewhere like this? Is there an extra connection between Iceland and Minnesota?

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I mean, I feel like — didn't a lot of Icelanders come to Minnesota? Like, back in the day?

Brynjar Leifsson: When, back in the day?

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I don't know, like the [Icelandic].

Brynjar Leifsson: Oh, yeah. Like, in the early industrial era in Iceland, there was, I think, yeah. I think people moved here.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah. But, you know, it's cold, like home. It's the same temperature.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: It's perfect.

Brynjar Leifsson: When we got out of the venue yesterday, after sound check, we talked about there was Icelandic weather. 

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Yeah, yeah. Cold. Freezing. Yeah.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Freezing. That's nice.

Brynjar Leifsson: I got to wear my big jacket.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, he's been carrying this huge jacket. High-insulated, kind of takes up half his suitcase.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah, when I finally got it out, and now I have nothing in my suitcase.

Gannon: I'm glad to hear it. Well, like I said, it's been a while, right? Six years ago was the last record, Fever Dream, and it was the last time you were here. What was it? You know, you're back out with a new album. All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade. What made now feel like the right time to get back in the studio and put together a new Of Monsters and Men record?

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: I mean, we were kind of working on this album on and off for those six years ... This record is very much coming from a place of, like, "Oh, now we feel like we have something to say, and now we need to take a little breather from it." So we didn't have like a time stamp on it. In a lot of ways, it was a very, like, free experience for us. We didn't have a record label that was like, "Oh, where is the record?" It was pretty cool.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, we kind of had to manage it ourselves, kind of just figuring out when we wanted to meet up. And I think we just waited until we were kind of excited. I think that was the key to it.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah. We found — not that we had kind of lost the joy of playing together — but it was like rediscovering it. And I feel like that was a huge part of making this album, was just rediscovering being in a band.

Gannon: Well, as of this year, you've been together, what, 15 years now? I think, right?

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Yeah.

Gannon: How do you find that spark again? You know, each album cycle, I'm sure it's a different — like you said, you want to find something to say. Where did that come from for you guys when you got into the studio for this record?

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I think it comes with just time and not forcing things. I think that's a big thing, not forcing it, and kind of just listening to each other.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Yeah, we all kind of went off and did our own thing, you know, for a little bit, and just lived life a little bit. And I think it's really nice now, I can feel the energy in the group, where it's like people are just excited to be together, which is nice. And we've toured so much together. We've spent so much time together and been through, like, everything together, and have just grown up together. 

Ragnar Thorhallsson: [sings] Together...

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: [sings] Together ... [speaking] No, but it's like, it is nice. People kind of wandered off, did other things, and then we came back together.

Gannon: And there's really, especially on the new record, there's a really familial feel to a lot of these songs, right? Like "Ordinary Creature," you've kind of got this feeling of coming home. How do you cultivate that feeling when you're together, recording and writing?

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I think it's just how it felt, you know? This album felt a little bit like how we felt on the first album a bit, just like us playing together, creating something.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: So I think because of that, that feeling got captured and is in the songs.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah. And also we produced everything ourselves, and had our friend Bjarni Thor Jensson recording everything with us. So it was just like friends in the studio.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah. And we've known him since we were nine, some of us, so we've been friends forever. So it was like inviting people that we felt really, really cozy with and creating that kind of vibe within the studio.

Brynjar Leifsson: Never too serious of a vibe.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Yeah.

Gannon: Well, it's The Current, Gannon here with you, three members of Of Monsters and Men, joined by Ragnar, Brynjar and Nanna, talking about the new album, All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade. That album title is such a thesis statement. It conveys such imagery. What is the “mouse parade” to you guys?

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: I mean, the mouse parade is — it's us, I guess. And it's also just the idea of community.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: That is kind of where that title comes from. And it's from a song on the record called "Mouse Parade." And there are these two songs that are connected, "The Block" and "Mouse Parade," and "The Block" is from a very human perspective, and it's a bit isolating, and a bit serious maybe. And then there's "Mouse Parade," which is what happens kind of underneath the floorboards: You have this community of mice, and they have their own history and their stories and their love and pain, and [it is] in a lot of ways, bigger than what the person upstairs is dealing with. But also, it's all the same. That is kind of the idea. Yeah.

Gannon: And love and pain, right? There's like, this feeling of duality. I feel like that comes up a lot on this record, and also on your past albums as well. Like "Tuna in a Can," for example, one of the songs that I really connected with on this new record, it's got these really heavy lyrics, but there's like, a bounciness to it, especially when you played it live at the Palace Theatre. How intentional is that, to get that sort of balance of the love and the pain sound in the lyrics?

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I mean, I think it's just kind of the way our brain thinks about things. It's like exploring that grey area in between, you know? Not that everything is so literal.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Yeah, everything isn't just one thing.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah. And also just the contrasting elements of serious lyrics in a pretty cheery song. I think we've always been very, very fond of that. I mean, just like "Little Talks" sounds like a cheery song, but when you listen to the lyrics, it's a bit more serious.

Brynjar Leifsson: A little bit sad.

Gannon: I feel like that's a textbook example of one of those songs where you hear it for the first time and you're like, "Oh, that's so fun!" And then you sit with the lyric sheet — I remember doing that when I first heard that song, right? — I sit with the lyrics and it's like, "Oh, yeah, this sits a little different," which is a cool feeling, I feel like.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: It is a nice feeling. I think it's like how most things are; even a funeral is often very fun. You laugh and you cry.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: You're celebrating something, but it's also the end of something.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: It's quite a beautiful feeling.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah. There's a beauty. There's beauty in a funeral.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah.

Gannon: And it was cool to see sort of that duality reflected back. You know, you played the Palace Theatre last night, and I looked around, and I see people closing their eyes, very pensive, sitting with the music around me, and others, you know, parents and children laughing, feeling this joy. How do you approach your live show to like, I guess, sort of, how do you craft a set list to move between those feelings so seamlessly? Because I felt like that happened in the show.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, I mean ... I don't know if it's more difficult but more fun to make set lists the more songs you have. Like, when we started out it was just like, "That's the songs."

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: It was just like, "Here we have these 11 songs," or whatever it was, and then you just play them and "Bye! We don't have any more."

Ragnar Thorhallsson: But I think it's like just trial and error. We try a bunch of things out, then we see how the songs flow into each other. It's similar to when you figure out the track list for an album; like, how do you want the experience to be? And you approach it that way. And if something didn't work the day before, you try to switch some things around. And I think we have a good set list going on right now. I'm happy with it.

Gannon: You're listening to The Current. Gannon here with three members of Of Monsters and Men; came all the way from Iceland to play two shows at the Palace Theatre this weekend. We're sort of talking about that show right now. You talked about having more songs makes it more fun to put together a set list. You know, it's been, like we said, 15 years since that first record — or it will be 15 years next year, since My Head Is an Animal. How has your relationship with those songs changed in that time since then? And how do you sort of lean into it, I suppose, with the new songs in the set as well?

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: When we put out our first album 15 years ago, we were 20-something, you know? We were, like, kids! And, you know, performing them now, it is funny; you kind of travel back when we are performing these lyrics. And I mean, it is a time capsule, and that is the very cool thing. But we are kind of figuring out how to make sense for us now, because time has passed, and we've all changed very much. And with every album, we kind of — I mean, we like change. We like developing our sound, and seeing what makes us excited for the next chapter. So, yeah.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: It does help when you play them live to see people responding ... As with the new songs, I'm more performing them for myself. And then for these [older] songs, it's more for them. And if you were doing like an old song in this studio, it would be different ... but you feed off the energy of the crowd.

Gannon: Something super different on this record, the song "Fruit Bat." You played that one here in the studio, and you played that at the show. It's the longest song you've put out, more than eight minutes. Got this beautiful, long instrumental passage. How does that song sort of serve the narrative of the mouse parade? And how did that come together?

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I remember Arnar [Hilmarsson] bringing the initial piano riff and chord progression. He just started playing it in the studio, and we started just like, humming along, and it kind of just...

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: It grabbed everyone immediately.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, it was just a beautiful part that he came up with, and it just grabbed everyone, and we just kind of … It just kind of happened!

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Yeah, it was a very natural thing for us.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: In like one minute, it was just a song!

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: No!

Ragnar Thorhallsson: It took forever.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: It took a while. It changed, I mean, and that end part, too, that kind of developed. And I think what happened with that song is that we had this feeling of, like, we really just enjoyed playing it. And when we were recording it, we were all just sitting in a room together, and we had our friend Josh Kaufman come over, and he was in the room with us as well. And then it was just kind of feeding off that energy of just listening to each other and playing into the room.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, we had no decision on how long it was supposed to be. We just played it, and that was the feeling. And we listened back, and was just like, "Yeah, cool!"

Gannon: How did you connect with Josh Kaufman from Bonny Light Horseman? I know he worked on a couple of songs on the record. How did that come about? And what did he sort of bring to the table?

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: I met him through my solo project. I made an album that came out in 2023, and he was a part of that album. So I went up to upstate New York, and he was working from the studio called Dreamland. And we recorded from there, and then we just clicked. And he's just a really brilliant producer and guy. So we thought we'd bring him in, too.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Or would for a little bit.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: And we wanted to, because he's such a good player, and he is just a free-flowing kind of guy, and we wanted to do more of that on the album. So just to get us in a room, more together, get a guy like that who's playing with us. And that's really, really fun.

Brynjar Leifsson: Because also we had been recording for a while, and it was kind of a bit like stagnation happening, like, "What are we doing?" And we were unsure of what we were doing. And so we got him in, and he was like, "Guys, everybody go in the living room, we'll just play now." And it kind of refocused us. And we were like, "Oh, yeah, this doesn't have to be hard." We could just sit in a room together.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Doesn't have to be complicated.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah. He kind of refocused us. It helped us a lot for the rest of the album.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, totally.

Brynjar Leifsson: Yeah.

Gannon: Awesome. I think we're getting close to wrapping things up here. The one last thing I wanted to ask about real quick is something that comes up a lot on this record, sort of imagery of animals, and I feel like that's a through line through your work, you know, all the way back to the debut record. You know, there's on this album, the mouse parade, obviously, there's bunnies, there's dogs, there's all these animals that come up. How does nature inform your songwriting? Obviously, you come from such a beautiful place in Iceland, like, how does that inform what you put into a record?

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: It's a very subconscious thing.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: I think so, yeah.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: I think if you grow up in a place, if you grow up in a city, and you grow up hearing those sounds, that is going to influence what kind of music you make. And for us, growing up in Iceland, and having all that space and having these, like, dramatic landscapes, I think it does influence the music quite a lot.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: Yeah, and just us as people, I think. Like, just the way we are.

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: And I think it does influence the duality of things, you know? Like, there's the harshness, but there's also the softness. And, yeah, I think it definitely goes into the music.

Gannon: Right on. Well, again, thank you so much for being here. I'm Gannon, you're listening to The Current. This is Ragnar, Brynjar and Nanna from Of Monsters and Men.

Ragnar Thorhallsson: And you're Gannon.

Gannon: And I'm Gannon. Enjoy the roller coaster!

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir: Thank you.

Gallery: Of Monsters and Men in studio at The Current

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Songs Performed

00:00:00 The Towering Skyscraper at the End of the Road
00:04:44 Fruit Bat
00:11:36 The End

All songs from Of Monsters and Men’s 2025 album, All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade, available on Skarkali Records/Virgin Music Group.

Musicians

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir - vocals, guitar
Ragnar Thorhallsson - vocals, guitar, piano
Brynjar Leifsson - guitar, vocals
Kristjan Kristjansson - bass, vocals
Arnar Hilmarsson - drums

Credits

Guests – Of Monsters and Men
Host – Gannon
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Video – Evan Clark
Audio – Josh Sauvageau
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor 

External Link

Of Monsters and Men – official site