Siggi Baldursson on Conditions for Creativity

For the eighth Two Beats Ahead Live!, author R. Michael Hendrix interviews Siggi Baldursson, the renowned drummer and music executive, best known as a founding member of The Sugarcubes. He plays a key role in promoting Icelandic music globally, recently as managing director of ÚTÓN (Iceland Music), where he helped launch initiatives like the Icelandic Music Export Fund and the Record in Iceland program.

In this episode, Siggi discusses the connection between the growth of tourism in Iceland and its impact on Icelandic music. He shares that the Sugarcubes began as a joke, albeit one that “blew up in our face!” He tells about the importance of communities as creative incubators and how Smekkleysa became this for him and his friends in the 80’s. He expands on this for other creative communities in Iceland and how relationships built in a small locale have a trust that encourages weirdness and collaboration. He also shares how the lack of knowing how to do things can actually be the secret to doing something exciting and new, which was especially important to the early post-punk scene in Reykjavik. Finally he shares about the changing nature of the music business and how new innovations are helping artist find audiences.