Sigur Rós

pictured above [L-R]: Geory Goggi Holm, Jonsi Birgisson, Kjartan Sveinsson, Orri Pall Dyrason

“You can’t be friends with everybody,” goes the old adage. But after meeting the charming, completely disarming Jonas ‘Jónsi’ Thor Birgisson, you really have to wonder. There’s nothing even remotely aggressive or offensive about this shy Icelandic fellow, who speaks in soft tentative tones about the wonders of the world around, like the palm tree waving gently in the breeze outside his Hollywood hotel window. “Trees are really amazing creatures,” the 30-year-old murmurs. “I’ve been traveling so much, going to Japan and Hawaii and now California, and I’ve really been looking at trees, and they’re just so remarkable. Like this palm tree here—we certainly don’t have that in Iceland.”

Who could take umbrage at such Little Prince innocence? Even Birgisson’s physical presence is friendly; He has the delicate frame and limbs of a baby bird, the wide-eyed gaze of said fledgling peeking out at its forest for the first time, and a way of hiding himself inside his baggy black clothing so that he almost disappears. In fact, the only modestly wild thing about him is his tufted mini-Mohawk, which ends in a long awkward tail that droops down to his bony shoulders. But it’s more fun than it is feral. All told, this singer/guitarist for otherworldly Reykjavik outfit Sigur Rós comes across as one of the nicest, most sensitive guys in modern rock.

So it’s indeed hard to picture him being hauled in recently—kicking and screaming—by his local constabulary. But it happened. And yes, Birgisson sighs, there are subjects that ruffle his well-preened feathers so much that his claws eventually emerge—among them, the Kárahnjúkar dam, a power plant currently under construction in the Icelandic highlands. Environmental activists the world over have united in protest of the structure, who claim that its 2006 completion will have irreversible negative effects on the area’s ecosystem and countless indigenous animal species, like reindeer, harbor seals and pink-footed geese.

How did Birgisson come to be arrested? “It was in Parliament, where you can go inside and watch the conversations between politicians, the proceedings,” he explains, kicking off his rubber clogs and curling up on a pillowy hotel couch. “And there was a big argument about this dam—there was one politician that everyone was expecting to say ‘No’ about the dam, but he said ‘Yes’ to it and everyone was really surprised, because it affected the biggest untouched nature preserve in Europe. So I don’t know what the government is thinking—the decision seemed to be all about corruption, money and power.”

A political decision based on greed? Apparently, Birgisson is a bit naïve. And angry. So mad, he says, “that I went into Parliament and started to scream at the politicians and stuff. And that’s when they arrested me, then took me and threw me out of Parliament.” But there was no overnight stay in the clink. “Thankfully, it was no big deal. But I think my picture actually made it into the paper.”

To understand Birgisson—and the surreal soundscapes Sigur Rós has sketched on its operatic latest, Takk…—is to comprehend his island surroundings, a volcanic land of fjords and geysers where kids pilot ATVs up 45-degree glaciers to picnic at their icy summits, or coast snowmobiles across half-frozen streams, knowing that if the engine cuts they’ll instantly sink to their ice-watery doom. A country where, adds Sigur Rós drummer Orri Páll Dy´rason, the long, dark winters lend themselves to melancholia, ennui and national pastimes like “reading, going to the cinema and drinking a lot.”