Daði Freyr Tickets

Daði Freyr has made a record. The first third, released in March 2023, was an EP named I’m Making An Album 1/3. The second EP will be named I’m Still Making An Album 2/3 and the final, full project, when it arrives on 25 August, I Made An Album.

It’s a very Daði Freyr way of looking at things: drily funny with no unnecessary fuss. The Icelandic star made his name in a sweet turquoise sweatshirt with a pixel portrait of his face representing his country on Eurovision 2021, and his songs are defined by an innate sense of niceness: there are no tricks or twists, no snark, just genuine good feeling and the suggestion that it might be fun to dance around in the kitchen for a bit. His first album is a warm, loving collection of electropop that introduces Daði Freyr as an artist with plenty more to offer. He made an album and it’s going to get you dancing all night.

Freyr’s life has always been drenched in music. His parents met in a marching band and there was a lot of singing at home while he was growing up – Stevie Wonder, Icelandic pop and the dulcet tones of Sting (“Dad’s a big Police fan,” he laughs). As a teenager he discovered nu-metal, the fire and angst of bands like Linkin Park and System Of A Down surreptitiously cementing pop frameworks and melodic hooks in his musical education. “I think the rock that I listened to when I was younger was very poppy,” he says. “A lot of the songs have a very pop structure.”

He started a band which went on to win the Icelandic Battle of the Bands and they would play gigs here and there. But at 16, Daði got his hands on a copy of Daft Punk’s 1997 album Homework and he was hooked. French electronic duo Justice followed and from then on it was electronic music that captured his imagination. He moved from Iceland to Berlin to study music production and audio engineering, then decided to stay because “the weather is better!” and the atmosphere is much more chill, less competitive.

It’s also a lot more comfortable for Daði - he’s a bit more anonymous in a city of 3.6 million people than he is in Iceland where if you’re famous, you’re very famous - Iceland only has a population of 372,500 and Daði Freyr is very tall. “When you’re that famous in a bigger country that probably comes with a lot of money,” he deadpans, “But in Iceland...” It’s difficult, too, to be approached by strangers when you are someone whose social anxiety can flare up in unfamiliar situations.

After all, Eurovision has been a very big deal for Daði Freyr. He auditioned way back in 2019 as a bit of a joke but ended up being picked as the Icelandic entry for the 2020 song contest. Of course, Covid happened and the contest was cancelled but by then Daði’s song ‘Think About Things’ was one of the favourites to win and ended up going viral during lockdown. When Eurovision returned in 2021, Daði Freyr and his band, Gagnamagnið, represented Iceland with a song called '10 Years', ending up in fourth place. But beyond that, Freyr now had tens of thousands of fans, the pull to perform around the world in packed venues: Eurovision had turned his passion into a career.

There’s a lot going on in Daði Freyr’s world: he’s got two young kids as well as an album, Eurovision and the whole rest of his life to figure out. There’s time for all of that, though: what matters is that he’s doing exactly what he is meant to do. He made an album - and that’s that.