Singled Out: Volcanova's No Wheels

Keavin Wiggins | 04-21-2022

Cover art

Stoner rockers Volcanova recently released their new album "Cosmic Bullsh*t" and to celebrate we asked guitarist and singer Samuel Asgeirsson to tell us about the song "No Wheels". Here is the story:

During the weekend of 10-12th of May in 2019 we decided to go to my summer cabin located in Hafravatn, a 20 minute drive from Reykjavik. The idea was to get away from the city and be completely alone in the quiet. We wanted to bring some gear and instruments with us and see if the change of environment would bring some new and good/interesting ideas to the table. We brought with us little amplifiers and a mini setup of a drum kit and had a super cozy and a great jam/writing session for a few days and was the birthplace of many good ideas! No Wheels is one of the songs that came together during that weekend.

Onwards we kept on rehearsing the song instrumentally through numerous rehearsals. We thought that the song had a Fu Manchu feel to it, and we tried to come up with lyrics but it was a slow process at the time. We are very fond of the cowbell as you might already have heard on our debut album Radical Waves. On this single we thought it was quite a lot of it. The working title for No Wheels in our language was Kuabjollulagio (Cowbell song). We didn't continue the writing on that song for a while until we entered the studio to record Cosmic Bullsh*t.

The writing for this song was different from other ones. With the previous record we came into the studio with fully ready songs and lyrics. On this one we gathered at my place and had a lyric writing session. During this session Dagur came up with the lyrics. Originally we kinda joked around that this would be a ''skater song'', but none of us actually skateboard, it was mainly the Fu Manchu vibe that made us have the idea. So the next best thing is hoverboard, right?

His vision of the story behind the lyrics was about this dude who could go anywhere he wanted flying around on a hoverboard, because roads were not a problem or to rely on.

In the studio after recording everything except the lyrics, we hadn't decided on who would sing. Dagur started out because he had the best vision and ideas for the melody line. Then Steini(Þorsteinn) came in with the backing vocals singing "slick streets, gravel roads", which added a really cool perspective to the song. Onwards me and Dagur had the idea of singing both of the verses together, an interesting thought that did not go through. In the end we thought the winning idea was to sing each of us one verse. Dagur would take the first and me the second.

We were super glad with the outcome, but it did take us a while to practice that song because none of us had ever sung this song live before while at the same time playing our instruments! But we managed to figure it out (luckily)!

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here