Singer songwriter Atli on his journey from Sauðárkrókur to TV Shows | Oktaves Podcast (Ep. 1)

In this first episode of Oktaves Podcast – Talks with Musicians, I sit down with Atli, a soulful Icelandic singer songwriter whose journey has taken him from a small town in the north of Iceland to London, and soon to New York. His music lives somewhere between Bon Iver and Ed Sheeran, blending intimate indie folk textures with strong, emotional pop songwriting.We talk about how growing up in a town of 3,000 people shaped his view of music, why he moved countries just to stay close to his producer, and how his song "Gone Halo" ended up on the NBC series Found through a wild sync licensing story involving Ingrooves, Virgin, and Universal. Atli opens up about heartbreak, isolation during COVID, writing his first album Epilogue for Something Beautiful in a garage after long Fortnite sessions, and how that track became the soundtrack to powerful scenes on American TV.We also dive into his move to London for his bachelor’s in songwriting, his upcoming move to Berklee in New York, his release strategy using TikTok, Instagram, and SubmitHub, and why he thinks education about the music business is missing in Iceland. Atli talks about his favorite upcoming single, his second album, and the dream of building live shows around every release.If you love emotional indie pop, Bon Iver inspired vocals, Ed Sheeran style songwriting, or want to understand how sync deals and playlists really happen for independent artists, this conversation is for you.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Welcome to the Oktaves podcast🎙️ Talks with musicians! Where we uplift local musicians voices.This podcast is about chatting about and sharing with each other tips and tricks on how to succeed in the music industry as an independent musician, with an emphasis on branding and marketing, and overall management, whether your goal is to stay forever independent or get label-ready. We are very passionate about breaking the cycle of gatekeeping in the industry, so we strive towards bringing you conversations where these layers of the onion will be peeled one by one.We are also here to uplift and shed light on independent (or previously independent) musicians in our community, who are so kind to share their struggles, their wins, successes, their strategies, and advice or some secrets possibly to how they got there.🔗 Follow Oktaves:https://instagram.com/withoktaveshttps://facebook.com/oktaveshttps://tiktok.com/@withoktaves