Katatonia – Shades Of Swedish Doom

Katatonia have been producing high-quality Swedish Doom Metal for almost 20 years. Starting with a rougher sound and producing several classic albums like "Brave Murder Day", they lateron continued to a more atmospheric, but still dark and interesting side of the genre. Even though two band members continue to deal with more aggressive music in Bloodbath (alongside Mikael Åkerfeldt, lead singer of Opeth), it doesn´t mean the last Katatonia albums fell from grace. Recently, the band released its´new album "Night Is The New Day" – a great addition to the already impressive repertoire. In honor of this and the upcoming Katatonia concert in the Holy Land, I had a conversation with one of the founders of the band, guitarist Anders Nyström, about Doom, Death, and Blood.

Katatonia had undergone a long journey together as a band, musically and otherwise. For now, what do you feel is the band's standing point?

I think, you know, what really turned out to be a long lasting standing point for the band is that we have been having the same kind of mission for almost 20 years time now. We, me and Jonas, the two forming members who started the band, we were teenagers back then, and we carried on this mission that we felt maybe even be a lifetime achievement. And, I mean, so far we have been going down that road for 20 years.

That's for me is more than half our lives already, so it's just something that we live with, on a daily basis, "back to back" to our personal lives. Katatonia has become such an integral part of our lives, and if you take that away from us, I don't even dare to think how that will affect us. I think that having it so close to us, each day, and not fed up with scene, still having the ambition, still being hungry, still wanting to face new challenges both musically and otherwise, is our current standing point.

You're new album contains some of the sound elements that were heard before in you're work, combined with new material, that slightly changes you're sound. How would you describe the new album?

I think the new album is basically just a new album to us, but in order to release the album, we had to pass a certain criteria point for us, and that is that the new album has to be better than the last one. Everybody may not agree with us that it is better, but for us it is better. And I mean that in the aspect of looking at the whole album from our angle, meaning that the arrangements will have more variation, Jonas should improve his vocals, the rest of the musicians should improve their skills, we should incorporate new sound that we have educed for.

The new album enters more the world of electronics, I guess a lot more than before, I mean, there is no other katatonia album that is as electronic as this one, but by saying that I don't mean we have changes style of anything, were not an electronic band, we just use those elements to better incorporate us a lot more in the metal scene, by having a more uniqe identity and sound. The new album for me is just another album, it's just a new album, but at the same time it took three years to make it, so it wasn't hassle free, it was a lot of labor, a lot of effort going into the album and to put it out. If we were not happy with it, if we still didn't think it was better than the last album, we would probably still be working on it. That's how I view it.

What types of comments did you get regarding the album?

Luckily for us, we have only received positive feedback regarding the album, especially in reviews. I have not read one single bad review on it so far. Of course, there are some different opinions on it, especially when you're maybe entering the world of forums and blabbermouths and all those kinds of things, but usually it's just nonsense. Our fans have grown along with us, they are ready to embrace this album, and they don't have a problem with it having a lot of electronics, and mellow and atmospheric parts, which is good, because that's where we want to have our fans. We want to have our fans open-minded to our sound, and not just complaining about it, missing the growling vocals, or saying were not metal anymore, and all that… well, nonsense. So I'm very happy with the feedback so far, from the fans and the media, and I feel very fortunate, because that's not something I take for granted anymore. It's fantastic that we made our 8th album and got such good reviews and feedbacks, it's really encouraging.

I get what you're saying. I guess too many people are just so busy categorizing, they don't see past that.

Yeah, it's very limiting for you in everyway, even if you want to develop as a person, it's limiting all you're possibilities to evolve. So I don't believe I could agree with closed-minded people.

Nowadays, Katatonia has established its status, and receives much recognition and appreciation. What does it feel like to be in that position?

It makes me feel proud. It's a very rewarding thing. It takes me a little bit back to what I was saying before, I mean, we are doing it for such a long time, that in some way it had to pay off. I also think we stood our ground the whole time, and always did what we wanted to do, we always followed our heart, even from the beginning. I remember a really big change back in 1998, when we made the transition from having growling vocals to clean vocals, and a lot of people were not ready for that, but we didn't give a rat's ass about it. We just followed our mission and our dreams and stood by them, and here we are today, even tough we never listened to managers of label people or even our fans.

I mean, we hear their opinions, but we would never take them to us in a way that it would directly influence Katatonia's future. This was our vision from day one and has to be, the day it is not the vision of the band, there is no use to continue anymore. It's a very good thing to have achieved a certain kind of status, but what I feel is that when people talk about katatonia, they usually find it hard to label us, and that's exactly where we want to be. They would say "it sounds like katatonia", but they can't tell you what "it" is, and we love that. We have created something that sounds like us, and hey, you can't go wrong with that, can you? [Laughing]…

Obviously not. Well, what do you think the future holds for Katatonia?

We will be facing new challenges. It's getting harder and harder to make albums obviously, because each album has to be better than the last one, so were so happy with the last one out, so it's very hard in this moment to say how we could top it, but at the end of the day, the road doesn't go in just one direction for Katatonia. We can move forward and in the same time going in a 180 or 360 turn as well, and find other sounds, other kinds of musical influences, and just bring them back into the band. That's the exciting thing we did about the new album, which was to capture some of the electronics influences, and using that as a benefit to our sound. Who knows what we will do on our next album? I know that if we will feel that we have come to a halt, that there is a big brick of walls ahead of us, we'll just try to tear it down, and if that doesn't work, we'll walk around it. In the same time, we will find new ways to do things, so it's a big challenge ahead of us. It's very thrilling and exciting to think about it, because this is what we love to do, great music.

The band is you're life's work. What is your favorite part about being a member of katatonia?

My favorite part is that I get to do what I love to do. I don't have to go to a day job that I hate, that would make me miserable, and if I did that I wouldn't really find a meaning for being here, living, on earth [Laughing]… I guess I'm living my dream in a way, because I'm really doing what I love to do. That's an easy answere, that's my favorite thing about doing it all. The more I think about it, sure I can be a really winy person and complain a lot, but if I step out of it and look at the whole picture, it's great. I mean, I'm sitting right now in Rome, in Italy, it's beautiful, everyone are friends here on the road, everyone is getting along great… people would probably pay money to do it, you know what I mean? It's fantastic! I'm happy! [Laughing]…

Many bands try to "make it" and succeed, but few do. According to your opinion, what made you guys do so well?

I think it's a combination. First of all we have a burning desire to maintain this, which brings me back to having the long term vision. I think a lot of bands don't have the patience and the endurance that it takes to grow and become big. Some bands, who are very big, became that way in an overnight sensation, and what we mostly see with those bands is that just as quick they rose up and became successful, they fell down and were forgotten. So this is the good thing with us, we have an establishment, and a big following that grown out through time. So all of that combined with being in the right place in the right time, which is the little magic combo here. If you can succeed in all that, then you probably have success just waiting for you.

Some people, according to you, look for instant success.

Yeah, some people. I mean, success is not only about money for me, it's about doing what I love to do. And even if I wouldn't get any money for it, I would still consider it a success. Unfortunately, you need money to live, but I feel that as long as I get enough money to pay the bills, that's fine with me. Then I have my life to live it as freely as I want to. It's at least better then sitting at the supermarket register and doing what you hate all day long. For me, success is to be doing what you want to do, regardless if you're a rich, famous rock star. None in the band here are rich, we don't have mansions or what you see on "MTV's Cribs". We are like the average neighbors next door, doing and fulfilling our life's mission.

So no 10 Ferraris and a swimming pool, eh? Well, as a guitar player, you have been a part of other musical groups (like Bloodbath for example). What were those experiences like?

It's very healthy to do so, it really is. I have a favorite saying, I like to say that Bloodbath is a vacation for Katatonia. If I really compare them back to back, it's like… Katatonia will always be my main important lifetime band, but it also means that everything you do with the band is mostly very very serious and a lot of hard work. With Bloodbath we feel can have more fun, and no one will have a problem with it. It just goes hand in hand with death metal, and in general I just find Bloodbath being easier to deal with. I don't have to push myself as hard to be a member of Bloodbath. It's more natural in the way of… I mean, it's even easier to play, it's not that big of a challenge, we don't have to look deep into our souls to write a song.

We can probably whip up a Bloodbath album in a matter of just a few weeks, while it took three years to make the new Katatonia album. There you go, there's the difference. But I think having two bands in the same time makes me a much happier person, because I'm very much still an extreme metal fan, and since Katatonia is more and more moving away from those days, having Bloodbath just creates a huge equilibrium and balance in my musical world, which is vey healthy.

Also, from what I read about Bloodbath, you're all friends, right?

Yeah, that's probably why we started the band. We wouldn't have started a death metal band these days unless we were friends already. That would be too weird.

Katatonia has obviously progressed and evolved during time. What would you say was you're creative contribution to that process?

In the beginning, we had our positions in the band, where I took care of the music and Jonas did all the lyrics. It was like that for quite a number of years, actually. What changed later on was that I evolved as a musician, I found out that "wow, I can do more then that", and so did Jonas. He's not only good at doing lyrics, he's actually a very good songwriter. And I also found out that I have the need to write the lyrics sometimes, so I think we just contributed to each other, and helped each other to make Katatonia evolve.

Right now I don't see our positions set in stone anymore, we can do what we want. Jonas actually wrote a lot more of the music for the new album, more than I did, which some people find surprising, but there you go. Were not dividing our duties in the band anymore, it's just like, whoever comes up with the best material will be the one to get his way. We don't have "working titles" anymore, like, "I'm the guitarist so I write the riffs" or "I'm the singer so I write the lyrics", it more like "I'm in Katatonia, I do songs!".

What advice would you give young guitar players, and musicians in general, trying to get their music out there?

It's hard. I mean, I don't want to put people down or anything, but I think right now it's the worse time ever to be in a band, in terms of selling albums, because you're not selling many albums. If you want to be a band to make you happy, great, that's fine, it has nothing to do with it. But if you want to make it as a band this is the worse time to start out, unfortunately. At the same time, who knows what the future will bring, so again it's all about having ambition burning and the long term vision, because if you can endure this down time of technology and the bands, like anarchy and chaos in the music industry, maybe it will change and in the future we will all look back and think of it as the "big depression" or something like that.

My advice for people is to just follow their heart, and really listen to their talent, because they should never lie to themselves, that will come back to them at the end of the road. There's nothing worse than being in a band and not be happy with it, and then quit or kick out members, that's the worse. I can describe it as ending a relationship with you're wife or a family member, it's really painful and will affect you a lot. So follow you're heart, and don't just join a band because of a certain hype or because it seems successful, I mean, I would never ever join a band just because it's successful if I would not feel the music from my heart.

When you say anarchy and chaos in the music industry, do you think it's re-designing and re-defining itself?

I hope so. Because out of this can come order. All the labels and all the industry has to think how this should be sort out. Right now, everyone is just pushing in different directions, and nothing good is coming out of it. It's just, if the labels are holding on to conformity, and trying to hold on to the past, the younger kids will just take advantage of what's in front of them, the whole downloading thing, because it's easy, affordable, and in their face everyday. So they should provide the children with a good service, which provides a good medium for the music.

What I feel is that a lot of the younger kids these days don't have a lot of respect for the artist. If were talking about the downloading thing, I see comments online saying "I download because I want to rip of the labels", and instead their ripping us off. It's just a big mess that way, and we really depend on that, If we don't earn money in album sales, we will not get money to record a new album. So with all of that going on, those things can eventually lead to the death of the band. It used to be working really good, people bought CD's and were real excited about them, and today they say like "oh, I'll just download it and check it out", and then just toss it away, because one hour later they found out another release has been leaked. They are spoiled with to many releases at the same time, and I think it takes away the magic.

Now I might sound a little bit old here, but I remember when they were releasing CD's, and they would announce the releasing date, and I could not wait, there was so much anticipation, and I took the subway downtown to my favorite record store, and I was like "ok, is it in?" and they were like "yeah, here it is" and I was like "wowwww". I bought it, sat with it all the way home, flipping it all over, checking out the lyrics, checking out the other notes, checking the photos. I was so excited about it really, and I think that is what people are missing today, they are just downloading it and tossing it away.

Back then, I didn't have a lot of money, so I really had to be selective, I knew I could not get all the CD's. Today people want them all, and I think if they just be more selective and understand that this is killing the artists and killing the scene it will improve, though many bands may not be around unless they have a long term vision.

Nowadays, there is a big wave of big headliner bands coming to Israel. What motivated you guys to perform here?

We have actually been negotiating with a promoter in Israel for several years. I think we first got an offer back in 2005 to come down. For some cursed reason it just never happened. So we just said damn, it was unfortunate, we were suppose to come to you already years back. But anyway, I don't think it's too late to come now, I think it's better than never, it’s a perfect timing because right now we are visiting a lot of countries that we didn't get to before, so our whole agenda is to visit every country we can in the world, any country who has electricity [Laughing]… And obviously, Israel has.

We were very curious about Israel, we have heard a lot about it and there is a great scene there. Actually, the first fan letter I ever got was from Israel, so that just shows how long you've been in the scene as a strong underground, and good good scene there. We are very excited to meet all the bands we head throughout the years, and just experience your country, so to speak, even though we will be very quick, just in and out, but I think the show's evening will be a very special one in terms of impressions.

What would you like to say to Katatonia's fans in Israel?

I would like to say thanks for keeping up with the band for so long and for that Israel was the first country we ever got fan feedback from, so it's very special. We look forward to see as much as you as possible at the concert, hanging out with you that evening, and have a very very Katatonic special experience.