With influences including In Flames, Thin Lizzy, the Beatles, Ministry, and even Beethoven, Avatar has made a point to tap into melody, memorability, and moments. Heavy metal can have all those things and still be just that: heavy.
If you turn on modern rock radio you may think you’ve heard it all. The thousands of bands that try to sound like a spinoff of Breaking Benjamin or the tough-guy-macho-metal vocals over a simple power chord. In between all of that, you may stumble upon a true circus of doom – a band that doesn’t try to be like the rest and is proud of it. Vocals that sound like a man on the brink of mental insanity followed by vocals embodying anguish. Guitars and bass that chug violently exploding through your stereo and drums tracts that truly roar. Then, right when you think you’ve heard it all, Johannes Eckerström will give you the most unnerving low scream that almost sounds like a fallen angel. It is unhinged, unstable, and completely original. In that moment you’ll truly understand Avatar is unlike any other band.
The metal icons are embarking on a new era; one surrounding their ninth studio album, Dance Devil Dance, that comes out on February 17. The record is the most adventurous and captivating yet. With so many twists and turns never before seen from the band it’s sure to leave newcomers intrigued and lifelong fans stunned.
Avatar is also doing a full U.S. tour in support of the album. For all of the New Jersey and New York readers, they’re playing Webster Hall in New York City on May 23 amid their cross-country trek. You must see this theatrical experience for yourself. Talking about the chaos that this band causes and expresses so naturally is fun, but it is seeing their show and being involved first-hand in the carnage that puts them on another level of extraordinary.
The Aquarian had the incredible chance to speak with Avatar’s frontman, Eckerström, about the new album. We discuss the band’s songwriting and collaborations, and for an artist and a band that has done as much as they have, his thought process is compelling.
First question right out the gate: The new album, Dance Devil Dance, is out on February 17, so how are you feeling?
I feel very good about it. You have heard every band say, “This is the best album we have ever done.” Of course it’s a huge lie and it’s not even for the artist to say – that’s for whoever is receiving it to really determine. That being said, this is, without a doubt and in my opinion, the best album we have ever done. I think because I have been reading Rob Halford’s book Confess as we were finishing up writing this, when he got to the chapter about British Steel (1980), it really resonated with me. It was the words I felt we needed to do at this time. Through the seventies there was a lot of great stuff and some great albums, but I feel like there were many great things with British Steel that had [Judas Priest] become the best heavy metal band. It talks about cutting off the fans and being more focused and stuff. I feel like we’re always this eclectic band, all songwriters and very keen on never writing the same song twice. It’s a fun challenge and all that. but song by song, to me, Dance Devil Dance feels incredibly focused considering what kind of unfocused madmen were involved in making it.
The reason you can confidently say, “This is our best record yet,” is because as you’ve said yourself, you’re not trying to write the same songs over and over. You’re not trying to write Hunter Gatherers Part Two. You’re pushing the boundaries forward and saying, “Ok, what’s something totally new we can explore?”
Yeah, we try to feel like beginners sometimes. It’s not always that we have to try to feel like that, though. In music and songwriting there is just so much to do that you can do. More often than not we make bigger choices about what not to put on the record rather than what to add. There are just so many different potential directions each and every time. There are so many different little ways you can challenge yourself along the way. That kind of stimulation is what we need – I think it’s very important when you do metal music as it’s a very physical genre. It’s supposed to be, in my opinion. It sounds hard and heavy because you’re hitting hard and heavy. [You] can’t let the machines do all the heavy lifting for you. Every album we do, there can be those physical challenges while recording; then you tour the album and you kind of get decent at performing those songs. You raise the bar every time through just performing live. There are all these little challenges along the way to really push your own boundaries of what you’re able to do.
I was going to ask you about your stellar live show. I love to hear you say that metal is such a physical genre because I’ve always said that. You can’t play the music you do just standing still for an hour-and-a-half. You’ve got to really get into it. The music leans into that, how do you lean into that live?
One way of putting it is that at the very best of days you’re just trying to create that magic every time and catch lightning in a bottle… which you can’t. You build circumstances where it’s more likely to happen. One thing you always try to do is live inside the songs, which is maybe an abstract psychedelic description of it, but at the time of writing a song, it just carries a certain meaning to you (musical, lyrically, etc.). Then you record it. You release it into the world, play it live, and your relationship changes over time. It’s very important to keep finding connections to that song almost from an outside perspective. I don’t know. If you have a song you wrote when you were 10 years younger, you should hopefully not still be in that place where the song is exactly what it was for you 10 years down the road, but you can find new ways to connect with it. That’s a huge part of it. Standing still and really concentrating would sometimes make for a better musical performance, but I think there is that little extra 0.5% that you’ve got to give that takes physical sacrifice. It’s another way of making it real for you. These things we do to go into trance with drums, dancing, and all that. I think exhaustion and self hypnosis relating to music to really push yourself into all those highs makes it more profound. You try to do it while also doing a nice little rock show at the same time. Hopefully combining a greater connection with the audience with a deeper connection with the music you’re performing.
It’s almost so insane to think that there’s a song you wrote 10 years ago that you connect in a totally different way now and then an audience member who is hearing it live for the first time is connecting to it in a totally different way than all the other audience members connecting to it.
Exactly. Every time someone has from the other end a meaningful connection to a song, that relationship to what is behind the song becomes just as true and valid as whatever intention we had making it. Many times there are songs that I prefer not to explain in detail exactly why I wrote it. If you pour some magic out… Oh, it was all about different yogurt brands? Great. Or whatever you put into it, it’s just that certain times it’s better not to talk about it in-depth [of] what is actually behind some songs. Ultimately, we try to write a song and good lyrics is first and foremost an attempt to create something beautiful, and if you try that process and create the most beautiful thing you can with varying definitions of what beautiful means. All the meaning and subtext has the potential to be something greater. That being said, then you have songs like “Tower” off of Hail the Apocalypse (2014) from a bunch of years ago now. Obviously, to me, I was trying to express a very destructive idea of love; something very controlling, possessive, jealous, harmful, and literally an imprisoning form of love. Also, because there is empathy in the chorus that kind of sweeps away the voice, the verse becomes so abusive. People still hear it as something romantic. They say, “Oh, that song is so me,” and I’m like, “Oh, call the police then!” At the same time, that version of the song [the version people have in their minds] fills their hearts with something. It’s a tricky thing to balance.
That’s the beautiful thing about music: no one’s opinion is right. However you want to interpret it, is how you can interpret it. Obviously the album is incredible but there are a few songs like “Going Hunting” and “Baren Cloth Mother” that didn’t quite make the album.
No, but they were never part of the session making of this album anyway. They were written very separately. They were more of the Hunter Gatherer era, so not leftovers persé, but we were writing in a way where we were finishing more songs. We were kind of in the Rick Ruben method of making songs. We always write a lot and begin with a lot of ideas, but this time we carried in the writing session more songs to completion. Then over time it became evident that, good or bad, not everything fits when you want to create that whole painting. It wasn’t so much about albums at some point in rock and roll. It was kind of a refreshing test of our wings in terms of releasing something done by ourselves and just letting a song be its own little thing without the context of an album. It’s liberating. They had nothing to do with what ended up being Dance Devil Dance.
Gotcha! All the Dance Devil Dance songs were written in one space, obviously with producer Jay Ruston, and the other stuff was sprinkled out in-between tours, promoting Hunter Gatherer, etc. I want to ask, how was it working with Jay Ruston?
This is the third time, and een prior to that he had mixed two albums before that, so we’ve been with Jay for a long time. We never thought we were going to stick with any producer for this long. We did Feathers & Flesh (2016) with Sylvia Massy. The only real reason we ended up doing just one was because it was so cool to switch to her and to get just…. One of the few moving pieces we have is, “Who do we record with?” If you get the opportunity to work with her and you don’t, you’re an idiot. She’s a genius. I want to make that clear because otherwise if you look at our track record she’s squeezed in there. With Jay, Avatar Country (2018) was such a specific project of what we wanted to do. He came in so late with that process so, of course, he helped a lot as a producer. Compared to what came after it’s not as much a Jay Ruston album because he just had to harness the manic stupidity and turn these inside jokes into an album. Hunter Gatherer (2020) was more the real deal, a real Jay Ruston album to us. Then came the idea, “Maybe we should change this?” Then everything else changed. Going from a proper studio to building our own out in the middle of nowhere, suddenly there was enough changing around us it made sense to have him as an anchor out there. That’s the thing: we’re this dog-loving, vegan bunch who like the kind of jokes you don’t repeat in interviews. You just really align in so many other ways that he became a good one to head into this madness with. His discipline is uncanny and contagious. Now we have to see, “Is that our guy now for the rest of time?” Might be. We might switch – nothing to do with him – just as a way to scare ourselves leading up to an album. Again, if you have an opportunity to work with Jay Ruston, too, and you don’t… you’re an idiot.
It’s also like, if you’ve worked with a band for so long he knows the sound just as well as you guys do. He can help unlock a potential and that is so exciting. I also want to ask about this duet with Lzzy Hale [on the song “Violence No Matter What”]. It just dropped as a single. It’s so exciting. How did that collaboration start? Did you reach out to her? Were you like, “Hey, I got this track I think you’d be great on!”
Pretty much like that! It started with the song. The song turned into a duet almost immediately. The first idea was, “Alright, I guess Henrik [Sandelin] will do a lot of backup for this song – that’s cool. Oh, I guess he’ll do a real lot because this harmony thing is kind of a big thing.” It kept growing that way. Now it’s actually a duet; we have the opportunity to bring someone in. Of course Avatar is a sausage party, so the first thing that became interesting was working with a woman. We had done all these shows with Halestorm and heard them play. I think she’s one of the greatest voices of our time. Halestorm is underrated for how hard they go and can go, especially if you’ve seen them live. If you look at Avatar I think you’ll most certainly think metal first but there’s an aspect of rock and roll that’s so important to what we are. Halestorm is the same in reverse. People might think it’s a hard rock band first, but they go pretty damn hard. We were right that she could, so we did this. It’s totally in her wheelhouse. The actual question was first popped by Jay Ruston, but we’ve been in touch since and get along well. It’s a special song. I am so used to – we are all in the band – having each other play each other’s ideas. That is the monogamy that we have been so used to, to use that analogy. We rarely get to have other people play our music. The last album we [had] someone play piano for was Gun. Having someone else play music is an incredible rush because it’s so rare for us. When it is also vocals and lyrics that we had done and someone else came in? Just that itself I became very moved by. It was a very valuable experience. I’m very grateful.
Thank you so much for taking time out of your day for talking with us today. I’ve got one more question for you today, about the album cover. It’s so ominous. How did that come to play? Did the album cover first?
No, not at all. John befriended this artist. […] He’s from Iran originally but works and lives his life in Sweden. He’s a great artist, especially in photography. He’s very into old technology. That is late-19th Century wet-plate photography that we’re doing there. That was it, I guess. We were doing a lot of experimental photography with him. This was one of the things that turned out really cool. We always have to ask that really weird question: What does our music look like? That abstract question is the key to this whole thing.
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