It has taken well over a decade, 9 albums, multiple fan petitions and even a support group for Australian fans upset at not having a tour, to finally get one of the greatest live bands in the history of heavy music to Australia. Renowned for legendary performances, ludicrous levels of skill as musicians and a seemingly endless catalog of killer songs, AVATAR are finally making their way to Australia.
AVATAR have long been your favourite metal band’s favourite metal band. From Iron Maiden inviting them on tour; to Vinnie Paul claiming Dimebag would have been jealous of their riffs; to mega star cameos on their albums, including Halestorm‘s Lzzy Hale on the new one, Avatar have never lacked for adoration from their peers. When Matt Heafy of Trivium had to skip a few shows on their tour for the birth of his twins his choice to fill in for him was Avatar’s Johannes Eckstrom. The side of stage at every one of their US and Euro festival appearances always features a packed gallery of the who is who of rock luminaries riveted by and gaping the pure joy and spectacle.
We caught up with Johannes Eckerström to get behind the music and lift the lid on one of the best live shows in the world.
Mark: Good evening!
Johannes: Hello, sorry I’m a minute late, a guy rang the door! He’s inspecting my plumbing.
Mark: (laughs) That sounds like the start to a comedy movie, but I digress. Good to see you. how are you?
Johannes: Thank you, I’m doing pretty well I must say.
Mark: It’s been a while since I last saw the band, I was in Orlando Florida back in 2015 at the Earthday Birthday Festival.
Johannes: Oh wow, well that’s almost a decade now (laughs).
Mark: (laughs) It is isn’t it, it’s been too long. So it’s doubly great that this time I don’t have to travel to the U.S. to see you as you are Downunder for the first time in August. Not only that this time I get to see the full show!
Johannes: The full show, and it’s been a long time in the making. Going anywhere for the first time is always the hardest. So we’re coming to prove a point, people need to show up! (laughs) and then we’ll make it very clear to people why we should be allowed back over and over again! So that’s the whole plan and like you said we get to do the whole thing! We want to show those three parts of the country exactly what we are all about.
Mark: And you’ve got someone behind you who is bringing you over who loves the band, a real fan who can’t talk highly enough of you.
Johannes: That certainly helps.
Mark: I love all of your albums, they all offer something different but you just released what I think is my favorite in ‘Dance Devil Dance’.
Johannes: Yes I agree. I went around when it came out doing all those interviews and I was telling people I thin it is the best album we ever made… That’s also my job to do that because I do a lot of interviews for the band so I’m not going to put out a new flavoured ice cream and say “It’s alright”.
Mark: (laughs)
Johannes: It doesn’t work like that does it? But really I think as far as song-writing goes, and we are an eclectic bunch of lads in what we put together on an album: but I think song by song this is our most focused work ever. I mean I do like progressive music I like big trips down emotional peaks and valleys, and song wise we’re still very dynamic – so we thought rather than do a song that is angry, sad and a little bit horny, I would rather nowadays feel it’s much better to do three songs, which one is angry, one is sad and one is a little bit horny. It just makes for better individual songs where you really can dig into emotionally and musically what that idea is about. It’s like Michael Jackson on Thriller and what Judas Priest achieved in their time with ‘British Steel’ I think. It’s exactly that, before it ‘Sad Wings of Destiny’ was a masterpiece and we need that in the world too, and ‘Victim of Changes’ being one of those that takes you to all kinds of places. I love it, but there’s something to be said about a ‘Metal Gods’.
Mark: I see what you’re saying though there were a few albums between those releases of course.
Johannes: You’re right and you get it, so doing modern Metal I think that we really try hard to make songs that you haven’t heard yet before we put our songs out. At the same time it leans on really old school stuff that defines what Heavy Metal is about to us. With Heavy Metal you can’t forget the Rock and Roll, and when modern Metal is best enjoyed many time, not all the time, but many time if you sit down and shut up I think you miss something. It’s also music that fits in the gym and the car… you know, that’s useful.
Mark: I think you’re right. And the great thing about this record is that there were some great songs coming out in the lead up, and everything was getting better and better and then you delivered an album where every other song on the record was as good as what we heard before. I think that you mentioned Michael Jackson earlier is interesting as that was an album, far as it was from Metal that was full of singles and took you somewhere with each song. I think you can take the songs here individually as well.
Johannes: Thank you for saying that, and that exact thing I guess is that weird balancing act where I think a lot of bands in Metal fall short. The challenge to make something that works right away for the people who get it, that’s the thing. People ho get it will get it, people who don’t won’t and that’s fine. To make something that has something in it where there is this immediate connection first time around but then you can come back to over and over and over again. Because there’s a way of being direct by devaluing and cheapening what you are doing and really just leaning on doing exactly what somebody else has done before which is safe and secure by comparison, and just like this thing you already know – therefore I get in and therefore I’m into it. But then there’s nothing to explore or get a direct relationship to over time. But to have that directness and also have something worth revisiting, maybe discovering the percussion underneath, like the drum beat in ‘Billie Jean’, 30 years later, 40 years later 50 years later: I think that’s a very important aspect of what we are doing. Therefore not shying away from something that could be potential singles, but you know we’re a Metal band we think more album than single, therefore there’s the challenge of also adding that line of thinking on top of just trying to make kick-ass riffs and hit things hard.
Mark: I think you’re right music has to have that immediate impact whether it’s recorded or live and also that extra depth. I can attest to that impact in a live setting. I remember being at that Festival with a friend who had not only never seen you before but who had never heard of the band and even though it was a short Festival set by the end he was a huge fan. I think that’s what we have to look forward to when you come over for the first time – that huge amount of energy and that huge amount of theatre too. That sense of theatre enhances everything – where does that stem from? Was that always there?
Johannes: Unconsciously from childhood looking back on stuff we like growing up – yes! (Johannes introduces me to Vincent his dog who is curious about the interview and comes to have a look). Yes, but then to really articulate that, and where Avatar is a bit special I think, many times when you look at the history of a lot of groups, a lot of bands start out from two mediocre to bad bands of which the two or three ambitious members find the other ambitious people next time over, across the street or whatever and then the form that ‘real band’. Like Geezer Butler and Bill Ward…
Mark: From ‘Mythology’?
Johannes: That’s right who found Iommi on Ozzy from ‘Rare Breed’. They tried things in other bands first: John Lennon was in ‘The Quarrymen’ before meeting Paul. So you have that, but Avatar, we were that shitty band and we met ourselves across the street and got better. Meaning that we really learnt how to play together, we grew up together and there was an evolution with that. So being able to articulate when you have barely written a song and barely can tune your guitar, at that time we were thinking “But what does this look like?” But you’re not quite there yet, so it’s been an evolution. But everything that has worked for us, that we feel “Yes this is us, this is the thing that we should be doing” it always comes from, and in hindsight when you look at what we grew up listening to and what has shaped us and who we are as people since day one and before day one of the band it makes sense. And I think that this is the secret of why it works for us, and you talked about the sum being greater than it’s parts – that’s the big thing. What we do all comes from within so to speak. To put some makeup on was never a thing that you put on top of our thing, it was just when we tried it out we realised that “This is what it looks like”. This is what our music looks like. And it got easier and easier from there. We just followed that instinct of who we were.
Mark: That makes complete sense to me, thank you for articulating it so well. And all those years of growth lead to the new record, and it doesn’t hurt of course to have a wonderful duet on there with one of our favorite singers Lzzy Hale? Where did you meet the Halestorm guys?
Johannes: I think we first met properly when we opened for them in the UK. That must have been the first time, and then you bump into each other all the time. We always got along really well, but the relationship was pretty distant for some time. But what we always liked and respected about them and felt a kinship was there you had again a gang that really grew up together, that had been together so long and in their case were literal family. In the music business there are a lot of bands where the members really don’t like each other anymore, if they ever did – it’s separate busses and ludicrous riders, and separate dressing rooms that need to be exactly equally as good otherwise there are tantrums – all these things you learn if you stick around for a bit! And then you have the people that, you know, go to the beach together still to this day. Halestorm is one of those and I feel a great kinship in their siblinghood which is very much in line with the brotherhood of Avatar. So that’s powerful and something we connect over, and we also connect over something else… Avatar of course is a Heavy Metal band and whatever subgenre you want to slap on us is fine by me, but to really ‘get’ us as a band there’s a lot of ‘Rock and Roll’ going on: and I think that Halestorm is kind of the same but the opposite. To really get them, and especially live when they go as hard as they can go, you have to acknowledge their Heavy side to truly acknowledge what they are doing. So there’s an overlap in what we do in that sense. But we always got along well enough and the song wasn’t made to be a duet until it was because of course it’s not a bad career move to have someone well-established to come and sing with you. But the reason that it works so well I think like everything else is that it started with the music. Tim came with some amazing riffs, I came up with vocals – my first idea was a call and response. So I thought ‘this is within Hendrix’ range’ and we kept moving on, then we were harmonizing, and I always listen to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel when writing, I can really sink into them. I like Paul Simon’s lyrics more than Dylan’s or anything. So they are always around in my head, so suddenly that day I felt like harmonizing a lot. So I thought, this is an opportunity all of a sudden, and Avatar is a sausage party so I thought, “Hmmm, so we even know girls?”
Mark: (laughs)
Johannes: Because that would immediately add something – a sound that in itself we could not create on our own. So we had a very short list and Lzzy of course jumped up there because we were in touch and she is so good – she is one of the greatest voices of our time I truly think. She is also a person who is up to do things like this – so it all lined up very easily. And of course she knocked it out of the park as we Australian and Swedish Baseball players say!
Mark: (laughs) She absolutely did! A wonderful song on a wonderful album.
Mark: I know we’ve never had you over before so I’m not sure what your plans for the setlist are but I’m hoping that you’re going to tell me there is a lot of teh new material in there?
Johannes: Oh yeah, I mean roughly half the album is in the setlist.
Mark: Staying on that subject, what can a first time Australian Avatar watcher expect from the live set? How can you sum up the experience?
Johannes: I think the shortest way I can describe things is that what we do is a ‘Metal Circus’. It’s not ‘Circus Metal’ because that would be silly!
Mark: (laughs)
Johannes: What even is that? (Johannes sings that well know Circus theme music) That’s Circus Metal!
Mark: That would be a whole different audience.
Johannes: (laughs) But it’s a Metal Circus for sure. I mean fundamentally it’s built from the ground up: a very solid rhythm section that makes people snap their fingers, and putting on that Metal show that really hurts people’s necks, but then with that come the theatrical aspects. And there’s almost a built in variety show into the set list; and I’m trying to speak about it without giving away the details! The setlist is a composition of its own because there’s an art to where you want people at the beginning of a set and where you want them to arrive. So you have to give each expression of a song the maximum output if you will. From the most gentle bare-boned piano pieces to the things that are there from Avatar Country and stuff where we are leaning into the comedy. From the dead serious things to the presence of a certain ‘horned fella’ in the spirit of a lot of the current stuff. And to really have that eclectic journey that our set is – to have that all make sense. And then the little bells and whistles in terms of theatrical things that make us different from others. I think I managed that without spoiling it.
Mark: You did.
Johannes: Theatrical without theatre! I think you’re right theatrical is more accurate because with theatre you have a script that needs to be the same every night – you don’t ‘improv’ during Hamlet! And I’ve been to the ballet and I enjoyed it thoroughly but that kind of strict choreography – that’s a different art form. A Heavy Metal show is a Rock and Roll show like everything from Professional Wrestling to Stand Up Comedy – it’s all about being attentive to the room. It’s a two way street what we do as opposed to the theatre where you ‘deliver’ things – that’s a one way street.
Mark: It’s an experience, but you still have that freedom.
Johannes: Yeah, it’s a balance – because on every tour or throughout tours we come up with cool little things – “If we do this move now at the same time” (laughs) You know – “that’s cool!” But then there must be room, you know, to acknowledge what that night is like. And there’s such a difference between a headlining set and a Festival set and opening for someone – depending on who you open for. And depending on who I’m in front of “Do I need to teach you guys what a circle pit is?” or “Do I need to incite a riot in here tonight?” or “Do I need to make this righteous, violent blood-thirsty crowd connect with the gentler side of it and make all these grown bearded men weep like little children?” It’s always where are you and where are we going because I’m gonna take you all round the sun!
Mark: I hope it’s all of that!
Johannes: (laughs)
Mark: Jay Ruston seems to really understand the band and the music, how important is he to Avatar?
Johannes: He has turned out to be very important. I think we really get each other as people to begin with in terms of, you know, we’ve all got our dogs that we love, we are all vegan, and we all have a good appreciation for locker room talk (laughs). We also know what the difference is between playing in the dark and actually meaning well in this world, he’s a genuinely good person. And if we focus on Jay, aside from his relationship to us I think now because he’s been so successful in Metal, we in our scene get to keep him to ourselves. But if you look at him beyond his curriculum as a producer, if you look at the rooms he’s been an engineer in, his mixing and who he has worked with – he could probably do it all. But now we get to keep him to ourselves a bit in heavy music which is nice. And we have a lot of the same fundamentals in what we like and what we get, but he’s also curious enough to get to the roots of Scandinavian Death Metal that we get to teach him a little bit. He did listen to ‘Slaughter of the Soul’ on repeat over and over to try to fully understand it when he left the studio last time with us on his way home. He learnt a lot about that. So we have a lot of things we can teach each other. And then as modern producers need to be – that you’re the total package of engineer, producer and also the mixer – and to wear all those different hats. I think at the same time you grow with him a lot because he’s not there to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong necessarily as much as making sure what is right in your mind comes out on a way that can help you make that work. I mean he hasn’t listened to as much ‘Anal Cu*t’ as the rest of the band, but of we come from an obscure Grindcore angle with something we are trying to achieve, he digs into that to understand it and he helps you also there.
Mark: That sounds like a wonderful relationship you have. I have to say though that I also really loved the previous record ‘Hunter Gatherer’ that if anything seemed just that little more ferocious, and darker. There was an anxiety there, a sadness, you play with emotions so well.
Johannes: Why thank you.
Mark: Is that what you were seeking to get across?
Johannes: Yes definitely. A lot of our work, and I think this is common for many bands unless you are very strict with your formula – there’s always this pendulum that swings back and forth – in that there’s always a reaction to what you just did. And ‘Avatar Country’ taking one further step back was of course us taking a stab at comedy and trying to have fun with being funny. And it was fun, but that also prevented us from expressing a lot of other things. So ‘Hunter Gatherer’ became a lot of other things, and I kind of banned humour with that one.
Mark: Didn’t you say at that point it was the end of Avatar Country?
Johannes: Well what we said and what we felt was as Avatar Country was very successful and very appreciated in the way we got to play with our fans and with our audience – you know we had fan art exhibitions in the ‘Royal Museum of the pictures of the King’ and in the Merch area of the show people dressed up, even the interviewers took it to the next step. Actually we programmed a phone number that people called to a robot voice that welcomed them, and told the where they were in the queue, and then we recorded a ‘Lounge’ version of one of the songs as waiting music, and then you would be called back. And we did this whole augmented reality thing. And all that was great but it always seemed like a one time thing. Because all the song titles referred to the King, and the King of course Jonas played that part brilliantly. And then after we’d done this album of love songs to my buddy here we knew we needed to move on. And I think it was a joke that didn’t get old throughout the whole thing but we gave it our all at that time. But when it’s time for the next thing, it’s time for the next thing. So we kept that door to the inner darkness closed for two years longer than I ever needed to do in my life. So prior to this there was a lot to vent all of a sudden on ‘Hunter Gatherer’. So it’s a very stern, serious album. Then I think also the fact that it was made, all of it was written and recorded before the pandemic, but then it came out in a climate where all of those things resonated even stronger with where we were at as species on the planet. so that resonated with a lot of the stuff on the album painfully well. And I think that shaped the perception of it. I’m very proud of it, and this is another album we did a live recording version of. But I think an important difference with ‘Dance Devil Dance’ is that we kept the darkness but we also brought in the playfulness again, and brought in the Rock and Roll alongside the spiritual journey and dialogue – “do you believe in Satan, It doesn’t matter I am Satan” – you know all those thoughts and feelings that went into that.
Mark: Was the recording process different?
Johannes: With ‘Dance Devil Dance’ we went to my family’s Summer cabin and in an extra building that we built there, and by ‘we’ I mean everyone else in my family except for me! We took out all the beds, stuck them in a barn and filled on bedroom with amps, another one was a control room and in the third one we put up the drum kit. And there was just the five of us plus Jay alone in the woods for a month. My brother came for two nights with his sons and made us pizza, but that was it. So we lived like this little doomsday cult in the wilderness watching snow melt away, and it was almost Summer by the time we were done. That was amazing. And ‘Hunter Gatherer’ we did it in the heart of the L.A. Studio scene. Stevie Wonder later bought the studio. It’s all those things, if you want to speak highly of L.A. it is all those things we got to have in terms of recording there. It was amazing. But I think also that environment made for slicker choices. ‘Hunter Gatherer’ sounds expensive, with a thick low-end and all that. The mix of the drums is very much focused on the microphone they were close to – you can hear each piece of teh kit. While ‘Dance Devil Dance’ is more mid-range in the mix with more teeth in the guitar, dirtier drums utilizing room mics more and really capturing how we played. The method of recording was very similar but due to how that is mixed it kind of polished that way a bit I feel with ‘Hunter Gatherer’ whereas I feel ‘Dance Devil Dance’ sounds as real as both albums were. Not just performance wise if you really pay attention to the tempo and stuff, you hear it, you sense it, but now it’s even built into the very sound and what we emphasized in the mix. That made a huge difference I think.
Mark: I think so. It’s bee great talking to you today, just a bit of fun on the way out we’ll ask you our questions we reserve for first time guests. If you could have been a ‘Fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album in the history of Rock and Roll, what would you love to have witnessed being made? Just to see how the magic happened?
Johannes: The first thing that jumps to my mind would be The Beatles but I think we all kind of got to be that fly with the ‘Get Back’ documentary. And they are so spoken about and talked about and categorized and documented that I feel I almost don’t need it at this point. So I’m thinking Black Sabbath the debut album but I also think I have a pretty clear image of that – of a bunch of guys just going in and hitting all those things quick and cheaply over the course of a week. In a couple of night sessions it was done, so I’m not sure how much there would to be seen. But how about ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ – something like that?
Mark: A fantastic album. When did you know music was going to become such an important part of your life? Was there a defining moment or a gradual realization?
Johannes: It happened repeatedly. As a little kid when I grew up my parents listened to a lot of music – of course The Beatles and all the 60’s stuff in Dad’s record collection was there, but there was mostly classical music. So I would take Beethoven, put it on, and stand on a chair with a spatula or something from the kitchen and pretend I was a conductor. So it was already kind of integrated in play time for me. And a few years later at school, a computer nerd as a child, my other computer-nerd piano-playing friend: he had stuff where you programmed music in midi but it was sheet music, so we would compose together at the age of eight. There’s nothing that brilliant or gifted about it (laughs) it wasn’t Mozart you know, but it was still a thing we did, so it was always there. And then The Beatles around the same age, I saw them on TV and I got obsessed with that and a whole lot of other bands. But the real turning point was Metal and it was when my brother lent me ‘Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II’ by Helloween. That’s when it truly changed, and that’s the age of twelve. From there I’m kind of screwed! (laughs) From then there was no longer any hope of me using my pretty decent grades for anything actually useful.
Mark: A fantastic album to help turn that page. Let’s close with a really easy one – what is the meaning of life?
Johannes: Well I don’t really believe in one. You discover it for yourself, and whatever floats your boat, it doesn’t matter in the end. So is it Aleister Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole law”? But I have my own beliefs and I do believe in kindness, I do believe in trying to do whatever you define ‘good’ in this world. Taking care of each other – I find meaning in that. When you get the feeling that you are actually giving something beyond what is expected. Musicians, we get elevated out of proportion. We get thanked a lot, we get applauded at the end of the work day. I also don’t work with kids with special needs, and I’m not an ambulance driver and I’m not a brain surgeon. And as much as I have my beliefs my activism has been extremely limited though there are people who do actual good work out there you know. That being said any time I feel I am giving something of substance to someone, ether inside or outside my life in entertainment, it fulfils me. But ultimately at the end of the day that’s up to me to define it like that. So “Do what thou wilt”.
Mark: Indeed, the Law of Thelema, with a lighter edge maybe?
Johannes: (laughs)
Mark: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today Johannes. Stay safe, and see you on the road somewhere.
Johannes: I hope so man, but not just a one off, over and over again. Bye.
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