This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with guitarist Anders Nyström at the Roseland Theater I Portland, OR on October 16, 2011.

For twenty years KATATONIA have been influencing a wide array of bands with their unique style. From their early Doom/Death days to the more recent atmospheric Rock/Metal material, they have maintained a high level of quality throughout. While people may disagree on which era they prefer, just about everyone can agree that KATATONIA deserve the recognition they currently have.

Phil: How’s the tour been so far?

Anders: It’s been excellent; no complaints. It’s been a great ride. A long tour. We’re halfway through it now, maybe a little bit more than that, but every day’s been a new experience, every show has been great - we’re loving it.

Phil: How’s it been touring with a band like OPETH whom you’ve had a long running association with?

Anders: It feels like you’re out with your family. I mean, as you said, we’re long-time, old friends and we did this one time before in Europe, ten years ago, and we knew how that was going to be and we said “This is going to be the same thing all over again,” but we’re taking it to North America instead. I think that’s a great thing for all the junkies to experience. Of course, also for us to repeat again, so I love it. It’s great.

Phil: How is it being a support act in North America versus your three previous tours here headlining?

Anders: Well, being the support band for an act like OPETH is obviously a good way to play bigger venues for us. A lot more people for us, so that’s basically the main difference. It’s all right because I see this every night; we share their fan base without them even knowing it, so it’s easy for them to connect with us and obviously there’s some KATATONIA fans there, as well, so it’s been real easy. I mean, it’s a really good fitting bill, so for us it’s been a really smooth ride and it’s a perfect opportunity to tour North America, with OPETH. I couldn’t see a better band to tour with.

Phil: I just realized this is the second support tour, not the first.

Anders: Yeah, you’re right.

Phil: There was the MOONSPELL tour. I kind of forgot because everybody left after you guys played, at least at the Portland show.

Anders: Yeah, that was different. We played a lot smaller venues and somehow on that run, it was like… it almost felt like a headline tour at some point, so yeah. But this is way different and we’re really investing in a lot of people right now.

Phil: Funny side note; you remember the venue you played here in Portland with MOONSPELL?

Anders: I can’t remember the name…

Phil: I think they called it… I don’t remember what they called it…

Anders: Was it the Hawthorne? No, that was the last time…

Phil: I don’t remember what they called it because it had been the Paris Theatre for years and years and years and then they changed the name and ran it as another club for six months, but it’s a porn theater now.

Anders: Oh! Okay! [laughter] Wow. All right. Well, we’re not playing there tonight.

Phil: It’s a lot more honest now that they admit to the sleaziness. [laughter]

Anders: Wow.

Phil: All right, tell us a bit about the London show you filmed for an upcoming DVD.

Anders: We had to choose one of them. It just made sense to do it in London, I guess. It was a really nice venue, looking really old fashioned and real atmospheric. It was a good turnout. We’re working on it right now; it’s just being mixed and we’re trying to get all the pieces together, so the release date is actually as soon as possible now. We’re already past our deadline, so it’s going to be out as soon as we can get it out. It’s going to be having the show, the twentieth anniversary show, on it, of course, which are the double sets, playing the whole Last Fair Deal Gone Down and the “best of” set or whatever you call it, and then there’s going to be a documentary as bonus footage, going through the whole career, talking about all the stages we’ve been through, so it’s going to be definitely worth looking into.

Phil: Tell us a bit about the upcoming reissue of For Funerals to Come and the bonus tracks that will be going with that.

Anders: That was something I got to know on this tour, actually. The label said that they just want to do something really unexpected and for the diehard fans. They said they want to pick a really obscure title that nobody would expect like For Funerals to Come, which was just an EP, and out it out on both CD and album. I love those things because it’s limited. I love everything that’s limited, so it’s going to be super exclusive, limited, probably not more than five hundred copies for the LP and a thousand for the CD, I think. It’s all original layout in there; we spiced it up with a few photos from the same session but probably haven’t been seen before, the old logo, everything is just as it’d been. It’s kind of cool. And we put two bonus tracks on there because they never really surfaced anywhere. It’s like we recorded two tracks in the same kind of musical vein as For Funerals to Come the same summer; they were going to end up on a compilation on an old Swedish label and they just fit perfectly together with that material, so there you have it.

Phil: How much is ready for the next KATATONIA album?

Anders: Almost half of it, you could say. When we left for this tour, we actually left the writing phase, so we’re taking a break from that now when we tour ‘cause… I don’t know, it doesn’t… I wish we could write on the road, but not really for a band like us. We need the comfort of our homes and the peace and quiet when we get inspiration going and all that, so you can’t do that in a tour bus. [laughs] So yeah, when this tour wraps up, we’re just heading straight back home and going to continue where we left off.

Phil: Will it be a significant shift from the last album or just more natural progression?

Anders: Yeah, we’re not aiming at all for a significant shift in the musical terms or anything. We’re really happy where we are and we just have the goal set on trying to beat the last album with better songs, but totally the same direction. People are definitely going to recognize the KATATONIA sound, so… I mean, a few songs, we might experiment just for the diversity and variety of it all, might take some songs into directions people maybe didn’t expect, but the album in a whole will be definitely continuing the Night is the New Day thing.

Phil: Do you have any idea of who you’re going to work with on the next recording and a possible idea of the release date?

Anders: We’re going to work with the same team we worked on the last album, we don’t know if we’re going to work at the same place; that’s still to be decided, but the same engineer, the same mixer, you know - we’re so happy with what we achieved with the last thing with them, the results. So the “if it ain’t broken, why fix it?” stuff. Release date-wise, we’re trying to get it out before summer, but I can’t promise it. But I can promise a 2012 release, a hundred percent.

Phil: Do you think that most of the old school fans have finally come to grips with the fact that you’re never going to go back to that old style that you did at the beginning?

Anders: I think so. There are still some people that might dream about it but it’s not gonna happen. The only thing we compromise in that way is that we’re playing the old songs live still, so if they come to a concert, they’re still going to get a dose of that that way, but not on an album, no.

Phil: Are there any musical ideas you have that you’d like to record that you don’t really think would fit with KATATONIA or BLOODBATH?

Anders: There might be. I haven’t really thought about it. I think KATATONIA and BLOODBATH, they are so diverse from eachother that pretty much everything I come up with can fit into either of them and that makes me pretty happy. I don’t feel like I’m sitting on a bag of riffs or what ever that I can’t use anywhere - I can make them fit somewhere in either of those two, so no, I’m happy with having KATATONIA being more like a dark Rock/Metal atmospheric thing and BLOODBATH being a brutal Death Metal thing, so totally cool.

Phil: Are there any plans for releasing more albums in the 5.1 digital surround sound format like you did with The Great Cold Distance?

Anders: I’m definitely going to wave a flag for the new album being in 5.1, totally. It’s very important these days, even for my own sake. I would want the new album in 5.1, so yeah.

Phil: Do you think it would be a simultaneous release or a special edition like with The Great Cold Distance?

Anders: That’s the thing where the label really has the decisions. I would prefer the 5.1 to be released the same day, of course, people can choose. But it’s always a label decision - they always have their marketing plans, you know, and they like actually to re-release things and put bonus things on there and there’s nothing I can have a say about. [laughs] It’s their policy and stuff, so we’ll see.

Phil: Recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Anders: It’s been a long while [since] I read a really good book now. The latest book I read was probably about the Swedish mob. It’s called Svensk Mafia. I guess it’s not interesting unless you’re a Swedish citizen, but that’s the book I have to recommend ‘cause it’s really bringing up all the hierarchy in the Swedish mob. If people maybe didn’t think it was a Swedish mob out there, there is one actually, so I’ll have to go with that book.

Phil: Okay, is there anything else you’d like to add?

Anders: Not more than that we are super excited and stoked to be back in America and playing for all these people and doing what we love to do.

Katatonia's Anders Nyström

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

November 27, 2011

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PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Formed: 1987
Stockholm  SWEDEN
Label: Peaceville Records
Genre: Depressive/Doom/Death Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Jonas Renkse  - Vocals, (occasional)
                          guitar & Programming
Anders Nyström - Guitar, Backing
                        Vocals & Programming
Daniel Liljekvist - Drums &
                                              Percussion

Live members:
Per "Sodomizer" Eriksson - Guitar
Niklas "Nille" Sandin - Bass

DISCOGRAPHY:

Jhva Elohim Meth...
                       the Revival EP (1993)
Dance of December Souls (1993)
For Funerals to Come EP (1995)
Brave Murder Day (1996)
Sounds of Decay EP (1997)
Saw You Drown EP (1998)
Discouraged Ones (1998)
Tonight's Decision (1999)
Teargas EP (2001)
Last Fair Deal Gone Down (2001)
Tonight's Music EP (2001)
Viva Emptiness (2003)
Brave Yester Days Best of/Comp.  
                                                          (2004)
The Black Sessions Best of/Comp. 
                                                          (2005)
The Great Cold Distance  (2006)
Live Consternation (2007)
Night Is the New Day (2009)
The Longest Year EP (2010)