“I think that we found that a more emotional thing very suitable for us as people as well. We were still dealing with dark lyrics…It’s still the melancholic thing that’s interesting for me as a musician and lyricist. That thing is what triggers me when it comes to making music and I just want to explore it more and more because it’s been there my (whole) adult life, and even before that, so it’s an ongoing process!”
As teenage fans of death metal, thrash metal and all the popular genres that were penetrating Sweden in the late eighties an early nineties, the kings of heartfelt melancholia, Katatonia tried to find their sound as a group of teeneagers experimenting with the more heavier brand of metal before discovering their unmistakable and now clearly identifiable, distinct style. Having been a fan of theirs since hearing their first early albums – Dance Of December Souls and Brave Murder Day this was the first time I have had the privilege of talking to Jonas Renske, vocalist of Katatonia, and there was a lot to discuss, graciously Jonas was more than obliging with his thoughts and time.
The above quick intro was what we covered first with Jonas expanding upon how their captivating and near perfect style was released from them. Listening to death and thrash was what made them want to play music, but realising that they were limited to being able to play their instruments that were not at all in the same technical brilliance as say, Morbid Angel, Renske expands – “…we realised that maybe we’re better off doing something different and also reminding us of some of the bands that we really loved at the time like Paradise Lost and Bathory, that suited us much better and that has been the sound that we have been evolving ever since. Of course in the beginning it was sounding different because we were teenagers, really into this death metal thing at the time, but we always wanted to have this emotional edge to it and that laid the foundation to what we’ve been about all this time…thirty years!“
Hailing from Sweden, there is obviously what we all know as the Swedish sound, bands like, Opeth, In Flames, Meshuggah, Dark Tranquility all distinct and incredible in their own right, add to this luscious array of near perfect art in many varying forms, with the likes of Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Type O Negative, Katatonia stand beautifully vivid in a gallery of rich audio tapestry’s. Around ‘95/’96 Katatonia brought a defined gothic sounding style to us that was enduring, empathetic, engaging, heartfelt and depressing – so many emotions all at once, I asked Jonas how that distinctiveness came to be? “Well I think that we found that a more emotional thing very suitable for us as people as well. We were still dealing with dark lyrics. It wasn’t (really) about cutting up people (laughing) you know the death metal style that was popular at the time and we have just developed this from the very beginning to what we’re doing now. Of course as you evolve as a human, as a person and there’s a lot of different stuff coming into your life during such a long period of time, there are more influences to dabble with when you write songs and look for inspiration, so it’s a very natural process that’s been ongoing! But we still haven’t left the roots or should I say the foundation that we set out to do when we were a very young band. It’s still the melancholic thing that’s interesting for me as a musician and lyricist. That thing is what triggers me when it comes to making music and I just want to explore it more and more because it’s been there my (whole) adult life, and even before that, so it’s an ongoing process!“
With ‘rona but now a glitch on our collective consciousnesses, during that period Katatonia sat down and wrote their latest album Sky Void Of Stars which was released at the start of this year. A superb album to add their already glistening discography, it is of course soothingly dark and beautifully brooding as one should expect. I asked Renske about the album’s creation and how it came to be and what the primary goal behind it was?
“The primary goal first of all, because we were all just sitting in our homes, we couldn’t do any shows and having just released a new album in the beginning of the pandemic was ultimate bad timing, and I was talking to a lot of my colleagues in music and a lot of them said that they didn’t have any inspiration because of this, so I decided (thought) maybe this is also going to happen to me, but I didn’t want it to happen, so I set out a schedule for myself to write music every day for a certain amount of hours and said to myself – ‘it doesn’t matter if it’s shit coming out because I don’t want to be lying on my couch feeling sorry for myself…’ and that is what started the whole process of writing another album. As it went on I was more and more inspired because I thought ‘maybe there is an end to this whole situation and these are the songs that I want to present to people and also play live!’ so that fueled me! Even back then I thought another album is not a problem to do. And it kept me busy for a year and a half, which was great for my mental situation that I had something to focus on rather than just thinking about how unfair the universe was at the time for musicians or performers in general and of course a lot of other people, thinking about the bubble I’m in, so it kept me sane!”
As a lyricist and vocalist Jonas Renke’s incredible persona is far-reaching and has every audience member captivated and in the palm of his hands as we watch him with every performance we are lucky enough to be a part of, I asked him whom he considers to be an influence and motivation behind his artistic inner self. Case in point is the truly remarkable cover of Jeff Buckley’s – Nightmares By The Sea from their “Tonight’s Decision” album. He laughed at my brief anecdote I told him of and continued – “Oh yeah, when Jeff Buckley came out on the music scene and I got told of his Grace album, it was like a revelation for me and also all the other guys in the band, I mean we completely worshiped that record! It was so musical, it had the rock elements, and it had a lot of other stuff as well. It was a very vivid record and his vocals were something out of this world! He keeps being an inspiration, but this was mid-nineties, so there’s a lot of other stuff that I personally get very inspired by. There’s a singer Mark Kozelek from Red House Painters. I’ve been listening to their music for many years, now he’s performing under a name Sun Kil Moon. It’s stuff that I can’t stop listening to because it’s been there for a long time and musically and lyrically he is one of my heroes. I would also mention David Sylvian who used to be in the band Japan a long time ago in the eighties, since then he’s released a number of solo albums, some are very experimental and some are traditional, but he has been very inspirational for me lyrically, and musically he is dealing with a lot of atmospheric stuff. So that’s just two examples, I listen to music all the time, so I get inspired by a lot of stuff!” I round out this point by reiterating to Jonas that he then obviously makes all of his influences his own.
With a new Katatonia headline tour coming next February 2024, Jonas and I talk of his past memories and tours of being here in Australia plus also what we can expect to see and hear from them on their upcoming trip down here. Not to mention that it wouldn’t be a Metal V/HEAVY Mag hour-long special without asking Jonas what he feels are Katatonia’s most favorite and important songs for us to play on this Katatonia podcast spotlight with insight into his reasoning for choosing such tracks.
https://metropolistouring.com/katatonia-2024/
