KATATONIA (Interview en anglais)

Entretien avec Daniel Moilanen, batteur de Katatonia.
Remerciements à Sounds Like Hell et Napalm Records.

Hello and thank you for this interview. We are not going to introduce you after such a long career but rather to enter in the heart of the subject which is your new album. How did you compose and record it?

Hello and thank you for having me. Well, « Sky void of stars«  was composed in the usual fashion with Jonas writing and arranging the songs by himself while bouncing ideas with us and then presenting the finished demos for us to work on for ourselves before recording. The recording process was pretty efficient, me and Jonas went to Denmark to record the drums with Jacob Hansen, the rest was done in Stockholm immediately after. We were done in three weeks or so, I think.

What are the themes you wanted to tackle with this album?

I would say this album deals with the same overarching themes as Katatonia albums tend to do – life, death, loss, time, love… We’re working with a never ending well of misery by staying alive in this world.

You did with « City burials » something different, but with this album I think you’re back to the more usual Katatonia, even if some tracks stand out a bit…

I actually agree – personally I see this album as Katatonia touching on sounds and vibes reaching back 15-20 years, even though it’s obviously a rather ‘modern’ sounding album. Not a conscious decision, I don’t think.

How was « City burials » received by the public?

« City Burials » was received as new albums usually are. It charted well but in a nutshell – some love it because it’s Katatonia, some love it because it’s good and some hate it because it doesn’t sound like « Brave murder day ». And that’s all fine. We were very happy with the album, it’s a definitive album in the Katatonia discography and we’re all immensely proud of it.

After all these years, are you still nervous about the release of a new album?

Sure. That feeling never goes away, for better or worse. But we’re also more and more confident with each new release. So not really nervous about people disliking the album. It helps that we also only release good albums.

You just finished an American tour, how did it go? What is your best memory ? And the worst ?

The American tour went really well ! It was our first tour in a good while, first tour since the pandemic, first (and last) tour for « City Burials » and on top of that we hadn’t been in the US for a while either. All in all a really fun tour shared with great bands and friends and great audiences. Best and worst memories are hard to pinpoint, most good memories gel together into a single long trip and most bad memories get tucked away into a dark corner of the brain.

And now it’s a big European and South American tour that awaits you with this new opus. I guess you can’t wait to show it to your fans and their live feedback…

Correct. We’re really looking forward to being out on the road again, meeting people and seeing (and hearing) them enjoy the new stuff.

You will be accompanied by Sólstafir. How did you choose them?

It’s a co-headlining tour with Sólstafir so we didn’t really ‘choose’ them per se, I think it was a joint effort between management and booking agents. I’m not too familiar with Sólstafir as a band but I’ve gathered that we maybe share a fanbase so I’m confident it’ll be a good run.

There are not many days off except for the break between your last gig in Brazil and your appearance at Hellfest. How do you deal with this very busy side?

We prefer to keep busy with the band so we welcome the busy seasons. Of course it becomes more and more difficult as we get older and there are families to consider but we’re aiming to make the most of it, while it lasts…

Thank you again, I wish you a very good tour and let you conclude…

Thank you for the interview. Hope to see all of you readers on the tour ! Cheers.

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