JONAS RENKSE Talks KATATONIA’S ‘Sky Void of Stars’, Songwriting and the Challenges of Touring

Jess recently sat down with KATATONIA frontman Jonas Renkse ahead of their upcoming Australian headline tour which kicks off next month.

DS: Alright, well we'll get started then! Firstly, how are you going?

J: It's great, I mean, we just came back from playing Turkey, Istanbul the other day, last Saturday. We had a really good show there and on Sunday we're leaving for America again, as we're going to do the 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise. So it's going to be busy because we're going to fly from there to Japan, do two shows in Japan and then we fly to Australia to do the tour. So it's getting quite busy now again after the Christmas break that we had.

DS: Yeah, awesome - and that's definitely a lot of travel from Sweden (laughs).

J: (laughs) Yes.

DS: And that Turkey show looked amazing, it looked like a really huge crowd!

J: It was a big crowd, it was a huge hall and it was sold out. I think there were about 3,000 people there which was very rewarding.


DS: Fantastic, have you played there before?

J: Yeah, we’ve played Turkey many times.It's one of the places that we first started going to when we started playing live and it's always been great for us. It was also one of the last shows we did before the pandemic hit, so it was really nice to come back and after four years and do it again.

DS: Awesome. Well, we're really excited to have Katatonia back for a headline tour next month as it's almost been eight years, I believe. Since then you've released two albums. So I thought we'd talk a little bit about your latest record, Sky Void of Stars. Firstly, I think it's a brilliant album. I think it's fresh, it's full of energy and really guitar driven. And even though I think the album has some dark underlying tones, that kind of classic Katatonia sound, I also feel like this album is quite uplifting in ways as opposed to your usual melancholic sound, would you agree?

J: Yeah, a little bit because I think that comes from that the album is a little bit more energetic. The tempos are a little bit higher than usual. I've elaborated on this before, but I think it's because it was written during the downtime during the pandemic. It was kind of written with playing live in mind because we all missed playing live so much. So subconsciously, I probably had some dream about playing live again. So the songs became a little bit more live-oriented and then maybe that's why it sounds a little bit more upbeat.

DS: Yeah, definitely, and I'm assuming the new songs have gone down really well live with the crowd?

J: Yeah, they do. It's amazing to see. Sometimes when you release an album, you have maybe one or two songs that are instant favourites with people. You can see that while playing live, but certain songs take longer to become staples in a live set. But for this album, I think we've tried playing five, six songs and each and every one of them have been working out really well early on in the live situation. So it seems like it's an album that people can really connect to quickly and establish a relationship to when they see and hear it live. It's a quicker click, I guess.

DS: Awesome, we're looking forward to hearing those. With the writing side, you've once again taken the reins in being the primary songwriter for this record, just like City Burials. Was this a purposeful decision to the band or did it just happen organically?

J: Well, it's been organically with every album that when I've been writing the most music because I tend to write a lot of music. I really like to have a routine of writing because after all, it's what I do. It's my day job as well. So it seems I've been on a creative streak the last few years and I just keep coming up with song ideas and I want to finish them off. Then I start with another one and all of a sudden you have an album's worth on your hands (laughs). This is something that record labels and management really like because they want you to release stuff as often as possible, pretty much. That's how it's been the last few years.

DS: Of course. And going back to that, I feel like this album has such a unique atmosphere. Every time I listen to it, I feel like I uncover another layer to the album. It's more than just the guitars, the bass, the drums and vocals. Can you delve into the textural electronic elements on the record and do you also compose these yourself 

J: I do. Yeah, and I have to say it's one of my favorited parts because as you say, it creates all these kind of layers and I like to have them sort of, you know, not always in the forefront, but more stuff that you might pick up after a while… And that's what makes it so fun to create them because I know that they will be sort of background sounds, but I put down a lot of time in creating them.

When I listen back to just those sounds, I'm really like, wow, I love this part of writing music to sort of glue everything together with what we call it's like, you know, a certain Katatonia atmosphere that we like that sounds maybe like a night sky. A night sky over empty cityscape, you know, stuff like that, the ‘building’ references that we always talk about… And so it's one of my favourite parts of actually writing music. It’s like the icing on the cake, you know?

DS: Yeah, and is that something that gets done last in the writing process or do you have a certain way about when you like, you know, you might do vocals first or guitars first or whatever. Where does the electronics come into it?

J: They come in pretty much early on because not all of it probably, but at least if I come up with like a drumbeat and a riff, then I want to see what kind of texture that would fit with this certain part. So I do a little bit of sketching on that. Then maybe later on in the process, I sort of elaborate more on the sounds and if I add stuff. But I think for me, at least it's important to have an idea already of what kind of sounds we need for the certain parts that will eventually become a song, you know. So it's pretty early on.


DS: In terms of like the production side of things, you've worked with Jacob Hansen for the last two albums for mixing and mastering and this seems to be a really good collaboration. Has his production style influenced the sound of your music and how did this partnership come about?

J: I think especially now for this latest album, when we already had worked with him for one record, I think it was easier for me to write and to sort of collect all the ideas. I knew that he would understand what I'm after and what we're after sound wise. I think he's an amazing mixer. He's also a bit of a producer. We even went to his studio this time to record the drums, which we didn't do for City Burials. I think that's also enhanced the whole thing because it means that he has full control of, you know, it's his drum room. It's his microphones, he knows exactly how to bring out the best of that kind of sound and combining that with, you know, whatever else that we sent him to mix. I think it's a very, very good end result on this record, especially. And yeah, it's a very fruitful relation, I would say. He's super easy to work with, one of the nicest guys and it's probably something we want to keep doing.

DS: Yeah, awesome - and I'm a big fan of his work. That's really cool. Going more towards, I guess, the artwork side of things. I'm sure you know that Katatonia fans have always been deeply connected to not only the music, but you know, the artwork and the imagery and designs that accompany your sound. I know that you primarily worked with Travis Smith from the late 90s all the way up until your 2016 record, The Fall of Hearts. But for these last few records, you've engaged with different artists. Can you discuss the reasons behind this transition and how working with new artists have helped to capture the essence of your music?

J: Well, as you say, I mean, we always regard the art as almost equally important as the music because it's the representation of the music. It's the first glimpse you get of the album even before you hear a note. You might see a cover art posted somewhere, so it's important to have it deeply connected to at least what we feel. The album sounds like this and therefore it should look like this.

As you say, we've been working with Travis for many years. He's super talented and he's very easy to work with. But he's sometimes very busy and I think maybe that's what led to us working with Lasse for City Burials. Lasse Hoile, he's been doing a couple of videos for us before, he's very multi-talented. He's doing a lot of stuff for Stephen Wilson and Porcupine Tree as well. We wanted City Burials to be more based on photography and he's a great photographer, so that's how that came about.

For this new album, we weren't really sure where to go or to whom. But it's kind of a fun story because back in 2014-15, we did an acoustic tour of Europe where we played unplugged versions of songs. For that one, we had a shirt designed by someone who we didn't know who it was really. But someone that management got in touch with, he made one of the shirts designs that we sold on that tour, and we thought it looked so good. So when we were about to come up with the art concept for Sky Void of Stars, we said we need to know who is that guy! So the management had to go through a lot of old emails and they managed to track down this guy. His name is Roberto Bordin and we got in touch with him and he was like “Wow, this was a long time ago that I made this, but I would be more than happy to try and take on the album layout”. Then we just worked with him, sending ideas back and forth. He's very easy to work with, very open-minded. I think the result is very, very Katatonia-esque. It goes hand in hand with what's on the album and you listen to it, so I think it's a great representation.

DS: Yeah, I agree. That's actually a really cool story! Moving on to talking about set lists and things. I had a look at your recent set list in Turkey and saw that the track Flicker has found its way into your set list over the past few months. As it's actually one of my personal favourites of City Burials, I do have to ask a question about the lyrics. Now, maybe this question might come across as me being maybe a little bit of a crazy fan who reads into things too much (laughs). I picked up on some key words to other references to other Katatonia songs such as ‘My Twin’, ‘Help Me Disappear’, ‘March 4’, ‘In the White’ and ‘The Promise of Deceit’. Do you ever look back on past songs and make connections to the new songs that you write or is all of this just purely coincidental?

J: No, I do use it as a reference sometimes because I think it's fun (laughs). I think it links stuff together and maybe it's not always very obvious but it obviously makes people think about it which I think is funny. So that's why I do it. I like to... I mean, it's not just to confuse people but it's also a way for me to sort of connect songs. It's just rewarding in a way, and it gives me a bit of a broader idea on how to write when I can just take in something that I've done before and just have it as a little recollection of something. And all of a sudden it will appear again, maybe in another context. But it's just... I like the idea of it. So that's definitely the way it is.

DS: So let's talk about the upcoming Australian tour which is kicking off early next month. What can fans expect from this tour from you guys?

J: I think as we always try to convey a lot of emotion, good vibes. I mean, we're not a band that's all about the fireworks and stage antics or whatever. I think people know what to expect. We're just getting up there and try to sort of recreate whatever energy that we had when we wrote the songs or when we recorded them, and they also tend to become different entities when we do them live over time. So they take a little bit of a new shape, some of them at least. And it's all about that, just trying to find the perfect energy for that particular night. Which I think it's super fun. It's very healthy. And trying to... I mean, sometimes we mix up the set list a little bit also. I'm not sure if we're going to do that this time, but it's fun to make things for ourselves also a little bit more unpredictable and see what happens. So it's up in the air a bit, but we also know what we're doing. It's just focusing (laughs).

DS: And with touring, it often involves adapting to different audiences and environments, and some things can potentially go wrong at times.I know you guys did a very small weekend stint in Australia back in 2022 for Dark Mofo Festival. And unfortunately for you guys, you discovered that your gear was lost in transit after all those hours of travelling. That must be one of the most challenging scenarios for a band. How do you navigate and adjust to these highly stressful situations?

J: Yeah, I mean, once you sort of get to know, you start understanding the situation. It's like, oh, fucking hell, you know. Especially this time we landed in Sydney, we were just about to switch to another airline to go to Tasmania. We were going to have to sort of re check-in our baggage. We found out that there was nothing coming through all the instruments were somewhere else. Then we went to this help desk and they said “Oh, the stuff is still in Frankfurt.” The thing is, we also were one day late because our original flight from Sweden to, I think somewhere in Germany had been cancelled for some reason. So we had to stay at an airport hotel in here in Sweden and then fly out the next day, which was going to be show day when we landed.

So at the help desk they say the stuff will come tomorrow. And I had to say, “well, it doesn't matter. You can send it back to Sweden already because we're playing tonight!”

Then they really understood the seriousness of it, but they couldn't do anything, of course. Obviously, all our gear was miles and miles away. So what we had to do was our tour manager had to contact the festival when we were still in Sydney saying like, this is the situation now, is there anything you can do to help? We need these kinds of instruments and if you can find these kind of gear that we use, it would be so helpful. And the festival was super helpful, as well as the bands playing. We got to borrow instruments from different bands that were already at the site. So that also shows the beautiful community that's within music and festivals. I think every band playing international gigs have been through this once or twice already, seeing that their gear is somewhere else and they're going to play. So we've also helped out other bands saying you can use our gear, no problem, because you know how stressful it is. And this time it was, yeah, the whole staff of the festival and the bands playing were so helpful.

So we actually managed to do the gig, which was a little bit unthinkable when we actually got the news that our gear was someplace else. We thought like, okay, this is it. We can't do the gig. But we could, which is thanks to a lot of nice people.

DS: Yeah, fantastic. And you guys did really, really well as well. So it turned out to be a good gig after all!

J: Yeah, it was extra nervous, of course. A lot of extra nerves because of this, because I mean, there's a lot of factors that could sort of make things go even worse. But I was so happy afterwards that we actually made it.


DS: Yeah, and the fans were really stoked as well.

J: Yeah, it was a great time!

DS: Well, on that note, we are really looking forward to having you guys back next month. The first show is kicking off in Sydney on the 9th of February. Thank you so much for your time and we'll look forward to seeing you next month.

KATATONIA ‘SKY VOID OF STARS’ AUSTRALIAN TOUR TICKETS:
https://davidroywilliams.com/tours/katatonia-2024/

TOUR DATES:

Friday 9 Feb – Sydney – The Metro
w/ Flaming Wrekage + Evocatus

Saturday 10 Feb – Melbourne – Croxton Bandroom
w/ Suldusk + Victoria K

Sunday 11 Feb – Brisbane – The Triffid
w/ hazards of swimming naked

Monday 12 Feb – Adelaide – The Gov
w/ Keyan

Tuesday 13 Feb Perth – Rosemount Hotel
w/ Yomi Ship