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Don’t forget to check out the reports on Rockharz 2024: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4!
I’m rarely heartbroken, but when you discovered a band and have not had an opportunity to see that band live before, then you get extremely excited when you do get that opportunity. Now imagine that you’re at the place, everything looks good and then their slot gets cancelled because the festival has to be evacuated due to a thunderstorm. In what was a sensible decision lay my biggest calamity… The show must go on and I’m truly grateful that AVATARIUM not only were willing to do the interview, but also that we got some awesome „backup“ shots! Check out, what the result of that was!
Huge thanks to lightinmirror.de for your amazing eye and craft in this!
Shieldmaiden’s Voice: I’m so sorry for you guys that the festival was evacuated and you were unable to play your slot! Has that ever happened to you before?
Marcus Jidell: No, that was the first time. I experienced it once with my old band EVERGREY somewhere in the Netherlands. There is nothing you can do… I try to live my life by following what happens and this is a good test for me to accept what I can’t change.
Jennie-Ann Smith: I’ve never experienced this and it’s such a challenge because a musician’s work ethic is very high. We never cancel, we go through sickness and every other catastrophe and we still deliver. But these things you can’t control.
Marcus: I talked with our bass player Mats about this on the plane here. I always had problems with things not turning out the way I visualized them. I’ve been really working on this and it seems like God was like „Really? Prove it!“
SV: Coming from this topic of how you try to approach problems like that, how are themes like that translated into your music?
Jennie-Ann: I’d say they translate very well, because we deal with these big, existential questions. We’re very lucky that we have music to channel these questions and to find a way to understand the meaning of life, death and everything in-between.
SV: The next AVATARIUM song will be „A Storm is coming“ then!
Jennie-Ann: We actually have an album coming out on January 24th 2025 and the first single is Long Black Waves and you can apply these experiences about having a nightmare quite well, because there is a lot of water involved, such as today. [all of us laugh]
SV: Apart from stormy festival days, what would you say are your main inspirations for your music?
Marcus: That is a good question… I think, both of us are inspired by a lot of different things… I’ve been professionally playing music for more than 30 years and I’ve always been very interested in music. I started with classical music, then I learned to love Hard Rock and Metal and Blues and Jazz. For me, all the music I hear and all the stuff I learn kind of passes through me, inspires me and then I try to find my own path through it. Lately, I’ve been listening to Beethoven a lot, because I’ve been into piano music so much and then I hear something in his compositions and think „Ok, that is interesting!“. That could happen with MOTÖRHEAD too though. There are so many different kinds of music that pass through me and turn into the things we do with AVATARIUM.
SV: What I always enjoy about your music is the fact that there are so many different aspects and varieties to it. There are songs like Lay Me Down that re very tender and deep, but then tyou have this Rock-y, Blues-y sound in Rubicon. And that is just my view on your music with two examples. What is it you want listeners to take away from your music?
Jennie-Ann: The combination that I enjoy is the one of refinement and raw energy. That is a bit rare these days. You either have this massive, even flow of digital sounds coming towards you or you’re in something very fragile. We can combine that with our musical ability and our way to write. Our refinement is quite skilled and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this. [Speaking towards Marcus] I think you’re a virtuosic guitarist and the way you think about and work with music is extraordinary. I get to follow you on that path and I enjoy this raw energy together with all these layers of thoughts and emotions that we put into the music.
Marcus: It’s also very human and very opposite to AI. We want the freedom of being human and to play the music like we feel it. One day, we might play a song a bit slower and the other we might play it faster. We’re not machines. Every album sounds a bit different, but still like us, which is because of the influences we had when we started together with Leif Edling 10 years ago. Even though we do quite different music sometimes, we always have a clear vision of how we want it to sound. We want it to be dark, heavy and poetic and we have the freedom in boundaries to do just that!
SV: So you have this versatility in which you’re able to bend yourself as much as you want within the boundaries that you created for yourself.
Marcus: Yes! That is both something that helps us and that some people have problems with because they cannot put us into any genre. We don’t sound exactly like any other band. We’ve been around for some time and people know what we are and what they get.
SV: You also said earlier that you’re going to release a new album at the beginning of next year. Beyond that, what is something you want to achieve with AVATARIUM in the future?
Jennie-Ann: You can be focussed on the practical aspect of wanting to achieve success, but I am invested in this because of how it makes me feel. I work very intuitively and if it feels right, then it’s worth it. Life always be like that, as much as possible! We worked very intensely with the coming album and when you have done five albums already, you need to challenge yourself. The goal for us has to be to challenge ourselves every time.
Marcus: Right now, we’re kind of exhausted after this whole process, but we are very happy with the new album. The last album went quite well, so we hope that will go similarly. In some way you always think how amazing it would be if everyone liked the album, but that shouldn’t be the main thing. This whole process has been so exhausting that I don’t know if I’m ever able to do another album again! [We laugh]
SV: Maybe as a last question, what is something you always wanted to be asked in an interview, but never were?
Jennie-Ann: We have experienced a lot of nice interviews that have ended up in a lot of real, authentic conversations about important things, for example about what music means to us or why music is important.
Marcus: It is weird, because what is really important? I have been thinking about that a lot. Why is music so important for me? I came into contact with what we can’t see, because we always focus on what we can see. There are a lot of things we can’t see and music proves that. Love is the same thing. You can’t see love and music is the same. But things happen and when you play music together, you’re communicating without words and that is the contact with the transcendent. That, to me, proves that there is a God.
Jennie-Ann: It might not answer your question though, but the format of an interview is limited by the time-frame and that time is never enough.
SV: I will keep this in mind for the next time we meet! Because there will for sure be a next time!
Marcus: And we do want to play for you! We’re very happy that you enjoy the music!
SV: I will admit that I haven’t listened to you guys for that long. I discovered you guys during the pandemic and a friend of mine sent me Rubicon and I listened intently to every release since. It always touched a place in my heart that felt very particular. It’s a real struggle to describe why I like it so much, but there is so much emotion in it that I can really connect to. Everything you just said resonates so deeply in me! That is why it’s so heartbreaking for me that you cannot play today…
Marcus: I will say that I’m very tired right now, but these kinds of things are very inspiring, because that means that we have to go back to Germany and play some music! It’s very meaningful to us
Trust me when I say that the next time AVATARIUM are somewhat close to me, I will see them live! Weather be damned!
Having posted this interview now means that there is only one left from Rockharz and that’s it! How insane… But worry not, other things are coming too!
Shieldmaiden's Voice 