Katatonia – interview met Nico Elgstrand (guitars)
Nico Elgstrand: “There was a lot of room for us to do our own thing, so that was nice.”
Het nieuwe Katatonia album ‘Nightmares As Extensions Of The Waking State’ gaat deze keer gepaard met heel wat veranderingen. Sinds we de loftrompet bovenhaalden voor voorganger ‘Sky Void Of Stars’ (2023) verlieten zowel Anders Nyström als Roger Öjersson de droefgeestige Zweedse band en dus moest men op zoek naar vervanging van de twee ingeburgerde gitaristen. Anders Nyström was zelfs met Jonas Renkse stichtend lid van deze kanjers der melancholie! Voor deze gelegenheid nodigden we de man uit die in de plaats gekomen is van Nyström. Grote schoenen te vullen voor Nico Elgstrand, maar tot hier toe doet hij dat met verve! Deze kennismaking verliep dan ook vlot en hartelijk.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 5 juni 2025
How did you get involved in Katatonia? I know that you have been playing live with them earlier, but how was the introduction?
For a show in Australia I did a quick fill-in, earlier we met at a festival and I just said: it is six days of travelling and then one gig and I was like ‘that is insane, but why not?’ so we just solved it together. A year later there was a tour that Anders could not do and we got along pretty well, so eventually the question was asked if I wanted to join Katatonia fulltime.
How did you feel about that?
Oh great! I love the band, they are great guys. I love the music, it is really challenging to play. We had a good vibe, it is very dynamic, so I really enjoy playing the songs. I feel really good about it.
I hope so, but it is an amazing record!
Thank you. Always with Katatonia, you never know what to expect. It is nice to be part of producing something unexpected, but it came out really nice. I am really happy about everything. I was a little bit worrying, but I have no complaints.
There is more guitar work on it, more soloing and so…
Yes, that is true. That was great to do.
Jonas was writing songs and at a certain point he asked you and in the meantime Sebastian to have some input. How did that happen?
Well, Jonas was writing songs and he is a great guitar player, but he is not a professional guitar player so to speak, so there was enough space for us, which is nice because replacing something that was already really good is tricky. There was a lot of room for us to do our own thing, so that was nice.
You were already a seasoned musician and producer – we come back to this later – but as guitarist you have been in Entombed and Entombed A.D. What about your past?
I played bass in a band called Terra Firma, thirty years ago or something – from 1996 till 2003 – and then I have in all kinds of various projects that I even don’t remember the names of and then active playing since many years, for instance in Entombed until corona came. Everything crushed, but it was a good time for thinking about what we do. These were rough years, so I am really happy that we can be working musicians again now.
How did you ever get into the music? Who were your heroes when you were young?
I saw the vinyl cover of ‘The Number Of The Beast’ from Iron Maiden, wondering what it was. It looked so cool and then my friend put it on and then I was immediately hooked. There was a girl – I wasn’t really dating her but I kind of liked her – and she knew how to play ‘Iron Man’ from Black Sabbath on one string. So she showed me that and after that I was starting playing hours a day.
You were born in Finland I found out…
Indeed, but my mom moved to Sweden pretty much immediately. Unfortunately I don’t speak Finnish, that is really pissing me off. I’d really love to speak my native language, I try to learn it now, years later, but it is just impossible.
Yes, it is difficult!
Yeah grammar is more exceptions than rules, it is just fucking weird. I gave up now. If I see Dutch writings, I can figure out what it means; the same with German because Swedish is similar, but Finnish is just a place on its own. I think it has Slavic roots.
What is your favourite kind of music?
(thinks) Oh that is too many to mention. I go through phases. I have a Jimi Hendrix phase and then I only listen to Jimi Hendrix for a couple of months and then that changes to Bob Marley or whatever. I really like all kinds of music and since I have been working with metal for thirty years, I tend to relax with this music for myself so to speak, it is less and less metal because it is kind of like if you work in a pizza job and you don’t eat pizza at all. I love it, but I think soundtracks and jazz music are my favourite. They both don’t follow the classic pop song arrangement, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, so… I like to listen to music that does not have strict arrangements or at least they are very free in their arrangements. That is why it is also fun playing in Katatonia, because even though this kind of straightforwardness, there is always this weird bits and things popping up everywhere. So you have to be on your toes. I think that is really cool, but if I have to pick up some songs, that would be too hard to do. Right now I am listening to ‘Ecstasy Of Gold’ by Ennio Moricone, this comes to mind. I am watching some old spaghetti westerns again. That guy is the absolute master, he is as talented as Mozart or Bach or whatever.
At some point in time you had another second guitarist in Katatonia, when Sebastian Svalland entered the band. What can you tell about him?
He is a great guy. He is very energetic, great temper. I think we complement each other really well as guitar players. He is a bit younger than me, about twenty years younger, so he’s got this energy that I might not find so easily. It is really nice to be around him, because he gets you going, you know. When we start to complain about ‘it was better back in the days’, then he shows me something from today and it is great. I really get along very well with him.
He was live guitar player for Pain, isn’t it?
Yes, exactly.
Does it depend from song to song who’s playing which parts or are you divided in the rhythm guitarist and the solo playing guy?
Not really. We try to mix it up as much as possible. He is a beast as guitar player. He is also very good as song writer, but when we are figuring things out, I am unusually figuring out the solo stuff and he is on the rhythm, but in the end we divide it. We try to find the parts which are most comfortable for the one of us. Nothing is settled. It is possible that we mix it up live, so that we don’t play the same always, which I think is nice. You have to be on your toes and all of a sudden you see the song from a different light when you play a different part, so that is really cool.
You are also a genius in the studio: engineer, producer, mix, mastered…
Yes, I have been an engineer, I did mastering, but usually when you do the mix, I am of the personal opinion that you should do the mastering too, but I prefer mixing. Today with all the tools and the current development of technology, it is a blast. It is really fun doing it and it is also very cool that the power of releasing records is now in every person’s hands. All you need is a laptop and basically you are on. You can do it yourself, although it takes years to learn how to do it, but that is another question. At least it is not anybody else who earns the money. I love it.
It seems difficult to me, because music is about emotions and recording is a precise work… the heart versus mathematics…
At the end of the day you always have to follow your heart and your gut feel, you know. It is better to sound you than to sound good and if you don’t sound like you, with 25 billion people out there who do it better, but if you do your own thing, best case scenario is that they copy you. I think it is a lot like cooking food for instance. It is really precise and really strict, but most of it is having a feel for it.
The final touch and the personality in the cooking…
Exactly, that is what people want. I think that it is really easy to forget this when the industry is trying to sell you new gear and make you sound like some hot shot.
That is the pro of being some time in business. When you are young, you might follow blindly every person…
Yeah but that is also part of being young. You think you know everything and then you just listen to one of those idiots because you don’t know anything, but the advantage of it is that you find out what an idiot is, so you can avoid that hopefully (chuckles)
What about going on tour in the near future?
That is something I look forward to. In Autumn we will be touring in Europe. In the Summer we have around ten festivals. We are having the first one now this weekend and then Graspop and WOA. We haven’t played live since before December, so it is really nice. So I am really looking forward to that. I am sure a few cancelled flights will change that (laughs), nut no, it is going to be great. Especially now with the new album. It is like a really nice fresh start.
