Avatar’s Johannes Eckerström Removes the Layers of BS to be Honest as an Artist

Avatar is coming to The Rust Belt in East Moline on April 29th, and Johannes Eckstrom will be ready for this part of the journey: being the lead singer of Avatar.

I was able to have a video chat with Avatar, which started with him feeding his dog, included a little tease, and will definitely get you ready for what could be the show of the year for the Quad Cities.

Has Recent Success Changed Avatar?

The last time we saw Avatar was in May of 2023.  Since then, the band has had its first number one hit on the American Rock Charts.  I asked Johannes if that changed things for the band?  "It was a good, nice thing.  It was a happy toast.  If you ask me, and if you ask 16-year-old me, we were always the best.  We were always number one in my mom's heart.  It's a nice recognition of all the time we spent in the United States and the people we worked with."

He did go on to say that since he's in the band every day, he doesn't see any instant change.  It's more gradual.

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Repeating that success is always the goal of a band, and especially those around the band.  So when Avatar set out to make new music, they said that with this one, they didn't have a plan.  "Every other album starts with a plan.  And the albums in between, we see where we end up."

With "Don't Go In The Forest", they ended up with a full spectrum of rock for fans to enjoy.

The Creative Process To Arrive At New Music for Avatar

The songs were written over the past few years, and Johannes says, "I really leaned into the idea of letting the subconscious write the song."  He continued by saying, "Every album seems to be tied together with the journey of removing another layer of B.S. from yourself in terms of what it means to be honest as an artist.  I always try to be as honest and real as I possibly could have been at any given time."

Johannes said that with Captain Goat, the riff was written, and he just started humming along.  Then he gets into how he wrote the lyrics...and my text can't do it justice.  You just have to listen to the process below.

Avatar at The Rust Belt in East Moline

We also spent time talking about:

• Their music videos and the process behind them.  And while talking about the videos, he also mentioned "something coming that nobody has seen or heard yet".  But he also said, "We run our own label, so I haven't signed an NDA, but I still feel I owe myself a lot of money if I say too much."
• The live show experience and their vision behind it.
• And how his dog is doing.

CHECK OUT ALL THE I-ROCK WITH ROCK STARS EPISODES HERE.

Take a listen to the full interview below, or if you'd like to watch the full unedited video to see him walking around his house and feeding his dog, you can do so in the YouTube link below.