Interview

Hi Johan, first of all, thank you to take the time to answer to my questions.

Hi, Lionel! Always a pleasure!

My first question, will certainly be a basic one for you but why have you called the band KATANA, and why all this inspiration with the Japanese history?

The idea for the band name actually came from our former guitar player Oz Osukaru. He might’ve gotten it from a Samurai movie or something. Either way, he thought that it had a nice ring to it and that the Japanese culture would serve as a good basis for the band’s image. It’s certainly compatible with the world of heavy metal. We were already fairly interested in that country and as time went by, we learned more and more about the history of the far east and how inspiring it can be when it comes to songwriting. By now, it’s second nature to us.

On both of your albums’ cover you have the same samurai. Is like an emblem for you. I mean like Helloween with his pumpkin.

Hehe, yeah, it seems to be turning out that way! We were just too happy with his look to let him go. I mean, we are Katana after all. What’s a more appropriate symbol for our music than a kick-ass, undead Samurai ready to lop the head off of anyone that gets in his way?

Talking about the covers, the first one was red and this one blue. What are the meanings of these colors?

The main reason for our choice of colors was that we wanted each cover to have its own distinct feeling. You should be able to tell instantly, just from a quick look, which album you’re looking at. Since we’d gone with a warm pallet on “Heads Will Roll”, we wanted to do the opposite with the second album and go for a colder feeling. We chose to illustrate the track “Kubilai Khan”, which was perfect – Storms play a prominent role in that song and it takes place at sea, so anything but blue would’ve felt out of place, really. Then the idea for the album title, “Storms of War”, came up and all the pieces just seemed to fall into place.
Dimitar Nikolov, our cover artist, has done a wonderful job with both of our cover illustrations. We are truly blessed to have him by our side.

How are you working for the writing sessions? Are you meeting each other in the same time or are you using mainly internet?

Mostly, we meet in person. What happens is that one of us will start writing a song and then bring it to the rehearsal studio, where the band gives feedback and puts its own touch on the music. That way, it becomes 100% Katana!

What about the recordings?

We usually make use of homemade demo recordings to flesh things out before entering the studio. When we do arrive at the studio, the songs are pretty much finished, so we just have to deal with creating the right sound for them. Andy LaRocque has been very helpful in that department. He dug into the library of legendary producer Martin Birch to find just the right touch for “Storms of War” and the result is fantastic.

Now it’s time to concentrate on the new album called “Storms of War”. Can you give us the main theme of this one? Is it the Story of Khubilai Kan?

The cover art could be seen as implying that, but in reality, it just so happened that all of the Japan-themed songs on the album had something to do with war. “Kubilai Khan” seemed like a good track to base the cover illustration on, so it became a sort of flagship, or champion if you will, for the album.

This time you have a long and amazing song in the album: “The wisdom of Edmonds Field”. Really different from the others in the way you are mixing fast and slow tempo in the same title.

That track and “Modesty Blaise” have, in my opinion, a more old-school quality to them, in the way some of the melodies are written. A bit of 70’s feel sneaks into “Wisdom” at times and I really like that. It’s a track that we have yet to perform live, but I look forward to the day when we do bring it to the stage.

My favorite song could be “Samurai’s return” because of its feeling and energy. Even if it’s hard to choose one because all the songs are good. What do you think about this song and what’s your favorite one in the album?

To be honest with you, I couldn’t pick one favorite. It depends on the mood I’m in, I think.
“The Samurai returns” is awesome, though. It has a lot of power and reminds me somewhat of “Phoenix on fire” from our first album. This is Tobias at his best as a song writer. I remember when he brought “Samurai” to rehearsal and told us that he’d been up all night writing it. This was late in the writing process for the album and we all felt that we needed another really good track before entering the studio. Tobias sat down with his guitar and delivered just that. It was almost too good to be true. I went home from that rehearsal feeling reassured that this album would turn out the way wanted it to.
It’s things like that that make me believe in fate.

A question more personal: are you self learner or did you had some teachings for singing?

I’m classically trained, but in the last six or seven years, I’ve been developing and fine-tuning my singing technique on my own. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the classical training, but I’ve also had to throw myself out there and discover my own voice. Therefore, I say both.
It’s interesting to note that while recording “Storms of War”, Andy helped me find my way back to what I learned during those years of classical training and that made me notably better. I’m a much better singer now than I was last year. It’s like I’ve combined the things I learned in school with the things I’ve learned on the outside to create something that is both strong and personal.

How is your fan base in Japan / Asia?

I’m not sure, actually. I do know that we have some fans over there, but I believe that you never truly know what the situation is like until you go there to perform live – especially these days, when downloading is so common. We just came back from Spain and we had a great time over there. It turned out that we had quite a few fans over there and that those who didn’t know about us gladly joined in!

Your favorite singer?

Bernie Shaw! A sadly underrated vocalist with a lot of warmth and authority in his voice. Also a charming frontman.

This is the end of the interview, thanx again and feel free to conclude.

Thank you! It’s been fun. To the reader: Thank you for taking your time to read about Katana. If you’ve missed a gig with us, don’t worry – The Samurai will always return!