We sat down with Avatar frontman Johannes Eckerström to talk about the band’s upcoming album “Don’t Go In The Forest“, but the moment the mics were on, the conversation spiraled into something far deeper. What began as a chat about new music turned into an intense, thoughtful journey through darkness, mortality, feminism and what heavy metal really does to the human mind. Johannes spoke with rare honesty and sharp, poetic insight, peeling back layers of his writing process and worldview until we found ourselves deep in the forest with him, following his lead, the light between the trees. 

“Don’t Go in the Forest” sounds both like a warning and an invitation. When you tell listeners not to go… Are you protecting them, or daring them to get lost?

More of the second in our case, and that’s really the idea: if you were one of those weird kids drawn to metal from the start, you were probably also the kind of kid saying, “I’m totally going into the forest.” You’re curious about the forbidden, the darkness, the taboo-breaking. That’s part of what makes darker, heavier music so attractive. So to me, putting that warning there is almost a heavy-metal statement, knowing full well it’s actually the opposite. It works on many levels because heavy metal itself is weird. Heavy metal is fun. It’s uplifting, powerful, exciting.

You go see Metallica, you’re shouting “Metallica!” with your fist in the air, chugging beers with your friends, and then the double-bass kicks in… yet the song might be about a guy with no arms and no legs who wants to die. If you read a bookabout that, it would hit very differently than hearing a song about it.

In other genres, like salsa, uplifting music is usually paired with uplifting topics — love, dancing, sunsets. Heavy metal, though, is this strange marriage of darkness and good times, which probably explains why it’s so cathartic for people.

As a listener and a songwriter, there’s something cathartic about exploring those forbidden topics. You open those forbidden doors in your mind. And with each album, I feel like I get the chance to peel away another layer of bullshit. Every album has been as honest as I could be at that time.

But the moment you think you’ve found your core, life hits you again. You grow older, wiser, you confront parts of yourself, you purify something by writing about it… then you remove that layer, and suddenly there’s more bullshit underneath.

So on this quest to destroy my inner bullshit, I’ve reached a point where, more than ever, this album was written very intuitively. Half the songs came straight from intuition. In the past, I always felt the need to understand: What is this song about? What does this mean? But this time I just followed inspiration, followed the subconscious.

And that subconscious place can feel like that dark forest — the one you wander into and get a bit lost in.

If the forest in this story had a voice, what would it whisper to those who enter?

Well, I guess in this case it would basically whisper the lyrics, right? The songs. Because there’s also a whole visual side to the forest: the idea that you’re out there, lost, it’s night, you’re cold and afraid, and then you see a light between the trees. You start following it, and as you get closer you hear sounds. There’s a circus tent that shouldn’t be there, but somehow it is, and you hear music coming from inside: our music. That’s the interesting part of this whole “Avatar world”, whatever that means at any given time.

So what would it whisper? Well, once you’re deep enough in the forest, maybe it would encourage you to eat that forbidden fruit. Because if you read the Bible, there’s another angle to the whole Eve-and-the-apple thing. She has these men, God, Adam, telling her what to do, and then comes this sweet snake offering knowledge. And knowledge is power, knowledge is liberation. There’s a way to read the story where the snake is basically the good guy. So maybe the forest whispers: have an apple.

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You said in the official press release the mind can be filled with “memories and forbidden thoughts.” But what kind of thoughts are too wild even for you?

Well, I guess one thing… A lot of us, when we get obsessed with death metal, and even though death metal isn’t exactly what we do, it’s still an important part of what we do, we’re really trying to deal with and tackle mortality.

The funny thing is, death metal is usually really bad at that, because it ends up being very life-affirming. It’s about life. It’s about these intense, explosive moments. Even the most brutal Cannibal Corpse songs…the violence is always about the moment before someone dies. It’s about the liveliest part, the frenzy. And then, when more serious bands approach heavier topics, it still becomes this celebration of being alive and going, holy shit, death is imminent.

I used to work in elderly care here in Finland, and there I was confronted with how mundane death actually is, nothing like the songs I grew up with. Facing mortality in real life is a completely different thing. Sitting with that realization… I don’t think the human brain is even programmed to fully understand what death means. That’s why we fill the void with religion, or with distraction, or with anything else we can, because it’s the most normal thing in the world. It’s the one experience every single one of us is guaranteed to have, no matter how long or short our life ends up being, and yet we cannot come to terms with it.

It’s unfeasible. So I guess I’m like everyone else in that sense: facing your own mortality is simply mind-boggling.

You said every album must answer “why is this important?”, but what makes this one essential?

Well, the first part of it is always that personal journey I get to take. Whatever’s on my mind, whatever feels important at the time, ends up in the lyrics. And again, exploring that intuitive side, getting to use it for something meaningful for myself, that’s always there.

But there’s also something more. As musicians, the most important thing is to write music we’re genuinely excited about, something that feels different, something that lets us evolve, both in writing and performing. And for me, this time around, I feel my vocals became much more dynamic. The whole melodic side of my singing takes up a lot more space now.

I’ve always believed heavy metal is music you feel in your body. When we perform, the drums aren’t sound-replaced, the way John hits them is exactly what you hear on the record. The guitars are distorted, but not too distorted, because you still need to beat the shit out of them to get that sound. It’s all real, all physical.

And a lot of my singing has been built on that same idea: your pulse should go up, you should sweat, your body should be involved, that’s what makes it metal. I still believe that. But now I’m also more open to the dynamic journey that leads to those moments. Not always hitting the highest note or singing at full volume. Giving the lyrics room. Allowing myself to be a bit more of a soul singer, a blues singer, which used to be way more common in metal anyway.

We’re not a retro band, not at all. But there’s a lot of old-school thinking behind how we record and what we value in songwriting. And that foundation keeps pulling me back to singers like Ozzy Osbourne, who, honestly, is underrated even with all the love he gets.

He had this charisma, this totally unique voice. He could be larger-than-life and also that wild friend doing something stupid at a party. A totally unique human being.

We forget how good he really was. He was a soul singer, in the old sense, from the era where metal partly comes from. Not just blues, psychedelic rock, or the British Invasion, but that raw emotional delivery. Black Sabbath is fear. Changes is heartbreak.

And look at Dio: amazing singer, incredible power. But his biggest solo song, Holy Diver, isn’t really about anything. Meanwhile, Ozzy’s biggest song is basically “I’m going home to see my wife soon.” And it’s brilliant, because he makes something so simple feel so real.

So for this album, I tried to give myself that space stylistically: letting the words carry more meaning, letting the storytelling breathe. I worked hard on that in the writing and in the recording.

Because when you spend a year writing, recording, mixing, and then you start touring, you want to feel like you’ve grown. There’s something beautiful about wanting to feel like a beginner with each album: trying something you haven’t quite done before. And as long as we’re still making what, at the end of the day, feels like a heavy metal record… that’s the whole point.

The “In the Airwaves” tour features an intriguing lineup, especially Witch Club Satan, a Norwegian feminist black metal group. What drew you to them, and how do you see their presence shaping the tour’s energy?

I think they’re part of something bigger. For many years, when I was growing up and listening to metal, most of the people in those bands looked like me and came from childhoods similar to mine, more or less. Sometimes the most “exotic” thing was that they came from Finland instead of Sweden. And there’s nothing wrong with that, fundamentally. But today, that matters less and less. The scene is opening up to all kinds of colors, shapes, genders, more voices being added to the choir, coming from everywhere.

So even at face value, the fact that an all-female band is performing this kind of black metal is healthy in itself. And that alone puts aside the question of who recorded it, because the album is just so damn good. I love the music, that’s the most important part. Everything else is a bonus.

Especially in that raw black metal world they’re moving in… Me and our guitar tech were talking about this: when you discover a new underground black metal band online and go, “This sounds cool, let’s check them out”… and then: they’re Nazis. God damn it.

So I think black metal and extreme music would really benefit from having Witch Club Satan growing into a strong voice within the genre. I haven’t seen them live yet because, as an opening band, they’re usually on stage while I’m getting ready. I only catch snippets. But just seeing them online and the reaction they’re getting, people are blown away. They’re saying things that matter to them.

And honestly, black metal has for so long been a conservative, stiff genre with rigid rules, even though the pioneers originally broke all the rules. It’s wild how something that started so avant-garde became such a tiny little box populated by edgelord weekend warriors who never grew out of mom’s basement. Not all of it, but a good chunk.

I usually end up circling back to the classics I always loved: Darkthrone, for example. But Witch Club Satan revitalizes it in so many ways. They offer a completely different angle, while still capturing the core, the spiritual side, the occult side, the satanic side… All of it is there, but in a modern way that aligns much more with what I take from that kind of spirituality.

So yeah. Number one: they’re good. Number two: they’re important.

Speaking of feminism: in 2025, how do you see its place in the metal world and society overall?

I mean, two steps forward, one step back, I guess. Things are happening, just slowly. When Angela Gossow joined Arch Enemy back in the day, it was a huge thing, especially among us teenage boys, that a woman was growling like that in an established, rising band.

And I think the healthiest sign now is that it’s becoming less of a big deal. When I first heard Jinjer, for example, Tatiana stood out more because she’s a star with real charisma, not because she’s “a woman doing metal vocals.” That shift is important.

In my circles, and generally, it feels like we’re finally growing past the point where gender is the headline, and when it stops mattering, that’s real progress.

There are more headliners and more up-and-coming bands with some kind of female presence than ever before. If you look at the raw numbers, if you literally stood at a festival backstage and counted penises and vaginas, yeah, there’s still a long way to go. But I think there are fewer obstacles today than there used to be.

I also see it in the audience. Back when we started, the way girls in the crowd looked at you from the front row had a certain… tone. Now, when we play, young women in the audience look like this: fully participating, fully present, fully in the music. There’s a shift happening toward something more genderless, more equal.

And hey, they still haven’t kicked me out, so I get to stick around. Everyone’s winning, slowly. We’re absolutely on the right path, and it’s becoming more and more normalized.

And what would your message be to those who still reject or misunderstand feminism?

Well, I don’t know if I’m in any kind of authoritative place where I understand everything all the time either. I have my ideas, but usually they’re very dumb, so I don’t know how much I can help. My patience does run out sometimes, especially when people willfully want to misunderstand things.

Because in our case, on this album, if there’s any song that might actually be the most feminist one, it’s “Death and Glitz.” The whole topic comes from noticing (and being bothered by) the sheer popularity of true crime documentaries. Our favourite entertainment, collectively, seems to be watching a young, hot girl get murdered. The young couple goes hiking, but only the boyfriend comes back. The child disappears, and of course it’s the cute blonde girl. It’s always that. There’s never an old, ugly man. Never a lonely elderly guy. It’s always the same narrative in absolute numbers.

And what makes it worse is that it’s packaged as entertainment. Not a serious two-hour investigation into femicide by a team of journalists. Not a long-form article pulling apart the phenomenon. No, just “ooh, murdered girl!” So what are we adding to this? In the song, we push into that idea of: we love death with tits. It’s grotesque, but that’s the point.

Then I start thinking about the whole whore–Madonna thing, how women are expected to be pure and dirty, good and bad, all at once. Impossible standards constantly projected onto them.

And guys… Well, we’re often oblivious because we’re allowed far more freedom in most settings. Even though if you pick things apart, the structures hurt us too. But it’s less obvious, because we generally benefit more along the way.

There’s also something about the viewer: the guy watching the true crime documentary. What projection is happening there? Do we imagine saving her? Fixing her? Being the one she’d be “grateful” to? Since she’s dead, she can be anything you want. That’s disturbing, but it’s real.

And then, even wilder, and here I think women need to be held accountable too, it’s mostly women in my experience who say, “Ooh, I love true crime!” That audience is overwhelmingly female. Some say it makes them feel informed, or helps them face their fears. And sure, the perceived risk of violence is very real for women. Even if statistically, more men die on a Saturday night because they get drunk, get into fights, fall over, whatever, it’s still women who feel that lingering fear of danger in everyday life. So maybe watching these documentaries is a way of processing that fear. But the documentaries still zoom in on the parents’ tears as if it’s popcorn entertainment. So it’s not exactly a healthy way of dealing with anything.

So that’s what the song picks apart. And then one fucking comment (and I shouldn’t read comments) goes, “This song is misogynist.” And I just think: you dumb fuck. Of all the things you could accuse it of, that? Yes, I sing lines like “they love you death and glitz,” “death and tits,” “no one more obedient than you.” But in the context of the story, how could anyone possibly think I’m advocating for dead obedient women? It’s absurd.

So yeah, my take on feminism isn’t perfect, but I believe the fight against feminism happens in the same society where two-thirds of all suicides are men. We’d all benefit from improvement there.

That was a long-ass answer.

Since our time is up, here’s the last question: there’s a meme that circulates online, a photo of a peaceful, rich Nordic country with the caption “writes songs about death and despair,” beside a picture of a poor southern country saying “sings about how life is beautiful.” Why do you think this contrast exists?

Well, I think there is something cathartic and healing about dealing with the dark stuff, right? When times are really tough, uplifting music definitely has its place: it lifts people’s spirits. If you’re struggling materially in your everyday life, then yeah, you need something that puts a splash of color on it.

But when the real issue is inside you, when your inner world is in turmoil, darkness resonates with that, and heavy music becomes the outlet that lets something out. Maybe that’s it.

The positive, carnival-type music brings the sunshine in, and the dark heavy stuff lets the darkness out. Something like that.

And yes, there’s that stereotype that in northern European welfare states, where most of us aren’t in immediate danger, that’s where the darkest music happens. That’s true to a point, but it’s also an oversimplification. There are very angry bands from the Middle East, from South America, places with completely different challenges. And there’s plenty of happy pop music in Sweden too. Every place has a bit of everything.

It’s really about what you let in and what you let out. Both have their place at different phases of your life. I use both myself. But as an artist, I happen to gravitate toward the darker end of the spectrum, so much so that, like, I love Stevie Wonder, but I’ve never written a song like that in my life. That whole, “Ooh, I had a baby, isn’t she lovely?” – I don’t think I could ever write that. It’s so alien to me, even though I had a great childhood. I don’t know how to write the happy childhood song with the cheerful bass line. So yeah, there’s room for both. Some of us are just a bit more morbid than others, I guess.