When guitarist Anders Nyström from Katatonia came up with the idea of de-metallizing the band's last record, Dead End Kings, he had to persuade everyone else to get on board with the project. Convincing his bandmates was one thing, but selling the plan for new album Dethroned and Uncrowned — stripping down and reworking Kings — to Katatonia's label and management was not so easy. Lacking enthusiastic official support, Katatonia turned to crowdfunding through PledgeMusic in order to turn this vision into a reality.
"The way out was actually to go totally independent and to fund the whole project by this pledge company," Nyström tells Exclaim! "The pledge thing is something that's new to us that I'd never done before. But for this experiment, it just felt perfect. I could never expect how fast we achieved our goal. That pledge campaign — I think it was within just a few days we were at 100 percent of the bar. So that means that our fan base — first of all, it's a very loyal one, and they also put a lot of faith and trust in the band. Because what did they know about what this was gonna be? Obviously they did figure it out before the label and management did."
Nyström sees the pledge transaction as a "win-win" situation for all parties. Fans, he says, will "get what they pledged for and we were able to follow our vision through."
Not all of the pledge items were the band's idea, though.
"We were brainstorming, trying to be creative with just seeing what we had lying around. Some of the memorabilia wasn't really doing anything in our closets or whatever, but we figured that to some fans it might have a lot of value. Of course, it has value to us as well. We haven't pledged out our whole lives here; we still have some stuff left that we would never ever put on sale or give away. But some props and stuff that we will probably never use again, we decided to put them up and just see if there was any interest, and most of it went.
"As for the other stuff, well, some of the stuff was a little bit on the border of what we were willing to do, but that's where the management came in as well and said, 'Hey, look at these bands, they're doing this so why shouldn't you?' — all the politics there. But I think we managed to at least put up items and experiences that we can stay true to and actually fulfill."
Katatonia released Dethroned and Uncrowned earlier this month. As previously reported, the band are currently out on their "Uncrowned & Vertikal Tour," co-headlining with Cult of Luna and bringing along special guests Intronaut & TesseracT. The tour touches down in Toronto tonight (September 27), and you can find all the dates below.
You can read Exclaim!'s full interview with Katatonia here.
Tour dates:
09/27 Toronto, ON - Opera House
09/28 Detroit, MI - Harpo's
09/30 Springfield, VA - Empire
10/01 Cleveland, OH - Peabody's
10/02 Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge
10/04 Denver, CO - Summit Music Hall
10/06 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre
10/07 San Francisco, CA - Slim's
"The way out was actually to go totally independent and to fund the whole project by this pledge company," Nyström tells Exclaim! "The pledge thing is something that's new to us that I'd never done before. But for this experiment, it just felt perfect. I could never expect how fast we achieved our goal. That pledge campaign — I think it was within just a few days we were at 100 percent of the bar. So that means that our fan base — first of all, it's a very loyal one, and they also put a lot of faith and trust in the band. Because what did they know about what this was gonna be? Obviously they did figure it out before the label and management did."
Nyström sees the pledge transaction as a "win-win" situation for all parties. Fans, he says, will "get what they pledged for and we were able to follow our vision through."
Not all of the pledge items were the band's idea, though.
"We were brainstorming, trying to be creative with just seeing what we had lying around. Some of the memorabilia wasn't really doing anything in our closets or whatever, but we figured that to some fans it might have a lot of value. Of course, it has value to us as well. We haven't pledged out our whole lives here; we still have some stuff left that we would never ever put on sale or give away. But some props and stuff that we will probably never use again, we decided to put them up and just see if there was any interest, and most of it went.
"As for the other stuff, well, some of the stuff was a little bit on the border of what we were willing to do, but that's where the management came in as well and said, 'Hey, look at these bands, they're doing this so why shouldn't you?' — all the politics there. But I think we managed to at least put up items and experiences that we can stay true to and actually fulfill."
Katatonia released Dethroned and Uncrowned earlier this month. As previously reported, the band are currently out on their "Uncrowned & Vertikal Tour," co-headlining with Cult of Luna and bringing along special guests Intronaut & TesseracT. The tour touches down in Toronto tonight (September 27), and you can find all the dates below.
You can read Exclaim!'s full interview with Katatonia here.
Tour dates:
09/27 Toronto, ON - Opera House
09/28 Detroit, MI - Harpo's
09/30 Springfield, VA - Empire
10/01 Cleveland, OH - Peabody's
10/02 Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge
10/04 Denver, CO - Summit Music Hall
10/06 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre
10/07 San Francisco, CA - Slim's