Brother Of The Night ’s Watch
Meet Jonas Renkse: Katatonia singer , songwriter , founder and occasional recording guitarist…
Being mainly a singer, how much guitar do you end up playing?
“I must play guitar every day at home because I’m constantly writing, but I don’t really see myself as much of a guitar player. For me, it’s a tool to get to the song… I’ve never practiced scales or whatever. I find it more exciting to play along to a rhythm, so I always try to find a nice beat to play to and then my mind starts working. I’ve played guitar on a lot of our albums, but I’ve never really needed any credit for it. Our new guitarist [Roger Öjersson] came in after our new album was recorded, so I played guitar on the songs I wrote and Anders did the same with his ones. It’s way easier than teaching each other how to play the parts in the studio while the clock is ticking! We’re better off doing that later, when we start rehearsing for the live shows.”
Who are your biggest heroes?
“I’m a huge fan of what Robin Trower was doing in the 70s. Back then, from what I’ve heard, he was viewed as a Hendrix rip-off, but actually he was more intricate and played with a lot of emotion. Some of his stuff was incredibly sorrowful. I also really like J Mascis – who Anders isn’t that keen on. As I’m not a technical guy, I listen to the players who might sound shitty, but more importantly are straight from the heart. Anders likes more of the cheesy stuff, like Whitesnake and Europe. Speaking of which, we used to drink a lot with Mikael from Opeth and every time we’d listen to Europe there’d be that argument – who is better: John Norum or Kee Marcello? I preferred Norum because he was a little more bluesy, but Mikael and Anders loved Marcello. One night me and Mikael almost got into a fist fight over it. I was saying Marcello didn’t have the right feel and Mikael said, ‘That guy has more feeling in his solos than you do in your lyrics!’ And that was it… Anders had to separate us!”