The metal band Avatar has a rather curious name. The Swedes, who mix death metal, rock, and melodic metal with a good dose of fun and craziness in their music, share the name of pop culture phenomena.
In an interview with Wikimetal , vocalist Johannes Eckerström explained the meaning of the band's name. "We came before the movies," he stated upfront, referring to the animated film created by Michael Dante DiMartino and the cinematic adventure by James Cameron.
Founded in 2001 by John Alfredsson (drums) and Jonas Jarlsby (guitar), Avatar emerged from a group of close friends from their school days. It was in an eighth-grade Religious Studies class that John learned that "avatar" is defined as a manifestation of a deity in bodily form. "He thought that was awesome. Simple as that," Johannes summarized. "And John thought it sounded good and liked the idea of the capital A to rank alongside other great Scandinavian bands like ABBA and Aqua ."
There's another meaning to the word: it's also the virtual representation of someone or an icon representing a separate being in another realm, something they discovered when another "computer nerd" colleague mentioned he was also in a band with that name because of the game World of Warcraft . "The guy in the game is also an avatar, so it means several things," the singer continued. Well, the other band didn't last, and today there's only one Avatar in metal.
Despite this initial meaning, Johannes comments that after a while, the name chosen for the band "becomes just a name," without much connection to the initial reason for the choice. " Iron Maiden , for example, is a mythological torture instrument. But what does that have to do with Egypt [in Powerslave ] or space [in Somewhere in Time ], you know?" he pondered.
In Johannes' view, metal is fertile ground for this type of theme when compared to other genres. “It’s an expression of our collective ideas. That’s why many spiritual ideas like Satanism and paganism are present, because they function on a very personal level in the music, both in the sound and in the lyrics. And this idea of [an avatar] being a manifestation of God is recognizing one's own potential for greatness.”
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