During a recent conversation with V13 backstage at this year’s Download Festival, Avatar’s Jonas Jarlsby addressed concerns about conflicts of interest between Lzzy Hale and his band in their collaboration.
Avatar teamed up with Hale on the song ‘Violence No Matter What’ from their latest studio effort, ‘Dance Devil Dance.’ After saying that they felt that adding a female voice to the mix would bring something new and they had previously played shows with Halestorm and had a good relationship, the guitarist added:
“Asking was easy because of those connections. It was just, ‘Hey, do you want…?’ ‘Yes.’ And that was really it. I just recorded all the parts and said you can pick if you want the high or the low one and thinking to myself pretty please take the high one. And she did. So no, it’s very easy, and actually, yesterday was the first time, that was Switzerland was the first time we got to perform it on stage with her. That was incredible.”
The follow-up question asked about his experience working with Lzzy, how the collaboration unfolded, and whether there were any conflicts or disagreements during the process. To which Jarlsby replied:
“Not at all! No, no. And again, like she did it over in the States, we recorded it in the Swedish woods all by ourselves and with Jay, our producer, as so she did it by herself, but I mean, she liked it, and therefore did what we had intended and then added a little salt and pepper of her own on top of it that just enhanced it, but it was really easy. We didn’t have notes for her or anything like that.”
The collaboration also gave them a chance to promote themselves, as the musician further noted:
“Then, to me, what was really nice, gave an opportunity for us to do some press together in Paris, around the time of her album coming out, and to sit with a fellow front person and do interviews and how she can talk! So where I maybe appreciate the collaboration the most up until us sharing stage now, you know, but yeah, doing press with someone else who speaks it was, if you meet the rest of my band, you would understand what an incredible rush that was to me.”
Avatar will be touring the United States on their ‘Chimp Mosh Pit Tour’ through September and October. The tour also features Orbit Culture and The Native Howl as the supporting acts.
You can listen to the band’s joint effort with Hale below.
