Avatar have never felt like a band that simply turn up, plug in and play.
They arrive with worlds attached. The music, the visuals, the clothes, the stage show, the darkness, the humour, the hooks and the strange theatrical madness all feel like they are part of something bigger. It is part heavy metal show, part twisted carnival, part theatre, and part ritual.
In 2026, Australian and New Zealand fans will be stepping back into that world as Avatar return down under for a massive run of shows in support of their tenth studio album, Don’t Go In The Forest.
The tour will see Avatar hit Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland, with the band returning after finally making their long awaited Australian debut run. For vocalist Johannes Eckerström, getting Avatar to Australia was one of those doors that took a long time to open, but once it did, it was everything the band hoped it would be.
“The first time to play anywhere is always the hardest, to get your foot in the door,” Johannes tells CRANNK. “And one of those places where that foot just wouldn’t get in the door for a long time has been Australia, and we fixed that. That whole experience, everything about it was great.”
That first trip left a mark on the band, and now Avatar are looking to build on it, not just return and repeat themselves.
“We’ll plant seeds all across Australia, little by little,” Johannes says. “It just was so great last time, and I’m ready for more of it, and I’m ready to do it even better. Last time there was a novelty of it, at least to us. Avatar in Australia. Who would have thought? Now we’ve done that. Now we know we can do it, so now we have to just ramp it up and ramp it up and ramp it up in terms of what we bring to the table.”
Of course, Johannes also got the full Swedish musician in Australia experience.
“The sun was shining, your winters are not like our winters. We held a koala, saw a bunch of kangaroos, and did not encounter a single spider. So everything you hoped for.”
Avatar return this time with Don’t Go In The Forest, an album title that sounds like both a warning and an invitation. That duality sits right at the heart of what Avatar do so well. There is danger in the music, but also movement. There is darkness, but also release. There is theatrical worldbuilding, but it all starts with the most important thing.
The songs.
When I asked Johannes whether Avatar albums begin as records or as worlds for the songs to live inside, his answer was immediate.
“Records first,” he says. “The visual, how it all comes together at the end, is such an important aspect of the band. I think there’s also a bit of a risk that you could start building things in reverse and therefore lose focus on the music. The music creating part is holy, and the music guides everything else.”
That is the key to understanding Avatar. As wild as the band can look from the outside, none of it works unless the riffs, hooks and songs are strong enough to carry the whole thing.
“Everything else grows out of that,” Johannes explains. “It’s all about the music, man. The joy is in it, because then we’re to add all the other cool stuff. Once we get to that point, when we put together what we want to wear, that gets the same love and attention and is allowed to be a creative outlet in its own right. Same with the music videos, same with the stage show and everything. But first, you have to hear some riffs.”
For Johannes, that is where the movie begins.
He does not describe it as synesthesia, but when the music lands right, it gives him images. A riff can feel wet, heavy, cinematic or violent. A song can place a scene inside his head before the lyrics have even arrived.
“When music is done right, the way I process it, I visualize things with it,” he says.
That approach is a big part of why Avatar records can feel so complete. The visuals are not pasted on later as decoration. They grow out of the sound. The stage show does not exist separately from the songs. It is another way of expressing what was already inside the riffs.
And Avatar have always had riffs.
For me personally, one of the things that hit hardest when I first found the band was the way they could be crushingly heavy while still having this undeniable movement. It is not just heaviness for heaviness’ sake. There is swing, groove, melody and a hook that digs in on the first listen.
Johannes puts that down to the wide and often strange mix of influences sitting inside Avatar.
“Cryptopsy and Beatles are both very important to what defines Avatar,” he says. “Sometimes it’s rooted very much in extreme music, and sometimes it might be rooted in something totally out there, some neat little avant garde thing in jazz I learned about, or whatever. But at the end of the day, the way we put things together, I need a chorus in there. I need a hook in there. I need something to connect.”
That connection matters deeply to Avatar. Johannes wants songs that keep revealing more after ten, twenty or one hundred listens, but he also wants to grab the listener straight away.
“If I don’t have you on the first as well, then I don’t think I’ve done my job right,” he says. “Ultimately, the kind of metal we do is rock and roll dance music. It’s ‘let’s twist again.’ To find where those worlds meet is when people start bobbing their head at the first listen.”
That line sums up Avatar beautifully.
Rock and roll dance music, filtered through death metal, theatre, darkness, absurdity and a whole lot of heavy metal weirdness.
Johannes also points to the band’s early death metal foundations as something that still shapes Avatar’s sound today. They may have grown into one of modern metal’s most unique and theatrical acts, but the tools they use were forged in heavier places.
“We started learning to play as a band, what we were figuring out in those early days were death metal stuff mostly,” he says. “That informed the tuning and the guitars and the tool of our trade when writing and performing the music.”
These days, Avatar’s centre often sits around B standard tuning, giving the band that heavy foundation to build from. But what they build on top of that can go anywhere.
“It’s an extreme metal guitar that we then pick up and play Beatles on,” Johannes says. “The extreme and how it’s built into each other is in the very foundation of what we’re doing.”
That ability to let everything in while still sounding unmistakably like Avatar is one of the band’s greatest strengths.
“Everything is allowed,” he says. “Because then the big filter is that we can only sound like ourselves.”
As our conversation moved into the darker emotional pull of Avatar’s music, Johannes opened up about why so many people seem to find something uplifting inside songs that often walk through heavy, unsettling places.
I mentioned how tracks like The Dirt I’m Buried In connected with me during my own cancer battle in 2023, and Johannes’ first response was not about the song, but to ask if I was doing better now.
That moment said a lot about the person behind the theatrical face of Avatar.
When we spoke about how Avatar’s music can enter dark rooms but still feel strangely uplifting, Johannes explained that the band is not always trying to write music that lifts people up, but he understands why listeners find that in it.
“I think a lot of what we do is to enter those dark territories,” he says. “But we cannot enter the dark rooms in our mind with a stick in our hands.”
For Johannes, Avatar’s music acknowledges the ugly parts of life rather than pretending they are not there. But it rarely stays trapped in despair. There is playfulness, defiance, humour and battle energy in the way the band handles darkness.
“Our music acknowledges shit,” he says. “But it comes in often with some either playfulness, you have fun with it, you play with the concepts to some degree, which is again rooted in death metal in a way, because Cannibal Corpse is funny. Or it’s because it’s pissing me off and you’re ready for battle. So the dark and the light meets in that sense.”
Then Johannes laughs and lands the perfect Avatar line.
“We’re not a good doom metal band.”
No, they are not.
Avatar are too restless for that. Too theatrical. Too strange. Too hooked into movement, absurdity and the idea that darkness can be faced with a grin, a riff and a crowd moving as one.
That is what makes the 2026 Australian and New Zealand tour so exciting. Avatar are not just coming back to play songs. They are coming back to outdo themselves.
“I just look forward so much to come back to Australia,” Johannes says. “Last time, everything went exactly as I hoped for. This time, we have to outdo ourselves, and I’m sure we will. More Australia this time, and adding New Zealand on top of it for the first time, which is breaking completely new ground as far as we are concerned.”
Avatar’s return feels bigger than just another tour cycle. It feels like the next stage of a band that has spent years building its own world without ever letting the visuals overpower the songs. The forest is open, the riffs are leading the way, and Johannes Eckerström sounds more than ready to bring Avatar’s controlled madness back down under.
Tickets are on sale now through The Phoenix AU.
AVATAR 2026 Australian and New Zealand Tour Dates
Wednesday 26 August, Adelaide, Lion Arts Factory
Friday 28 August, Melbourne, Northcote Theatre
Saturday 29 August, Sydney, Manning Bar
Sunday 30 August, Brisbane, Princess Theatre
Tuesday 1 September, Auckland, Powerstation
Tickets: https://thephoenix.au/avatar-2026/
