Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN) on RockOverdose: “It’s no secret that we have wished for playing in Greece for a long time. So for the band, this is a huge, huge thing.”

The Danish progressive metal band IOTUNN is preparing for their first-ever performance in Greece, and excitement is all around!

Jens Nikolai Gräs, the band’s guitarist and composer, shares with us his thoughts and feelings about the highly anticipated live show, the creative process behind their albums Access All Worlds and Kinship, as well as the special relationship the band has with their Greek fans. Read an honest and heartfelt conversation where he reveals the passion, evolution, and anticipation of IOTUNN for their debut appearance in Greece, as part of the Rockwave Festival!

Hello and welcome to our page! We are looking forward to your first visit in Greece and we’d like to know how you feel for your first visit in Greece at Rockwave Festival?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): First of all, for the band, it’s a huge thing to finally visit Greece.We know a bunch of people from Greece and have a really good connection with a lot of Greek supporters. It’s no secret that we have wished for playing in Greece for a long time. So for the band, this is a huge, huge thing.

And on a personal level, it will be my first time in Greece as well. And so I’m really looking forward to that. And a bunch of us are extending our stay there to experience Greece after the gig the following days.

I have a lot of interest in Greek history, especially ancient history. So yeah, on many levels, it’s fantastic to finally be in Greece.

RockOverdose: Great! I hope you have a wonderful time here. Enjoy the sun and the sea and the food as well.

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): Thank you!

RockOverdose: Well, you mentioned that you have a lot of Greek supporters. That’s true, your albums, “Access All Worlds” and “Kinship” were among the best albums of the year when they were released. What reactions do you expect from the Greek audience?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): I’m not really, constructed that way. You know, for me personally, when we play gigs, no matter where it is, my expectation of the audience is the basic stuff, like, we hope for people to enjoy the music and take care of each other and help each other creating a great atmosphere.

And apart from that, I just want people to express themselves freely and just be themselves. That’s it. The main thing for us is that we know that what we get back is mirroring what we are presenting or the way we perform.

So in the band, for us, it’s mostly about making sure that we can, that we are ready and that we will, you know, perform these songs the best way possible. And then we are all, you know, before the gig, we are already just very appreciative of the fact that people will come and see us.

RockOverdose:Of course! Your music can create this atmosphere and feelings to the crowds. So this for the first time we’ll experience live what we feel while listening to your albums at home .The scenery also fits very well to the scenery where you’re going to play. If you had to describe your band to someone who doesn’t listen to metal, what would you say?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): I would say that it’s hard to put us into a certain box and people who are not listening to metal often don’t know all these discussions or understandings of different expressions and genres within metal.

So in a more general sense, I would say that people could expect a band that has a lot of focus on melody writing and the band that is hungry and eager for discovering different territories within the possibilities of rock and metal music and also a band that put it as a great virtue to use the format of vocals and lyrics as a possibility to tell stories that for us have the content of stuff that is as essential as possible for our understanding of what it is to be human beings.

RockOverdose: Very nice description. Well, do you usually write the music first or the stories you want to tell?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): My brother Jesper and I, we start from scratch with every song, collecting riffs and ideas and put them together as a suggestion for the rest of the bands for what could be a final song, but only the guitar parts.

When that is presented nine out of ten times, everybody is on board and it’s like, all right, this could be something really good. And then our drummer adds his drum parts, our bass player adds his bass parts and our vocalist adds his vocal parts. He has his melody lines and ideas in his head, but before he sings the melodies, he has already written suggestions for lyrics.

And then from that point on, everybody works together and we change things here and there to reach the final result. And in terms of lyrical content, it’s very much about us listening to the songs and the collections of songs and trying to see what associations we get from the music. So we try to imagine or we try to see if the sound and the ideas of the songs instrumentally gives us some certain perspectives or images in our heads that we can write from.

RockOverodse: Great. Well, I understand that you approach structure or dynamics quite the same between your two full-length albums, don’t you? But if I would compare your two albums, I would say that “Access All Worlds” is more, let’s say, futuristic and storytelling, but “Kinship” has a more personal emotional focus. Was that made on purpose or it came naturally as you were songwriting? You wanted to take this direction?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): It’s a combination of both, I think. We did not have the Kinship album that much on our mind when we did Access All Worlds, but we had already begun working on that album while we did the first album. So, of course, we like the idea about evolving and always taking a step forward, whether that is up or down or to the left or the right, we don’t know. But we like to evolve and we don’t like to evolve just for the sake of evolving.

If we got a collection of songs and an album that is quite similar to the album before that, it wouldn’t stop us if we believe that’s the right thing, but we definitely want to evolve. It’s a combination of many things where you can compare the two albums and say that they evolve on many levels, like production or lyrical content or the music or all the artwork and the visuals that are presented with the album or connected to it. That being said, like I said before, when we listened to Access All Worlds, it sounded like something that we wanted to give a futuristic kind of touch.

And when we listened to the songs of Kinship, especially with the many, a bit more, I don’t know, atmospheric stuff and surely all the clean guitars and acoustic guitars, which is more prominent on Kinship, we kind of felt that we are definitely not going futuristic. And then, for some reason, we just got the idea that, OK, let’s just make a U-turn and go back instead.

RockOverdose: I suppose that the experience of playing live shows shaped your musical evolution. Do you agree with that? As much as you play live, you evolve in different ways, aren’t you?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): Oh, that’s the first time I get that question. That’s a good question. Let me think. Clearly, going out and playing the actual stuff live may have had some impact on some of the stuff we wrote for Kinship and the stuff we’re writing for the next album, because we get wiser and we get more insightful in terms of when we play songs live, what feels good to us to play live.

And that’s a battle sometimes. What you really aim for also is songs where you love to play them all live. But you can’t guarantee that.

You can also rehearse them together in the band and then you go on stage and you’re like, there’s something off about this song on the stage. So maybe, but I haven’t put that much thought into it, maybe I should do that more. So that’s a really good question.

I would definitely say that the writing process for Kinship was way more collective than Access All Worlds. And that is after us playing a bunch of gigs with the Access All Worlds stuff. But I have to dig deep on that one for the future, I think.

RockOverdose: Well, I think it will help you make the setlist for your live shows next time, maybe. Because, of course, it has to do with what you like to play, what’s your favorite song, what people want and ask for. And of course, how people react to the songs while playing live, isn’t it?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): That’s true. I must say to that, that’s a very funny debate within the band. Because we never have time to play all our stuff live, because we make long records and long songs.

But I would say that mostly, and I don’t know why that is, but what we like to play and what our fans like and what songs we believe in the most on the records, it often fits well together. So, so far, it’s not been that tricky.

RockOverdose: I think that the more records you have, the more tricky it will be. And I wish you to get tricky and to have a lot of records in the future. Speaking about the future, are you working on new material? Can we expect something soon?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): We are thinking of doing something in between. And this is not official yet until this is printed. But we are thinking of doing something kind of like what we did between Access All World and Kinship with the Miskland single. And just to give 2026 a good push with all our shows. But it’s not settled yet. We are very far with the songwriting of the third album. So I can’t say whether the third album definitely won’t be out in 2026, but 2027, 2028 is definitely realistic.

RockOverdose: So you are focused on live shows right now?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): Mostly? Yeah. But we can’t sit still, you know. So we write music all the time and work on music. And we don’t play that many shows. So when we play shows, that’s all our focus. We’re not writing on the road or anything like that. But in between, we are working on new music all the time.

RockOverdose: Well, you’re going to play along with Opeth and the Halo Effect at Rockwave Festival here in Greece. How do you feel about sharing the same stage with such great bands?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): It’s an honor. You know, time goes and things happen for us all the time. And the more stuff that happens and the more experiences we get and the more great, great bands we play with or meet, the crazier it really becomes for us. And we are very focused on not letting all these experiences just be, you know, something you just stack up in a pile and don’t pay attention to. It’s very important to appreciate it.

And, you know, it’s very important to appreciate it. And I always tell myself, remember the Jens Nikolai that was 13 years old. Tell him what he’s about to experience. And that kid would bang his head into a wall of excitement, you know, of pure excitement. And I still feel that it’s a huge, you know, music really means a lot to me and to the band. And we know that, you know, if you love music, it’s not just something that is there like a box of other stuff.

It’s something that really makes you, that really supports you and, you know, helps you in dark times and give you extra joy when you’re happy. And it’s something very close to you and being able to play with bands and that have meant a lot to you is a huge deal. I’m very honored about it.

RockOverdose: You’re very lucky. And for closing this interview, would you like to send a message to the Greek audiences before the show? Just a greeting or something you would like to say?

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): Yeah, we are eternally thankful for all the support from our Greek supporters. I mean this literally from the first day of the release of “Access All Worlds”, Greece was one of the countries that really just reached out to us. And so that makes this gig extra special. And we can’t wait to perform the songs for all of you.

RockOverdose: Thank you very much, Jens Nikolai. We’re looking forward for your first time here in Greece and I’m sure that you will come back sooner or later.

Jens Nikolai Gräs (IOTUNN): Yeah, yeah, we definitely will. Nice to meet you and see you soon in Greece.

On behalf of RockOverdose,

Vivi Zapantiotou