KATATONIA guitarist Fred ‘North’ Norrman has inked a new endorsement deal with Amfisound. The company has issued the following statement:

"We are happy to introduce our new player Fred ‘North’ Norrman from the Swedish metal group Katatonia. Fred contacted us in the winter of 2006/07 and wanted us to build an archtop guitar for him. After discussing his ideas, philosophy, and wishes, we put our heads together to devise and set up some special details and customized features. As Katatonia has always been one of my favorite bands, I deeply thank Fred and Katatonia for entrusting us with this project. At Amfisound we build each instrument with innermost passion. So also this guitar represents our ‘one-of-a-kind’ ideology. As we always seek to take all the wishes of the players into account, we usually consider every single possibility in order to get the best results. That is the only way! Fred’s guitar features our archdrop top construction, something which you won’t find anywhere else. It provides better playability and feeling. His guitar has also very distinctive details, such as ‘copper ring’ side dots, wooden pickup rings, unique electronics, and others. Fred said he would need a sustainer system and I recommended him an L.R. Baggs piezo bridge, which he can mix with normal pickups. The bridge pickup is a Lundgren M6 and the sustainer system a Sustainiac Stealth PLUS. The sustainer ‘driver’ works also as a neck pickup. The rest consists of a mahogany body, a selected one-piece maple top, an ebony fingerboard, Planet Waves ‘precision’ locking tuners, special inlays, and multiple bindings with 25,5? scaled neck. Fred is also endorsed by Skullstrings, the world’s one and only specialized metal string manufacturer for low tunes. For this guitar, we used Skull’s thicker 11-58 set and set the guitar up for C’. Fred himself adds 'finally a guitar that I’m 100% satisfied with. It sounds killer, it feels great and looks fantastic. For me who likes to play Les Paul's, the ‘Archdrop’ construction is just perfect.'"