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Ahead
of their sold-out show at Manchester Academy 2 on Halloween, I had a
chance to sit down for a quick chat with Amon Amarth drummer Fredrik
Andersson.
MM:
You’re nearly at the end of the UK tour. How’s it been going and
what have you got planned for when it’s finished?
FA: It’s been going really
good, we’ve had a great response all over the UK and Ireland. We’re
playing the last show tomorrow in London and then we’re going to be
home for 10 days, have a break and then do a run of Mainland Europe
which is going to cover some of the countries we didn’t get to cover
last time like France, Italy and Switzerland. After that, we’re off to
Australia, Indonesia and Taiwan.
MM:
Have you been to Indonesia and Taiwan before?
FA: No,
we’ve not been to Asia before, we’ve been to Australia once though.
MM:
Looking forward to it?
FA: Yeah, it’s going to be cool. It
got booked pretty quickly and the schedule is pretty hectic so we’re
not really going to have any time off. We’re just flying in, playing
the show and flying out the next day so we might not be able to see so
much but of course it’s cool to play a show in a country you’ve
never been to before.
MM:
Is it particularly special when you get to tour with other Swedish bands
like you’re doing now with Entombed?
FA: Well
for starters it’s very easy to get along. We’ve been friends for a
while anyway and LG (Petrov, Entombed vocalist) has known us for a very
long time so it’s been a great atmosphere on this tour.
MM:
How’s the response been to Twilight
of the Thunder God since it was released? It seems to have pushed
you guys forward particularly in the UK but also in other territories as
well...
FA: What we noticed was, aside from our main territories like
Germany and the U.S., we’re now able to reach people in the other
countries as well. I mean, in Scandinavia, we weren’t really a
big name until a couple of years ago and in the UK as well, we played
for maybe only 200 people or so. Now we feel it’s more leveled out
across the different countries.
MM:
Well over here, you’ve had a very successful year playing Download
last year and Bloodstock this year. What was it like playing the two
biggest UK festivals in such a short space of time?
FA: Download of course was an honour,
even if it’s not the same as it used to be when it was Monsters of
Rock but that was very cool however the year we played seemed to be one
of their ‘worst’ line-ups though. When we get a cool offer like
that, it tends to come at the wrong time a lot of the time but it was
still great, I think we got something like 7,000 people watching us.
MM:
You recently won the best ‘breakthrough’ award in Metal Hammer. Does
it feel strange or frustrating sometimes when you’re referred to as a
‘breakthrough’ act after a 16-year career?
FA: Not
really, no. I think it’s normal because, as I say, we’ve not really
had a big name in the UK until recently. A lot of people who pick
up the latest album probably don’t realise that we have another six
albums behind us. I know Apocalyptica got it the year before us
and they’ve been around forever as well. I think the UK market
often looks within itself a lot of the time.
MM:
And why do you think it’s taken the UK so long to catch up with the
rest of Europe when it comes to Amon Amarth?
FA: For our part, it’s very logical
really. Until a couple of years ago, our record label (Metal Blade)
didn’t have any distribution channels in the UK and nowadays they have
an office that’s working directly on the UK market which has made
things totally different for us here and they’ve helped us get the
name out. The two latest albums have been produced by a
well-renowned producer and we’re sounding a lot better than before and
the band has become better too.
MM:
Over here as well, you often get grouped in with the whole ‘Viking
Metal’ thing, whatever that is when musically you’re very different
from a lot of those bands. Is that something that’s ever
bothered you?
FA: It
doesn’t really bother us, no. If someone wants to refer to us as
‘Viking Metal’ then we don’t care, that’s fine. When the
band started we were just playing death metal and we just stuck to our
roots and the same lyrical themes and then a couple of years ago the
term ‘Viking Metal’ appeared and we got grouped in with that.
I mean, we were one of the first to be categorized in such a way and now
there’s millions of bands it seems in that group. It’s easy
for people to categorize something, I guess and it has positive and
negative sides to it. For example some people are really not into
the folk-metal style and when they see the term ‘Viking Metal’ on
our music they might think violins and all that but we don’t do that,
we just play straight forward metal with Viking lyrics. And this
is what’s helped us with our live performances too, that we’re just
a regular metal band and as more people discover us live they see that.
MM:
As you mentioned, the style is straight forward, death metal but with
Viking themes. Is that something you always set out to do or did
it kind of evolve over time?
FA: It
started really when Johan (Hegg, vocalist) came into the band because
he’s had a natural interest in Viking mythology since he was a kid.
The first couple of songs he wrote were along the usual theme of Satan
and stuff like that and then he wrote this one song which was more in
the Viking style and the band felt that this was something we should
stick to. There weren’t really any other bands doing it at the
time either so it was something to make us different from everyone else.
MM:
Speaking of the Twilight... album,
it was released in a few different formats. Do you think that putting
extra things into the packaging the way you guys have combats the
illegal downloading problem?
FA: The reason why the record labels do it is because of that,
definitely, because they want to see people still purchasing albums.
But we’ve always, with every release we’ve put out, tried to make it
valuable for everyone who buys it. We’ve put in extra DVD’s
and things like that even before downloading was a big thing and when we
put out our DVD we made a 3-disc set with pretty much every live show we
had recorded. For us it’s just natural but it’s now appearing
more and more and you see a lot of bands doing it. People are still
going to download it but hopefully they will want the product as well
because it’s a nice package or whatever.
MM:
How did you decide on the whole ‘bobbleheads’ idea for the deluxe
edition of the new album?
FA: It was actually an idea from our
record label who had a contact with the makers of the bobbleheads and
when we were asked about it, we were like ‘fuck yeah!’ Why
wouldn’t I want a bobblehead of myself? We just thought it was a
really cool and funny idea and I know a lot of fans have been pissing on
us for it, claiming that we’re not taking it seriously but you don’t
have to take everything seriously, you know? It was just a fun
thing for us to do.
MM:
Cool. How did the collaborations on the new album come about?
FA: With
Bodom we became quite good friends with them after touring with them in
the U.S, especially Roope who likes to hang out with us a lot and when
we said we want somebody to do a guest shredding solo on the album, he
was our first choice and he accepted. Apocalyptica was actually a
bit of a fluke. It was our producer who suggested we cut a song
and put in a cello part and his idea was to contact some local musicians
in the town and we just thought why not ask Apocalyptica if they want to
do it. They accepted and they’re actually big fans of the band
which is very cool for us.
MM:
I know you’ve recorded a couple of cover versions in the past. Is
there any song you think should get an Amon Amarth makeover?
FA: The two covers that we’ve done, I
think we all regret doing, ha-ha! I think we’re just going to stick to
our own songs. It would have to be very special circumstances for
us to record a cover again.
MM:
Are there any pre-show rituals that you go through before going on
stage?
FA: It’s
quite exhausting to play a 90-minute set so I like to eat a couple of
hours before so I’m not bloated when I go on stage and then we all
warm up for about an hour or so. It’s really just about getting
prepared and getting in the mood.
MM:
As it’s Halloween tonight, do you have anything special planned for
after the show?
FA: I think we’re probably going to
stay for a couple of hours, I mean we don’t really celebrate Halloween
in Sweden. It’s coming slowly though, the shops in Sweden are
trying to sell it to us because we watch a lot of American films and we
see a lot about it but it’s not really taken off yet.
MM:
In England, we get the impression from our media that there’s a new
Scandinavian band coming out almost every week. Why do you think
those countries seem to be producing more bands than other countries?
FA: I have
no idea, actually. I know when we were growing up it was
subsidised. The Swedish government actually gave you money to
rehearse if you filled in the correct paperwork and before the economy
crashed, you could even get money to buy equipment so it’s always been
endorsed and in our culture. I think that’s why so many started
at that time but the newer bands I’m not sure. I guess they’re
just influence by the previous bands, like In Flames who are the biggest
band in Sweden and one of the biggest metal bands in the world and other
bands’ success inspires younger bands to start playing music as well.
MM:
When you play places like Stockholm, do you have extra things in the
stage show for the Swedish crowds?
FA:
We played there just before this tour and we brought in pyros and
things like that to make it an extra special show. And we’re doing the
same in London as we’re bringing a couple of the Apocalyptica guys
along to play a song with us.
MM:
Cool, well thank you very much for taking the time out to talk to us
FA: No problem, thank you.
Interview
by: Adam G |