Onslaught Radio and Peek From The Pit conducted separate interviews with guitarist Olavi Mikkonen of Swedish death metallers AMON AMARTH prior to the band’s April 9, 2011 concert at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town, London with CHILDREN OF BODOM. You can now watch both interviews below. Source: Blabbermouth.net
Onslaught Radio interview:
Peek From The Pit interview:
Sam Radojcin and Brian Fischer-Giffin of Australia’s Loud magazine recently conducted an interview with drummer Fredrik Andersson of Swedish death metallers AMON AMARTH. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Loud: The reception for “Surtur Rising” has so far been great. Are you satisfied with the response?
Fredrik: It’s been really good. We obviously thought that we had a good album, so we were 100 per cent confident and we felt satisfied with it. So far most the responses have been positive. I just read today the Blabbermouth review was a 9/10, which I think is excellent. On there you can see what the fans think about it, which is pretty good as well. It’s good times.
Loud: Being the eighth album from AMON AMARTH, how do you think “Surtur Rising” stands up against the back catalogue?
Fredrik: It’s our most put-together album. It feels more well thought out than anything we’ve done in the past. For us, it has to do with the fact that we did have a plan that we were working towards and we knew what we wanted before we started writing it, and we were always working towards that goal. And I think in some terms, the album I guess… We wanted it to be a lot more harder and aggressive than it is, but when you listen to the whole album it works. It has a natural flow that we’re very happy with. Music-wise, it covers our whole background, our whole history. We were trying to write songs in the way we were writing them in the past, more old-school style. And that combined with the newer, better quality production brings out the best qualities in AMON AMARTH.
Loud: How did the writing process go down for “Surtur Rising”? Was it more individual efforts from single band members or was it more of a team effort?
Fredrik: It’s a bit of a mix actually. We meet up in rehearsal room and we do most of the work in the rehearsal room. But obviously when we realize that we’re not going any further, we take the decision to take a couple of days off, everybody works on theirs (songs) at home and we meet up again in a couple of days and see if we have any new ideas. I think that’s the mix of that that makes it work smoother for us to record an album. A couple of years ago we would probably stay in the rehearsal room until we have the songs done, but now we say, take it away, get it some air and see if doesn’t work out we’ll just leave it. The main production takes place in the rehearsal room when we’re all there, and also the songwriting. We need to be all gathered, and Johan [Hegg, vocals] is listening to what we’re creating and he gets his inspiration from what we’re doing when he’s writing the songs.
Loud: I noticed there were some covers recorded for the bonus tracks in “War Machine” by KISS, “Balls To The Wall” by ACCEPT and “Aerials” by SYSTEM OF A DOWN. The SYSTEM OF A DOWN choice has definitely raised a few eyebrows.
Fredrik: [Laughs] One of the reasons was the fact that we wanted to surprise our fans and everybody. We do hear comments about us being predictable and we’re always doing the same thing, so we decided to do three covers and the first two were pretty obvious to us. But the third one, we couldn’t really decide what to do. We went to Japan during the recording for a show and one of the nights we ended up at a karaoke bar and that song [“Aerials”] came up. It has kind of a history with the band. We had a big argument about whether it’s a good song, when it came out 3000 years ago or whenever. That song came up and we were all screaming it and having fun, and when we came back home… I can’t remember who came up with it, but we thought we should give that song a try. That would be kind of a challenge for us as musicians and it would also be us doing something unexpected. So we thought, let’s do it.
Read the entire interview from Loud magazine. Source: Blabbermouth.net
To read our recent interview with Ted Lundström, please go to: Firegiants Ready For Headlining Tour With Surtur
On March 22, 2011, U.K.’s Soundsphere conducted an interview with vocalist Johan Hegg of Swedish death metallers AMON AMARTH. You can now listen to the chat in two parts below. Source: Blabbermouth.net
Swedish death metal band AMON AMARTH was founded in 1992. The band lineup is: vocalist Johan Hegg, guitarists Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Söderberg, bassist Ted Lundström and drummer Fredrik Andersson. AMON AMARTH has released eight studio albums, the latest one “Surtur Rising” came out on March 25, 2011, via Metal Blade Records. In May and the fall, AMON AMARTH will hit the road, with headlining tour. Johan Hegg commented: “Hopefully we can take some new steps in our career and reach another level as a band. We want to play places we haven’t played yet and reach a wider audience without sacrificing what it is we do best. We’ve always mainly made music for ourselves so as long as we like it, it’s ok. Of course it’s better if other people like it too.”
Couple of weeks ago, before the release, I had a chat with band’s bassist, Ted Lundström…
Hi Ted, I’m Tarja. Welcome to Metal Shock! Let’s start talking about your genre. Your singer, Johan has said that you’ve never called yourselves Viking metal and that you just don’t like to put labels on yourselves. But how would you describe your sound to someone who doesn’t know you yet?
Well we don’t mind if people call us Viking metal but when I hear the term Viking metal I personally think about bands with a more ”pagan” sound, we are a melodic death metal band that have viking lyrics.
Continue Reading
Metal Blade Records has issued the following update:
Viking Metal Kings AMON AMARTH gain worldwide success with their new album Surtur Rising! The band has been spotted on magazine covers around the globe including countries like Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, the UK and the USA.
Make sure to surf over to the Surtur Rising landing page where you will find order options, videos and a stream of War Of The Gods – the opening track off Surtur Rising. Check it out at http://www.surturrising.com! Surtur Rising has been released on March 25/28, 2011 via Metal Blade Records in Europe.
AMON AMARTH embark on a European headlining tour in May with support coming from THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER and EVOCATION.
AMON AMARTH
+ THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER
+ Evocation
13/05/11 – NO – Oslo – Betong
14/05/11 – SE – Stockholm – Tyrol
15/05/11 – SE – Gothenburg – Trädgarn *
17/05/11 – DK – Copenhagen – Vega
18/05/11 – DE – Hamburg – Grosse Freiheit 36
19/05/11 – BE – Antwerp – Hof Ter Lo
20/05/11 – NL – Amsterdam – Melkweg
21/05/11 – DE – Köln – E-Werk
22/05/11 – FR – Paris – Elysee Montmartre
24/05/11 – DE – München – Tonhalle
25/05/11 – IT – Milan – Limelight
27/05/11 – DE – Dessau – Metalfest Germany
28/05/11 – AT – Mining – Metalfest Austria
29/05/11 – CH – Pratteln – Metalfest Switzerland
*without Black Dahlia Murder
Joe Matera of Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist Johan Söderberg of Swedish death metallers AMON AMARTH. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Ultimate-Guitar.com: When it came to the songwriting process for the new album, “Surtur Rising”, what was it like?
Söderberg: It was pretty much the same as the last two albums. I started to write in January last year. Basically, the process is like this; I just play guitar to some simple beat in my home studio until I come up with stuff I like. I did that for about three months and then we started to rehearse. Olavi [Mikkonen] takes his ideas and I take mine, and we start to put it together in the rehearsal place. That’s when Johan [Hegg] listens to the songs and he starts to write the lyrics. Usually we will rearrange some of the songs in the rehearsal place, too. Then we did a U.S tour in April, and when we got back from that, we continued to work out new songs and some days at home, to come up with new guitar parts. And then we went back to the rehearsal place to put it all together.
Ultimate-Guitar.com: When it came to this new record, was there much pressure on the band to top the success of the previous album “Twilight Of The Thunder God”?
Söderberg: I personally felt a huge pressure because “Twilight” is a great album and those songs are not easy to top. Lots of riffs and song ideas had to be put in the bin before they even made it to the rehearsal place. And it usually takes us about ten months to come up with ten songs that we feel are as good, or better than the last album. So the biggest pressure is that you know it has to be done by a certain time ’cause the date for when the recording starts, is not easy to move because then everything else has to move to along with release date and tours. If you postpone the recording by two weeks, you might have to postpone the release date by six months.
Ultimate-Guitar.com: Do you prefer the studio environment to the live stage?
Söderberg: I think they are both equally fun. When I have been touring for maybe one and a half years or more like we usually do on each album, I start to miss the songwriting process and the studio. And when the new album is finished, I can’t wait to go out on tour again to play the new songs live. I can’t really write any new material after the recording is done either, as I have to be out touring for some time to get the urge back to start writing again. It is like a continuous cycle.
Ultimate-Guitar.com: What do you think of the association of death or metal bands in general and their association with Satanism, do you think this is an ignorant notion and one perpetuated mostly by Christians?
Söderberg: If someone makes a movie about Satan, nobody thinks that the director or the actors are sitting at home worshiping Satan. But if a band writes songs about Satan, some people instantly make the assumption that these guys are sitting at home worshipping Satan. I think that almost all bands that have lyrics about Satanism, have them in order to make the songs have a dark feeling about them, just like a horror movie. If you make the most brutal riff you can, it doesn’t really fit to have lyrics about flowers in spring time.
Read the entire interview from Ultimate-Guitar.com. Source: Blabbermouth.net
