About thirty minutes following their gig in Wacken, we met up with Chris Amott, second guitarist for death metal legends, Arch Enemy, the show was tremendous, Angela lived up to her reputation as a true force of nature, running from side to side and energizing the audience, while the rest of the band also banging their heads and remaining active throughout the show.
We met up with Daniel, Michael and Sharlee, the rest of the men of the band, and then Century Media's man, Gerrit, hooked me up with Christopher, and we sat down to chat:
A: Hi Chris! What are you up to these days, apart from doing Wacken?
C: Right now I have quite a few other things going on, I'm working on some new material with Armageddon, my other band, but both me and Michael, who also has quite a few other bands he works with, are both concentrating on Arch Enemy, its certainly out number one thing.
A: So what is up with the band?
C: We're going into the studio around January; we're going to start working on the new album, that's about it, after that we're planning to do a serious tour of Europe.
A: Is Israel a possibility for a live show?
C: We didn’t get any serious proposals from Israel, but if we'll be in the area, in places like Greece or Turkey, we'll be glad to come there and play.
A: some questions about the Anthems Of Rebellion album, first, the lyrics seem to deal in more human-oriented, and somewhat political topics, was that a pre-made decision, what caused this kind of lyrics, and is it a line you intend to pursue in the future?
C: We started getting into such subjects around the last album, the Wages Of Sin album, but its mostly Michael and Angela that deal with that, what I think that influenced them the most, is the story behind the Planet Of The Apes film, I know that's been a huge influence.
A: you've did a great video clip for We Will Rise, tell us about the process of making it, and what's the idea behind it.
C: Yea, it was a high quality video, we did it in a relatively short amount of time, in Stockholm, we had quite a lot of professional people working on it, and of course, it cost quite a lot of money to do…
A: You just returned from doing shows in Japan, how was that?
C: We did 5 shows in Japan, we filled the up the places, I really like the Japanese metal fans, they are truly loyal and love the music, true metalists, they really go wild in the shows,
A: how was the experience of working with Andy Sneap?
C: The work with him was great, we really liked the process of recording with him, and he was a true part of the writing process, he actually gave us some great ideas and tips that we used in the recording, so yea, he was great, but we don’t know if we'll work for him in the next album, since we like to try different sounds and attitudes, another thing is, he is really strict, as a producer, and he doesn’t really allow much of a free hand for the band, so we loved working with him, and he did a lot for the album, but we'll probably try someone else for the next one.
A: the band took on a huge risk when taking on a female vocalist, a bet that certainly paid off, how was Angela picked for the band?
C: We met Angela when she interviewed Michael for a German `zine, a few years back, she then sent us some tapes of her former band, which we really liked, and it all rolled from there,
A: What would you define as your main musical influences in the band?
C: It's mainly Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, the classic stuff, but we tend to combine everything, I mostly write the music for the band, with Michael the main partner in it, but these bands influenced me as a player, but are also my favorites and influences when writing Arch enemy's music.
A: A very metal question, who holds his alcohol best in the band, and does Angela manage to compete with the guys when drinking?
C: We are all great in dealing with alcohol, larger people take the booze better, so Angela has a problem, she isn’t that large, but we don’t sit too much and drink all that much, before a show we try to be as sober as possible, so we don’t screw up, and we also don’t use any such substances when writing the music, we just don’t need anything else to inspire us.
A: What are your plans for touring now?
C: We really want to do a show in the states, I think we're big enough a band now so we can do such a tour, in general we're on a creative streak now, so from my point of view, I'd rather play as much as I can!
A: Right, thanks for talking to us!
Elad Miasnikov and Martin Grevholm
