ARCH ENEMY Frontwoman: 'Freedom Is All About Revolution, Risk And Courage'

Metal As Fuck recently conducted an interview with vocalist Angela Gossow of Swedish/German extreme metallers ARCH ENEMY. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On what separates "Khaos Legions" from the band's previous releases:

Gossow: "We like to scratch ideas around on the road, it's basically down to our influences, the situations we are faced with on a daily basis, political turmoil, music we listen to, the vibe from people and other musicians whilst touring. For example we were heavily into blues after touring Chicago. We were writing this album for three and a half years, it's our musical journey, and this album shows our versatility. It's very confronting."

On ARCH ENEMY's atheist pro-freedom-of-mind message:

Gossow: "Freedom is all about revolution, risk and courage. We were heavily influenced by revolution in this album, the revolutions in history and all the situations going on around us today. The revolutionists currently in Syria and Africa, risking their lives for freedom, escaping religious persecution and a lot of them are women."

On whether she always knew she wanted to be involved with this genre of music and use the accompanying vocal style:

Gossow: "I have forever been a fan of metal, and always death metal. I'm German, you know. In Germany, growing up you got a proper job and bands were just a little hobby you had on the side. I always felt grounded. So I did the usual, sent myself to university, degrees in economics, marketing etc until in 1991 the underground scene in Germany began to rise; however, there was never any money in death metal —there still isn't any money in death metal (laughs) — but growing up, I never considered or even thought to myself that I could do this as a job, you know. Now it's prospered into a business as such with 10 employees, a very DIY business."

On taking over management duties for ARCH ENEMY in 2008:

Gossow: "I couldn't be victimized by the industry any longer. Seriously, freedom and self approach was the only way for us to survive. Record labels wanted their cut, booking agents, tour managers, promoters, PR, distribution — they all wanted a percentage. I became jaded and disillusioned. There was no money, yet we owed so many people. We couldn't go on like that for much longer; we would most certainly die and didnt want to continue living like shit. So we took it over ourselves. We now own all of our music, all of our publishing and we practice what we preach. We knew that if it was destroyed, it was destroyed by our own hands. We are stronger now because of it, though. We feel very empowered by the decision and we have been extremely lucky and fortunate over the past twelve years to have the love and support from our fans."

Read the entire interview from Metal As Fuck.