ARCH ENEMY Guitarist: 'I Never Thought I'd Have A Career In Music'

Aedan Sieber of Australia's The Metal Forge recently conducted an interview with ARCH ENEMY guitarist Michael Amott. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On achieving a fairly notable status within today's metal world:

"(Laughs) I don't really think about it like that! I don't know — it's just everyday is a new job — there's always something that's got to be done you know? Be it a show, or some interviews or… I mean its midnight here or something you know… still doing interviews. I just played a show here in Minneapolis — in the United States — there's just a bunch of stuff to be done all the time. Right now is a very busy time — I don't really have time to think about that stuff. We're just kind of so in the moment with this band that we just keep on working, we never take a break really. We never really contemplate where we're at — it's more just like go, go, go! I guess in a few years we'll be like, 'Hey, that was actually pretty cool.' (laughs). No time to reflect!”

On being able to meet the more personal goal of continuing to create the music that the band both wants to play and hear:

"Yeah, I mean — you know, the fans are important. But we write music for ourselves, because we make the music that we want to hear, that we want to bang our heads to. When we're in the rehearsal room, if everybody's getting into it, jamming on it — that's like the fun part, you know? The creative side of things is what we enjoy the absolute most, I guess. And now we're doing promotions and touring and stuff — that's not the reason you pick up a guitar and grow your hair long, you know? It's more because you just want to jam and play the music that makes you feel good. The fans just come along with us, you know? We seem to be getting more and more of them every time we put out a record, or every time we do a tour — so that's amazing, you know. We're very happy about that, obviously. I think the fans trust us — that we're going to deliver the goods, basically."

On whether he ever imagined that ARCH ENEMY would make it quite this far:

"I never had a plan. I never thought I'd have a career in music because the music that I chose to start playing at an early age was the most extreme music I could find you know? It was thrash metal, it was death metal — there was no record deals to be had (laughs) it was just underground. It wasn't like, 'I'm going to start a death metal band and make a living out of playing death metal' — that was never an option, really. And then things just started to happen — that (type of) music became more mainstream in a way or it reached more people and more people got into it and it got bigger. Obviously now days I don't really play death metal anymore — I guess ARCH ENEMY is more of an extreme metal band. We have some hints of death metal, some flavours of death metal in there — but we're not an all out death metal band, for sure. I never thought we'd become this big though (laughs)."

On growing up with metal:

"I just loved the raw energy and power of it. I started listening to punk and hardcore when I was 11 years old. I went straight from KISS and THIN LIZZY and stuff like that into punk and hardcore. I just loved the speed and the aggression. I was constantly searching for the faster, more aggressive bands. Then thrash came along: METALLICA, SLAYER, MEGADETH stuff like that — that was all very exciting! Then KREATOR, SODOM, DESTRUCTION, that whole German thrash wave — very excited about that! I was also listening to D.R.I., SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, CRUMBSUCKERS, DISCHARGE — all this hardcore punk stuff as well. But then, you know, all my friends were into more classic stuff — hard rock and metal — you know, more JUDAS PRIEST-, IRON MAIDEN-type stuff — and I was into that as well. So I was surrounded by all of these different things and it kind of made me what I am. It's all a part of me."

Read the entire interview at www.themetalforge.com.