ARCH ENEMY Guitarist Is 'Looking Forward To Getting Into Creative Phase Of Writing' Again

Patrick Slevin of The Aquarian Weekly recently conducted an interview with ARCH ENEMY/CARCASS guitarist Michael Amott. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Aquarian Weekly: Regarding [ARCH ENEMY's] "The Root Of All Evil", when did the idea to re-record older material first come up?

Amott: We started talking about doing something like this three, four years ago. The initial idea came from the fans really, they kept asking us if we'd ever consider re-recording some of the older material, this time with Angela [Gossow] on vocals. At first, I couldn't see the appeal of doing it, but as time passed and more and more people were asking about it, we decided to give it a shot, and I must say that it was a fun project. I found it quite refreshing to go in the studio and record the songs and make them sound fresh and exciting.

The Aquarian Weekly: How familiar do you think your fans are with the first three albums? Obviously, the first album was hard to find, but its since been reissued and the Internet has made it extremely easy for diehard fans to hear these songs.

Amott: We noticed when playing live the last few years that we really weren't getting a lot of recognition when playing the older songs (from the first three albums),so it was quite obvious that the first era of the band was getting more and more obscure. ARCH ENEMY's fan base has grown and renewed itself many times over.

The Aquarian Weekly: There are some technical differences from the original recordings. The first three albums were in a different tuning, and there are some differences in the bass lines and obviously the vocals. How faithful did you want to be to the original recordings?

Amott: We weren't that concerned with staying 100 percent true to the original versions. These are new interpretations of the old songs. If anyone wants to hear the original recordings of the songs, they can listen to the old albums. We wanted to to give our favorites from those early albums an "extreme makeover" and make them harder and tougher. We wanted the songs to sound like ARCH ENEMY right here and now, a worthy tribute to the first chapter in the band's history.

The Aquarian Weekly: You did use Andy Sneap for the mixing of the record but the band really took the reins on the production of the album. Did you feel more comfortable behind the mixing board after "Rise Of The Tyrant"?

Amott: Yes, we are getting increasingly confident when it comes to producing our own music. This is a natural progression for us, and we enjoy having that control. We know best how we want to sound nowadays. Andy Sneap is just an amazing mixing engineer, and he gets the aggression and passion that we've poured into the recordings to come out and be totally in your face.

The Aquarian Weekly: Your endorsement deal with Randall amps just ended. What have you been trying out on the road for new amplification? Has it been difficult replicating the sound you've had for the past three years with Randall, or are you trying something different?

Amott: Yes, I ended my deal with Randall recently as there were a lot of changes at that company and all the people I knew and had dealt with up to that point had left. As far as guitar tones, I can pretty much get "my sound" out of a lot of various amplifiers, so that hasn't been a problem really. On the last couple tours both myself and Chris [Amott, guitar] have been experimenting with amps from Marshall.

The Aquarian Weekly: When could fans expect new ARCH ENEMY songs?

Amott: I've written four song ideas that we've been jamming on, and I know that the other guys have ideas as well and I look forward to hearing them. We don't typically write a lot on the road so the songwriting process will pick up once we get off the road, I hope. The idea is that we'll be continuing to write and arrange new material throughout 2010 and we plan go back in the studio again at the end of the year and see what we come up with. Ideally, we'd like to release a new ARCH ENEMY album in 2011. Our last album of new material, "Rise Of The Tyrant", came out back in September 2007, so that'd be a good time in-between records. I'm very much looking forward to getting into the creative phase of writing and recording again.

Read the entire interview from The Aquarian Weekly...