ARCH ENEMY Guitarist Talks About OZZFEST Egg-Throwing Incident, Getting Naked With Other Men

The members of ARCH ENEMY didn't witness the "egg incident" at the Ozzfest stop in San Bernadino on August 20, 2005 nor were they asked to participate in the egg-throwing at IRON MAIDEN. The band had already left the site and were on their way to Las Vegas when the most talked-about metal event of the year took place. Once ARCH ENEMY reached Vegas, guitarist Mike Amott's phone started ringing and he went online to check BLABBERMOUTH.NET. "There I saw pictures of [IRON MAIDEN bassist] Steve Harris with eggs on him. That's not something you want to see," Amott tells the Swedish magazine Close-Up. "That it actually happened seems so surreal and so absurd. That's not how you treat a legendary heavy metal band — at least that's the way I see it. At the same time, it didn't feel like it was my battle. It was Bruce Dickinson on one side and Sharon Osbourne on the other. Both are multi-millionaires and maybe have egos to back it up. [The dispute] had nothing to do with us and was solely between these two camps. It just seemed ridiculous that something like that was taken to that level. The problems should have been solved backstage, with them getting into a fight there or something. It shouldn't have happened on stage, as it affected the audience who had bought super-expensive tickets just to have their IRON MAIDEN concert ruined. The band had absolutely the best response on Ozzfest, so a lot of people were there to see them."

Did you watch THE HAUNTED vocalist Peter Dolving get naked on stage at one of the Ozzfest shows?

"Yes I did, and it was very funny because I know that American men can't stand seeing other men naked."

But you do?

"Oooh, yeah! That's the way we're raised here in Sweden. We have this sauna tradition and in school you're thrown in Auschwitz-style showers where you check each other out from an early age. But that's not something they're used to in the U.S. It's even illegal to expose yourself like that, I believe."

DARK TRANQUILLITY vocalist Michael Stanne, who participates in the interview, also shares his views on Americans and nudity: "That's something we were being told all the time on our first couple of U.S. tours. The tour manager would say, 'You must tone down the nudity,' and we were like, 'What?! We're changing our clothes! We're all guys, so what's the problem?' His response was, "Yeah, but the Americans become upset…'"

Because you were changing your clothes in your dressing room?

"Yes, because we didn't sneak into our bunker, so to speak. Fuck, you can't hide on the toilet in a small American club venue. Instead you get sweaty, naked and nice together!"