ARCH ENEMY Guitarist: 'We Make The Music That We Like To Hear Ourselves'

Zach Shaw of Metal Insider recently conducted an interview with guitarist Michael Amott of Swedish/German extreme metallers ARCH ENEMY. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Insider: You mentioned about how you guys have been self-managed for a while now [since 2008]. Has the band ever thought about continuing the DIY spirit and actually releasing your own music in the future?

Amott: We thought about it. I mean, our record label deal is up now with Century Media Records. We had a licensing agreement, I should call it, with Century Media, who we've been working with for many years. We had a new deal with them in 2005, but actually this new album, "Khaos Legions", was the last album with that deal. I don't know what we're going to do now moving forward. It's kind of a different landscape out there now. [laughs] A lot of bands are trying those different models. We're watching them closely to see how that works out for them.

Metal Insider: Obviously one of the biggest benefits of being self-managed is having control over everything. What would you say, though, is one of the biggest difficulties?

Amott: Well, it's a lot more work. If you're not prepared to work a lot more than you would like to, then you probably shouldn't do it. But I've always being a control freak anyway. I like to control every aspect as much as possible because at the end of the day they're my ideas. They come out of my brain somehow and then I make them into songs, with the other guys, of course. I always like to see it all the way through. And I never really liked any outside opinions. [laughs]

Metal Insider: With illegal downloading becoming even bigger than it has been ever, were you ever hesitant to even like release new music? Maybe not hesitant but like less enthusiastic about releasing new music?

Amott: No, not really, because, to be honest with you, I've never been an artist that sells a million records of one album, really. I've never been a mega-CD, platinum-selling artist and I never will, because the music I've chosen to write ever since I started out has been either too extreme or not hip. ARCH ENEMY, we're not extreme enough for the very deep underground, you know, but we're also too extreme for the mainstream. We're just kind of doing our thing in between those two extremes, if you will, if that makes sense. [laughs] So we're just happy doing what we do. We've got a lot of fans and making new music is big part of it. It's something that we have to do. When you listen to our ARCH ENEMY, it's quite obvious that we have to do new music because we just have it inside us and it's gotta come out. It's not contrived in any way, really. It's not premeditated. It's nothing we sit and theorize about what we're going to do, what could sell or anything like that. It's just more what we're really into as musicians. We make the music that we like to hear ourselves. So, yeah, making new music is a big part of that. Nowadays, the people that are growing up now especially are not accustomed to paying for intellectual property like music, film, books, whatever. People are just getting used to the idea, very comfortable with the idea of not paying for that. [laughs] So it's hard to change that and you can't reverse that. I think for us it's still important to put out new music because we want to put out new music. But then I don't know how it's going to work out in the next few years in the future; how we're going to put new music out, but we'll always write new music.

Metal Insider: I hate to think of a world without the full album format, but do you think that ARCH ENEMY might release only singles in the future? Or will ARCH ENEMY always be a full-album band?

Amott: I don't know. I could see I don't know, yeah. I mean, you're seeing bands releasing digital singles and just releasing a couple of songs here and there. I don't know. I think our fans, our worldwide fan base, still enjoys to sink deep into a full new album and really getting into the whole concept, look and the feel of an album and the atmosphere of a record, like a chapter of the band. The way I see it is we're going to keep on the same path, but I don't know. We might release stuff in between. But I'd still like to make full albums if possible. [laughs]

Metal Insider: So obviously right now the focus is on ARCH ENEMY and the new album. Is there a chance, though, that CARCASS could be touring again in the near future, or maybe even record new material? Or is CARCASS pretty much on hold for good?

Amott: I don't know. I say "never say never," but I don't know what they're planning, really. I mean, the main two guys are really Jeff Walker and Bill Steer, and I've always had ARCH ENEMY. I've had ARCH ENEMY for the past 15 years now as my main thing. It's my baby and it's my main band. I don't really know what they're planning right now. I think they're kind of busy with their other projects. I actually met Bill last weekend at a festival, he was there playing for another band. But we didn't actually discuss CARCASS. [laughs] We talked about some other stuff. In my mind, we took the CARCASS reunion as far as we could. We were supposed to just do six shows in the summer of 2008 in Europe, but it turned into a lot more shows, like100 or 150 shows, all around the world. But the time came last year when I really had to focus on making new ARCH ENEMY album. That's what I had to do, and that's what I'm doing right now. I mean, ARCH ENEMY stays quite busy. We're already booking next year. So 2012 is going to be a lot of ARCH ENEMY stuff, a lot of shows, and like I said before, we kind of go everywhere. We're not the kind of band that just goes to Europe and the U.S. We want to do that again because that's become something that we really enjoy doing as well. So, yeah, it's time-consuming, of course, and I'd rather stay I'm rather stick to being focused on one band for the time being. But I always leave the door open for any other collaborations or the CARCASS thing. If they ever want to do something, if they ever give me a call and want to do something, I'll obviously be happy to be try and be a part of something like that. But yeah, not right now. [laughs]

Read the entire interview from Metal Insider.