ARCH ENEMY's MICHAEL AMOTT Talks About Writing Process For Next Album

ARTE Concert conducted an interview with ARCH ENEMY singer Alissa White-Gluz and guitarist Michael Amott at this year's Wacken Open Air festival, which was held August 4-6 in Wacken, Germany. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the ARCH ENEMY songwriting process:

Michael: "Well, we do some writing… I mean, I have the rhythm section of the band, Sharlee [D'Angelo] and Daniel [Erlandsson], on bass and drums, they live very close to where I live on the west coast of Sweden, and we have a nice rehearsal place where we do that. And then when the time comes to sort of get more serious and do the final arrangements, we all get together, and so far that's happened a lot in Sweden."

On the progress of the writing sessions for the follow-up to 2014's "War Eternal" album:

Michael: "I've been writing a bit on my own and also with Daniel, our drummer, and we have about seven or eight ideas for songs there. And I'm also writing a little bit with Jeff [Loomis, guitar] now, and I'm gonna get more deeper into that with Jeff. That's also a logistical thing, 'cause he lives in Seattle and I live in the middle of nowhere in Sweden. So we're gonna have to get together at some point. But we work a little bit backstage; I'm bouncing ideas off him. I can't really write seriously, like really write complete songs on the road, but definitely fragments, ideas, riffs, melodies… little bits and pieces. And then it's like a jigsaw puzzle — you've just got all the parts, put them out on the table, go and piece them together. That's a fun process, but that's for later. And then you need a little bit of time for reflection and go back and change stuff. We do enjoy to circle around the material over and over again and tweak things, both lyrically and musically, until you have it. And we're just looking forward to that whole process, I think, now."

ARCH ENEMY is planning to release a concert DVD, Blu-ray and CD in the coming months. The set will be "a very elaborate package, with a lot of bonus material, telling the story of [ARCH ENEMY's] two-year [touring cycle in support of 'War Eternal'," according to Amott.

The "War Eternal" album reached the highest U.S. and German chart positions in ARCH ENEMY's career and the band played over 200 shows in over 40 countries around the world. In late 2014, Loomis (ex-NEVERMORE) joined ARCH ENEMY during the world tour with KREATOR and in 2015 they played arenas as direct support of NIGHTWISH.