Arch Enemy
By:
Along with In Flames, Arch Enemy has made the Gothenburg, Sweden melodic death sound a staple in metal circles around the globe. The massive popularity Arch Enemy has earned in the last couple years is all the more exciting because they have never changed their musical vision and they have never sold out, by any means. Recently, the group released their seventh album, “Rise of the Tyrant. “ Said album retained all the elements common to their sound: vicious speed, blasting drums, Angela’s trademark gnarly screams and most of all, solos, which are definitely some of the band’s best.
In 2005, Christopher Amott left the group to pursue other interests. Arch Enemy employed the talents of other guitarists such as Nightrage’s Gus. G and Fredrik Åkesson of Opeth, but the chemistry the brother’s share, as well as Christopher’s experience in the band was not apparent. Other than Angela Gossow replacing Johan Liiva on the mic, the band had never experienced major change. The band had never recorded without the precision of both Amott brothers nor would they anytime soon. The beginning of 2007 saw Christopher’s triumphantly rejoin the band to lay down guitar tracks on “Rise of the Tyrant.” Blistering caught up with a happy and energetic Christopher Amott on their stop off in Detroit during their massive North American tour with Machine Head, Throwdown, and Sanctity.
Blistering.com: How does it feel to be back?
Christopher Amott: Feels great. I was gone for two years and rejoined at the beginning of this year. It’s really good to be back on the road again - I’m really enjoying it.
Blistering.com: How did you spend your time away from the band?
Amott: I did a bunch of things. I worked as a music teacher, did some traveling, studied at the University for a bit (studied philosophy), but I quit. I played in a cover band, but nothing really serious. Playing guitar is what I do best. Thing is, I joined the band at an early age, when I was eighteen. I’ve never had a regular job since I was seventeen. All the other guys have it, so they can prepare. I really wanted to see what was on the other side. It sounds kind of weird to people, but I was getting kind of tired of it. I wasn’t really into it, so I got out of it for a while. Now I’m back with more energy. I started hanging out with Mike and Angela and was talking about old times and we talked about getting back together. Also, on my MySpace page I was getting all these emails from fans asking me when I was going to rejoin the band, so the fans definitely helped get me back into. I’m twenty-nine years old and this is what I really want in my life.
Blistering.com: How did the other band members view Arch Enemy when you were gone? Did they view it the same way?
Amott: I’ve been in the band since the beginning. Because I’m brothers with Michael and we grew up together and have been playing together so long, we have a lot of chemistry. I don’t think he is comfortable writing with another guitar player.
Blistering.com: How has Michael’s guitar playing rubbed off on you, especially considering you grew up together?
Amott: He taught me the basics. When he was in Carcass, I was young, about 14. The first time I picked up a guitar, he taught me a few guitar chords, a few basics. Then on, he would go on tour with Carcass and I would sit at home and practice up and learn some theory to show him the next time he came over. When I got into guitar playing, I was never really into anything else. I didn’t have any other interests. I wasn’t into sports or anything. Guitar playing has always been what I do best.
Blistering.com: There are a lot of good guitar solos on your new album “Rise of the Tyrant,” did you guys write more solos and more melodies on this album or is it just that the solos are so good, it feels like you wrote more? It feels like you really raised the bar on this one.
Amott: Daniel and Mike have written a lot of the material. They are the ones who are the most involved in the writing. I didn’t contribute as much on the song writing this time. They’ve been writing on the low. The recording and the writing has picked up a bunch since the last one. They’ve been grabbing a hold of all these ideas. Michael told me that we wanted to make more of a catchy, melodic album. It has nothing wimpy, but like a classic, old school feel with a lot of guitar solos harmonies. We like playing solos; it comes easy to us. I think we are good at it and there is no reason for us not to do it. We’ve been doing it for ten years now. I think solos are coming back in style. On “Anthems of Rebellion” and “Doomsday Machine,” we tried something different with the song arrangements. I think we are back doing what we do best. There can never be too much guitar solos. My favorite thing is being in the studio and composing solos, where to place those solos and when to begin or end them.
Blistering.com: So do you compose a lot of the solos in the studio or are they already written?
Amott: The producer helps us with the solos that are already written, the back-and-forth parts. We’ll have a rhythm that I play on top of that for an hour of soloing. Some solos we do together with the band. It’s kind of different; it’s a lot of fun. We did a lot of pre-production. We have own recording studio with all our equipment and we recorded the album before we took it into the final recording studio, like a simple recording.
We got all the arrangements down then spent some studio time making the songs better; we find the perfect song structure. And of course you come up with certain lead parts that sometimes go on the album. Me and Michael did a couple of songs together, so when I had rejoined, we started jamming it. I wrote a bit on the last track, “Vultures” and “The Last Enemy.” Then there was always stuff I came up with when I was sitting around jamming with Mike that I was even really thinking about. Or there are times when he would help me illustrate a riff, like he would say, “maybe you want something that is more like Manowar (voices fist-pumping riff).
|
