A few months before the release of their “War Eternal” album, we got the chance to meet Michael Amott and Alissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy!
Hello Alissa and Michael! How are you?
Alissa White-Gluz (vocals): Good! How are you?
Fine, thanks.
Michael Amott (guitar): I’m terrible. (laughs) Well I feel good, I’m happy to be here. We’re a little bit tired, we’ve been travelling around in Tokyo doing this, then in London.UK we were also in Berlin for three days and now here we are! My voice is getting a little bit tired but we are very happy.
The first question every fan is asking or thinking about is: how did you learn Angela’s departure? Was the record already recorded at that time or did she leave her spot before the process?
M: Well we had a meeting and we decided to take 2013 off so there was like a big open-wide space of time where we could do whatever we wanted to do, first time in 12 years so you can imagine the sensation of freedom in a way. I got bored just after a week and started writing music again. Everybody was expecting to get together for a new album you know, I was always working towards that goal. I was really happy to have all that time to write a record, not since our first album. Angela went into a different direction mentally and we had another band meeting sometime last year and she told us that “actually I want to step down as the singer of the band” but in the same time she wanted us to continue because of all the new stuff and our fresh creativity. In that same meeting she suggested Alissa. So it was a lot to take in and to deal with. At that time we were writing slowly but once we knew, we contacted Alissa, Angela contacted her before. Then it all became more serious, we had to attempt to write the best album ever because you can’t start a new era with an average album, it has to be fucking amazing. We pushed us.
Angela gave you Alissa’s name but were there other singers in the balance? Was it meant to be a woman again?
M: Well that’s a thing that happened fairly quickly. Once Angela suggested Alissa she was at the top of our list and we were blown away immediately when we heard her it was very exciting. Once we established contact and I talked with her about the possibility to work with Arch Enemy, she was very open to try it out and she came to Sweden to try out some new songs. We didn’t really look after other names, kind of unfair to all the hopeful singers out there but if you find someone you like you go with that.
Alissa how did you react when Arch Enemy approached you?
A: I was pretty surprised I’ve been friend with Angela since a few years and when they said that they were taking 2013 off, I think I wrote to Angela at one point like “Are you OK? Is everything cool?” because I was a little bit worried. And the nexxt email I got from her was “Go talk to Michael on Skype” so I was like “well… okay” (laughs) I was thinking if I did something wrong, bunch of ideas rushed through my mind but obviously million ideas and then I said to myself “just shut up and talk to Michael you’ll see what it is about”. So I did and obviously I was surprised but also really unlettered and excited about the opportunity. On one hand I was sad that Angela wouldn’t be making more albums but then on the other hand I was like “if anyone could do this I can” especially right now because I was at a point where I was really ready to take the next step musically and that’s what we did we worked on the new songs and the previous ones too immediately and everybody in the band wanted to kind of reinvent the band and make the best possible album we can make and that way we’ll celebrate all the years Angela put in and also opening the door to many more years. I think we achieved that goal actually.
“War Eternal” blew out fans mind with the video, what was the guideline behind this album ? Is it the same feeling that releasing your first album ever as a band/artist?
A: It’s tricky because I think in a way all of us had already proven ourselves through our previous work but then it still felt like a first album in way. Just because people may like how I sound with other bands in the past doesn’t mean that they’ll like how I sing here so there was definitely an element of knowing that we owe it to the fans to make a really killer album and we owe to ourselves so we worked really really hard on it and yeah, it’s almost like a flashback years and decades ago releasing the first album ever it’s very exciting.
What does the album title stand for?
A: Well it’s called “War Eternal” and Michael wrote these lyrics so I’ll let him tell you about that.
M: Thank you. (laughs) They kind of cover typical subjects but I tried to do it from a different angle. The lyrics are not about war like war between nations with guns we did a lot of that on “Khaos Legions” actually. Here it’s more about life, being born into a world that puts a lot of pressure on every each individual to conform to rules and expectations of society. To me it’s a song about remembering who you are and trying to hold on your individuality, what makes you special. They almost tried to take away your personality I think in school or in work. Society is kind of trying to have everybody the same, individualism isn’t very something that is encouraged because it’s easy if everybody is the same. I think we touched something like that before but it’s kind of a recurrent topic because I think a lot about it.
Alissa, did you write the lyrics? What approach did you have?
A: Yep I wrote five songs and Michael wrote five songs too so it was a co-writing situation. I was really happy and I took it as a good chance because they were trusting me to write lyrics. To me lyrics are almost the most important thing in music. Well I have my style of writing lyrics and I can’t change that is I knew that I had to stay true to myself but also keep in mind that there’s a style in Arch Enemy and I was very familiar with it. Unfortunately or fortunately I had a lot of thing going on that gave me lots of ideas to write about so the songs wrote themselves pretty naturally and I was never like “I have no ideas for this one” I would have too many ideas for one song!
Apart from The Agonist, what is your musical path? How did you have get in extreme metal?
A: I listen to a lot of grunge and punk growing up and before that I was only into classical music for a long time. I even remember telling to my sister, because she’s also a musician in a band called No Joy, when I was probably 10 years old “I don’t like pop music” and to me pop music was anything than classical. I only liked classical, real composers but I quickly started to like “pop” (laughs) which was punk, grunge and rock n’roll, the big legends of metal, Pantera, Slayer, Metallica. My musical tastes were kind of shaped by the friends I had and the bands I ended up in. Two bands before I started touring, one was sort of Kreator in a way, another was like Dream Theater but I really liked music that’s good. In recent years, I started to perform with Kamelot, I fell in love with all of their songs so I’m happy to write any kind of music that I think is good. Luckily for me now, I’m in a band that is recognized as one of the best in the genre. (laughs) I guess I’m really open minded when it comes to music but there needs to be intensity, energy and I really prefer when it’s fast.
And when did you choose to growl while singing instead of clean vocals?
A: That was actually all Angela’s fault. (laughs)
M: (laughs)
A: When I was in that Dream Theater like band I was singing that kind of way and then someone in the band suggested “why don’t you try to scream?” so I started to sing in a punk way but they said “no do death growl” but I replied “but I’m a girl, how can I do that?” “Do like Arch Enemy” and it was almost like homework since I listen to their music I was like “wow what the hell?” I thought it was amazing and then during the next band practice I tried to do like Angela and it worked even if the sound wasn’t that good. Since that I started integrating clean singing and growls practicing them.
Let’s go back to the album, there’re several titles referring to the past and some to the future, is it a way to mark the beginning of a new chapter for the band?
A: Definitely Michael and I wrote, two different people experiencing two different things in our lives, very similarly but on some different topics. Each song has something to offer, it could be philosophical, retrospective, and fans will appreciate them.
M: Yeah.
Which three tracks will you pick to describe the best the record?
A: Ohhhhhhhh!
M: I think “War Eternal” should be one of them. It represents the sort of very traditional Arch Enemy song if you could call it that. There’s no other bands composing music like we do, I don’t think there are bands balancing aggression and melodies exactly the same way we do. That’s our sound and we established it may be on our third album that’s why it was the perfect song to put out at first. Second song I’d choose “Time Is Black”.
A: Agreed.
M: Because I think it represents how high was our level of inspiration on this album and it’s definitely the most progressive album, the most progressive song of the band. It’s a unique song, a very special song and also have orchestral arrangements. It represents creativity, we’re not holding us back. Third song… I don’t know.
A: Maybe “No More Regrets”?
M: Yeah “No More Regrets”. We had never written a song like that. It sounds AE but has something in there. I wouldn’t have written it without Nick Cordle’s involvement actually. If you broke it down, I probably wrote 80% of it but having him there, we went into a different direction I wouldn’t think of. He pushed it in a very fast and technical way and with Alissa’s lyrics, it brought it up to 2014, it’s fresh and exciting.
And how would you define it in three words?
A: Oh you’re killing me with those questions! (laughs)
M: (laughs) War fucking Eternal.
A: Pure fucking metal. (laughs)
M: I’ve done that before (laughs)
A: I’d say: brutal – epic – deep.
Finally, we are RockUrLife so what rock your lives Michael and Alissa?
A: Animals rock my life, I love animals. I could be in the worst mood and I could just see a bird and be happy (laughs) it’s very primitive but I’m the biggest animal lover, I don’t know why, I just connect to these species other than humans. (laughs)
Metal I guess for you Michael?
(laughs)
M: Metal, music, women. Wine/women/a song.
(laughs)
Website: archenemy.net
