AMON AMARTH’S FREDRIK ANDERSSON: THE METALSUCKS INTERVIEW

I read somewhere that Amon Amarth are like real-life Dethklok. I think it was actually Axl that tweeted it, and it stuck with me. It’s hilarious, and if you’ve ever seen them live, it’s pretty true.

Drummer Fredrik Andersson was kind enough to spare some time to talk about the band’s new album, Surtur Rising, their upcoming tour, and what Amon Amarth is really all about. Disappointing as it may be though, I don’t think they’ll be investing in Amorthsplosion Sauce any time soon.

One of my favorite tracks on Surtur Rising is “Slaves of Fear,” which you co-wrote. Could you tell me a little about the process?

That particular song was one of the last songs we wrote for the album, so it was kind of a last thing that came in. It was just one of those things where you get an idea and we start working on it. Usually when someone gets a song idea or a riff, everyone else gets involved in it, too, and starts contributing to it. All the songs, pretty much, were written fairly quickly on this album. I think we spent three to four months actually writing the album, which is really fast for us. But yeah, it was pretty smooth.

Amon Amarth gets described as “Viking metal” all the time. That’s not really a genre per se, and I know that Johan Hegg has commented that Vikings probably wouldn’t enjoy your music if they ever heard it. How would you define the band for someone who has never heard of you?

It actually doesn’t matter at all what people call us. [laughs] When we started out we called it simply “death metal.” It was actually “melodic death metal” —  that was a genre back then. I would say in the last couple years the music has evolved to be more [reflective] of our influences, so it’s more metal, like straight-forward heavy metal oriented, but we still have the growl vocals, so I don’t know. I really don’t know. If someone wants to call it Viking metal…

I get it, it’s not an insult anyway, more of an image?

Exactly. It’s just an idea for people to show what they’re getting in to. The only thing is just… what we don’t have in common with most Viking metal bands is that we don’t use folk influences or any of those instruments. It’s all metal though, it doesn’t matter what you call it.

To go along with the whole “Viking” imagery ,though, there’s a lot of mythology involved with the songs and albums. I admit, I’m interested in all those classic stories of gods and heroes. Are you and the rest of the band very into them as well? Or is it more of a theme you can just work from?

Well, we get involved in it [laughs], by force almost. It’s never been a huge interest of my own, but it’s something that we all carry with us. It comes from our [heritage] and it is a part of us already, so to speak, but when I went to school, I didn’t know a lot of the details. I didn’t get to learn very much about it, besides what I’ve picked up in recent years. Mainly due to the band.

Were you guys a little hurt that you weren’t included on the soundtrack to the new Thor movie?

Ohhh, no. That part of the business is, I think, a bit tricky to get involved in. Myself I never read the, Thor comic, it never made it out here to Sweden, so I don’t know what it would be about. Sure, it would be cool to be part of a film, music-wise, but I think you need to be on a bigger label to get that to happen. Or you need extreme luck.

You recently played India for the first time. How was Amon Amarth greeted there? It sounds like it would be an interesting experience.

[laughs] It was very interesting! It was a bit chaotic, but it was fun. Metal fans are metal fans wherever you go, so it’s all the same wherever you go. But when you go to places like that, where they’re not used to shows and bands coming often, there’s a different kind of appreciation for what you do. I think maybe in Europe and the U.S., people get a little bit spoiled, almost like they take everything for granted a little bit. [That level of appreciation is] something we miss here from the earlier days when people were a little bit starved. But it’s cool to get to play places like India and still see that — basically people being so appreciative of what you’re doing.

You also played the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise! How’d that go?

That was also a kind of a new experience. Not really though, I mean we have similar cruises over here [in Sweden].  Not like that, though — [the ones here are] only 24-hour cruises. They’ve been done here for the last ten years basically, but it’s different obviously when you’re in the Caribbean with a lot of other bands. We didn’t really expect anything. We didn’t expect it to be as well organized as it was, so that was a great surprise. It worked pretty smooth; we’d definitely do it again.

Any good stories?

There were plenty! But I guess you had to be there.

Oh well, next time maybe. With this new tour, An Evening with Amon Amarth, you’re playing two sets every night. How do you think that will go? I think a lot  of the dates are in more “intimate” settings. Do you think it will have a different effect, being closer with the audience, rather than a large arena-like space?

I don’t think it really matters where we play; we’re still going to do what we do. It varies though; some of the venues have a capacity of 700 and others are like 2,000. We’re going to have to make it different every night, basically.

It’ll be fun for you then, not doing the same thing? Any songs you’re particularly looking forward to performing?

It’s always nice to play the new songs live for the first few times. It’s just so different from hearing them on the album, for me. I think just playing all the songs is going to be fun. It usually takes like a year to get comfortable playing newer songs so it’s like you’re on edge when playing them and that’s pretty cool. It’s something that makes it different every time.

Got any good recipes for mead? Or let’s just go with beer. Anything you’re looking forward to consuming on tour?

[laughs] American beers are actually some of my favorites. We usually put local microbrewery stuff on the rider, but it’s not always what we get. Sometimes we’ll put, like, Sam Adams to make sure we don’t get Budweiser.

I’m a Carlsberg girl myself. Any last words to add?

Just see you on tour! Thanks.

-LF