Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Amon Amarth

In a small yet bustling tavern, a band of travelers gathers, preparing to set out on a quest with many questions to be answered and many a battle to be won. They listen attentively as the local barkeep, with a flare for animation and excitement, tells of an ancient prophecy. There’s a wizard, thief, bard, fighters and many normal folk listening.

“Surtur rules the flame land of Muspelheim, a realm of fire. This realm is one of the Nine Worlds unified by the world tree, Yggdrasill, and it is home to the Fire Demons, or the Sons of Muspell.

"An ancient prophecy written by Snorri Sturluson in the first book of Prose Edda named Gylfaginning, tells of Ragnarök, a series of events signaling the end of the world. Surtur will ultimately set the world afire with his flaming sword.

"The prophecy reads:

"'In the midst of this clash and din the heavens are rent in twain, and the sons of Muspel come riding through the opening. Surtur rides first, and before him and after him flames burning fire. He has a very good sword, which shines brighter than the sun.'"

The barkeep insists something must be done and the prophecy must not come to pass. Our adventure is set to begin. Unknown to all, the end of days is upon us. A fellowship has formed, and its quest is to save the world from flames end.

Uneasy about their quest, the eyes of each member of the fellowship wander around the crowded, smoky tavern, looking for a savior, someone to lead them.

The tavern doors suddenly swing open and in walk five long-haired, bearded men, clad in chain mail, horned Viking helmets and wielding the most fearsome-looking instruments man has ever seen. They call their band Amon Amarth, and they’ve been on many of these epic quests before−eight, they say. One of their members, a skilled axeman named Johan Söderberg, sits down, grabs a frosty ale and begins to answer questions from one of the would-be adventurers, a noble warrior named Jeff Maki. Johan has many stories of Amon Amarth’s to share.

You have a new album out, Surtur Rising (review). Could you explain what the title stands for and some of the themes of the record?

Johan Söderberg: Its Viking mythology and “Surtur” is the “Fire Giant” that rises. (In the myth) Surtur comes up and sets the whole world in flames (with his sword). And that’s basically the theme and story.

Does Surtur appear in many songs of the album? Is this an ongoing story here?

No, not really. It’s in two songs, I think, but there’s lots of other stuff, as well. When we started to write the album, that’s when we came up with this idea, and “Surtur Rising” was one of the first songs on the album that we wrote. It’s a very fast and powerful song, and really shows the “Surtur story” through that song.

What was the band’s mindset going into making this album? Where you trying to outdo Twilight of the Thundergod, or was this the logical continuation of your previous albums?

We always try to overdo the last album. That’s always our main goal, to top the previous album. But, of course, it was definitely hard because Twilight did very well and was received well everywhere, and everybody liked it. We liked it very much, too, so there was big pressure to try and top it, but I think we managed to do it in a way.

Are all of your stories, lyrics and themes based upon actual mythology and legends? Are these all based on real pieces of literature, or do you integrate your own stories into them?

Usually we integrate our own stories and put them in this environment that the stories ask. But some of the stories are pretty much based on actual stories from Viking mythology. But some songs can really be about whatever as long as it fits in the same environment of the story.

In other words, if I were to walk into one of your guys' homes, do you guys have a library of all of this literature? Where do you get all of this from?

Mostly it’s our vocalist, Johan (Hegg), who reads a lot about this stuff. I have some books at home, too, but overall my home looks pretty normal.

So there’s no library or secret vault with all of these legends in it and stuff?

[laughs] No, no. I do have some stuff away in my dining room, but no.

Back in the day, all of these Gods were worshiped in mythology by cultures of people. Is this all treated as a religion still today by certain cultures or by the band?

I wouldn’t call it a religion really. It’s more like a way of thinking. There are no rules that you have to follow; it’s just basically a philosophy. But, of course, there are people today that practice this kind of living, but there’s not that many, I’d say.

So you guys obviously believe in this philosophy and don’t worship God or Satan or anything? Do you guys worship Odin and other figures in mythology?

No, we just look at these as really cool stories that are very suiting to write heavy metal music to. That’s where we base it. We’re not really worshiping any gods or something.

By just taking a glance at the awesome album artwork, it makes me want to go break out the Dungeons & Dragons manuals. It looks like something that was in those way back in the day. Who was it done by and was it made specifically for the album?

It was made for the album and it’s the same guy who made the last cover, as well. He’s made almost all of our covers, I think. He didn’t make the one for With Odin on Our Side, but for all of the other ones he drew the pictures. You can see that he’s gotten much better, so he must have gained some skills in his drawing.

Was the cover done prior or after you had the album recorded? Was it an inspiration while you were writing?

Yeah, when we started to write the songs, we decided to have the story of Surtur as our theme. So then we contacted him and we told him what exactly we’d like to have on the cover. Then he starts to draw stuff and he sends it to us. Then we tell him maybe to change (something), and he works on it a bit. At the same time as we write an album, he works on the cover picture.

As a guitar player, how difficult is it to come up with all of these powerful, epic melodies and riffs for each and every album, yet keep them all different and unique from one another?

Yeah, that’s the biggest challenge, I think. It’s just hard work. I will get up in the morning, have breakfast and just play guitar for like five hours a day until I come up with something. And lots of days you don’t come up with anything. It’ a long, time-consuming job.

With the band there comes a certain expectation with each album from the sound you’ve crafted. The fans and all of us expect epic death metal and the Norse mythology and all of that stuff. It’s like your niche that you’ve carved out. But do you feel that you’ve kind of pigeonholed yourselves in this regard? Could, or would, you go out at this point and do anything different with a future album?

I don’t think so because it feels like we have found our thing. And it feels like we should keep on doing what we do good, instead of trying to experiment. Like AC/DC, they have their recipe. Like people say, don’t fix it if it ain't broke.

Yeah, like Motorhead, also, and AC/DC like you said. Well, that’s probably good news for all the fans out there.

I know you get this question a lot, but you’ve come out and said that you’re not necessarily a “Viking metal” band, but if that’s what people want to call you, do you have any problem with that, and why?

No, I don’t care. If people want to call us Viking metal, they can call us Viking metal. They can call us whatever they want. But I just call it “heavy metal.” Because if somebody says “Viking metal,” maybe to someone that has never heard us, maybe they will think that we are folk music like those pagan bands that have the different kind of instruments like violins and stuff like that. Our music is made more for heavy metal, it’s just that the lyrics are about Vikings.

To support the album, you guys are going out on a U.S. tour. What can you tell us in advance about that?

Well, on this tour, we’re not going to have any support acts. We’re going to play the whole new album instead. Then we will have a small break, and we’ll (come back out) and play our regular set after that. We’re going to be our own support acts on this tour.

Now do you guys plan on playing alone in the upcoming future after this tour or will you eventually pick up some support acts?

For the European tour, we will have support acts, but the other tours we haven’t decided yet. We’re going to see how it seems to do this long set playing the whole album and the regular set. Then if the reception is good, maybe we will do that again on another tour.

Are you confident in your guys’ abilities to play the whole new album from start to finish in perfection night in and night out?

Yeah, we’re rehearsing right now with the new songs. But it’s always kind of hard to play the songs that you have never played live before in the beginning. But it feels good, and I can imagine that fans are going to enjoy seeing the whole album live.

You guys have played whole albums in the entirety live before because the sets were included with the Metal Blade re-releases of your albums.

Yeah, that was something that we did a couple of years ago. We played four nights in a row and played four different albums. And that’s also on the bonus DVD. We have a version of the new album that has a bonus DVD, and that has all of those four albums played live, and we filmed it.

OK, Johan, is there anything else we need to know about the new album, or anything you want to say to fans out there?

We’re looking forward to going out on the road again and playing these songs live.

With that, Johan exits, and our adventurers eye each other with confused looks upon their faces. Then the bard says, “Boy, those were some interesting stories, but it's not going to help save my arse against that fire giant!”