Amon Amarth – On The Road To Valhalla

The bells ring as a sign of warning. In the distance the long ships are now visible, upon their decks stand lines of hard, bearded men, carrying spears and axes, within minutes they reach the shore, and run, screaming into the village. Now imagine that scene, only with musical instruments instead of axes, and a frenzied crowd instead of innocent village people. Amon Amarth, probably the biggest Viking metal band around, are back with a new album – "With Oden On Our Side", and to find out more about it, we spoke with the band's skin beater – Fredrik Andersson.

First, congratulations on your new album, what are your thoughts about it?

Thank you. Well to us it’s our absolute best effort so far. We worked really hard for this album and it’s great to see the good response we’re getting from fans and press.

It seems that there is somewhat of a "growing up" feeling when comparing it to "Fate Of Norns", do you agree?

Yes indeed, I think we’ve evolved both as persons and musicians. We’ve become even closer together as a team and we wrote the album all together, I think that’s also part of the difference.

The album sounds much more produced than anything you did in the past, what did you do different this time?

Well first of all we did use a producer this time, Jens Bogren. This was the first time a producer was involved in the actual production of the songs, and even if he didn’t do any re-arrangements he had a vision and a point of view in everything.

What does the cover-artwork mean?

It shows Oden sitting on his eight-legged horse Sleipnir. The "knot” behind is another symbol used to describe Oden.

Your spelling of terms relating to the Norse mythology is different than the one usually used in the west, Oden instead of Odin, Valhall instead of Valhalla, why is that?

We spell it the Swedish way and not the English.

You recently released the "Wrath Of The Norsemen" DVD set and unlike other bands that release their first DVD, yours was much longer and bombastic (and beautifully packed). What was the decision behind that?

We wanted to do something different than most other bands that release a DVD. It seems most bands just take any random show they have recorded and release it. We put a lot of thought and work behind to make the DVD worth buying for our fans. It’s basically how we would want a DVD to be released.

Regarding the new video clip for "Runes To My Memory", first, what does the title mean?

In ancient Scandinavia it was common for the (wealthy and important) Vikings to have a rune stone raised to their memory when they had died.

Why was that song chosen as the first video?

We think it’s a strong song that symbolizes the album in a good way. It has all the important features of an amon amarth song. It’s also a personal favorite to us.

You have a very unique way of appearing in the videos and live shows, a certain outlook and a lot of head banging by band members, how important do you think is the visual side to the band's appearance, in videos and live?

I think it’s very important. When you watch a band play either live or on tv you don’t only get the music, I think it has to be interesting also to watch. At least I don’t enjoy bands that just stand straight up and play, as if they would stand in their practice room. It’s supposed to be a show!

From the start of your career, Amon Amarth always played a combination that has not been around until then – Death metal mixed together with Vikings, battles, mythology and heathenism, subjects that are usually more associated with Viking metal bands or Black/Pagan metal bands. How did you reach that style?

Musically it was clear already from the start that we wanted to play melodic death metal, and lyrically we just thought it was interesting and cool to write about something different than most other bands. It’s also something we can stand behind and support. We could never write about Satanism or gore for example because it’s nothing we believe in.

Many of the Heathen related bands tend to have a strong nationalistic or right-winged approach to politics, what are your feelings on the subject?

We are not a political band. I personally think it’s sad that extreme groups of different types uses and abuses old symbols and take them for their own. I guess it has to do with the romantic picture of the "arian Viking" that came in the late 19th century. To us it’s just a part of our history, like ancient Greece or Rome. We’re proud of our history but not in the sense that it makes us racists or fascists.

From a personal point of view, do your beliefs match those expressed in your lyrics? Do you hold the Ancient Norse beliefs as your own?

I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in any "higher power” or something like that. And no, we don’t pray, or live our lives in any religious form. We don’t sacrifice animals or people before going on tour.. We stand behind it because it was the beliefs of our ancestors. And it is in fact an interesting point of view. For example the Vikings could have both a Christian cross and a Thor’s hammer around their neck.

I found that "With Oden On Our Side" bears a resemblance to "Once Sent From The Golden Hall" with it's unique style, and I'm not the only one. Was your first album indeed an influence on the writing of the new one?

In my opinion with oden on our side is more or less a mix between all our albums. We didn’t have once sent particularly in mind for the new album.

It seems the band is steadily growing bigger and more successful, when did you start to realize the extent of your success?

The thing is, that it has progressed so slowly in a very long time, that it’s never really been a "peak” where we suddenly realized something.. we’ve been growing slowly a little by little and to be honest I’m glad about that because I think we’ve worked our way to get to the point we are today. Not like a one hit wonder band that gets immediate huge success with their first or second album.

Judging from your label's website it seems the release is quite a priority release for them, do you feel that yourselves?

Yes, at least in Europe we are now their highest priority and that is both good and bad. But we’ve always had a good cooperation with them and consider them our friends as much as label.

Your label is giving out such Amon Amarth merchandize as Bottle Openers, Sunshields and Balloons, what is your share in such interesting memorabilia?

I think it’s cool, the sunshield is functional but is also a good advertisement. The balloon… well, it’s just fun. The beer opener, well who doesn’t want to have a beer opener with their favorite band logo on it?!

You recently joined Children Of Bodom in support of their US tour, how do you feel about that? Especially with the fact that you had to postpone your Scandinavian tour because of that.

It was of course unfortunate that we had to postpone the Scandinavian leg of our headlining tour. But this was the best and only option we had to do a north American tour this close after the release of the new album. And if you think about it, doing 15 shows instead of 3.. it’s simple math. The three shows could be postponed, the North American tour couldn’t. The good thing is that we’re able to even extend the Scandinavian tour this way, and include also Denmark and Finland.

A lot of people would say that yours and Children Of Bodom musical styles are quite different, why do the tour with them?

We’ve toured with bands with even lesser similar style. That is not even considered when we go as a support to some band. I mean if we were offered to tour with Priest or Maiden should we say no just because it’s not the same style? Children of bodom are bigger than us in the states thus play bigger venues for more people, it’s a good tour for us.

How did the US crowd accept the band's music?

They seem to like it. We’ve done 5 tours or so now and we’re slowly but steadily growing over there as well. At the moment USA is our biggest market.

If we're already into concerts, which concert do you consider the best Amon Amarth concert? Why?

Wacken this year. It was just an amazing feeling to play in front of that huge crowd and we got such a good response. We also did a good show, tight and we felt relaxed. It was fun.

And the worst?

That’s hard to say… you tend to forget the bad moments.. but I guess some years ago when we played a show in US that was announced the same day. It was originally a day-off but the tour booker decided to make an extra show. I think there were no more than 50 people there, and it was at some pizza bar or something like that. They hardly had a proper stage. But, in all honesty I don’t remember how the actual show went..

In 2003 you also performed here in Israel, a concert which I still consider one of the best I attended. What do you remember from that night? Aside from the small act of Bra-wearing the Olavi made, that is. 😉

I remember it was insanely hot! I was glad that they had to force us to go back stage between every second show to calm down the crowd because that gave us a reason to rest! But it was a great show. It was also the first and only time we had security on stage while we were playing. Totally insane. We had in general a complete awesome time being there, every one was treating us very nicely.

Any plans on coming back to strike once more?

Not that I know of. We met some guys that organized the last show at Wacken this year and they said it was about time for us to come back over again, but I don’t know the details about that. I hope some organizer is willing to book us again so we can come back soon!

And a last message to the Israeli fans?

Thank you for the interview and I hope we can come back soon to do another one of those insane shows! Cheers!