INTERVIEW: Johan Söderberg – Amon Amarth
Few death metal bands have achieved success in quite the same way as AMON AMARTH. The Swedish melodic death metal titans have, over the course of 25 years, become one of the biggest names in metal. Headlining stages across the world from concert halls to top-tier festivals, and with an all-killer discography branching ten full-length albums, AMON AMARTH are a band on top of their game. The band recently released their stunning new DVD, The Pursuit Of Vikings: 25 Years In The Eye Of The Storm, featuring a 100 minute documentary and two live sets filmed at 2017’s Summer Breeze Festival (read our review here). Just prior to it’s release, we managed to catch guitarist Johan Söderberg for a brief chat about the documentary, AMON AMARTH‘s history and their incredible live show!
Hey Johan, it’s great to speak to you today – thank you for taking the time to chat. How are you doing?
Johan: Good, thanks. I’ve been on a train all day, but other than that it’s good.
Glad to hear it. How are the screenings for The Pursuit Of Vikings going?
Johan: Really big! [Last night the screening] was [in] a really big theatre, with maybe 400 people. That was cool. And we had one in the UK in a much smaller place that was really cool, and tonight is even bigger actually, that’ll be excellent. It’s fun. To see the band on a big screen like that is pretty different.
What inspired the decision to to make The Pursuit Of Vikings?
Johan: It’s been a long time since we released a DVD with live material, so we decided we want to make a new DVD and we wanted to add something extra. So it’s not just live shows but we want to have something extra and the idea came up that we should make a documentary about the band, how it formed and how we became the band we are today.
Alexander Milas is one of the most renowned metal journalists in the world – how was it working with him for the documentary?
Johan: It’s been a really smooth process. They’ve been following us for two years in different locations while we’ve out touring, and also, of course, at home in Sweden with us. They’ve been just hanging around in the in the background, it was not intimidating, and it didn’t feel like they were invading our privacy when they were filming.
Johan [Hegg], Ted [Lundström] and Martin Carlsson of Sweden Rock Magazine spoke in the documentary about the issues you had in the early days of your career, with the association between Viking/Norse imagery and far-right ideologies. Did you feel that in continuing to write songs themed on Viking history and Norse mythology you were reclaiming the culture back from the far right in a way?
Johan: Yeah, I would say so. I don’t think it is something that belongs to the far right. Swedish and Norse history belongs to everybody. Everybody who wants to write about Norse mythology should be able to do that. It’s not a political thing.
Do you ever feel, 25 years and 10 albums into your career, that you’ve painted yourself into a corner with the Norse theme, and is there a desire to expand the lyrical content? Or are you just as inspired and excited by it as a theme as you were in the early days?
Johan: No, we have made it our thing – even though anybody can make it their thing as well! But for us, it has become our trademark and we’re going to continue on the same path, continue to rise above Viking history and the Norse mythology because we think that it’s the perfect subject for our music.
You said in the documentary that you went into Versus The World expecting it to be your last album. Did having that attitude of finality take the pressure off the album?
Johan: That’s not how I remember it. It was pretty much the same writing process as always. And it wasn’t that Versus The World was going to be the last album, it was more like “if this album doesn’t take us to the next step, then it might be the last album.” The plan was, of course, that it should take us to the next step.
A part of AMON AMARTH’s history that wasn’t included in the documentary was the Bloodshed Over Bochum shows in 2008. Where did the idea for those shows come from?
Johan: I don’t really remember where the idea came from. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of Michael [Trengert]‘s ideas. I don’t remember how the idea came up but it was probably that we wanted to do something new. And that was to play the whole albums front to back. But instead of doing just one album, we did the first four. I don’t really remember why we did it though, probably just to try something new.
Would you ever do a series of shows like that again?
Johan: It’s not impossible. Now we have so many more albums, we could easily do it again if we wanted to.
Though AMON AMARTH really started to make waves with Versus The World, it was with Twilight Of The Thunder God that really saw the band blow up. Was there a feeling when recording the album that you had something really special, or did the album’s success take you by surprise?
Johan: No I remember the whole album was really strong. I remember we had a real trouble choosing which song should be the opening song or the first single. It was not Twilight Of The Thunder God that was the first song on the album from the beginning. After having the final mixes back for a week we decided to change the order to have Twilight Of The Thunder God as the first song. We felt it was a really strong album when we made it. I think it was Free Will Sacrifice that was the opening song first. We changed the order of a few other songs as well I think. And Guardians Of Asgard, I think, is probably even more popular now than Twilight Of The Thunder God.
As a concept album, how did the creation of Jomsviking differ from your earlier albums? Would you do a concept album again, or is the feeling in the band to return to a more standard, self-contained format for albums?
Johan: It was a little different when we were writing the songs because we had the lyrics first. It was different to try to adapt the songs directly to the lyrics. We usually do it the other way around, we make the music first and then the lyrics. And that was also the first time we didn’t have rehearsal place where everybody was sitting rehearsing the songs, instead we wrote all the songs in our home studios then we get together once or twice before we recorded. I think we go back to that self-contained format, with each song having it’s own story. Because now we’ve done a concept album, we don’t want to just do the same thing again.
The Wednesday set at Summer Breeze that is included in The Pursuit Of Vikings was something really special to watch. How was it to dig into some older material that hasn’t been played in a long time?
Johan: It’s still pretty easy to play those songs again, because they are songs that we have played so much on tours in the in the old days. We have them in our backbones somewhere, as soon as you start to listen to songs couple times can you can start to remember how to play it.
Was it difficult to piece the setlist together given how big your discography is? Seeing how well it was received, are you likely to bring a few deep cuts and rare songs into the main setlist in the future?
Johan: It’s always difficult, because we have so many songs. But I think we chose to play the ones we remember being the most popular of the old songs. We always try to put one or two wildcards into the set, but usually those songs don’t get a good response when we tour for a new album. Everybody wants to hear the new classics, and the new songs.
You have arguably the biggest show in death metal, with the Jomsviking fighters, Jormagunder the helmet drum riser, the runes and so on, the scale of the show is comparable to IRON MAIDEN. Were they an influence in building your live show to what it is?
Johan: Definitely! IRON MAIDEN is my biggest influence as a musician. IRON MAIDEN was the band I saw first when I was about 11 years old, and I thought to myself ‘That’s what I want to do when I grow up.’ They’re definitely my biggest inspiration, both musically and in the stage show as well. That didn’t show so much in the early days of the band when we were more death metal oriented and more extreme, but on the last couple of albums more and more we’ve been moving towards more melodic elements. If you playing an AMON AMARTH album at double speed, or you could say an IRON MAIDEN album on a slow RPM on an LP player, then they sound kind of similar. [laughs]
Dependent on the budget that you have for your live show, how would you like to expand the show?
Johan: We expanded the show on the last album cycle with the big serpent and the burning runes and everything else, but on the next cycle we’ll be adding even more stuff to take it to the next level.
So the documentary ended with a little post credit scene hinting at something new. Can we expect a new AMON AMARTH album in 2019?
Johan: I would not be surprised if that happens! [laughs]
Thank you very much for your time today Johan, we really appreciate. Before I let you crack on with your day, do you have any last messages for Distorted Sound Magazine’s readers?
Johan: I’m just looking forward now to releasing the new album in the near future, and to start touring again and to get out and meet some fans.
The Pursuit Of Vikings: 25 Years In The Eye Of The Storm is out now via Music For Nations.
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