Amon Amarth is for sure one of the most popular death metal bands. Through the years they gained a strong, devoted fanbase, which is always impatiently waiting for their new albums and tours. Right now we’re all waiting for their new album „Jomsvikings” to be released, and for the tour to start. In this mood I spoke with Olavi Mikkonen, their guitarist.
How are you? Especially since the tour is coming, and you’re very close to release new album, so I guess that time is very intense for you. So – how are you, what are you doing, how’s the tour preparation?
I’m doing very good, and we are right now starting rehearsing for the upcoming tour. It’s exciting time now, we finish our work at the album in November, so it’s been long time for us to wait for reactions from the fans, you know, the sooner album will come, then you’ll get reactions from the fans, and that’s the most exciting thing. I’m looking forward to go out on the tour and play new songs, It’s gonna be really fun.
Speaking of new album, let’s be honest – this is kind of breakthrough for you to release a very strict concept album. We’re speaking about “Jomsviking”. I want to ask you what are your thoughts on the new album, are you happy with the outcome, and how does this album stand out compared to the previous records?
I think it’s an amazing record! But you know, you don’t release anything that you don’t think it’s good, so obviously it’s a good record, at least as we think. I think it’s not that different from what we’ve done in the past, but I think we had tried a new angles to make heavy metal thing a bit clearer, but overall I’d say it’s pretty much Amon Amarth album. You’re right – it’s our first concept album, so the way we wrote album was bit different from what we have done in the past, because now it was almost like writing music for a movie. We tried to make it as epic as possible, and probably it is our most epic album of all times.
For the preview of the new album we have already seen video for a song “First Kill”. As I know part of it was recorded in Poland, which isn’t actually the first time you’re doing shoots for video in our country. Also I know you’ve been working with Darek Szermanowicz. Can you tell me how was the shooting, working in Poland, and working with Darek?
Yes, we had worked with Darek before for videos for “Guardians of Asgaard” and “Twilight of the Thunder God”. For us it’s very easy to work with Darek, he’s very professional, and everything is very smooth. We did our part in the big warehouse in Germany, and the battle scene was done in Warsaw. What can I say? We like to work with Darek, he’s very easygoing, and he’s making good videos. Actually we’re going back to do another video this week.
Mind telling me what’s the song?
It’s gonna be “At Dawn‘s First Light”
Going back to the new album, I know you had guests for your previous albums, like for example – Lars-Göran Petrov (Entombed) was a guest vocalist on “Guardians of Asgaard”. Do you have any of kind of guest for the new albums?
Yes, we have a duet on “A Dream That Cannot Be” featuring Doro Pesch and Johann Hegg.
Ok, leaving the theme of the new album for a while, I’d like to ask you about the past. You’re one of the three founding members of the band. What can you tell us about the band’s “evolution”, how did it changed during this 24 years?
We started as a band jus for fun, to play the kind of music you’d like to listen to, and hopefully to get a few gigs in the year. It was no bigger case. And now, twenty plus years later we’re still doing this, but now as one of the biggest bands in this extreme metal scene. It’s been an amazing ride! I’d guess we’re better musicians compared to the beginning, but other than that, I don’t think we’ve changed this much. We still love what are we doing, playing music, going on tour, we’re good friends. In my perspective we’re still the same kids, but obviously when I look at the mirror, it’s not a kid anymore.
Last year you’ve parted ways with your drummer Fredrik Andersson, who was with you for 17 years. For the new album you had been working with session drummer Tobias Gustafsson. Do you consider him as a upcoming member for the band, or are you going to look for another drummer?
To be honest I don’t really know at the moment. I know that Tobias is not going to be on upcomming tour. We have another guy we’re rehearsing right now. You know, with our band it’s not easy to find a new member, since we’ve been playing with each other for so long, so it’s really hard for a new guy to fit in. So we’re going to take it slow.
Your few last albums had really outstanding covers. People are talking that it’s not only amazing music, but really appealing album artworks as well. I was wondering who are you working with, and how does the whole procedure look like?
Since „The Crusher” we’ve been working with Tom Thiel. We allways come up with cover ideas ourselves, we kind of know what we want on album front. We make sketches, we come up with all the ideas. We’re really good at communicating with each other in the band, same goes for covers. We then just send our ideas to Tom Thiel.
When I’ve been looking for the tour dates, I hadn’t seen Poland dates. Are you going to visit our country in the upcoming tour?
The thing is, that the tour dates we had announced right now are mostly festivals. We’re going to visit Poland in our main headline tour in November, December, of course will come to your country! I think we have three or four dates for Poland, I guess.
From what you’ve said, I can assume, that you have good experience with touring in Poland? Do you have one specific memory, something that happened in our country, you can share with us?
One of the first time we were in Poland we played in festival in Katowice, it was Metal…
Metalmania!
Yeah! Great time, one of the funniest festival I had ever been, we had great time! We also did “Guardians of Asgaard” in Poland, it was in the cave. Near the cave there was a restaurant. Shooting was delayed hours and hours, and we were just sitting and drinking beer after beer. In the evening, when the time has come for shooting, we were all drunk, and that was quite funny (laugh).
Ok, thank you for the interview, and your time! I wish you all the best for the upcoming tour, and I hope for the best reactions from fans for your new album!
New record will come ou on 25th of March, you can read more about it here (in Polish).
