Michael: Oh! [Pauses] I don’t know really. I guess somebody that can play and write good music. I like people who can write good music and you know, great riffs but its cool if someone guitar solos as well. I think, you know, a great guitar solo and a great song can be amazing…but then I don’t really listen to bands that only have great lead guitar players if I don’t like the music; I think you have to have the whole package to be able to write music and do a bit of the… [Momentarily looses train of thought] [We all laugh] Yeah, sort of solos as well.

Michael: I don’t know really, I’m self-taught. I guess that gives me an original…well with most self taught players you develop your own thing. I mean I’ve picked up stuff from people along the way. I don’t know what really sets me apart, it’s difficult, [smiles sheepishly] I don’t want to praise… A lot say I’m so amazing, I guess and that’s what sets me apart. It’s not that I think that I'm so great, it’s just that everybody’s so bad! [We all laugh]

Michael: You know playing with different people; I’m always open and like to snap up ideas. For instance playing with our new guitar player, Fredrik [Åkesson], he is more fun. [Pauses] I mean I played with my brother, Chris, for a long time in Arch Enemy for ten years almost. You know, we kind of knew exactly, I know, we knew each other in and out as far as guitar playing goes. There wasn’t very much…we had a great working relationship and music was very tight and everything; but we kind of knew what we had. But with Fredrik, the new guy, it’s almost like, “What was that?” and you just kind of create ideas all of the time and develop little secrets. 

Michael: Yeah, we haven’t really announced it yet; we haven’t told him, yet. [Laughs boisterously] We’ll probably never tell him because we want to keep him on edge. [Laughter fills the room]

Michael: With his acting and behaving, hoping that he’d make the grade someday! [We all laugh]

Michael: It took a lot of thought. We made a list of players; most of them already were in established bands because those are the people we meet and see. We don’t know that many… [Switches gears] It’s difficult when you are in an established band like Arch Enemy, as a touring band, I mean if you can find somebody's that’s completely unknown and an amazing player but then they probably have no experience whatsoever in touring or you know, in things like that. You have to find somebody in music that’s got some experience but also wants to do it and you don’t have to make them quit another band to join. [Chuckles] It’s kind of difficult. But yeah, we had to find somebody who could technically pull it off and could bring their own things to the band but also somebody…

It’s not like everybody wants to be in a band, the way that we’re in a band where we spend a lot of time on the road living a gypsy life, you know on the bus, it’s not for everybody! People might think they want to do this but when a lot of people try this, they think it’s too hard. It’s not hard, I wouldn’t call it hard; I’m used to it but I think it’s not your normal life. See most people I think would like to combine having a normal life and then maybe just play for fun in a band, a small band.

Michael: We haven’t had any complaints. I think he hasn’t established himself really with our fan base yet because he hasn’t taken a promo or hasn’t been on a record. It’s more like, he’s the new guy, you know. He’s getting a lot of good feedback so and then with us, he’s very laidback guy and really easy to get along with. He’s a really great guitar player; I think things are gonna to work out pretty good.

Michael: [Raises eyebrow and smirks] What we do is take photographs without him and then we kind of superimpose his face.

Michael: Yeah, but his head is much bigger than everybody else’s so… [Laughs]

Michael: [Facial expression dead pans] It’s died! [Laughs]

Michael: No just kidding! No, it keeps selling and seems to be reaching more people all the time. We don’t get the benefit… we don’t play mainstream music, we don’t get played on rock radio or anything, it’s rarely to any larger extent. It’s all about being on the road especially in America it’s ‘out of sight out of mind’ I think with the kids here. You’ve got to be right in people’s faces all the time and just pushing it. [They] don’t really have a good memory, it’s like they see you one week the next month they’re gonna see another band. I think it’s very competitive in that sense but we love touring over here and the album’s doing really well and we are happy to be on this tour. Then we’re gonna come back in September/October [Gigantour].

Michael: [Smiles] We’ll keep on doing this, forever! We’re never gonna release another record, it’s gonna be perpetual…

Michael: [Eyes widen] Yeah, exactly!!

Michael: No, it was the budget. [Laughs] I think we just wanted a simple video, the band performing. You’ve just got to come up with a good idea really it should be something like you want the band playing and whatever elements you put into it. I think he came up with some stuff, so… [Satisfactorily smiles] Yeah, that was a smooth video; one of the smoothest ones we’ve ever done.

Michael: He had been calling our manager for a while wanting to…I think we asked him to do another video and he then couldn’t do it, he was involved in another production at the time because you know he’s one of the main video guys in the scene in Sweden so… He was asked to do another video, he couldn’t do it at the time, and then he kept calling back and was saying, “I really wanted to do it, next time you do a video”. We decided to go with him. We’d made two videos with another guy George [Bravo] in Stockholm in Sweden, so yeah, we decided to go with something different.

Michael: Uhm…yeah, I'll definitely say we're evolving as musicians! I mean sometimes I think I'm not really evolving at all. You know I think you feel like you’re repeating yourself but then I listen to what we did two years ago three years ago, I think, “Actually, I would have done that a little differently, today”. So…It’s kind of slow now, as in the progression is not at a rapid pace as is when you start playing when you form your first band, whatever. You’re making these huge jumps from the first album to the second album. On the second album, it’s something everybody can play properly you know what I mean. We don’t make those kind of jumps anymore. It’s more just pushing a little bit every time trying to raise the bar, a little bit, a little bit, BIGGEST. I think it’s more subtle now days, the development. We don’t really…musically we try to stay on a certain path. There’s a lot of musical knowledge in the band. We could really do all kinds of stuff.

We have experience playing all kinds of music. I think with Arch Enemy it's designed…we want the band to be a very sort of extreme metal band but with melodic guitar work; keep that in mind, you know… We just want to stay true to our sound in a way. We have a fanbase that enjoy what we do; we’re not trying to make it big, that’s what makes me laugh, us laugh when people say we sold out, whatever. Just because the band is getting a little bit bigger, you know you get some people who don't like that. But, I don’t think that’s true that we sold out! You know it’s just screaming vocals, heavy guitar riffs and guitar solos.

Michael: Which is interesting. I think it has helped us with the appeal to a lot of people. You know, we didn’t go looking for a female singer.

Michael: We got a female singer, and that’s really gonna…that’s what we need for this band. She was the only female on the short list, you know. Once we started thinking about and we thought it would be cool to try. Once we started discussing her as a possible option, you really couldn’t stop thinking about it. [Smiles] Cause you thought, this could actually be really, really cool! Different is good as far as I’m concerned!

Michael: Also, it’s not only being positive for us, there are a lot of people out there that will never like Arch Enemy simply because it’s a woman singing, the way she does.

Michael: Yeah! [Laughs] Our goal isn’t to be the biggest band in the world, but we’d like to be the world’s best metal band! [Laughs modestly] We don’t have the commercial appeal of some other bands are doing. A lot of bands are consciously blending in a lot more melodic vocals in the choruses and stuff like that. We don’t really, we don’t go for that… [pauses] we don’t want to be successful at any cost, you know. We’d like to be successful, we’re enjoying the success, the rise. It’s been very gradual and I think it’s also organic in the way that we just stay true to our sound and you know, [smiles] just keep touring. More and more people like it, even though it’s such an extreme form of music.

Michael: [Laughs] Absolutely, there are more extreme bands out there!

Michael: Yeah, we’re very stubborn.

Michael: [Nods head] We don’t listen to people either, to other people’s advice. [Laughs] We just keep doing what we’re doing! [Smiles]

Michael: Oh that’s kind of project that’s been growing over the last couple of years I guess. We wanted to put a DVD together, but then we put a lot of work into our records as studio albums to make them above standard with sound production, packaging, and everything. We try to establish a very high level of quality. We wanted the same when we actually release the DVD [8 of August here in the U.S. and on 24 July in Europe] You know you see a lot of metal DVDs or underground metal DVDs, I should say from extreme metal bands and they’re not very high quality, I think. It’s kind of half amateur…I mean I like some of these bands and I have a lot of these DVDs but the actual quality isn’t like amazing or anything. We wanted to have that but it cost a lot of money, so…but it’s something I think we’ve achieved now so this DVD is two discs and has a lot of stuff on it.

Michael: Yeah, I’m very pleased with it. [Beams]

Michael: Yeah, Niklas is a good friend of mine and we’ve worked with him for the past few years, and he’s a graphic artist but also plays in a band, Dark Tranquillity.

Michael: He’s really easy to work with; he’s always doing stuff for me, little logos here and there. [Laughs] Artwork, and he’s done big projects; he’s my go to guy for like graphic stuff because we have a good communication. He can really translate. I come up with a lot of the ideas and then he makes them into reality or brings it to life. [Smiles]

Michael: Yeah, I’m very interested in graphics; I’m very interested in all of the elements that go into the creative part about being in a band. You know like writing music, the graphics, and also the videos. How the band presents itself, photography, and everything. I like to get involved in all of that, I’ve got my finger in all of that.

Michael: Uhmmm…it’s weird, when you release records you think there’s going to be a favorite. You think some are going to be all your life, you play some of them live…but then they don’t really work out. You can’t change it, then some of them become… [long pause ensues] There’s a song called “Skeleton Dance” off the album, which I don’t think it’s one of the best tracks on the album but I mean it’s not the best track but it’s a very good live track. Certain songs like when we recorded Wages of Sin, I never thought “Ravenous” would become such a live favorite or I guess “We Will Rise” off Anthems of Rebellion’s more obvious that was going to be… I could hear the potential of that song, early on. On the new one, I like “Nemesis” a lot; that’s a good representation of the band. I think it’s got speed and melody. It’s got that trad…[switches gears] what we try to achieve in between the extremity and the melody kind of blended in together. It’s not all the time you come up with… I mean not all of the songs are great on the record, so. [Laughs] Swear to you, some records you’ll record some songs end up being on the album and you’ll never ever play them live because they don’t fit playing live.

Michael: I guess every band has its recipe for an assembly of songs, we have several sort of recipes. We don’t really have one set way of putting together a song. It’s kind of a collaboration that go on as well as musically. Our drummer, Daniel, is very involved in the music now as well. So, uhm…I don’t know, I think any way of coming up with a song or putting a song together is a good way. I don’t think there really should be a set way. And as far as our arrangements go, I don’t know. I guess we do, it’s easy to fall into a formula; we try not though. Because it’s so easy to go, “Oh, this is it. This part and this part” ‘and then we usually do this…’ You don’t want to do that too much because then it kind of becomes a bit predictable.

Michael: Yes, yes. I’d say that’s true, yeah. We have a lot of outside metal influences, outside extreme metal anyway. I think as far as extreme metal, the aggression and the speed and everything, that’s kind of in my blood. I guess it’s not something I actively listen to everyday, the really hard stuff. Like last night, we listened to a whole lot of old thrash and death metal and stuff like that. I still love that stuff, it’s a part of who I am; it’s a part of my musical identity. A lot of the melodic sort of ideas, guitar ideas comes from listening to a lot of other stuff. I listen to everything from…I mean I listen to such a wide variety of music so. [Laughs] I couldn’t put it down to just a few names. I listen to a lot of stuff.

Michael: [Clears throat] Uhm, [pauses] not really. It’s just pretty chaotic now cause everybody’s in other bands. That band, Spiritual Beggars is something that I love doing. And you know I’m the principal songwriter in that band.

Michael: [Smiles] Well yeah that’s why I do that band because like I say we try to stay true to a certain sound with Arch Enemy. We don’t want to have too many rock influences, with Arch Enemy I want to keep it very hardedge, there’s a lot of soul as well in Arch Enemy as well. Sometimes I think a lot of the melodic stuff that’s emotional, there’s a lot of emotion that goes into Arch Enemy music as well but it’s kind of different. With Spiritual Beggars, it’s more simple; it’s more of a stripped down more rock, groove bass I guess. A lot is technical, by far, it’s fun. I enjoy it! [Beams] And of course that has more of a melodic vocal approach as well.

Michael: Yeah well, he never went back to the university! [Laughs heartily]

Michael: Actually, he got a job…I don’t know what he’s doing now, I think after the summer he’s going to start studying. But he actually spent the last year working as teacher, a guitar teacher at a music school.

Michael: Well no, he originally told us that he was going to go back to school himself but then I don’t know what happened and he got this job offer and he took that instead. I don’t know what happened. I believe he’s gonna start his own studies after the summer, but he’s doing good.

Michael: But yeah, he’s doing good. I meet him up with him quite a lot; he lives five minutes from where I live, when I’m home I see him.

Michael: Mean questions? [Laughs]

Michael: Okay, not mean ones? [We all laugh]

Michael: [Pauses and sits still for a moment or two as he heavily weighs the question] I don’t know. I prefer for people not to know too much really. [Laughs] Obviously…I have learned over the years to project yourself then people expect, and I do project a certain image maybe…but then most people do between everyday life and work, whatever. You let people know what you want them to know. I’m not really one of those kind of people who tell people about my childhood or… I don’t really open up to people who… I mean this is entertainment world, you and it’s an image, in a way. I don’t really feel… I don’t know, I’m fine with it the way it is really. I’m an honest person in interviews but I don’t really go into too much personal stuff because I like to life outside of this as well. [Laughs]

Michael: It’s nice when I’m home, nobody really knows what I do, you know I mean.

Michael: [Laughs] Well you know, I just chop up bodies in the bathtub… [Bursts out in hysterical laughter]

Michael: [Laughs] Exactly!

Michael: Most embarrassing CD is Celine Dion A Lifetime of Song [All The Way... A Decade Of Song], or whatever it’s called. [Laughter ensues] it’s like the best of Celine Dion.

Michael: …I was convinced that I would enjoy it because I heard a couple of songs, I liked the melodies in it. Then sometimes you like what you hear on the radio or whatever, but then when you actually have it, you’re kind of embarrassed that you own it and I didn’t actually enjoy it so…

Michael: I dunno know, they are catchy. The guy [Max Martin] that wrote them is sort of an old hard rock person in Sweden. He’s written songs for a bunch of people.

Michael: Uhmmm…Yes I do actually [Pauses, then he reaches for his chained linked wallet, looks at me, thinks better of it, puts in back into his front pant pocket, and then laughs] He’s on my amp actually, have you seen him?

Michael: He’s my mascot. He’s called Gloomy Bear.

Michael: Yeah, he’s just doing bad things but anyway the bear’s got bloody claws, he’s got blood running from his mouth. It’s kind of like, funny! [We all laugh] It’s very Japanese!

Michael: I’ll bring him down, you can take a picture.

Michael: [Promptly gets up and walks out of the room to retrieve Gloomy. When he returns he proudly places the bear on the table in front of both of us] I got it from the artist last time I was in Japan.

Michael: No, it’s not…well there are certain character books or whatever. I don’t know, it’s one of those things; I've been to Japan quite a lot, twenty times. I sort of like those little weird things they have there. I had a meeting with this artist and his manager, we’re gonna do some sort of collaboration with him.

Michael: Yeah, maybe for some Arch Enemy one of these as well, they come in all different sorts of ones, all kinds of colors and those sorts of things. People are gonna read this and go, “What the hell! How old is this guy?”

Michael: [Nods and smiles]

Michael: [Makes thinking noises] Probably the last time in Japan, that was a good one. I just ran on-stage. I would go out on stage alone to play the into for “Nemesis” song and uh, I kinda threw myself out there. It was pretty easy but I just ran out there but it was really slippery in front of the stage…

Michael: I kinda landed on my ass; well I kind of landed on my back. I don’t remember falling, I just remember I was still playing. [We all laugh] I’m looking straight up at the lighting rig and everything else. “I don’t know really how to get up”! My pants were pretty tight so… [Laughter fills the room]

Michael: Uhm, I don’t know. I didn’t think I did it very gracefully but I somehow managed to get up again. It was kind of funny! I don’t mind sharing stuff like that, it was just funny. Stuff is gonna happen! Hmm…I don’t know about embarrassing things, I guess messing up is so embarrassing but I mess up so much live that I’m beyond getting embarrassed now. Sharlee has this saying of “Loud, wrong, and confident”!

Michael: As long as you look like you know what you’re doing then people would believe that.

Michael: [Acquiesces by nodding his head] Yeah! But I’m very much like that, I play something a little bit wrong or I feel like I wouldn’t have been sharp, you know out of tune on something. I get upset or whatever but I think that’s too cool for musicians! [Smiles] But I try at least not to think about it. Because like I said, I don’t think that most people notice or whatever.

Michael: Uhmmm… [Pauses] I don’t know, that we’re hard to get along with. I think we’ve had situations where, you know I mean we’re from Scandin…we’re from Northern Europe so maybe we have a different mentality or whatever. It’s just a little bit different the way we interact with people, maybe…but we’re getting better, I think. We’re opening up a little.

Michael: Well I think some people say, “Oh they don’t hang!” “They’re not cool!”… When we’re on the road, we love meeting fans, I always try to meet the fans as much as possible; they are the reason why we’re all here but… Sometimes we come off as being antisocial. But I don’t think we are; I think it’s just more…I’ve heard that said about us. I think we’re quite professional in the way that we get the job done, and play the show, that’s our main focus. Maybe hanging and drinking with everybody isn’t our main focus. But that doesn’t apply to everybody, we have a bass player that likes to drink! [Laughter ensues] That’s why we call him the Ambassador because he’s the one out there making sure we have a good vibe. He’s the ice breaker.

Michael: [Thinks] I don’t know that we delivered some…do you mean in retrospect? That people would say that we were a really killer metal band and had a lot of good music. As a guitar player, I’d like to be remembered as you know how people remember other greats. I mean they may not all be that famous but they were great influential guitar players, whatever, that would be cool, to have some kind of legacy I guess. I think it’s almost too egotistical to wish to have some sort of legacy. [Laughs]

Michael: Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath and Michael Schenker from UFO, MSG, [Scorpions]  and stuff. People like that, that have a very unique sort of… Obviously there are amazing guitar players such as Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, but that doesn’t really move me on an emotional level really.

Michael: I like really expressive players where it seems it comes from… I don’t like people who are too technically fluent, I guess. [Laughs] Well I love guitar playing but there’s a difference between that and you can hear all they’ve done is just practice to a metronome and just really… I don’t really like people that you can tell that all their life all they’ve done was just practice. I think music should be an emotional statement. I don’t really like when it just sounds… [Pauses]

Michael: Yeah or too thought out, exactly!

Michael: [Pauses] Oh! [Laughs] That would be interesting to hear something totally, totally different. I’d like to hear Sheryl Crow do “Burning Angel”. [Laughs]

Michael: It would be interesting to hear someone do something totally different. If you know another metal band would cover an Arch Enemy song then you know what it would sound like but this is something interesting. Tori Amos doing “Nemesis”.

Michael: Uhm… I like documentaries a lot. I like really weird documentaries about weird people like… Documentaries about normal people.

Michael: I don’t know, sometimes it can be very depressing but I like stuff like that, but I’m a big movie fan. I like a lot of stuff, it’s just recently I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries. I guess I like drama more than gore movies; I don’t really like horror movies. I can watch them, it’s just not my favorite thing. It was when I fourteen-fifteen. I like more well written dramatic dramas.

Michael: [Beams with satisfaction] Yeah, those are some of the benefits getting to meet people you’ve been into for a long time.

Michael: I don’t know if I’m completely into anybody. Actually, Sharlee interviewed Ian Gillan; he did a long interview with him about Deep Purple and stuff like that. That must have been interesting!

Michael: I’d probably like to meet someone like that, that generation has a lot of experience. Maybe they could pass down some knowledge. I’ve met Ronny James Dio a few of times; he seems like a really nice person. Probably like somebody like Sharlee interviewed for English radio Ian Gillan. It’s fun to hear anecdotes and stories about somebody who’s got a forty-year career or whatever instead of a ten-year career or a fifteen-year career.

Michael: Yeah! You know people do that with me sometimes. I always think that I kind of know how they feel because I have been referred to many times by fans who’ll ask you, “You know ten years ago, you did this…what amp did you use?” I’m like, “I really can’t remember what amp I used on that track…!” [Chuckles] Or what effect that was or why we did certain things in a certain way. It’s hard to remember all of the details as well. It’s been a very continuous thing. You make new experiences everyday; it’s hard to remember every detail. I think it’s just easy to fall into as an interview, what do you call it, a subject, like I am now. It’s easy to fall into clichés, you know you ask a question and you go into autopilot. I think you see that a lot in interviews?

Michael: Then again it all comes down to the questions.

Michael: A lot of the times in interviews they are so generic; they really don’t inspire you to have a good conversation. It’s more like, “How did you get the name?...” I don’t like generic, very standard questions and that’s really boring. I think that when you go into autopilot…but these kind of questions they are too much for little musician brain right now! [We all laugh]

Michael: [Laughs loudly] How did you get interested in this kind of music? It’s very underground, I mean I’m always interested in people’s stories and how they found out about Arch Enemy and stuff like that. I mean what lead them to music like this.

Michael: One thing leads to another.

Michael: Yes it does.

Michael: Thank you for the support so far and uhm… yeah, we’re just excited to be here. [Laughs] It’s great to be back in the U.S. again. We basically just thank all of our fans for the support, supporting Arch Enemy and heavy extreme music in general. It’s important to support the music that you like, especially now days. There are options where you don’t have to pay for anything if you don’t want to. I think it’s important to support the bands that you’re into.

Michael: [Laughs] Tack!

Tack så mycket för intervjun Michael och av Century Media Records!

Related Links

o     Click  here for photos / review of tonight's show

o   here for new interview with Sharlee  

o     here for Witchery interview with Sharlee

o   Here for photos of the band during Ozzfest 2005

o      Here for photos of the band on the Headbangers Ball Tour