Johan: So yeah, it’s been a very good, definitely!

Karma: Looking on your website, very cool to see bands care about their fans as much as you do…

Johan: [Smiles] …Why thank you!

Karma: Rather cool you highlight fan tattoos displaying Amon Amarth so prominently on the first page along with fan pix. How cool is that? How did this all come about?

Johan: It’s actually our webmaster Ivan who sort of came up with the idea because he started getting a lot of mail with pictures from fans and stuff. So, he started doing picture of the week and stuff. It just so happened that a tattoo was the first thing that came up there, you know.

The fans are important to us, that’s why we play! I mean without them, we wouldn’t be here today. It would be very strange for us not to acknowledge them as being important to us.

Karma: What is the greatest challenge that you feel the band has been able to overcome in order to get you where you are at this point in your career?

Johan: I think the biggest challenge probably has been combining touring with actually making a living, [laughs], which is horribly difficult! Luckily we’ve been able to combine having a day job and still do a lot of touring because we’ve had employers that fairly understand and supportive about it.

Karma: Now that’s awesome!

Johan: Yeah! [Smiles]

Karma: So what do you do?

Johan: Actually [laughs] at the moment, I’m unemployed. We’re reaching the moment where it’s sort of getting more and more difficult. I quit my job about a year and decided to focus on the music. [Smiles]

Karma: So what did you do?

Johan: I used to be a salesman actually. [Laughs] Selling dairy products, cheese, and stuff to supermarkets in Sweden.

Karma: Interesting!

Johan: Not really! [Laughs]

Karma: Thus, you quit to do what you love!

Johan: Exactly!!

Karma: For those that have never seen you before, including me, this was my first time seeing you. Well as witness to your great Vikinity, how would you describe your live shows? What can one expect to see?

Johan: [Laughs] We try to put on an energetic show, today was very short of course, which made it difficult for us to be more diverse. We went for a lot of action, that’s what we wanted to do for the twenty-five minutes we had. Normally we would be a bit more diverse but still it’s progressive. It’s supposed to be a lot of interaction with the audience. I mean we’re still developing it. We always want to get better and everything. Definitely a lot of action but still diverse with different and slower songs.

Karma: Since tonight's set was cut short, do you have a set setlist that you are going to perform throughout the tour or is it situational?

Johan: It’s…nothing’s carved in stone; you know what I’m saying. We have a set that we’re going to do for the majority of the tour. Unfortunately, we had to cut one song tonight because of curfews and stuff like that.

Karma: Which one did you cut?

Johan: “Fate of Norns”.

Karma: [Looks disgusted] Damn!

Johan: Sorry about that!

Karma: Not as sorry as I am!! [We all laugh]

Johan: Well we had to cut that one but we have a couple of shows that we’re doing double like we’re doing Montreal and Toronto again, and then we’re gonna change it around again.

Karma: Speaking of your Viking past, etc.

Johan: [Eyes widen] Oh yes… [Smiles]

Karma: What’s your favorite lore/story?

Karma: More like guidelines.

Johan: Exactly, that’s what I’m saying! Even though I don’t think that all of those guidelines apply to every person in the world, it’s still cool book, how they put it together, and stuff like that. I really don’t believe in it; I prefer the Scandinavian Mythology any day! [Laughs]

Karma: Since a lot of your lyric writing surrounds Viking lore, etc…

Johan: Um hmm.

Karma: …do you see the band moving away from this subject? Do you think you will you run out of subject matter?

Karma: Oh yes, I do remember that case.

Johan: That song deals with that whole situation. I saw a documentary about it on TV and I just got inspiration from it so I wrote lyrics for it and it became a song. That doesn’t deal with Vikings at all! [Laughs] So yeah, I do try to find new ways but I realize that it’s our image, you know. Instead of maybe writing about topics, I write about different topics in metaphors. Like I have a lot of personal stuff that I deal with in some of the lyrics that are not really obvious to anyone else but myself. They still make good lyrics I think, like “Fate of Norns” for instance is one of those.

Karma: It is an amazing song, by the way!

Johan: [Laughs] Thank you!

Johan: Yeah, yeah! Exactly! It’s not really diverse. I actually can sing clean vocals, I’m not sure it would suit our music to do that or maybe it would. It’s nothing that I really think about.

Karma: Now that brings me to my next question, would you entertain bringing in someone else to do clean vocals instead? On the other hand, would that tamper and taint the pureness of AA?

Johan: We’ve been talking about doing stuff like that off and on to use something special. I’m not really a stranger to the idea; it’s just that I personally, if someone asked me to sing [for them] that would feel weird to me. I almost immediately assume that they would feel weird about it so I never ask anyone, you know! I don’t know it’s kind of weird. [Laughs]

Karma: [Laughs] No problem. Please pardon my lack of knowledge on this particular issue in Sweden, but I read in an interview where it spoke about you catching a lot of flack from the right winged/racists…

Johan: …oh yeah, that’s right!

Johan: Actually it’s not the racists, in Sweden, the racists or right winged people are using the same, like the Thor’s hammer and stuff like that for there purposes which I think is totally wrong. I don’t even see why they would use it. They have nothing to do that; you know what I’m saying. When we started out, we started writing about Vikings in the lyrics in everything. There was sort of a boom in Sweden with right winged punk bands and they were also doing the Viking thing. Of course, all of the magazines and stuff also thought we were racist. The funny part is our drummer at that time, Nico [Kaukinen] he’s from India. His father is from India, after that Martin Lopez.

Karma: From Opeth.

Johan: [Smiles] Yeah, from Opeth, he joined us as well. I mean, you get the picture, right? [We all laugh] Luckily now days, people know that we are not right winged or racists or anything. But that was pretty tough in the beginning and I think that in many ways it set us back, especially in Sweden. I still think we did the right thing to persist and not back down. Because I think, I KNOW Vikings were not racists at all. I mean if anything they were among the most open-minded people in Europe at the time. They travelled to…there's evidence of them traveling to North America of course but also they may have made it as far as Mexico. They for sure made it as far as the Caspian Sea, close to China because they found a Buddhist statue in a Viking grave in Sweden.

Karma: Was that find made recently?

Johan: No, no, I think the find was made twenty years ago or something; but they traveled and traded with a lot of people, that’s not the markings from a racist, you know what I mean!

Karma: Well thanks for that explanation/lesson!! Wow! Switching gears, with the release of Fate of Norns, congrats on the success of it.

Johan: Thank you.

Karma: I hope that North America will continue to embrace it. How soon do you think it will take you to conquer our shores?

Johan: Well I hope this tour will help us a bit on the way. I think this is the perfect tour for us to take the next step that we need to take over here to be able to come back on a regular basis and do a lot of touring. But it is difficult over here; it’s difficult for us as well.

Karma: Why do you think that is?

Johan: I don’t know. The trends over here are shifting very rapidly. [Laughs] We don’t put out a lot of albums, you know.

Karma: …of course, it would be nice if you could tour more often.

Johan: [Laughs] Yeah, pretty much, which is virtually impossible for the situation we’re in. That’s why I think a tour like this is perfect for us because it attracts a lot of people to each show as we’ve already played to a lot of sold-out shows, five so far. I mean, it’s more people in five shows than we had in half a tour before, you know what I’m saying. So it’s better for us that way to be able to go on a tour like this instead of going three or four times. Do one big one.

Johan: Yeah, yeah!! Definitely, that was cool!

Karma: What have been the hardest/biggest lesson learned thus far after releasing six albums?

Johan: Ohh! [Laughs] You get knocked down over and over again, something new always comes up. To be honest, I think we’ve had a pretty smooth ride. We’ve really been fortunate in many ways. We’ve really not had to fight all that hard, actually, even though it’s been a lot of hard work, having put a lot of effort into it. We never really been set back, nobody really ripped us off, of course sometimes people are like, ‘we’re missing money’ here and there but we’ve been very fortunate in many ways. That’s also because of all of the hard work we put into it. We’re all on top of things and I think that’s important for us. I think that’s my answer! [Breaks out in a boisterous guffaw]

Karma: Which lesson would you not repeat?

Johan: I don’t think I've learned anything, I think I would repeat every mistake over and over again! No. [Smiles] I think that the thing is that we try not repeat old mistakes but we make new ones for some reason! The main thing is to especially when you go into the studio, is to be prepared. When we book the studio, we’re never ready when we’re about to get in there, everything just falls apart. So, we’re trying all the time not to repeat the same mistakes. Hopefully, [snickers] we won’t repeat this, this go round for the new one. That’s the thing I think is important, is to take your time in the studio to make it good. The albums have turned out good anyway but you always stress out for some reason.

Karma: More like pressure, you put on yourselves to be perfect.

Johan: Yeah, I guess so. [Laughs] We’re pretty picky with the songs we do as well. That’s why we’re so slow as songwriters. Lots of bands write twenty, thirty songs a year and then they take their pick. We’re like, “Yeah, we have to record an album, let’s start writing songs!” We’re like, “Well this isn’t really good...” that’s how it always goes. So they we end up having only five songs ready when we go into the studio, then we need three more! [Laughs]

Karma: What’s your favorite track off Fate of Norns?

Johan: Ohhh, a difficult one! It depends actually. Always varies from time to time I think because one night it’s like, ‘oh, that’s really cool’ then another ‘ohhhh…that one’s not that good’ “Fate of Norns” is one of my favorite songs actually. That’s not only musically but it’s also because the lyrics mean a lot to me. But also, I like “Pursuit of The Vikings”, and “Ancient Signs of a Coming Storm” is a cool song also!

Karma: I am a huge fan of the title track too and "Arson"! The beginning of the song is great, with the blowing of the [Viking] horns in the beginning.

Johan: [Laughs] That is a great song.

Karma: How cool is that? Since you didn't have let’s say chartwise expectations of Fate of Norns, did the album live up to what you hoped it to be? It was the best production wise out of the previous that's for sure. I’d like to say it’s crisp like fresh vinyl, because it still has that…edge to it.

Johan: I think so too! I mean we worked very hard with the production of this one. Especially since the songs were a bit different from what we had done before. I mean if you compare [Fate] to albums such as Crusher and Versus The World, the songs are more aggressive. The sound is dirtier, rougher, and meaner. For this album as you say it, we needed a crisp, cleaner sound to it. The songs sort of demanded it. We would have put the same production, as we would have had on Versus, I don’t think it would have sounded really good. It was really important for us and we worked really hard to get that! It’s cool to hear that you like it! [Laughs] A lot of people actually didn’t like it the first time. I know we really had to defend ourselves towards the label. They were not into it at all! And umm…we were persistent, now they like it! [Laughs]

Karma: What’s your all time favorite AA song?

Johan: Oh, man! I need easier questions! [We all laugh] All time favorite song, I would have to say the one I’m most pleased with and that is like a song that I really enjoy listening to once in a while is a song called “Amon Amarth” off Once From A Golden Hall. It’s just a beautiful song; I think it’s beautifully written by Olavi and also the lyrics are… I can still remember exactly how I wrote the lyrics, which I don’t do with all the songs I might add.

I was basically going to sleep; I had to get up to go to work. So it was in the [stage] precisely in between wake and sleep when you start drifting away. I got a line, a sentence in my head, like, ‘ding’! [Laughs] I wrote it all down in three hours, and I was dead tired when I was done. [Laughter ensues] But yeah, it was pretty cool actually. That’s the song that I am really satisfied with, that I am really like.

Karma: Which bands out there do you feel do not receive enough attention, particularly from Sweden? Whom would you like to see the spotlight shine down upon?

Johan: Uwww, there are many bands! Let me think, that deserve a lot of credit. The thing is that I miss a lot of new bands actually that are coming up but there are some older bands that I like and that’s Vomitory from Sweden. Old school death metal, but brilliant music, definitely! But there are also new bands that are coming out that I’m sure are going to do really well such as Bloodbath [famed producer Dan Swanö’s band] out of Sweden as well. Perhaps that doesn’t really fall underneath that category, but they are still a great band.

Karma: Oh, definitely!

Johan: [Smiles] Or even underestimated bands. It’s just that it’s hard to keep up sometimes with all the music and stuff. I’m so involved with Amon Amarth; it takes up a lot of my time. And when I’m not working with music, Amon Amarth, I try to do other things. So maybe I’m not involved with the music scene as much as I’d like to be.

Karma: What do you do to fill the rest of your time then? What’s your favorite pastime?

Johan: Yeah!! I guess I’m a regular hooligan! [Laughter fills the room] No, not a hooligan but I go to the game and stand with the supporters and sing and sing, have a blast.

Karma: If you could commission a band to do an Amon Amarth cover, who would do it and which song would it be?

Johan: Oh man, these questions! [Laughs] One of my all-time favorite bands as everyone would say is Slayer. I don’t think they would do an Amon Amarth song very…I mean their style is not really suitable, so maybe Motörhead that would be cool!

Karma: Which song would you have them cover?

Johan: Let’s see Lemmy would have to do something very aggressive I guess. Maybe “Death and Fire” would be cool; however, they would have to hire a new guitar player! [Laughs] Just in order to do the harmonies.

Karma: I’ll say! What does fate have in store for AA? And yes, this is rather tongue in cheek since I know you believe you hold the keys to your own fate.

Johan: Yes, I do; I firmly believe that. That’s a difficult question because fate is what you make it, you know. It depends on your choices in life and what you do with them. I hope that we’ll be able to if not go professional, and then do if not go fulltime professional, then make it a part-time living at least. Be able to tour a lot and continue to release albums. That’s what we’re working for, that’s also one of the reasons that we’re on this tour as well, because if we can get a new audience to appreciate us, it will help us in that way. [Laughs]

Karma: Role reversal time, if you could interview a band, name one that you would love to talk to find out more about them?

Johan: Oh, man! You should have mailed these questions to me!

Karma: Now that wouldn’t have been fair. [We all laugh]

Johan: [Laughs] AC/DC probably, that would be fun! I just kind of like their attitude about a lot of things. It’s one of the band’s I have liked since I was very small. But I could have easily said Black Sabbath but I think I would get more out the guys from AC/DC! [Laughs] Maybe Tony Iommi, the other guys are a bit out of it I guess. No, they’re cool! I love Black Sabbath but AC/DC definitely! They seem to be a bunch of fun guys.

Karma: Tack så mycket för intervjun, igen Johan!

Johan: [Smiles] Tack själv!