Sharlee: [Chuckles] It’s good to talk to you again.

Karma: How are things?

Sharlee: Very good, very good! Just trying to fight off a really, really nasty cold that’s lasted for about three weeks or something but other than that everything’s good.

Sharlee: Not all but there have been a lot of really good ones on this [tour] like we’ve had surprisingly many. But when people are there to see you, you have to take that into account.

Sharlee: Why thank you! Well I just switched from beer to crack, no I’m just kidding! [Laughs hysterically] I don’t know, I guess it comes with age when you need to rethink your whole lifestyle a little bit. And it’s not that dramatic of a change, but it’s nice to be drunk every night when you’re eighteen, not so much when your age gets higher.

Sharlee: Yeah, it’s really hard to say but it always makes people a bit more curious I suppose if there’s not too much information out there about it. It’s really hard to tell because I haven’t been paying attention other than we have been completely submerged in promos right before the album comes out and then we got a really, really good response from people then. The only thing that counts is what people say after they’ve spent their hard earned cash on an album to say if it’s worth it or not.

Karma: This is so true!

Sharlee: It’s always good to get good reviews of course!

Karma: Absolut!!

Sharlee: Ja, as such to answer your question, I don’t know. [Chuckles]

Karma: Did Fredrik [Åkesson] have the opportunity to compose or contribute towards the album before his departure?

Sharlee: No, actually, no. I don’t think there’s anything on the album that he actually wrote.

Karma: Well prior to this release pretty much the popular consensus was Wages of Sin your finest achievement up until this release.

Sharlee: Yeah.

Karma: Having said that, for that reason is this why you took that approach to recapture that feeling of brutality and melody for the new album?

Sharlee: Well I don’t think we consciously tried to write anything like that I mean because if you put [the two albums] side by side, they don’t sound anything alike.

Sharlee: But after Wages, we toured a lot on that one and then of course going into like doing the next album [Anthems of Rebellion] we got so much more live experience like under the belt so that’s why I think Anthems sounded the way it did. It was more straightforward and we let the parts of the songs that we liked playing live, we put more of that Anthems and that’s why it was so stripped down.

Then we took the side of the stripped down parts and put more crap in on that on Doomsday. But then again Doomsday and Anthems are still sort of related in a way; because they were both done not that far apart [from one another]. And I think this time, I think what it all boils down to is what you’re listening to at the time, what your influences are. I think that powers any record that you compose and I think that our diet up until this album was predominantly like classic metal and early thrash. So I think that’s why there’s more of a grittiness in everything on this album. And of course production wise as well having gone back to work with Freddy Nordstrom again and his production style is more like everything at once and right in your face; you try to decipher what’s what opposed to Andy Sneap where you can hear everything clearly where there’s almost a surgical cleanliness to it. [Chortles]

Karma: Glad you brought that up; I wanted to touch on the fact of how hard it is to disseminate your bass and even Daniel’s drums where it seems to be buried in certain spots on the album.

Sharlee: Well that’s because there’s so much guitar on it.

Karma: Oh, I am definitely aware of that.

Sharlee: ‘Cos if we would have given the same music to Andy and let him do it then it would have sounded more like, I guess Doomsday does. I think Freddy’s approach he just went back and scaled back as much sound possible which doesn’t really matter what is what. As long as it sounds good; I kind of like it that way. There’s like drums and bass there, it’s just not as clear it’s a bit more of an 80’s production in that sense.

Karma: How much of an integral role did you have this go round in respect to the creation of songs?

Sharlee: Well most of the riffs are actually Michael’s but we do put everything together as band. I'm not like so involved in like the guitar parts like that of course Michael and Chris are. I have more of an overview where I’m the one that’s holding the breaks on certain things. I think everybody has to have their little role when it comes to putting songs together.

Karma: Where there any areas of “undiscovered territory” or goals so to speak that you were not able to tackle with this album that you would like to address going forward?

Sharlee: No, I think…I mean I’m like extremely happy with the way the album came out. But ask me again in like six months and I may change my mind. Yeah, but I haven’t really listened to the album much I mean I listened to it like right when it was finished. It was like, “Cool, done, finished!” Then it’s like you forget about it. It’s like the only time you hear the songs actually is when you play them live. And then it takes a couple of months basically at the end of the touring cycle when you might actually put the album on again. Or if you hear it someplace and you want them to play the album…or you’re at a radio station that plays a song. That’s the only time you’ll actually hear it. You get thrown into the whole touring thing so quickly, so you get too much of it anyway… So it’s a bit hard for me to give you a straight answer on this one right now.

Karma: That’s fair. And speaking of touring, it seems the magic created in the studio trickled over into your live sets as far as rejuvenation is concerned. Having said that, I know you are absolutely ecstatic that Chris is back among the fold.

Sharlee: Yeah, no definitely! Just when we started writing, he came into the picture again. It was almost like with things that we had already written over the past eighteen months, some songs did lack certain things and we didn’t exactly know what it was. As soon as he came in, he had those kind of ideas again. And it was like, “Okay, that’s the thing it was missing!” Because he’s very good with harmonies, he’s good at coming up with chorded textures and things like that and being able to voice things different on guitar. Where as like the rest of us might have a straightforward approach he can fortunately describe… it’s just the way that he plays and the way that he likes to view his instrument. And he just comes up with things that are very, very different from what any of the others do in the band.

Also on a personal level, it’s great to have him back and especially now being out on the road with him again. The stuff that made him leave in the first place those are the same things that he’s excited about now. And I think because he had the time away that he had the time to rethink things and that actually a real life, that normal life was not for him.

Karma: It’s good he had time to wrestle with his inner demons and realized his place was back in metal!

Sharlee: [Chuckles] Yup! Exactly!!

Karma: Speaking about personal levels, are you at peace at this juncture in your life?

Sharlee: Yeah, it’s always where you want more in your life of everything. I'm pretty happy with the way that things are going right now.

Karma: Well that’s good to hear!

Sharlee: Yeah, yeah…and when I think having had a few of months off the road, and getting back and controlling the binge, it’s like, “Oh yeah, I remember now…” but of course since we’ve gotten so many positive reactions for the album and being out playing again. Then it’s like, “Oh yeah, I like this!”

Karma: Musically, do you have any regrets?

Sharlee: Um, no, not really. Well there’s always stuff that you’ve done and when you look back into the past that you’ll say, “Oh, I wish I would have done that differently!” But it’s not that I regret doing anything that I've done because you learn so much from playing in different bands with different people working with different producers and stuff. You learn from everything. Even if there might be a couple of things from the past like an album or so that I don’t like or what have you, no real regrets, in that sense. Every good thing and with every mistake that you makes you what you are.

Karma: Absolut! With Michael & Daniel doing Carcass, will there be anytime for you to sneak in your side projects?

Tackar Sharlee för annan intervju och Arch Enemy representationen för deras hjälp med allting!

Other Points of Interest