[Interview conducted October 2004]

The beauty and the wrath of melodic death metal has never been so perfectly personified as it is with Arch Enemy.  Precision guitar melodies and raging death metal growls are spliced together with surgical skill, while the songs manage to be surprisingly complex yet quite compact and catchy at the same time.  The energy that embodies the Wages of Sin and Anthems of Rebellion discs explodes tenfold when they hit the stage, which they have done on a seemingly endless basis for the past couple of years.  With an inspired EP of cover tunes and live tracks out now and a brand new studio offering looming just over the horizon, it seemed like a good time for a one-on-one with vocal shredder extraordinaire Angela Gossow…

On the Dead Eyes See No Future EP, the live tracks sound really good - how did you pick which songs to use?
We have recorded lots of stuff over the last couple of years.  This show in Paris was obviously recorded in a professional way.  Andy Sneap came to Paris and set up his gear, because if you don't record it professionally, you can't really put it on a release.  We have lots of video footage as well, which I guess will sooner or later end up on a DVD, that's our plan.  That's why we didn't use all the tracks on this EP, plus I think the first two opening tracks, the sound was just bad because that just happens.  You have a sound check and it sounds great and then the venue is completely packed and it sounds totally different and this is what we had, so we couldn't use the first two tracks.  Since we couldn't use those, we thought, well, we should just pick out the best ones basically, which is what we did.

Looking forward to the next studio album, do you have it planned out, as far as recording or a release date?
Yeah, because if you don't, then you never work and do it. (laughs)  We as a band have to put ourselves under the right amount of pressure, otherwise we sit around on our asses all day munching cookies and watching videos. (laughs)  We want to record something in early Spring [of 2005], so we're going to demo stuff in January/February and then go into the studio in March probably, try to release it mid-2005.

Your vocals seemed to be focused very much on the deeper, more death metal style on Anthems - will you be experimenting more on the next album?
I don't know, we'll see.  When you demo stuff, it's like what you've always done, but I'm going to leave that open.

Do you have any lyrical concepts in mind yet?
Mmmm… yeah.  There's going to be some stuff about religion, for example.  We are one of the bands who get more influence by daily life, current situations, whether political or social.  We are not a band with fantasy lyrics, so it's going to copy with all the little wars you fight in your daily life or other people do.  I've written a couple at least, but it's boring to tell you the titles now, it might be too early.

You've been touring like crazy for a while now - is that just down to good opportunities or did you plan to be out on the road so long after Anthems of Rebellion?
Yeah, we've had more opportunities than we could handle, to be honest.  I mean, if we were to say 'yes' to every tour that we could have done, then none of the guys in the band would have seen their kids for the last few years. (laughs)  But we are a band with a family attached, so we had to pick out the stuff that contributes something to the band, either getting a new crowd, or generating a bit of money on the road.

How did you hook up on the Headbanger's Ball tour?
We had been asked before by MTV, as there had been Headbanger's Ball tours before and they wanted us on the one with Slayer and Hatebreed, I believe.  We would have gotten so little money for that, though, that we didn't have enough in our pockets to basically do that tour.  But they asked us again, offering enough money to cover our costs basically.  We don't really have a new album out, so it doesn't [make sense] to go on a headlining tour of our own, plus I think there is lots of stuff going on in November and December in the US, so you have to put together a great package to compete with all the other great packages going out.  So this is kind of safe, you know.  They're going to do a whole lot of promotion, it's going to be on MTV, it's a great promotion thing basically.

I think it's a good line-up, too.
Well, it's interesting, you know.  It’s not my cup of tea, musically, but I think it is great to check out how the different crowds are and see how they react.  We have supported Iron Maiden and gotten a great reaction, and everyone had these sinister [predictions] of us coming on stage to a lot of tomatoes and bottles (laughs), but we didn't have that, it worked out well.  It will be interesting to see how Himsa and Bleeding Through crowds are going to react to full-on heavy metal made by Arch Enemy.

Last time I talked to you, you hadn't been to Japan yet with Arch Enemy - what was that experience like?
I was 24/7 very nervous (laughs), there were so many people and so much stuff happening in Japan and it's so different from here, but in a positive way actually.  They take very good care of you over there.  But I had so much pressure on me because of such big shows for my standards and a lot of expectations.  But it worked out great and now I'm looking forward to every trip to Japan because it's like a holiday - you get a great hotel, tons of food and all you have to do is play the show and everybody else takes care of everything else.  Washes your clothes, whatever, it's great. (laughs)

I know a lot of bands have been having problems getting into the US to tour, have you guys had any problems along those lines?
No, not really.  I think Sharlee [D'Angelo, bassist] is going to get checked up every time because of something in his records that says maybe 'drugs,' I don't know. (laughs)  So it's a long procedure, at least in the US.  I lost one of my arm braces because it had spikes, but at least we don't have this extreme stuff like Slayer has or Marduk, then I guess you get in more trouble, if you bring lots of swords and guns, even if they're fake, it draws a lot of attention to the band.  A bunch of long hair guys with lots of nail arm-bands or whatever, suddenly you're sitting in an office for the next three hours getting interrogated by some clerk from the airport, which is really boring.  But we don't have that problem.  Canada seems to be a problem nowadays.  We have been spending lots and lots of hours at the border trying to get over it.  They seem to consider everyone who is a musician with long hair as being criminal who is trying to get drugs into the country, I don’t' know why. (laughs)  Maybe it's true…

Do you like the fact that Arch Enemy has a pretty toned-down image?
Yeah, because one day, at one point in your career, you may get really tired of that stuff and just want to play your music, and then you can't get rid of that image. (laughs)  Or people think you've sold out because you don't wear your spikes anymore.  It's like corpse paint.  You suddenly take the corpse paint or the mask off and everybody's completely shocked about how ugly you are.  That happened to me with Slipknot; I was really disappointed. (laughs)

Your profile says your favorite food is vegan - are you a vegan?
I am vegan except for butter and cream, I can't live without them.  But no meat and no dairy products, of course.

Is it hard to find decent food on tour?
Yeah, but not in America because soy milk is really big.  In Europe, it's harder, except in the UK, but like in Germany or Holland or France… France is really bad, Spain is really bad, there is no vegan or vegetarian culture really, so you really have to pick things out of your food all the time.  In America, the only bad thing is they top everything with cheese, so you have to peel that off. (laughs)

[For more of this interview, check out issue #28 of Outburn magazine]

http://www.archenemy.net

ARCH ENEMY is:
Angela Gossow - Vocals
Michael Amott - Guitars
Christopher Amott - Guitars
Sharlee D'Angelo - Bass
Daniel Erlandsson - Drums