Pic courtesy of: Amon Amarth "The way I see it, we put a lot of effort in this album to be more melodic, but we didn’t want to compromise the heaviness, is just the way it turned out"

CR: Amon Amarth recently finished a tour in the U.S.A right?
Johan Hegg: Yes, it was very good, probably the best tour we ever done; definitely the biggest tour we ever been at.

CR: You guys were playing with Children of Bodom and Trivium, which band do you like best?
Johan Hegg: Children of Bodom in my opinion are a better band, but then again Trivium… they are nice kids but metalcore is not my thing. On the other hand Trivium attracts a lot of kids to the shows and I think that’s really cool.

CR: Is the U.S.A metal scene different than in Europe, I mean do you see a difference among the type of people that show up to the concerts?
Johan Hegg: I know what you mean, I get a lot of those questions; but in my opinion, there is not that much of a difference really. Maybe is just a more cultural difference between the U.S.A and Europe, how they act on shows and how they reach on shows, but still they are metalheads, they are there to have fun and listen to good music you know. This tour was fucking amazing, every show was great.

CR: Were you guys recording a DVD on this tour?
Johan Hegg: The DVD is recorded already now is just a matter of putting everything together, you know bonus material, and stuff like that. It was recorded during the summer.

CR: Fate of Norms is your latest cd, a bit different and more melodic but definitely an amazing production, what do you think of the criticisms about its melodic tone?
Johan Hegg: The way I see it, we put a lot of effort in this album to be more melodic, but we didn’t want to compromise the heaviness, is just the way it turned out. Most things that I heard is that, well complain about is that the album wasn’t fast enough. In my opinion the album is great, is has some good songs in it, some people actually got into the album after they listen to it for a couple of times. We had some bad criticism, but that’s just the way it is.

CR: Do you have any idea how many copies of Fate of Norms have been sold?
Johan Hegg: I don’t know any figures, but this album sold pretty well across the world I think.

CR: I was curios about the label people place upon Amon Amarth, over her in Costa Rica and in many other countries they call you guys Viking metal, but you guys actually said that you are just a melodic death metal band.
Johan Hegg: I don’t mind, if you want to call us that go ahead is just that we have never seen our selves like that, because Viking metal to us is sort of black metal music with Viking lyrics. A band like Einherjer is a good example of Viking metal; I don’t really care about the labels anyways, if you want to call us Viking metal, go ahead I don’t care, but we always seen ourselves as a death metal band, as a melodic death metal band.

CR: I was reading in your web site that you guys are working in a new album, is that right?
Johan Hegg: Yes, we are; we are working in new material right now, we have been in the rehearsal place for like a month. I don’t remember the name of the studio were we are supposed to record this album, but is here in Sweden.

CR: Why don’t we talk a little about your past records? Versus The World was just a genius cd, it kind of made the band more accessible to metal fans, do have any idea of what album gave the band the biggest push?
Johan Hegg: I think Versus the World is the album that gave us the push, while Fate of Norms is the one that kept us going. Versus the World and Fate of Norms are the albums that really helped us reach a bigger audience; but Versus the World definitely was the record that really got us out there.

CR: You guys have already 6 releases; 5 full length albums and one mini cd do you feel consolidated in the metal world?
Johan Hegg: I don’t know really, it sort us presents as a dilemma every time we go on tour, (laughs) because we have so many songs to choose from and we have a lot of new fans with every album, we try to promote a lot the new album, to focus on the new album, but that often means that we have to cut some of the old songs. A lot of fans, they don’t really like that, they want us to play the old stuff, and it’s pretty difficult to please everyone.

CR: Is there any special song that almost every crowd asks you guys to play?
Johan Hegg: They ask us for a lot of songs, but there are a couple of songs that are difficult for us to leave out you know, like Death in Fire and The Pursuit of Vikings.

CR: Are all your lyrics based on Viking legends?
Johan Hegg: Viking history and Viking mythology is where I draw most of my inspiration; we try to focus around that.

	Pic courtesy of: Metal Blast "We try to be very spontaneous with our music; you can’t force it in any direction. You can’t say I’m gonna write a faster album so you write 10 fast songs but from those only 2 are good"

CR: So is safe to say that you are fascinated by that topic.
Johan Hegg: Yeah of course, I mean is my heritage is my history; it really motivates us as a band to write about it.

CR: Is there any album that you regret ever recording?
Johan Hegg: I can feel that on some songs, that a song in particular was not that good; but in the other hand, with every album we do our best at that specific moment, we try do to our best so I can’t really feel ashamed of what we do. I think every album is good and that we are progressing with every new recording.

CR: Can you tell me something about your this next record, any ideas of what’s going to be like?
Johan Hegg: As always, we have some ideas for some songs, but from those we’ll be choosing the ones we believe are the best to place in the album. We try to be very spontaneous with our music; you can’t force it in any direction. You can’t say I’m gonna write a faster album so you write 10 fast songs but from those only 2 are good, you have to first focus in writing good songs and maybe later arranged it in order to sound faster or heavier. We are discussing album titles but nothing serious yet.

CR: You haven’t had many roster changes, why do you think this is? What is Amon Amarth’s secret to stay together and not kill each?
Johan Hegg: (laughs) I mean we are a bunch of friends, that’s a pretty important thing, and like any group of people that spends a lot of time together like we do, we have our differences every once in a while, but we have been able to work everything out and get along. Is really not a big deal, we are just a group of good friends; we have been good friends from the beginning, is that simple. All of us have the same goals and hopes for this band since the beginning.

CR: Is there any boundary when it comes to integrate new instruments in your music, like keyboards or thing of that nature?
Johan Hegg: Definitely not keyboards; the only instruments we work with that are not the regular ones are for intros and stuff like that; you know we have a horn for one of the songs in Fate of Norms, and some orchestral music for live intro. We are going to keep our music guitar based and drums beat, that’s what we do and for us to incorporate something like keyboards, that will mean for us to get a keyboard player since we write our songs to be played live, and that’s something that really does not interest us.
In my opinion keyboards don’t really go with our music, I think that Oli and the other guys agree that we are not a keyboard band; other bands do a good job with it, but for us is just not the right thing to do.

CR: How do you guys work to write a new album?
Johan Hegg: Normally each of us bring some ideas, but is Johan who writes most of the material; the rest of us always come with some idea that we have been working at home and we try to work on them as a band.

CR: How do you work with the lyrics?
Johan Hegg: Sometimes I have some lyrics and I pass them to the guys to find out if they can come up with some songs ideas for those lyrics, and sometimes they have a song and they just give me the main idea so that I can write something that will fit that particular song.

CR: Have you consider writing lyrics that are not oriented to Viking mythology?
Johan Hegg: I always think about that, and actually I have write lyrics that don’t really relate to Vikings at all, like in The Crusher album, I don’t know if you remember the lawsuit that Judas Priest was facing, they were being blame for some messages in a particular album that according to the people that sue Judas was the reason why two kids blow there head off; a song in The Crusher was dealing about that. But we are a Viking band and we write Viking lyrics. I have come to realize that is very difficult to change that direction, but I do try to write about the things that are happening in my life and in the world and maybe re write those lyrics in a Viking metaphor to resemble our style of approaching the music and the lyrics… but it is difficult.

CR: How do you perceived the metal scene these days?
Johan Hegg: I think the scene is changing and it’s growing, at least in Sweden and in the USA as well, a lot of young kinds are getting into it, and it’s fantastic you know. It’s great to see so many new people. I remember just a couple of years ago over here in Sweden when the scene was pretty bleak, there were hardly any shows and it was always the same few people, now you get to see a lot of new faces… so its great now.

CR: How hard is it to “make it” as a metal band in Sweden?
Johan Hegg: I don’t know, I think you have to work a lot, send a lot of demos and stuff like that. For us it wasn’t like that, the record labels contacted us, so I guess we are fortunate that way, I think that’s why we can do whatever we want to do, and it’s great I mean we are not at the mercy of anybody else. But anyway, it is difficult; you need to have good material, material that you believe in and always stick to your ideals in music. You also have to work a lot in other aspects of the music, sending demos to magazines, playing shows, you have to let the record companies and the people know that you exist; if they don’t see you, then you don’t exist…you know what I mean?
You have to make a name for your self in the underground scene first, and then you can worry about getting a label.

	Pic courtesy of: Metal Blast "I’m not gonna lie to you, I do download sometimes, I download things I’m really interested in sometimes a couple of songs and sometimes a whole album. If I like the album, I go out and buy it, if I don’t like it, I erase it"

CR: What do you think of the whole mp3 sharing “fashion?
Johan Hegg: I think in many ways is helping to promote bands; I’m not gonna lie to you, I do download sometimes, I download things I’m really interested in sometimes a couple of songs and sometimes a whole album. If I like the album, I go out and buy it, if I don’t like it, I erase it, because if I don’t like it I don’t have a use for it. I never burn any cds, to listen in a cd player, if I want to listen to it outside my computer I buy the album, because I feel that the musicians and bands that work on the album deserve the support.

CR: Would you say that downloading mp3s has helped Amon Amarth?
Johan Hegg: I have no idea, I like to think it has helped us… it’s really hard to say. I like to think that it has helped people listen to some of our albums that maybe they couldn’t find in their local cd stores, or after downloading some of our music, they go to our shows and maybe there they get a shirt or an album. I would like to say that downloading has helped us… but I really don’t know.

CR: You guys where in Mexico some time last year, how was it?
Johan Hegg: Mexico was really cool; we had a good time there. We did a couple of headline shows, good crowds, some empty crowds; it was a really cool experience, I really like Mexico. Its kind of European in a way, like if you go to Spain. The people were really nice.

CR: Are you guys planning to make a bigger Latin American tour anytime soon?
Johan Hegg: Well, we have talked about it, we really wanna do it, but is not that easy; we can’t really put everything together our selves, we need someone interested in bringing us over. I know that the guys who took us to Mexico Carlos Hernandez, he has many contacts in South America; hopefully he could take us on a bigger Latin American tour; but you know we just don’t know it yet. I know that we have a lot of fans in Latin America and the shows will probably be great, I just hope that we could do that soon enough.

CR: Ok Johan, now some weird questions
Johan Hegg: A right (Laughs)

CR: Let’s say you are a Viking back in the glory days, against which civilization would you like to fight?
Johan Hegg: Difficult one, the Vikings weren’t really conquerors, they were more about plundering for riches and stuff like that… uhmm any civilization; there were so many great civilizations, really a though one… maybe the Romans (Laughs).

CR: Didn’t the Vikings fight the Romans?
Johan Hegg: That was the Germans actually; because the Romans left Britain around 400 AD after that they regressed further down south and the Vikings where mainly out of there reach sort of speak. There is not any real evidence of Vikings fighting Romans.

CR: Have you ever seen yourself, the band, Amon Amarth as an example to kids?
Johan Hegg: I don’t think so; I mean we have always been who we are, and we are not and example to kids because we drink a lot of alcohol, party a lot and act stupid all the time (Laughs). I don’t really care about it; I don’t wanna be that, I just wanna have a good time playing metal.

CR: Pick a woman: Black, Latina, White, Asian, Blondes, brunettes.
Johan Hegg: I have to pick one (Laughs)… all of them; I don’t know its kind of weird I go through periods; I went through my blood period earlier and now I’m in my Asian period, you know Chinese, Japanese you know. Latin American women, I went through that period also, I still think that many of the Latin American women are very beautiful. Regarding hair color, I would say black… maybe because I’m blond my self I don’t know.

CR: If you were the king of the world, what would be your first commandment?
Johan Hegg: Uhhh… Let’s fucking party! (Laughs) I don’t know; I will get rid of religion… Can’t do that! I will probably be a lousy king; I will let people do what ever they want.

CR: Which record of Amon Amarth will you recommend to someone that has never heard you guys before?
Johan Hegg: I think the best album to buy if you wanna get into Amon Amarth quickly will be Versus the World. It’s a very good album that really gets your attention from the start; you know we have other good albums but they take more than one listen to really get into them; Versus the World grabs you by the nuts the first time you listen to it.

CR: Any good releases from 2005?
Johan Hegg: Bolt Thrower’s new album is really cool; actually I was surprised by the new Children of Bodom album, I never really listen to them before this tour and I got a cd from them; it was very fun to listen to, very technical, really intriguing music. Primordial also, even though I don’t know if that album came out this or last.

CR: Well Johan tank you for the time, hope everything goes as plan for Amon Amarth
Johan Hegg: Thank you, by.