Hello Sharlee it's good to hear you!

Hello man good to hear you too

Where ar you at the moment?

I'm in Gothenburg – Sweden and we are preparing for the upcoming tour. There are a lot of things to be handle now because we were off the road for year and a half now.

Quite a long time!

Yes this is our longest break so far we had in touring from 2001 till now.

I see but you got some new changes in the band so I guess you need it. I mean Arch Enemy now are on a new turning point with a new singer and new album.. Can you tell us more about the new record and how is Alissa fitting in the band lineup.

Everything is Fantastic! When Alissa came in she was amazing the whole time. From the beginning when we jammed some stuff in our rehearsal room she was just amazing. Later she took part in the writing of the 5 or 6 songs. And you won't believe how she is working in the studio. She is total professional, and apart that she is extremely cool person to hang around... she is.... ..... Well I have nothing but respect to the little woman. My point is when you make a big change like we did it's always a big step. And I thing that there is nobody that can be better for the band like she is right now. With her energy and her approach she injected some vital vitamins to the band.

From your words now I understand that you haven't done any auditions and Alissa was your one and only choice.

Yes it was. When Angela decided to step down and we knew that this was the final decision. We just sat down and think for the next step, what the future is and what we will do. We had two choices. To quit with that band or to find someone else. Actually everyone wanted to continue and we had some music written. We decided to sit down and everyone to write names of singers on a list. So everybody came with just one name and after that was silence...

Ha-ha so this is how it was decided?

Yes, she was mentioned before and she and Angela know each other from way back. Probably this is why just her name came out. So we gave her a call and fortunately she said "Yes"!

I know that you guys are one of her favorite bands so I guess it was a right decision for her also.

Oh I'm glad to hear that.

You said that Angela is just stepping down but not quite really leaving the band because she will act as manager. But why this change was necessary and what changed her mind?

You know when you do something for 13 years its normal your priorities to change and you might want to try something else. Angela felt that she couldn't offer us as much as she did before so I think it was the right thing to do and step back. Recently it was like struggle for her and it was good that she was honest for that. Every time we were like ok let's just do another album and then we will rest a little. Because it's so hard to do such a drastic change and we were always trying to postpone it. This time it became clear to us that she doesn't want to continue and she can't. She will continue to do what she did the last 6 years as a manager. Angela is extremely good at that and she knows the band inside out. She won't do all the traveling and stage performance but she can do all the rest. And it's good for us to have a manager like that. Now we know that the manager is not someone sitting on the desk all day long and taking our money but now we know that we really have a person working for us.

We already saw the killer video of "War eternal" and lyric video for "As the pages burn"... Can we expect some new videos and surprises?

Oh yes there probably be some stuff. He-he

New video or something else?

There is definitely going to be a new video and some other stuff through the year

As I said from what we heard so far the album sounds quite promising with amazing instrumental work. Do you think that this might be the best record the band has done so far?

I cannot say anything but Yes! Ha-ha-ha! It is definitely the best Arch Enemy record that we can possibly do at this point. And for me that is the most important thing as a musician. It's really hard to describe it but I haven't got tired listening to the new album yet and I have listened to it around thousand times. He-he
I'm really excited about it and it feels that we have something different to offer than the last couple of albums. I think we have gone back musically on some certain songs to times even before Angela. But in the same time it sound new because Alissa has brought a new flavor as well. All this fells extremely fresh and not outdated and copied. I don't think that we are following the same tracks like we did with the last few albums. I think a lot of that had to do because we wanted to step up and put in on an extra gear. It's a matter of survival, you know he-he.

I understand. So what is the message behind the title "War Eternal and is there any concept in the album? What is the main message that you want to pass to the listener with this album?

To kill everyone, anytime! Ha-ha. No not really just kidding.
War Eternal and generally the title track has more to do with personal struggle. It's something that we all experience through life. There are always people that constantly tell you what to do and how to do it. And if you try to do things somehow differently there are always people that try to put you on "your place".

Are you talking about your manager?

Ha-ha. Yes! It could be manager. It could be your boss at work or your teacher. It could be anybody. If you choose any different life there always will be people around you that will try to convince you that you are wrong or even work against you. And all this is like ongoing war within yourself to do the things the way you want. There will be obstacles on the way and most of them are people that maybe are afraid of the unknown.

Can you describe the album with three words?

Pure Fucking Metal!

Sofia is the third stop from your upcoming tour. Can you tell us what to expect from your show. Are the fans going to hear some new material or you will rely in the classics?

We are definitely going to play some new songs. The album won't be out at that time so we won't fill the set with new songs too much. We haven't play in Bulgaria from a long time and never in Sofia, so will try to play a little bit of everything that we have done. Apart of that you will see a band that's much fired up and very anxious to play. We can't wait to play in Sofia because from the bands that we know said that the shows there are crazy.

Daniel and Nick did qite a lot work behind the mixing desk of the album?

Yes they did! They are extremely good with the technical stuff and they did some of the recording.

Why did you decided to leave them do this work? Is it because you feel more concentrated on the result?

Well here is what we did. We decided that Jens Borgen will mix the album so we recorded the drums in his studio. But when it comes to recording bass and guitars and the technology available these days we decided to do it ourselves. So we recorded them in small studio in Stockholm. We did that because it was better for us and we had more time to work.

So you were more concentrated on the result and not pushed by time?

Yes exactly. When we recorded that we did the vocals in another studio in Halmstad in Sweden and then everything was mixed by Jens. So as long as you have somebody to mix the album and you take care of how and what actually you record you are going to end up with good result.

You are in the band almost from the beginning... How do you see the new face of Arch Enemy and what do you think will be the best next step for the band.

Well we are just entering a new phase of the bands history. We had proven to ourselves at least that we can go on and still make fantastic albums. We have lost very important member and we lost another one not too long ago, but having Nick and Alissa in the band is so much new energy. Now we know what we are capable of and we will have to prove it on the stages around the world. That will be our next step- to see what the people think. We will do a lot of touring starting in the end of May and ending 2 days before Christmas and we will continue the next year. We had so much fun doing this album. We still have some song that we haven't used and we are constantly coming up with new ideas so getting to a studio again will be a great next step. But let's see how long we will be touring but we are definitely planning another album in the not too distant future.

Can you leave a message for the fans in Bulgaria?

We are extremely excited to come and play in Sofia because we haven't played there before. We only played once in Kavarna. Now you will see a band that's running on full speed and we hope you will come and have a metal celebration with us.

Author: Nikola Petras

bul version