Mike Bax at Canada's Lithium Magazine recently caught up with AMON AMARTH drummer Frederik Andersson. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Mike: Twilight Of The Thunder God is arguably your most successful North American album. Do you think Surtur Rising will top Thunder God from a sales standpoint over here?

Frederik: "Well, it is a big thing to sell a lot of albums, but that’s not why we continue to record music. That’s not a big concern for us at all. We would like more than anything to just continue to like what we’re doing. If we didn’t enjoy it, we wouldn’t really be artists and likely wouldn’t remain in this business. We definitely don’t ever think about commercial sales when we record. It’s a bonus if it happens. As long as we can keep ourselves floating and pay our bills then we are perfectly satisfied as musicians. That’s really all that matters."

Mike: Were you at all nervous about trying to follow Thunder God up?

Frederik: "Personally, I didn’t really feel any pressure at all - nothing like that. I know the guitarists had a bit of writers block initially (Johan Söderberg and Olavi Mikkonen) and had a hard time coming up with new things, but that was more because we were a bit under pressure to deliver. Basically, we set a date when we were going to record the new album. That date came closer and closer and we had to squeeze in a tour before we could really sit down and concentrate on the new album. We actually wanted to have a bit of a break after all the touring so we could..."

Mike: Decompress?

Frederik: "Exactly. Just take it easy for a while. But the economy didn’t really allow for us to do that. We had to keep on going, and it was a bit challenging – we felt like we were forcing ourselves to get new ideas."

Mike: I feel like Surtur Rising has more orchestration to it than past releases. There’s some more melody on the album. There’s some interesting breaks during a few of the songs where the material will go quite somber. It’s interesting. It feels a little different than anything you have done prior.

Frederik: "I think that when we went in to write the album, one of our main objectives was to let go of any boundaries that we may have had before. We had very strict rules about how we should sound as a band, and also how we should NOT sound. I think it's probably more like a maturing on our part as musicians and that we are more comfortable with ourselves as musicians. We could allow ourselves to try some new things this time."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Amon Amarth recently released their new music video, for the track 'Destroyer Of The Universe', taken from Surtur Rising. The live video was shot on the band’s May 6th stop in Philadelphia, PA at the Theatre Of Living Arts, by director David Brodsky of MyGoodEye.

“This time around we wanted to catch the energy and atmosphere of a live show, so we simply went for a live video. We look forward to get back to North America in August to continue and fulfill the ‘Evening’ tour, meanwhile enjoy the video”, comments guitarist Olavi Mikkonen.

Check out the video, courtesy of BlankTV, below:

Greek demons SEPTICFLESH are confirmed to open for Amon Amarth's upcoming European tour, which kicks off October 12th in Stuttgart, Germany and ends 45 days later, on November 26th, in Prague, Czech Republic. AS I LAY DYING is also on the bill. The itinerary can be found below.

Dates:

October

12 - Stuttgart, Germany - LKA
13 - Strasbourg, France - La Laiterie
14 - Passau, Germany - Metal Invasion Festival
15 - Berlin, Germany - Huxleys
16 - Leipzig, Germany - Hellraiser
18 - Bremen, Germany - Aladin
19 - Luxembourg, Luxembourg - Sportzentrum Differdange
20 - Neu-Isenburg, Germany - Hugenottenhalle
21 - Oberhausen, Germany - Turbinenhalle
22 - Hengelo, Netherlands - Metropol
23 - London, UK - HVM Forum
25 - Rennes, France - L´Etage
26 - Eindhoven, Netherlands - Effenaar
27 - Lille, France - Aeronet
28 - St. Etienne, France - Le Fil
30 - Bilbao, Spain - Rock Star *

November

1 - Lisboa, Portugal - Incrivel Almadense *
2 - Porto, Portugal - Hard Club *
3 - Santiago de Compostela, Spain - Capitol *
4 - Madrid, Spain - Heineken *
5 - Barcelona, Spain - Razzmatazz 2 *
7 - Zürich, Switzerland - Komplex 457
8 - Treviso, Italy - New Age
9 - Bologna, Italy - Estragon
11 - Lausanne, Switzerland - Les Docks
12 - Kaufbeuren, Germany - All-Kart Halle
13 - Graz, Austria - Orpheum
15 - Ljubljana, Slovenia - Cvetlicarna Media Park Club
16 - Zagreb, Croatia - Bogaloo
18 - Sofia, Bulgaria - Yubilena Hall
19 - Bucharest - Arenele Romane
21 - Budapest, Hungary - Club 202
22 - Bratislava, Slovakia - Majestic Music Club
23 - Linz, Austria - Posthof
24 - Wien, Austria - Gasometer
25 - Krakow, Poland - Studio
26 - Prague, Czech Republic - Masters Of Rock

* shows without As I Lay Dying

(Photo by Mike Bax)