On their Berserker-Tour the Viking Death Metal Icons AMON AMARTH set halls on fire one after the other. On December 3rd the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt was the next in line to be taken by the Sweden package along with Arch Enemy and Hypocrisy. Prior to this AMON AMARTH guitarist Johan Söderberg answered questions of Lydia and Michael from Metalogy.de and talked about the current tour, his Instagram page, his former job and much more. Read here part 1 of two parts of the english version.

Hi Johan, thank you for taking the time. How has the Berserker-Tour been so far?

Johan: Really amazing. I think it’s the best tour we’ve ever done – both, audience wise and production wise.

AMON AMARTH always uses a lot of pyros and other show effects. Who is planning all this?

Johan: It’s the band. We also talk to our management sometimes, if they have new ideas. But mostly it’s a band thing. We try to come up with different gags for different songs. A song has a specific subject and we have a certain effect for it.

Johan Söderberg_Amon Amarth © Polwin-Plass

Is the message of the songs important for you?

Johan: It doesn’t have to be that the message is going after the audience. It’s more the subjective things that are cool in connection with the songs. For “Fafner’s Gold” for example we have golden confetti. The song is not about the confetti, but we have the connection between the song and the effect.  (laughs)

Who is writing the songs?

Johan: It’s me and Olavi. We write all the music. And Johan, our vocalist, writes all the lyrics. And then the whole band gets together and talks about the song direction and arranges the song. Sometimes the whole band writes stuff together. Sometimes me and Olavi write something together. Sometimes we write songs completely on our own.

How was the feedback from the fans about your new album “Berserker” ?

Johan: Really good. This is the surprising thing about our band: The fans always like our newest stuff most. I think this is amazing.

What will the setlist be about today?

Johan: We will not play past stuff from all our albums. As we have so many songs now it is hard to get something from every album into the set.

Amon Amarth are playing Wacken since their early years. Do you have a special relationship to this festival?

Johan: Yes. It was the first really big festival we played. And that was back in 1999.

How often have you played in Wacken?

Johan: We have played there since ever and every second year. (laughs)

When you played there for the first time, did you imagine being a headliner one day?

Johan: No, the first time we played there, we just thought that it is huge. Even though, we played at 12 o’clock at noon. There were not so many people. And the stage was really low back then. Maybe one meter high. We thought it was the biggest thing we have ever seen.

Have you ever played a even bigger festival than Wacken?

Johan Söderberg_Amon Amarth © Polwin-Plass

Johan: We have played the Woodstock Festival in Poland. That is even bigger, but is a mixed festival and not only metal.

Metalheads, like in Wacken, are very friendly and very social. Have you made the same experience?

Johan: Yes, metalheads, in general, are very friendly. There have never been fights going on during our shows. When you go to a festival with mixed music styles, there is sometimes much more fighting and stuff like that.

How was the US part? Is there a difference between Europe and the US?

Johan: The US part was also really good, but with a little smaller production. Usually we couldn’t have pyros inside. There are much harder rules. And usually the places are a little smaller. Not much smaller, but smaller enough that you can’t have big flame throwers and stuff like that. We actually had only two shows in the US with a pyro show. In New York and Los Angeles.

Is there a band you would like to tour with in the future?

Johan: Yes. There are many bands. We would like to tour with IRON MAIDEN, METALLICA or RAMMSTEIN. But then we would be the opener.

Is there any festival or country where you would like to play?

Johan: I think we pretty much played every festival where you can play. But we never played in South Africa. But we covered pretty much all territories.

When you think about all of the AMON AMARTH albums, which one is your favorite?

Johan: You usually like the last one best, because it feels fresh to you. But when you look back ten years from now, then it may be “Twilight Of The Thundergod”.

Is there a specific reason for that?

Johan: The album as a whole is really good. But I think that the new album “Berserker” is also very good as a whole. We pretty much had the same feeling when we released this album as we had when we released “Twilight Of The Thundergod”. But when we look back ten years from now, we might like “Twilight Of The Thundergod” even better. ‘

What are the next plans for AMON AMARTH?

Johan: We continue touring. We will do this for the next two years. We will have a break over Christmas. And then we will have a South America Tour.

So you will be with your family at Christmas?

Johan: Sure. We will have a break for two months or even more. Completely off.

How do you communicate with you family when you are on tour?

Johan: When we play in Europe, I can call them. It costs the same like at home. But when I’m in the US, I use this iTalk phone app or whatever it is called. I talk to them pretty much every day.

Has your wife been with you on tour before you kids were born?

Johan: She has just been on separate dates, but she has never been on a whole tour.

Read tomorrow the second part of the english version of our interview with JOHAN SÖDERBERG guitar player from AMON AMARTH.

See here our pictures of the gig in Frankfurter Jahrhunderthalle after the interview:

FOTOSTRECKE und kurzer NACHBERICHT: AMON AMARTH, ARCH ENEMY und HYPOCRISY in der Jahrhunderthalle Frankfurt