US correspondent, Chaos, recently spoke to Amon Amarth’s Olavi Mikkonen. The guitarist tells us how Apocalyptica did the strings arrangements on the new album and Children Of Bodom’s Roope contributed a solo…

Chaos: On tour everyone seems in good spirits, laughing and generally just having a great time. Do you remember a funniest tour moment?

Olavi: I guess it’s a inside joke that we have that we will let you in on. At the beginning of the tour we flew out from Germany, and one of the guys brought a copy of the German Metal Hammer magazine and there was a cover story about us. Inside there was a little fact section about each band member. They asked Johan Hegg what his previous jobs were and Johan has been a butcher and a salesman, but the guy who wrote the interview, did not catch ‘salesman’ because he thought he was a sailor. So in the magazine it says that Johan has been a butcher and a sailor, so we have been calling him ‘Skipper’ on this tour, ha ha. Olavi: It’s not that the interviewer heard Johan wrong when he said ‘salesman’, English not being his first language, he took it literally by what he heard, which was ‘sailsman’, ha ha.

Chaos: ‘Twilight of The Thunder God’ was offered in a couple different packages, one of them included limited edition bobble-heads of each Band member. Whose idea was this?

Olavi: The idea came in a meeting we had with our record label – Metal Blade – last year. They wanted to do some kind of special edition package and when we saw the bobble-head idea, we all totally agreed that it was a very cool idea. It was meant to be a funny thing! You can’t be serious ALL the time! Basically the design was taken from different photos of us.”

Chaos: We have to find out whether Johan threatened the creators to take some girth off the middle of his… ha ha ha.

Olavi: Ha ha, yes but you have seen me too!

Chaos: Over the years Amon Amarth have played to massive crowds such as Wacken, as well as smaller crowds. Which is more challenging, which do you prefer?

Olavi: The small crowds. When you play crowds the size of Wacken you don’t really feel connected to the crowd, but in clubs you can totally connect with people so that’s tougher, and also funnier!

Chaos: ‘With Oden On Our Side’ was hailed as a Masterpiece by fans and industry alike. It must be extremely difficult NOT recreate and/or replicate that previous work. How did you avoid this? How did you manage not to make ‘With Oden on Our Side II’?

Olavi: I think we just continued the way we always have done. You know, we really did not think much about it. Of course you’re going to have similar production because we chose the same producer, but songwriting-wise we just followed our path. We didn’t try to make it sound like the last record. I’m pretty convinced that if not the first impression of the fans, that the new one is even better than the last record but maybe six months down the road it will be appreciated even more. I am convinced that the new record is our top of the line.

Chaos: On ‘Twilight of The Thunder God’ there are some things that are not typically found on previous albums, such as a brass section, cellos and some different vocal styles. Who did the brass section?

Olavi: The horns were done by people our producer knows.

Chaos: Apocalyptica did the strings, where these parts written for them or were they chosen after?

Olavi: We gave them the riffs on guitar, and they just transposed them. We only gave them the melody, and they built it up with harmonies. We were stoked when we heard it!

Chaos: Roope from Children of Bodom did a guitar solo on the title track of ‘Twilight of the Thunder God’. He said it was strange doing it on the computer, communicating while recording, but at the same time a lot of fun. Was it strange for you as well?

Olavi: Roope did an EXCELLENT job! We always had the idea that we wanted a guitar shredder in one of our songs. Me and Johan, we can’t shred, ha ha, so we asked Roope. We know he likes us, and we like Roope, and he said ‘yes of course’. We gave him the fastest song so we could use his talent to the full, ha ha.

Check out Chaos at www.knac.com