Gelap Pekat

On January 22, Jessi Virtusio of Southtown Star conducted an interview with ARCH ENEMY/CARCASS guitarist Michael Amott. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On guitar heroes:

"I really respect people (like) Tony (Iommi) from BLACK SABBATH and people that have managed to keep a band going, lead a band with great songs and play lead guitar. There are a lot of people that all they do is play their instruments or guitar solos. That's never really interested me that much. I'm more about the full picture — the band, great songs. A great guitar solo adds to that for me. I'm really fond of guitar playing."

On his guitar work on CARCASS' "Heartwork", which many people consider to be a death metal masterpiece:

"I've heard that a lot, and it's a great honor. I don't have any gold discs on my wall from anything I've done. It's a great feeling to be a part of something that's had an impact. I love it. We did a reunion a couple of years ago, and it was great. It was a good feeling."

On when fans can expect to hear a new ARCH ENEMY album:

"We're going to be doing a few shorter runs in Europe and festivals (after this tour). Most of the year (we'll be) writing and recording a new record, which we hope to release in 2011, We are writing a lot of new material, but right now it's all on our computers. It's just bits and pieces of melody here, chord progression, a couple of riffs here and there. We're going to piece it all together. It's a lot of stuff. It's going to be some work going through everything, but we're looking forward to it."

Read more from Southtown Star.

Fan-filmed video footage of ARCH ENEMY's January 22, 2010 performance at the Nokia Theatre in New York City can be viewed below (courtesy of "celticyodels").