Amon Amarth – interview met Johan Söderberg
Johan Söderberg: “For us it takes very long to make the songs, especially when we are touring all the time. That is why I liked the fact that we split the recording in two sessions.”
Stap voor stap is Amon Amarth hoger en hoger op de ladder van de roem geklommen en dit over een tijdspanne van 35 jaar en dertien albums. We rekenen er ‘The Allfather Awakens’ al meteen bij, want deze knaller gaat het succes nog uitbreiden, daar zijn we zeker van. De melodieuze death metal met teksten over de Vikingen en Noordse mythologie wordt ook ditmaal in tien pakkende songs verpakt en over de wereld verspreid. Vooraleer de Zweden in oktober alweer aan hun eerste tournee voor de nieuwe plaat met een nieuwe productie op pad gaan, praatten we met gitarist Johan Söderberg over het nieuwe album en de plannen om dit ook succesvol te laten verlopen.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 2 oktober 2026
I found out that there was a new different approach in the song-writing this time. Can you go deeper into that and give more details?
I don’t know what you mean. I think we approached the song-writing like we always do, pretty much. The only difference was that we recorded the songs in two sessions. We did six songs in March 2025 and we recorded four songs in March 2026. So there was a year in between. We were writing during touring, that was different indeed, writing during the touring cycle. Usually we finish the touring for the last album completely and then we just take a whole year off to write songs, but now we were writing songs during the touring and made more songs. That is the biggest difference.
You worked for the first time with producer Jacob Hansen and went to Denmark. Why this choice and why changing from Andy Sneap to Hansen?
First we were thinking about going back to Sneap, but he was so busy with touring with Judas Priest and wasn’t available. We though also like: we have made three albums with Andy Sneap, so we thought it would probably be better if we tried something new for a little fresh approach and then we thought about Jacob Hansen. So that is why we contacted him and it turned out great as well. We had never met him before.
Like you said you remained being on tour and I have the impression that not only Europe was visited, but a true break through in North America was happening. From big to bigger…
I think our breakthrough in the US already happened years ago. We toured with Children Of Bodom over there and after that, we did our own tours. We have been touring there for many years, totally by ourselves and selling out quite big places.
Some of those gigs were huge happenings, special events or festivals with a wide range of styles and audiences…That is also a bit different from Europe…
Yes indeed, last years we did some huge festivals that were kind of more mainstream festivals in many different genres. One of the highlights in 2024 was at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver. We joined Pantera for The Heaviest Tour Of The Summer. After completing the new album in May 2026 we played Florida’s massive Daytona International Speedway and Rockville Fest, a commercial juggernaut, along with Guns ‘N Roses and Foo Fighters. We surely cannot complain. In July 2025 we were direct support for Slayer’s reunion shows in the UK. Another highlight was headlining Wacken Open Air in 2024. We played several times at Download and Bloodstock in the UK and eight times at Summer Breeze, mostly as headliner. I get dizzy when thinking it over (chuckles).
Let us focus on some tracks on ‘The Allfather Awakens’. Odin’s horse Sleipnir would be the inspiration for ‘Eight Legs Of Thunder’…
I came up with a part of the text. I was actually with my family when I wrote that song. I was at home, playing my guitar and came up with the riffs when standing next to the amps. I have a big amp set and I was playing this riff and it sounded so percussive when you are right in front of a speaker. So it sounded like a horse galloping. I was thinking to myself: maybe I’ll just write a song of Sleipnir, Odin’s horse. This riff sounded so horse-like when I played it. And then, when I continued to write the song, the melodies and stuff, I was thinking ‘it is not cool to have a text, a chorus that goes like ‘Sleipnir’, it is not very catchy. So I started to think about a different name for the horse, something catchier and then I was just humming this melody and came up with this more catchy phrase ‘Eight Legs Of Thunder’. I thought it is a great chorus. When I showed this song to the other guys, I already sang a little bit myself in the chorus, just to show them how I was thinking. First they hesitated, because it was so catchy, but then Johan came and he wrote the lyrics later and we kept the title and the chorus.
Yes, it fits Amon Amarth. However, what does not fit Amon Amarth and came over as a huge surprise is a kind of acoustic song. ‘Upphaf’ was even launched as first video and new track!
That is a song we had the melody for about 25 years ago. We tried to play it a little bit back in the day with an acoustic guitar. Then we had this melody for years and years and we always said like ‘oh, it would be cool to make like a campfire song, an acoustic song’, but we never really did that. Until now. Now for this album we brought that up again. We only had made a demo. We recorded it in a very strange way. We played chords on an acoustic guitar, we only recorded melodies and then they sound like single notes, but then with many, many layers. So it was a very tedious process to make that demo. When we were in the studio we decided to play it with just two guitars. One strumming the chords and the other plays the melody. We did that and it sounded good. Then we filled it up with orchestra and choir on top of it.
I like it. How are the reactions so far?
The reactions have been mostly positive, but of course there are commends in the vein of ‘this is not Amon Amarth’, blablabla. It is just one song, the rest of the album is as usual. We released that one first to kind of shock people: what is happening? Why are they playing acoustic? (laughs) Is the whole album acoustic? After that we released ‘Gjallarhorn’ two weeks later, which is a classic Amon Amarth song.
Was this a kind of revenge for people who say it is always the same?
(laughs) Yeah exactly.
I think a lyric that sums it up, the essence of Amon Amarth, can be found in the song ‘We Rule The Waves’. As a fan it touched me. What can you tell about it?
That is actually the first single from the first record session that we did in March 2025. We recorded most of the songs of the album and then we released that song, just before we did a big tour with Pantera in the US in July. We wanted to release something before that tour. That is actually the first single if you look at it in hindsight. Nobody knew then that we were going to make an album, so we just released one song, but it is actually on the album too.
That’s what you did before with ‘Put Your Back Into The Oar’…
That was different, ‘Put Your Back Into The Oar’ was a stand alone single. It was just a single, it was never on an album.
During the passed four years, I sometimes thought: ‘It takes a bit longer this time before they announce a new album’. At least, that crossed my mind…
Yes, for us it takes very long to make the songs, especially when we are touring all the time. Yet that was nice about this recording, dividing it up in two sessions. That also gave us time to listen to the first badge of songs we had for a year. We could listen to them, go back and change small things when we were back for recording the last four songs.
Did you ever try out live one of the songs you were working on?
No. There is no sense in playing songs that nobody heard live. It would be good to see though, because then you see the reactions, but the thing is when people did not heard hear it before, the reaction might be not as good, because they don’t know what they are hearing.
It is not a full potential of what you can achieve with that song…
Exactly.
Do you have any favourites on this album?
(thinks) Yeah, I like ‘Kvasir’s Blood’ a lot and I like ‘Die With A War Cry’ from the songs we haven’t released yet and I really like the acoustic song. ‘Gjallarhorn’ is probably the most crowd friendly sing along song I would say. That is a real sing along track, but also ‘Eight Legs Of Thunder’ is a crowd sing along song.
Is there a special reason why you called the album ‘The Allfather Awakens’?
Yes, it is because all of the songs have a theme, they are about Odin. Every song is like a story about Odin. It is not like a concept album, because there is a difference. There is no continuing story through this album, just completely different stories but they all have a connection with Odin.
Are there any guests on the album?
No there is no guest on this album.
What is ‘Kvasir’s Blood’ about?
That is about making mead. Furthermore I don’t really know the story of that song. I haven’t check out the story of that song yet. That’s more a question for big J (Johan Hegg – VM), he knows all these details in and out. I also don’t know what’s the connection with Odin in that song, I need to read more.
Then you are probably the man who can tell me about the chance of amplifiers or guitars, something musical…
We used more Marshall amps instead of those high game 5150 amps that most metal bands use. It gives a rounder tone I guess. That is something new I guess, but we also use little different effects, mainly it was more Marshall focused, this album. It is a little bit more traditional metal sound. For this album we did not edit that much, which was also different. I was just standing up in the studio and playing my guitar parts. It is like kind of playing live and Jacob was also into that. You know, some producers only record little piece by piece and then they edit it, then it takes the next riff to put together, Jacob was more like I could play the whole song through pretty much. It was way faster and less editing than we ever have done before since ‘With Oden On Our Side’.
Then it comes closer to the live performances as well…
Yeah but also maybe it is because we have become a bit better players now too, since we have played for so long. So that might have something to do with less editing too.
I applaud the human factor, because everything is becoming too much machine like…
Yeah that is really boring.
With that particular song you mentioned earlier, ‘Put Your Back Into The Oar’ a special thing happened during gigs, the birth of ‘the row’… Amon Amarth started that up so it seems…
Yeah I had never heard about it before, it was the first time we saw that when we played at Bloodstock years ago (2009). All of a sudden people sat down and started rowing. We were like ‘that’s something super funny’. Years later we thought: ‘we should write a song about rowing’ and make it our thing’. Then we saw it in a couple of more shows and we wrote that song. Since then it has become something they do on every show and other bands too I see. And then we had this thing during the football world championship. They also started to do that and then they claimed that it was their thing, that they had come up with it (laughs), but we showed our first show where it happened and they had to drop the case. That was one advantage of being filmed all the time.
When the album will be released early October, there is a huge European tour coming up….There should be a new stage act coming up, so maybe you can reveal at least something about that…
Yes, we do a really big tour with Orbit Culture and Soilwork. The whole happening is going to be a completely new stage set. Really cool. It is just revealed now, so I didn’t really see it myself yet, but it will be huge. We had to come up with something cooler than what we did before now, but there is new stuff, that’s going to be looking really cool.
I am looking forward to it!
We are too, looking forward to a headline tour with a new album, new stage set and new power!
