This interview took place with Olli Mikkonen of Amon Amarth when they play The Palladium in Worcester, MA on December 16. If you haven't heard of these metal powerhouses, you're doing yourself a disservice, as everything about this band is huge. They look like vikings and sound like they could easily kick your ass with their crushing metal sound.

PL: State something interesting about yourself.
OM: Something interesting about myself.
JS: You're an amazing guitar player.
OM: Yes, I'm an amazing guitar player. I fucking kick ass.

PL: Is it hard to remain healthy while on the road during the winter months?
OM: No. Of course, if one guy in the band gets sick, then the whole bus is sick, but if you take C Vitimins and drink a lot of screwdrivers in the evening, then you're pretty okay.

PL: Do you ever worry about having to go through line up changes at all?
OM: No. We have a stable line up as it is. There's no reason for changes.
PL: Did you find it difficult finding the stable line up? I know its years since you've had this line up.
OM: I wouldn't say it was really hard. The changes we did, we didn't really have to look for it that much because we already had back up plans, sort of. When our first drummer left, I thought of Fredrik before Martin Lopez joined, but then Martin just showed up, and I didn't have time to ask Fredrick. But, he joined the band a few years later. Sweden is full of great musicians, so its really not that hard. I think we have a solid and good line up, so we don't need to have any changes...hopefully.

PL: If you could go back and change anything about Fate of Norms, would you?
OM: No. I don't think its our strongest album, but still I think we needed that album to turn out the way it turned out and gather ourselves to do an even stronger album, which we did. Without Fate of Norms, we probably wouldn't have a strong Odin (With Odin on Our Side) like we have today. No, I wouldn't change it, because I think one thing led to another thing, and if we take away from the other thing, the one thing would never come. Like I said, without Fate of Norms, we wouldn't have Odin as it is today.

PL: Whats the best way for you guys to write a song?
OM: We have a few ideas, a few riffs, and a few lyric ideas for the riffs, and then we sit down together, the whole band, and start jamming it. I think thats the best way.

PL: Whats a little known fact about Sweden?
OM: There's a lot of polar bears on the streets. I'm just kidding. We actually have sunshine. Its not dark there all the time. There's a group of people, like you have heavy metal people and you have punks; there's a group who call themselves rockgennga (???-I wasn't sure what the Swedish word he said was, but he's talking about Rockabilly). They look like guys from the 50s. They have hair like Elvis Presley and listen to Elvis Presley and they ride big American old cars. They run around with the big cars and they fight and they just make a mess. All their symbols are American symbols. There are pretty many of them. Its almost as big as heavy metal or being a punk or whatever.

PL: Is it hard to kill time when you arrive at the club to when you play your set?
OM: Yeah, usually. It depends if the venue is downtown, then you can spend all day shopping or window shopping. But today, Saturday, not much is open, at least here close by. We're happy we have internet at all the venues, so at least we can do some internetting.

PL: Name one album, besides your own, that you think all kids should have in their collection.
OM: Definitely Slayer's Season of the Abyss.

PL: Do you have anything else that you want to say?
OM: Buy our DVD. It kicks ass.

Interview by: RF

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