That was an interview with a few obstacles… we had to do two Zoom calls, because the first one ended not exactly… in the middle, but after only 5 minutes! Sharlee’s signal was terrible, but thankfully the second one we made it. We talked about Arch Enemy’s new album, the music, the compositions, the melodies, Michael Ammot and Alyssa White- Gluz. We also talked about Spiritual Beggars and the news are not good, as well as The Night Flight Orchestra. Enjoy… Interview: Yiannis Dolas
Rockpages.gr: It looks like that this is the most diverse album by Arch Enemy so far. I mean, there’s not a lot of new, new stuff in there, but the clean vocals are finding their way into the sound. There are more symphonic elements in some songs. What do you say about that?
Sharlee D’Angelo: I think you’re right. I mean, that might not be new, new things, but that this new old things, there’s a lot of things that we might have touched upon a little bit before, but not really delved into. And I think it has a lot to do with the songs themselves. Like, whenever you hear a certain piece of music, you can kind of imagine things on it. It lends itself to a certain type of sound or a certain type of arrangement. Take a song like “Dream Stealer”, which is quite an extreme song, but it opens up a lot in the chorus and is quite big and grand, even though it’s a very fast song. But, it’s something that you hear… You say, “OK, we need this and this and this and that…” You work on that kind of thing. It’s like that on a lot of songs. It’s like you hear things in your head and you just think, “well, we need to try some of this” and you see if it works out…
Rockpages.gr: One of the things that me and I guess a lot of people like in Arch Enemy, is usually the melodies that although it’s an extreme metal band, an extreme metal genre with the brutal vocals and all that. But if you take this away, you have some classic melodies and very nice tunes that you can sing along with, whistle along whatever you like, that sometimes it touches even as far as classic rock in the melody melodies melodically wise, I think. I guess, since you’ve been working with Michael (Ed, Amott) for all those years and not just in Arch Enemy, where does this come from?
Sharlee D’Angelo: I think it’s probably a sum of of the things that we listen to, as you said, it could be classic rock, it could also be classical music, it could be it’s all sorts of things that you get inspiration from. We like melody. And I think it’s just that Michael has an incredible sense of melody. Especially, with very, very simple melody. It’s like very straight to the point melodies, because sometimes you can make beautiful melodies that are very intricate and they’re like longer, but it’s like they’re harder to grasp where he has this thing, where he could play four notes, and it’s not four notes that you heard before. I mean, not in that order in that rhythm. And it’s just sticks with you. He has a knack for directness in his writing… And it also leaves a lot of space for arrangements around it that could sort of like enhance the melody itself. And there are many, many ways you can go about playing with that melody. The melody is still like the core of the whole thing. He’s just very talented. He’s a bit of a genius when it comes to simple but fantastic melodies.
Rockpages.gr: I don’t know who said that, but it’s not what you play that makes a difference, but that you what you don’t play, that makes a difference.
Sharlee D’Angelo: It has just as much impact, if not more, because it’s sometimes you’re tempted of putting too many things in there, but then the more things you put in there, the more distractions you also get. I mean, it’s the same thing with food. If you put too many spices and too many things in there… It’s like, “oh, I like this. I like that. I like that. I want to put all of it in. Yes, you can. But, you know, try it. It might not be very effective, but just like, you know, salt, pepper or pepper and garlic is all you need. You know what I mean?
Rockpages.gr: On the new album also is the first time that you include a cover version on the standard tracklist of the album. Which is also in another language than English, which I think first time you do that as well.
Sharlee D’Angelo: It is absolutely. You know, it was a song that we like, especially Michael is very into obscure metal from weird countries. And he’s very into like old French metal. And so this is a song that… I’ve heard Blasphemy before, like back in the eighties, but I’d never heard this song. And it’s something that we’ve been listening to for years. And then we thought, “well, if we were going to do some covers for bonus tracks or something, why not try this one and see how it turns out?” Because since we have a singer who can sing like that and also speaks French, we thought it’d be cool to try it out. And I think she did such a great job with it. And it turned out so well, we thought, “well, why not do something different this time? And put it on the actual album?” Because I think that it works well within the album. It brings something different to it and we’ll see if people like it or not because it’s quite a new thing for us to do something like that. But, if people don’t like it, they could always skip the track!
Rockpages.gr: Although rock and metal are like a global phenomenon, a global kind of music with bands and artists from all around the world, in my opinion sometimes it’s weird when you listen to the song in a language other than English. I’ve discovered that in Sweden in the late seventies and the eighties, there were a lot of punk bands, Swedish punk bands singing in Swedish. What do you think about that? I mean, listening to rock and metal songs that are not in English and that are some of the countries mother tongue?
Sharlee D’Angelo: I think it’s cool to hear it because it; gives it sort of like a different vibe. I mean, there are loads of bands that I like that sing in different languages. There’s an old classic metal band from Hungary called Apocalypse, for example. I mean, they sing everything in Hungarian and it sounds really cool. I mean, it’s something different.
Rockpages.gr: Well, I think that the Greek language, for example, do not match with the rock or metal.
Sharlee D’Angelo: Well, I don’t agree. I think metal in Greek would probably sound great.
Rockpages.gr: Well, I don’t know! (laughs) Anyway, do you have any news from Spiritual Beggars since you’re playing in that bank as well?
Sharlee D’Angelo: No, there is absolutely nothing planned at the moment. We’ll see in the future if we we feel like doing it again. But, right now everybody in the band is busy with other things. So, there’s no real sort of like time for it right now. But who knows in the future? Never say never.
Rockpages.gr: You are also got involved in a very successful band, I am talking about Night Flight Orchestra, and the question is if you thought when you were starting that project that it was going to be that popular and successful?
Sharlee D’Angelo: Ahhm, no! We basically just because we were a bunch of friends and we wanted to do something together and we all had a love for like classic rock we just started to like to write songs in that vein. And, you know, we just wanted do something with this. So, we recorded the first album. It came out from a very, very small Italian label (Ed, Coroner Records), and we didn’t think much more of it and we continue to write songs. And then… I don’t know, I mean, here we are, seven albums later, I think it’s just because it’s a lot of fun doing that kind of thing, doing something different. But, I never expected it to be that popular at all.
Rockpages.gr: Yeah. And actually, you’re getting better with every album. I think.
Sharlee D’Angelo: Oh, thank you!
Rockpages.gr: And it was very was very sad that before the coronavirus strike, you were supposed to play in Greece. It was scheduled but was canceled
Sharlee D’Angelo: I would love for us to go to Greece, I think it would be the perfect match.
Rockpages.gr: It’s also a surprise that most of you are, let’s say, extreme metal musicians and not musicians from more mainstream rock bands and you play like this in this one?
Sharlee D’Angelo: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to me that just goes to show like the musical diversity that people have. You don’t only listen to one thing and sometimes you just need an outlet for something different. It’s kind of like “a musical vacation”. So, you have like a home away from home.
Rockpages.gr: Would you say that nowadays the audience is more receptive and can accept this a better than, let’s say, ten or 15 years ago?
Sharlee D’Angelo: Yeah, I think people, especially young people, they consume music in a different way because they get everything, they can get any music within a sort of a button push and people just send each other like this Spotify link or songs or YouTube clips… So they get it in a completely different way, which also makes them more open to different sounds, I think.
Rockpages.gr: What you mentioned so far, I mean, right now about, young people, having a different access to music than, I guess, older people. Does it affect you as a band? Talking about Arch Enemy? Because we see other bands that don’t want to release an album. They think that nobody’s going to listen to their entire album and they just want more singles. Some videos. Have you thought about that or it doesn’t appeal to you?
Sharlee D’Angelo: No, no, no. I mean, we’re very old school like that. We think an album is in itself a composition made up of like 10 or 12 songs. It’s a piece of work in itself. So, for us, it’s really really important to kind of keep that for us because it’s what we know and how we grew up and how we consume music. If people just want to consume certain songs, then that’s fine also. But we put it out as a collection of songs, because they belong together and it’s almost like a musical photograph of a point in time. So that’s kind of how we see it.
Rockpages.gr: If somebody asked you to record an EP with three songs from your biggest influences in music, which three songs would that be?
Sharlee D’Angelo: Ohhh, it’s so difficult to say. I mean, because there are so many different types of music that would work. We have done a lot of cover songs in our in our day…
Rockpages.gr: I was talking about you personally…
Sharlee D’Angelo: Oh, me personally. Okay, I don’t want to be difficult, actually. But let’s say, you know what? You put me on the spot. I have such a hard time choosing because there’s so much.
Rockpages.gr: Would those songs come from heavy metal, or somewhere else?
Sharlee D’Angelo: I think it would be both heavy metal and other things. For example, it could be a song by Ultravox and it could be one by Slayer and it could be one by Joy Division or the Police or Elton John or, you know… (laughs)
Rockpages.gr: How do you see Arch Enemy in ten years from now?
Sharlee D’Angelo: Hopefully doing exactly what we do right now, make music, put out albums and tour the world to play to people. That’s what I hope we’re doing and I hope that we are still physically fit to do it.
Rockpages.gr: Well, talking about physical fit to do it, I guess in ten years’ time, maybe some of the big bands that we know and love might not be able to do that. Ozzy’s calling it a day after this, literally. So maybe others. What do you think is going to happen then when Judas Priest, Metallica, you name it, retire?
Sharlee D’Angelo: It’s going to leave a bit of a gap behind, but I think in in time certain bands might be the new big ones, but I mean there are certain bands that are starting to be big like Slipknot. They might be the ones filling up the stadiums. Ghost could be one of those bands. If you look at Sabaton, for example, that are also extremely big. I think those kind of bands are just growing and then there are probably a handful more bands that could do it if they grow as they have so far.
Rockpages.gr: And do you think that rock and metal music are going to lose that popularity if those big bands disappear?
Sharlee D’Angelo: No, I don’t think so, because I think because the music of those bands are still there. And I think also that new band, as I said, new bands will come up and take their place. I don’t quite know. But it, you know, it’s always going to happen. You might lose a little bit of popularity at some point, but then it will gain more and it because it goes up and down all the time. Ιf you can think about it, we’ve never met Jimi Hendrix or so in your life, but that doesn’t mean he’s not popular.
