10 February 2023 – interview by Bec Harbour
It’s early morning in Europe but 8.30pm and sweltering here in Brisbane when I catch up with Sharlee D’Angelo, bass player from Arch Enemy. I am no metal expert (more along the line of punk and alternative music so much more, really only have scratched the surface with metal – you will see in this interview!) so am feeling a little out of my depth on this interview. With Arch Enemy starting their Australian tour this week, it was a timely chat about the tour and their latest music.
We chat about the heat in Brisbane and how cold it is over in Sweden (snow and ice of course!) then get into things.
Bec – Arch Enemy are a very interesting group – when I was looking into the background of the group, I saw that most information had you guys down as a ‘super group’ with members of Carcass, Carnage and yourself having done time in King Diamond and Mercyful Fate (among others). Do you consider Arch Enemy to be a fully-fledged group now, rather than something that people do when they are not doing their regular gigs?
Sharlee – Well yes, and not only know, since forever. I think the term ‘super group’ was coined about us during the first album when someone was writing about us. It wasn’t something that was put together while we broke from other things. Michael had been in Carcass and Daniel and been in Eucharist and so on, but it hadn’t been well, you know, for it to be a super group, you would need super stars in it right?
It just happened you know…
Bec – But in the metal world, those bands are pretty massive?
Sharlee – Yeaaahhhh, yeah, well known acts. It was always meant to be a real thing from the beginning, not a side project. Michael wasn’t in Carcass anymore so it was always intended to be the real thing. It just so happened that some people were in well known, or semi-well-known acts at the time. But no, it’s always been its own thing since the start.
Bec – It’s good to know that, in all my research it’s been super group. It seems to be a bit of a media beat-up right?
Sharlee – yeah definitely.
Bec – we’ll move onto further media beat-ups as I have another question about that later. Moving on, the incredible pedigrees and experience that each of you bring to the band, that adds up to considerable experience with big tours and big albums (prefaced with this being in the metal world)?
Sharlee – I think we all have different strengths and experiences so what-ever knowledge or experience that you bring to the group, it’s an ingredient that makes up the final cake. We all bring different things as we all have different outlooks on things but if someone brings in a riff or a song, everyone has a different take on it. It’s what helps it become the final song in the end, there are so many building blocks to the end. You know when someone builds a house, someone might want brick and someone else might want aluminium siding and that’s the interesting thing – we all look at it in so many different ways.
We all like the same type of music and we all aim for the same goal but the way there might be different. There are different things for each band member that they bring to the band, and I think that’s one of our strengths as well.
Bec – In 2022 the band released Deceivers – on a lot of places you guys are described as Swedish melodic black metal. I thought on the new one you had a lot of traditional metal influences as well as a bit of the metalcore influence, what do you think of those tags? Do you think that the genres blur more than that?
Sharlee – Well just to correct you a little bit, we are Swedish Melodic Death Metal. They are two very different things. You know I actually don’t mind it at all, you know with death metal the vocals are mainly not melodic, just growls, the fast-double bass drums and the down-tuned guitars – these are all ingredients that we know and love from traditional death metal.
And then we have added melody to it, there’s a bunch of bands that get pigeonholed with that, you know like In Flames and At the Gates or Soilwork or Dark Tranquillity, all those bands, they sound quite different so I suppose it’s an umbrella we can quite happily stand under.
But as you pointed out, we love very traditional metal, things like Megadeth, Judas Priest or Maiden, all that stuff goes into it, and if you listen to some of the songs, if you didn’t have the growls or the down-tuned guitars it could be a German Power Metal in certain parts and other Grindcore, we like all these things and I think because many of us came from the death metal scene, it was a natural thing to continue with that.
I don’t mind when we get pigeonholed, how do you describe music in words, it’s not easy, people know somewhat, what to expect. If they like that then they will discover the rest.
Bec – That was what I was hoping you would say! So, talk to me about the 11th album. What were some of the things you were listening to inspire you or doing to inspire you, as I take it that this came about in the thick of covid, although from memory, Sweden didn’t lock down.
Sharlee – No, not nearly as bad as anywhere else.
Bec – so you guys wouldn’t have had the same constraints that other bands had elsewhere had? Were you all in Sweden? There wouldn’t have been the same issues, other than not being able to leave the country?
Sharlee – Yeah and that was a bit of a problem, you see since we had to leave the country to record the album. Not too far though, just across the water to Denmark, that was a bit of trouble, Denmark was locked down a lot harder than we were.
We basically had to sneak people in, various ways, and record. So, we did that, and some of the recording we did in Sweden which was a lot easier, we could move around a lot more freely. It meant there were a few difficulties than normal to record an album.
As far as the music itself, I don’t know if it had been affected [by the pandemic] that much. Most of the songs were written before covid, but then you never know, with a bit of doom and gloom, performances might be a little different had we not had a lockdown.
It’s difficult to say if it had an effect, it’s difficult to say if there’s anything affected by the whole pandemic thing you know?
Bec – A lot of bands I have interviewed post lockdown have said, yeah, we were miserable and our music really reflects that. Yours is death metal so…
Sharlee – hahaha yeah uhuh, well we have all had at least 1 or 2 songs somewhere in our careers about the plague, right? Haahaha!
Bec – we are getting to the end of our time – Australian tour – how much are you looking forward to it?
Sharlee – So much, SOOO much. It’s been a few years and we are so looking forward to it, we had such a great time last time. Its been a few years.
The first time we came down, in maybe 2005, we were backstage and there was a door between us and the audience, we were listening to the changeover and it sounded like a war was going on in there. We were like this seems like the place for us and that’s why we have been back and forth a few times.
Arch Enemy are on tour starting this week.
ARCH ENEMY February 2023 Tour Dates
Sunday February 12th – AUCKLAND – Powerstation
Tuesday February 14th – Adelaide – Governor Hindmarsh
Wednesday February 15th – BRISBANE – Tivoli Theatre
Friday February 17th – SYDNEY – Metro Theatre
Saturday February 18th – MELBOURNE – Forum Theatre
Sundy February 19th – FREMANTLE – Metropolis
Presale: Wednesday 12 October at 9:30 AM AEDT
General public on sale: Thursday 12 October at 11:00AM AEDT
Tickets from:
https://davidroywilliams.com/tours/arch-enemy-2023/ or https://metropolistouring.com/arch-enemy-2023/
