ASK THE BAND: Arch Enemy

[BITPOM]

Today, we have a special "Ask the" with metal titans Arch Enemy! Vocalist Angela Gossow took some time off from preparing for the Tyranny and Bloodshred Tour to field some of our questions on how to make it as a band in today's tough, hyper-saturated metal climate. Leave your questions in the comments, and Angela will get to them next week!
And if you haven't already, head back to the home page of BITPOM and enter to win AE guitarist Michael Amott's signature LTD Ninja guitar, autographed by the man himself!

Q) You've done large festivals, like Ozzfest and Gigantour. You're headlining a smaller tour now. Which do you prefer?

A) Both kind of tours are great! If you want the worry-free, big audience exposure - jump on the festival trek! If you want to play to your core fan base and be 'leader of the pack' you gotta do your own headline tour. How well this will go depends on the status of the band. We are in the lucky position to be able to headline in front of a good amount of people. That is fun and very rewarding!

Q) What is the hardest thing about touring in foreign countries?

A) Getting the visas, ha! Its true. All the preparation that goes into it is a bit of a headache and there is lots of room for catastrophies and failures. Once you are in the country, things tend to go fairly easy. At least for us, but we are well organized and got a competent management and crew to back us up. And we have friends pretty much everywhere who help us out when there is a problem.

Q) What is your biggest expense as a band?

A) The tour bus and flight costs!

Q) What advice would you give to an unsigned band trying to make a splash?

A) A label/record deal is not necessary anymore to become a successful artist! The poster boys for this kind of ‘do it yourself’ approach are an indie rock band called the Arctic Monkeys. There are quite a few bands who got big via MySpace alone. A label offers expertise, money for recording and tour support upfront. If you have a little knowledge and a few funds it's quite easy [to do it yourself] though, to do high quality recordings yourself, tour in a van and get somewhere.

You need discipline, endurance and good songs for this. You probably wont be able to afford a producer, [so] it really comes down to how well you can manage yourself. You need to be socially capable of making the connections with other bands, promoters, bookers, a publishing company and distribution companies. It’s a lot of work and a label covers some of these jobs.

If you are a bunch of gifted musicians and really want to just focus on the music – that might not be sufficient enough to get off the ground. With or without a label – there is lots of work to be done that has nothing to do with jamming tunes in the basement, unfortunately! But you are trying to get a foot in the industry. INDUSTRY. It’s a business and if you don’t find the right partners, you wont go anywhere except a funeral for all your dreams and aspirations.

So, set your eyes straight on your goal and work hard. And don’t forget to practice your instrument as well!

Promoting a new band today has become harder, but also easier in some aspects. There are too many quality/semi-professional bands and too many labels who are releasing albums, which has lead to an [over saturation] of the market. [Fans] simply don’t have the money to buy all these albums and see the live show, so they download most or even all of their music "for free". This obviously leads to a severe drop in sales, the labels drop bands...and we start from scratch.

Best is the ‘do it yourself as much as possible’ approach. Use all the promotion tools and opportunities you can get. The internet offers a lot of possibilities. Host your own website, use MySpace, Facebook and Youtube. Play live!!!

Drop your demo and biography with (local) clubs and promoters. We, Arch Enemy, are basically going to play a show in Helsinki without a support act now, because the club/promoter couldn’t come up with a support act! When I heard that (5 days before the show), I asked a bunch of people myself and Leif suggested a band we took on. A lot of bands miss out on that opportunity! SPREAD THE LOVE – i.e. your DEMOS/CDs!!!

You need to build a fan base. You can achieve this via the internet and playing live. You need people who believe in you, who support you, who will buy your album/come to the show once you get out there. When you have this kind of back up, it’s a lot easier to catch a labels attention.

There are some good books on this subject as well. You might like to check out these:

Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook: 201 Self-Promotion Ideas for Songwriters, Musicians and Bands on a Budget

MySpace Music Profit Monster

Q) Name 3 metal records that still influence you today.

A) Carcass - Necroticism
Death - Leprosy
Morbid Angel - Altars Of Madness

[JANANI]

I MEAN FRESNO

[JANANI]

HEY MSG ME IN MYSPACE [e-mail] YOU ROCK PLAY A SHOW IN FRSNO,CALIFORNIA

[Ramin Sho]

Mike,U R my MOTHERFUCKER HERO.rock on man!!!

[Raven666]

you are awsome you guys really kick ass

[Nemesis]

I'm frome greece and I play guitar in a small band named Deathmark, We have mostly Death/Melodic metal influences [Arch Enemy, Opeth]... The problem is that in a such a small country metal is really not known... To have a death metal band in greece is really difficult, no promotion, louzy clubs and really crappy productions, we have some bands, like Rotting Christ and Firewind, but they started out in europe, having more chances in getting known...
Arch Enemy started out in Sweden, where metal was really known...
So, here's the question...
Do you believe we as a band move to another country to get known, or give it the best we got here in Greece?
Try to keep in mind that with a 600 dollar sallory, it aint easy to move to another country....

[Benn Van Den Ende]

I am 16 years old and am looking for a metal band to join im not just a young boy following his dream i thing (without sounding braggy) that i have talent. How would i go about being taken seriously, ausitioning to join a band??

Thanks :)

[mark overmaat]

vey helpfull info,... thank you

[victoria]

How has your record label helped Arch Enemy (expense wise)? And as far as Arch Enemy is now as a band, are you all able to make a living off of simply being a musician? Does it pay your bills? Just curious because a lot of musicians dream of playing in a band as a career and believe that once you make it big, you get paid BIG. I dont believe all this is true, but i heard you get royalties like free gear, etc.
Is it possible to be able to support yourself and possibly your family with this type of career? Thanks Angela for the advice! You're awesome! As a female, I probably wouldnt have had the courage to front a death metal band if you hadn't done it first! Thanks so much!!

[Justin G]

i've been waiting to start a band and become a professional, i'm buying my own equipment and am taking lessons, i have friends lined up who can play. i have many ideas and i can even draw my own album art, so i am wondering once i get my band going where do i go from there? and what is the best way to keep your band together?

[For the suffering]

Our band was recently signed to a small 3 year/3 album record deal, but Ive seen many bands get this far and just stay here, due to the mass of metal production that seems to drown itself out. Any suggestions, other than live shows and online promotion, that you can give?