Spiritual Beggars Interview with Michael Amott: How Per Wiberg’s Moustache Can Really Make all the Difference When Returning to Zero
Released at the end of August via InsideOut Music (Trooper Entertainment in Japan), Return to Zero is the first Spiritual Beggars record in five years, and the first to be released since the departure of vocalist JB Christoffersson, who split with the long-running and influential Swedish rockers to focus his attention on his main outfit, the always-epic Grand Magus.
Spiritual Beggars are no strangers to balancing between other bands. Guitarist and founder Michael Amott has seen more of his attention over the years go toward melodic death metal stalwarts Arch Enemy, in which he plays with Beggars bassist Sharlee D’Angelo (he’s the terrifying one in the press shots), drummer Ludwig Witt is formerly of Firebird and keyboardist Per Wiberg‘s paying gig these days is with prog-death giants Opeth. So, Spiritual Beggars, while always fun, isn’t what you’d call a full-time occupation. Hence the five-year split between Return to Zero and 2005’s Demons.
But when it was announced Christoffersson was departing from the band, one had to wonder whether Spiritual Beggars could continue at all. Christoffersson hadn’t been their first frontman (that would be Christian “Spice” Sjöstrand, also of The Mushroom River Band and currently Spice and the RJ Band), but his presence was undeniably part of what made 2002’s On Fire and Demons the catalog highlights they were. Fortunately, Firewind singer Apollo Papathanasio joined the ranks and work on Return to Zero began in earnest.
I wanted to discuss with Amott — also a former member of grindcore pioneers Carcass — how it felt to go back to Spiritual Beggars after so much time to make this album and, most of all, what it was like to work with Per Wiberg‘s moustache, which, as you can see in the press shots included with the interview, is fucking awesome. He was a good sport and happy to share, as you can plainly see below.
Full Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.
Was it strange for you to go back to Spiritual Beggars after all that’s happened since the last album? Arch Enemy breaking big and the Carcass reunion and everything surrounding that?
Yes, it was a little bit strange (laughs). I’ve been accumulating these song ideas for quite some time, and it was frustrating because I didn’t have any outlet for songs that were more in this style, not extreme metal. I was wanting to do it, but yeah, you have to rethink a bit your whole approach. But it was great, once we all got together and stuff, jamming. The first couple days it was weird, but after that, you get into it, readjust.
Is that what the album title was alluding to? Going back to the start with the band?
It was totally about that, because when we started to put this album together and take these songs more seriously, we found out JB, our singer, couldn’t do it, and we didn’t have a singer, we didn’t a record label, we didn’t have management. Nobody knew we were starting up again. So, it was kind of like starting over again in a new band, in a way. But also, a lot of the songs on the record, I noticed when we put it all together, a lot of the songs were about having a new start in life, a rebirth, moving on, and so we thought it was a cool title. It fits.
That’s got to be kind of exciting too, though. You’re basically rebuilding the band, especially with JB leaving.
Of course. I love challenges like that (laughs). It’s exciting, because you’re in the basement of some old house rehearsing, not a studio, and you think, “We’ve got some fantastic material here. Sounds awesome, sounds killer. But nobody knows about it.” It’s fun. It’s like you’ve got a secret weapon you’re about to unleash. When Apollo came in, the new singer, we started working with him and just found that he really went to the next level. I could really hear the songs coming to life and I thought, “This is going to be pretty cool. It’s going to be very exciting hard rock music.” He had the right pipes for the job, the right attitude and everything. You get carried by that enthusiasm. He came with a very positive attitude.
How much was written when he came on? Had you really started writing before JB left?
Oh yeah. I’d written a lot before that. I’d been accumulating ideas for the last five years. It was a combination. I had a lot of stuff, the skeleton or whatever you call it, the meat and potatoes of the song, but all the finer details, I brought everybody together for two weeks down here in the south of Sweden where I live – because we’re a little spread out geographically here in Sweden, the band – brought everybody together for a couple weeks, and we jammed every day, many, many hours. That’s when we really nailed what I guess was the pre-production or whatever you want to call it. I just wanted to get everybody together and have everybody contribute in their own way, with their own sounds. I didn’t want to be telling everybody exactly what to do, because the great thing about these musicians is they’re great musicians. Like Per, the keyboard player who is also in Opeth. He’s a fantastic keyboard player. He’d play something that would inspire me to play something, and vice versa. You keep building on that. I think that’s why we have to be all together in a room. I didn’t want to be emailing sound files to each other. It had to be done the old-school way.
I think that fits with the band’s sound.
Exactly. That’s why I started that band, why I started Spiritual Beggars, so I could do that kind of stuff. I didn’t want to compromise on that. The biggest problem with this record was synchronizing everybody’s schedules. Everybody having different main bands, main priorities in their career. That was the biggest headache. Once we got together, it was a lot of fun.
Is it ever frustrating for you, when you come up with a great idea for Spiritual Beggars in the middle of an Arch Enemy tour, to not be able to do something with it right then?
I guess, yeah. I do tend to record everything I come up with. I try to. Somehow I have to record it, because I’ll forget it. If I don’t record it, I’ll forget it for sure (laughs). So I just record everything. I did a fair bit of jamming these last few years with our drummer Ludwig. He’s local here as well, so we meet up every few months or so and just run through the latest riffs and stuff like that, what’s been recorded recently. That’s how we started building these songs, I guess. It was just really nice to get everyone together. We sound so much better when everybody’s contributing.
You mentioned Per, and I have a couple questions about Per’s moustache.
Oh yeah (laughs). Yeah.
It is truly epic.
I was a bit surprised. He came down for the photoshoot for the album. We did the photoshoot and the album recording at the same time, with some brief rehearsals. Basically, I brought everybody down for like three weeks, and yeah, he came down with this moustache, and it was like, “Wow. That’s something else” (laughs). It looks great in the pictures.
It does.
It’s some Civil War-type shit, isn’t it?
It is. That thing is good. Has the awesomeness of Per’s moustache changed your approach to the band at all?
It’s made everybody envious. I definitely can’t grow something like that. There’s a fair bit of envy.
Tension in the band?
Tension, yeah (laughs). There’s some more complex chords, some bigger chords, and he’d use his moustache to get in there.
Was there any thought of just making the moustache the album cover?
We should have put it on the girl on the cover (laughs). That’s a great idea. We couldn’t think that far ahead. I didn’t realize what an impact it was going to have on the music scene (laughs).
Has your appreciation for the classic rock that made you start the band in the first place changed at all since you got Spiritual Beggars going?
Yeah, I guess. You kind of go in and out of things, in phases or whatever. When I started the band, I’d just gotten into it. I grew up on more extreme sounds. I grew up, when I was a kid, on punk and hardcore music in the early ‘80s, and that was really my first music when I was buying records. Then I got into the whole trash metal, speed metal thing, with Metallica, Megadeth, all that stuff. Slayer, of course, were a big band for me. Then, much later on, I got into the classic rock stuff, so yeah, when I got into classic rock or whatever you call it – ‘70s hard rock or whatever – in a big way in the early ‘90s, I was buying a lot of records and getting into it, and just feeling inspired. I wanted to do a project in that style as well, which turned into Spiritual Beggars. Then, you know how you just go through phases. I’ve always liked to listen to it, but sometimes I’ll listen to that kind of stuff for six months and you get burnt out on stuff when you have real intense – because I’ll listen really intensely to stuff and get burnt out on it and I’ll have to leave it alone for a few years. Then I’ll come back to it again (laughs). I can’t just mix it up with everything that I’m into. I have to just get into one thing in a big way.
Do you ever get a sense of how Spiritual Beggars influenced the hard rock scene in Sweden? For that style of heavy rock, Sweden has one of the best scenes in the world.
Really? (Laughs) I wasn’t aware of that.
No?
I guess, because we were one of the first ones, I think, to do that kind of thing in Sweden, at that time and in that way. I guess maybe that may have had an influence, but I don’t really know. I don’t really keep up with that. I don’t really meet too many musicians in that style who have said anything. I don’t really follow that scene, the scene of bands playing more vintage rock. I don’t really know what’s going on, actually (laughs).
You mentioned before it being tough bringing everyone together to work on Beggars material. Is that part of why it’s been so long since the last album? Do you think it’ll be that long before the next?
It’s gonna be 10 years (laughs). Double or nothing. It’s gonna be 10 years or tomorrow, I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s whenever you have the songs. One of the big deals was getting together. You’ve got members of Opeth and Arch Enemy and a bunch of other bands trying to get together, synchronizing your schedules and making music. That’s just getting increasingly difficult for the last 10 years, but this last five years it was just incredibly difficult because obviously Opeth and Arch Enemy are such touring monsters. It’s very time-consuming. But also, I didn’t really have enough good material, and I think if you don’t have enough good songs, you shouldn’t just go and make records all the time. I didn’t really want to make anything that was subpar. I wanted it to be really good, really strong. Which I completely, completely failed with, of course – at least that’s the reviews (laughs).
What about touring? Is there room with everyone’s other bands?
We’re going to do a few things here and there. We’ve already booked a few shows. We’ve got Greece coming up in a few weeks. That’s in Europe (laughs).
Oh! I’ve heard of that. Thank you. Europe… now where is that?
It’s a beautiful country (laughs). We’re going to Japan as well, for a couple shows. We’re looking at a few other things right now, but I don’t know. It’s got to make sense. I don’t think we’ll make it over to the US. We’ve never been there with Spiritual Beggars. Basically, Spiritual Beggars is a band we do because we love getting together and making this music, but it’s not a career band. So going to the US or something like that just doesn’t make sense. Trying to build something from scratch doesn’t make sense for that band, unfortunately maybe for the five people that want to see us (laughs).
Ah hell man, I’d be there.
Yeah, six. Great (laughs).
Well thanks man, that should actually do it for me… unless you want to talk more about Per’s moustache, in which case I could be here all afternoon.
I’ll put you in touch with it directly (laughs). Quite a few of the reviews are talking about his moustache now.
I’m guilty of that as well.
It’s distracting away from my solos (laughs).
Yeah man, that moustache is a total rock star.
I know, it is. It looks great and everything, but it can be a real asshole…
Tags: InsideOut, Spiritual Beggars, Sweden
