Arch Enemy Discusses Success In Changing Vocalists

Michael Amott from Arch Enemy sat down for an interview at the Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium, in which he discussed the band's success in changing vocalists from the iconic Angela Gossow to Alissa White-Gluz (in addition to changing from Johan Liiva to Angela Gossow back in 2000). Video of the interview can be seen below, while relevant excerpts are as follows:

"It all happened very quickly, actually. The initial feeling was also that this is gonna be very difficult to replace an iconic front figure in a band who is well established. But Alissa came into the picture very quickly. I mean, at the end of the day I had two choices: to stop the band and say, 'that was a great run,' and just finish it; or try something... with the new lineup. And we just did that, and it's worked out very, very well for us, so we're very happy.

He goes on to say, "I believe that it's in nature of being a fan that you want… you fall in love with a band at one point in your life and you want them to stay exactly the same for the rest of, never change the sound, how they look. And, obviously, this was a big change, but I think it was a successful one. There are a lot of examples when it hasn't worked out so well for bands when they changed their singer, but this is one of those rare cases where, actually, the band has kind of gone up instead of staying the same."