ARCH ENEMY Guitarist Reports On NAMM, South American Tour

ARCH ENEMY guitarist Michael Amott has posted the following message on the band's official web site:

"Myself and Daniel Erlandsson [drums] traveled to sunny California last month and spent a few days at the NAMM convention. We had a wail of time hanging out and doing the NAMM thing!

"So I met a lot of cool new people and made some good contacts. The NAMM show is the largest music products trade show in the world...it's a crazy circus — and a lot of fun! Also bumped into a lot of people I know — Doug Aldrich (WHITESNAKE),Tim 'Ripper' Owens (ICED EARTH, ex-JUDAS PRIEST),Jed Simon (STRAPPING YOUNG LAD),Jeff Loomis (NEVERMORE),Phil Demmel (MACHINE HEAD),Jody 'Dank' Dankberg (ex-Krank Amps),Brendon and Tommy ('Metalocalypse') and tons more...too many to mention really — but I had a great time hanging with you all!

"But the main reason I was there was for the autograph signing session at the ESP Guitars booth and to promote my signature model: the 'Ninja V' guitar! The signing was extremely busy and fun — always a pleasure to meet the guitar maniacs out there!

"I attended an ESP dinner with all the ESP artists present — people like George Lynch [DOKKEN], Michael Wilton [QUEENSRŸCHE], Page Hamilton [HELMET], Gus G. [FIREWIND], Bruce Kulick [ex-KISS] and Stef Carpenter [DEFTONES] etc. If a guitar fan had walked in to that restaurant they'd be pretty surprised! It's awesome how cool all these guys are when you just hang out in a relaxed situation. A huge thanks to Allen, Matt, Jose and Makoto and everyone else at ESP Guitars for bringing me over again for the event and for their awesome support! Here's to another great year for ESP Guitars!

"After the NAMM we spent a couple of days hanging out in Los Angeles. Did a lot of sleeping and demoed new ideas for ARCH ENEMY tunes... Then we flew down to South America and hooked up with the rest of the ARCH ENEMY band and crew. We stopped off in Lima, Peru on the way down there to re-fuel the plane... It would be great to play Peru someday. Maybe next time.

"The 'South American Doomsday' tour started in Chile and then went to Argentina and Brazil — four shows in all, and were blown away by the response and how many fans came to all the shows — we averaged at 2,000 fans a night.

"We did a autograph signing session in Sao Paulo Brazil at Rock Bar called Blackmore with 450 die-hard ARCH ENEMY fans in attendance. What a crazy crowd! That was so much fun. At the concerts we also found out that the South American fans like to sing along the solos and melodies, just like in Japan! Gotta love that!

"I found these neat clips on YouTube: 'Burning Angel' [video], 'Ravenous' [video].

"We were actually filming and recording professionally in South America. We are planning on releasing a cool little mini-DVD or something in the near future. Maybe it will be included with the new album; we are not sure yet. It has been great to be able to document the tour. It will be super cool for fans all over the world to see how awesome the South American ARCH ENEMY fans are! Our video/audio guy Paul Smith is going through 40 hours of tape and sound files. We'll keep you posted.

"So basically ARCH ENEMY fell in love with South America and we can't wait to get back after the next album! OK, a huge THANK YOU to all the fans in Chile, Argentina and Brazil! Also thanks to the promoter Alex of EyeScream Productions for a great tour — the local promoters also...and everybody that helped out — all good guys. Special thanks to our TM Mikey Poole and the rest of our crew — you guys kick ass! See you again soon!"

Check out photos of ARCH ENEMY in South America and at NAMM 2007 at this location.