Rockezine.com interview with Soilwork on Mar 18, 2003

with Bjorn “Speed” Strid on Mar 18, 2003


		Hey Bjorn, how are you? Great man, how are you?
		Just fine, thanks! So, congratulations on another great Soilwork album. Thank you very much.
		Natural Born Chaos was only released a year ago, and already you release another album. How did you manage to do this? That’s a good question. Well, last year was pretty hectic for Soilwork with a US tour, a European tour and a Japanese tour as well. Somewhere in between those tours, we succeeded in writing new material. And we were all full of inspiration. Of course we got a lot of inspiration from Devin Townsend, who we recorded Natural Born Chaos with. We felt very confident in what we were doing. I think that Peter wrote 3 new songs after recording that album. So as long as we feel confident in what we are doing, I guess there’s no need to slow down.
		Was there a lot of tension when recording the album, because it was such a fast release. Not really. I think we had like 14 new songs while recording in the studio. We just picked out 11 songs, the best ones. Also, we recorded the album in three different studios this time. We recorded the drums in Daniel’s studio because we wanted a dirtier drum sound. Just a little bit more punchy. We decided to do the guitars and keyboards in our hometown. And after that we recorded the vocals and bass in studio Fredmann.
		So you had multiple producers for the album? Well, I guess you can say that, yeah.
		Was Devin Townsend involved in the producing then? We asked Devin about producing the next album and he wanted to do it, but unfortunately he wasn’t at home at that time. But it was a good thing, just to show people that we could do it on our own, because there were a lot of stupid rumors on the Internet about Devin doing everything on Natural Born Chaos.
		Members of Soilwork have some side projects as well, for example your drummer Henry Ranta. He also plays in The Defaced. Wasn’t it a problem for Soilwork to record another album while Henry was also recording a new album with The Defaced? Soilwork is his main priority, there are no problems yet. He really likes playing in The Defaced, but he focuses 100 % on Soilwork even though he is active in a side project. I think they recorded their latest album in October, so they were taking a break after the recording and he had time to record the new album.
		So what can you tell us about the album? What kind of sound is it compared to other Soilwork albums? It’s really more of a natural development from Natural Born Chaos. Of course, there are some changes, because we never do the same album twice. That’s what the band’s all about. And I think the fans will grow along with the sound. The biggest change is the riffing. It’s all the same, but in a more unique way. We worked a lot with keyboards. Also, I think that the vocals are more varied on this album because I rehearsed a lot on the clean vocals. You’ll find clean vocals everywhere, not just in the choruses.
		It’s also a little bit heavier than Natural Born Chaos. I totally agree, actually! I didn’t expect the album to be any heavier than Natural Born Chaos, I expected it to be the other way around. A lot softer. And as it turns out, it’s a fucking heavy album. There’s a lot of intensity but still a lot of melody and atmosphere as well.
		Are you guys going to be shooting a video for songs on the new album? We already recorded a video actually, for the first song on the album “Rejection Role”. It’s kind of funny because we did that together with In Flames. So they are in the Soilwork video and we are in their video (laughs). I guess we just wanted to make fun of the whole comparing thing going on. We’re acting like rivals in the video. And we’re doing sort of a drive-by thing throwing water balloons at each other! (laughs). So it’s a pretty funny video. Both the videos are sort of linked to each other. We had a lot of fun doing that video. Normally you’ll have five angry guys standing in a warehouse.
		Like the video for “As We Speak”… Yeah, exactly! I mean, it’s a cool video, but there’s nothing original about it. And you know, metalheads can have a lot of fun to! I think it’ll get a lot of attention.
		The new album is called Figure Number Five. What is the meaning behind this title? Well, it’s like when people are the fifth wheel in society. Victims of society. And the struggle of the innocent. So it’s kind of like a tribute to those people.
		Soilwork has been compared to In Flames a lot. Especially with your last album. Does it trouble you that get compared to bands like them? Not that much, because Natural Born Chaos was released before their album Reroute To Remain, so I’m wondering who’s first (laughs). In Flames have their own sound and there are no hard feelings. In fact, we’re very good friends. Even they don’t understand why Soilwork is being compared to In Flames. They believe we have our own sound and I totally agree with that.
		In the past years Soilwork has grown a lot, musically. You’ve been gaining a lot more fans from over the entire world, and toured with bands like Killswitch Engage. Did this broaden your fan base? Yeah, I guess so because we sold about 6.000 copies of A Predator’s Portrait in the States while Natural Born Chaos sold nearly 20.000 copies there. So the fan base is definitely growing a lot. And hopefully with this album, it’s going to be even bigger. But don’t get me wrong here, we’re not only focusing on the States. Of course we’re hoping that the fan base will grow in Europe as well.
		The melodic death metal/Gothenburg scene has been given a great boost in the past years. What do you think about this happening? Well, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, there was something called the Gothenburg sound but now every band has developed into their own sound. Sure, maybe there’s like a Swedish sound, but no Gothenburg sound anymore. But yeah, I totally agree that the Swedish bands have gotten a boost, especially in the States. A lot of American people seem to be very interested in Swedish melodic metal. And there are a lot of hardcore bands mixing their style with the Swedish sound, like Killswitch Engage.
		So is the band looking forward to get back on the road again? Yeah of course! We like to tour and it’s always a lot of fun to play live. We’re going on a European tour with Children Of Bodom and Shadows Fall in the end of April. So it’s going to be great! Then we have a lot of festivals in the summer and in July we’re doing a US tour. Then there’s Wacken Open Air, followed by another Japanese tour. So it’s going to be a hectic year for Soilwork.
		Do you consider Soilwork a live band then? I think Soilwork is very different live, compared to listening to an album of ours. I think it should be that way because it’s so boring to see bands live that sound exactly like what they put on their CD. So we try to give the people more of a spontaneous show and I think it all sounds really good live. Unfortunately it’s really hard to combine the clean vocals with the screaming, but I’m getting better and so are the other guys.
		Now a bit of a personal question. Which new bands do you consider the best in the last two years? Wow…that’s a tough question…Man you got me there. There’s an album coming out pretty soon of a band called Nightrage. It’s nothing new, but they’re doing the whole Swedish sound in a very unique way. What else is there…? I really like the comeback of Dimension Zero, that’s a great album. I also love the Killswitch Engage album, it’s so cool! These are pretty much my favorites.
		That’s all I got. Thanks for the interview and good luck with the band and upcoming shows! Anything you want to add? Well, we’re just looking forward to touring. It’ll be great to come to Holland again because I think there are a lot of Soilwork fans in Holland and I like the people very much. They’re all so spontaneous.
(Robert Graalman)