Soilwork
Heavy hitters Soilwork are heading down under for their sixth Australian tour which is shaping up to be a cracker. Soilwork celebrated the release of their tenth album The Ride Majestic in 2015 and according to front man Bjorn “Speed” Strid when he spoke to Across The Ocean they are looking forward to playing them for their Aussie fans.
It sounds like it is all systems go for Soilwork with so much good stuff happening for the band including another Australian tour?
I know, it is going to be great, I cannot wait to bring those new songs to the stage in Australia. We tried them out on tour with Hell Fire in North America and they are working out really well live.
How was it touring with Soulfly?
I wouldn’t say I’m a fan perse of Soulfly but I am a big fan of stuff that Max Cavalera has done including Sepultura who I have been a fan of since I was a teenager. Obviously it is very cool touring with Max, he put on a good show and the band are great players. It was a really cool experience and Soulfly is quite different from Soilwork so we need to crossover a little bit. It was a good tour for us as well being able to try out new songs which we tried to focus on not being the headline act.
Was it harder trying to win over their fans?
Um, I think it was a really good response right through the whole tour. The new Soilwork album is half paced where as the new Soulfly album is groove based and more metal. I think it blended very well and I’m all for touring with bands that don’t sound to similar to my own band. I think it is really cool when we have a package with different sounding bands within the metal genre. I think it worked out really well.
Congratulation on twenty years as a band! It is a significant milestone these days given how long some bands last. How did you celebrate the milestone?
Thanks for mentioning it, it is hard to grasp and I was seventeen when I started the band and now I’m thirty seven. That is pretty insane thinking back! We’ve had ten albums and the live DVD we released earlier in 2015 was a nice summation and sum up of our career even though the new album is not really on that DVD. I don’t know, we really haven’t planned anything to celebrate because it was a little while ago and it has been journalists who have reminded me. I’m not sure if we’ll do something special but we should do something so we’ll talk about that and come back.
Do you get nostalgic when you look back and realise you have spent your late teens and early adulthood in the band?
I am a pretty nostalgic person and sometimes very sentimental. It is quite an accomplishment and the thing I’m most proud of is how we have been able to develop our music without turning boring or being forced. I think we’re more energetic than ever, I know that sounds like a cliché but I really believe we are. If you listen to the album or come and see us live I think we sound better, I don’t know if we look better but I think the energy is there. Compared to many other bands we’re not going down, we’re still playful with our music and being pretty progressive at times and still writing really good songs as well as still playing really good live. I think we have been brave and not really played it safe.
What drives the creative process for Soilwork?
There are different factors weighing in there. It takes time to become a good song writer, there has been line up changes but for Soilwork it has been a very good thing. It might look idiotic from the outside and people might think what is this Soilwork circus with all the line up changes? That’s ok, if you were in the band you would look way more naturally because as you said it has been twenty years and there will be things happening along that way. People change and find other things in life but we have always been able to bring people in to the band that have always brought something new and interesting to the table.
For example with Dirk coming in on drums brought more intense drumming to our sound. Then David and Sylvain coming in to the band as guitarists really challenged me as a singer and made me step outside of my comfort zone. They threw me some stuff and it’s like wow this is not like what Peter used to write, we love it! I’ve always been very open to that and I’ve never been the leader type where I tell people to play Soilwork music, that has never been the case. I think that has made all the difference in the end. David brought something really interesting so did Sylvain and I started picking up the guitar once again and started writing songs from scratch being able to create something really interesting and found something new. It has been a very democratic band and really open to different types of ideas and somehow we still make it true to our roots. It is really cool that we managed to do that and not a lot of bands have been able to do that. I know there are lots of bands out there trying to recreate that album that made them big in the first place and trying to copy that feeling they had back then but instead we have been able to move on.
It almost seems like some bands need that killer debut album to actually be their third album?
Yeah, I don’t think we could have made the same album twice. It has been a process and we have grown up with the band. I’m in a different place mentally now compared to when I was seventeen, there’s going to be a lot of things happening in that time. Now, we’re at a point that as a band we can do whatever we want like technically but that has never been the point for us. It is about the song, it’s about albums but the feeling of knowing that we can do whatever we want is a great feeling and that takes time. It takes a lot of shows and studio time but it is a really cool feeling that we have evolved so much as musicians. That doesn’t always mean that you’ll become a better song writer but in this case it has, I feel.
Do you feel that the band is now settled considering line up changes or will there be future changes to keep it fresh?
I hope not, it isn’t something that you long for trying to fire some people to get some fresh blood in. That has never been the case, it has been a natural development in that sense. People find other things in life and an example is our bass player who was with us for twenty years decided to jump off the band, it is understandable and there is no bad blood what so ever because it was like guys I don’t feel motivated to do this anymore, I think I need something of a normal life and those things were really important to him. It gets harder with age, you need your sleep, you need your daily routine so it is really understandable. It’s nothing we hope for and the line up as it is right now is fantastic. Markus is such a great bass player and performer, it is such a great vibe and we’re hanging out like we used to in the beginning of our careers, out drinking together is a good sign and if not that well then things aren’t really as they should be. Now we are more of a unit and even live it’s an energetic show and our sound is very energetic to.
How do you think the Soilwork sound has evolved?
At first we were really young and it was about primal aggression and you throw riffs on top of each other thinking that’s awesome, that’s awesome! You think in riffs and not in songs, where we developed a lot is hard to sum it up. I think we found something in 2001’s A Predator’s Portrait which was fairly progressive. Even though we’re not talking progressive metal in that sense the elements are there. We have always had a playful approach to our sound especially with the latest two albums that element is there. That element of surprise and the feel of being spontaneous as well and even though we have become better song writers it doesn’t feel like riffs on top of each other.
Have you been able with how The Ride Majestic has been received and does that make you feel like getting back in to the studio to knock out another album?
Absolutely, the response has been fantastic and that’s what happened after The Living Infinite after Peter jumped off the band again we needed to make that double album in order to rediscover ourselves as song writers. Most of the members contributed with songs and we got a great kick out of that and gained so much confidence through that experience as well. With this new album being slightly darker, more melancholic I think we have been able to develop that even more. I definitely picture me being excited about writing the new album and that is a good sign. The rest of the boys feel the same way.
Are you excited headlining your own tour in Australia?
We got a lot of good responses from Australia especially with this new album. It is going to be a great tour for sure and will be our sixth Australian tour. I can’t believe we have been there that many times but it is always so much fun and will be so much fun playing these new songs live as well. I’m sure the crowd will love it as well.
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
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