How are the interviews going so far?
They're going great! Everybody's really liking the album.
I don't know what to expect from America, but
hopefully the album will go over really well.
I don't know about the rest of the states,
but Century Media has got really good distribution here in
in Hawaii. And I think that was the
major problem why people just didn't get a chance to hear the first album!
Yeah, I agree. I don't know who licensed Steel Bath Suicide in
the states (it was Listenable), but
hopefully the sales statements will go up a little bit.
Well, I got it through Listenable, but I was
set to mail order it mainly due to word of mouth, you know,
everybody telling me that I had to hear this
hot new band (I'm really laying it on here, and he laughs) that's
why people bought it, because everyone that
heard it agreed that SBS was something special. You couldn't
find it in most stores though.
Well, that's bad, just bad distribution. It's also why such good
bands, other bands never get heard
as well. You have to mail order them or search for them in some
catalog to get the CD.
Are you still under Listenable, and Century
Media just handling the distro in the states?
Yeah, yeah. That's the story. Actually, I met a guy from
Century Media in Holland, and I gave him
the rough mix of The Chainheart Machine in like March or April (1999),
and he loved it, and they sent it it
to America. That's when they asked us if we wanted to do a license
deal with them in America. We don't have
a contract anymore with Listenable, since our contract was only for
two albums. So we have two major labels
that are interested in us right now. So, we'll just have to wait
and see which one it will turn out to be.
Well, to me, you guys only forgot one really
important thing, and that's that a band needs to follow
up a brilliant debut with a really rushed,
mediocre album. I believe it's still called the "sophomore slump."
Didn't anyone try to warn you about this when
you were making the record? I mean, c'mon, The Chainheart
Machine is even better than I expected!
[laughs] Well, that's very flattering. Thanks a lot, man.
Well, it also helps that Soilwork manage to
draw from the Gothenburg sound, yet I feel that you also
managed to form more of your own sound this
album.
That's also very nice of you to say, because that was the way that we
wanted to do it as well.
We wanted to mix other types of influences from other bands into our
sound, yet make something very personal
as well, and I think that we achieved that here.
I was also a little confused (Actually, I was
a lot confused, as you'll see), looking at the bios
from both albums, did you like fire half the
band, or did everyone decide to change their name?
[laughs] - Not a whole new band, but we did get a new drummer and a
new guitarist (Thinking about
this now, I don't know WHAT I was thinking when I made that remark
- Ed). I think that you can notice
in the drumming that the new drummer is much better than the previous
one.
Yeah, I do. I actually wondered if it
was the same guy but he discovered coffee between albums...
[laughs again, boy I'm a funny guy today] Well, that's not the point.
He's actually been living in
Stockholm. I don't know the differences between where I live
and Stockholm, because we live like a six hours
drive from him. Well, we met him at a gig, and he liked the band
and gave us a demo tape. Actually at that
moment we were set to kick out our first drummer, because he didn't
want to play as much as we wanted to play,
he wasn't as motivated...
Do you mean that he didn't want to play as
much in respect to practicing?
Yeah, we practice a lot, or we used to, and we needed a drummer who
would fit up to those measures,
so we had to get a new one. So, Henry, the new drummer, came down to
where we were and tried out.
He was great, so we got him to move down and become the new drummer.
The drumming style didn't seem to change all
that much, I guess it just got... Well, I don't want to
keep saying "better", but that's all I can
think of right now. It's more dynamic, and more accentuated,
I guess like the drumming on the last album
squared. A lot of the same double cymbal work remains. So
I didn't know if he took the same style as
Jimmy Persson, or that's just the style that fits the music?
I think that he kept some of the stuff that we did before that suited
the music, and he expanded it to his
style, used his own fills and such. I think this is pretty cool,
because it's 70s influenced and all...
[here's where my fax machine decides to jump in and receive a non-existent
fax, cutting us off] - OK, I'm back.
Actually when we got cut off the drummer, who's right here now, got
pissed off when I said that he's very
70s influenced, and he told me to say that he comes from a real jazz
background. [something maybe only a fellow
drummer would understand].
And now I get to ask everyone's favorite question,
what can we expect from Soilwork in the Future?
Well, we're working on new material, and hoping to record a new album
in the summer or fall for new
album. The album [Chainheart] was actually recorded in February
of 1999 so it's already old. The new
songs aren't necessarily faster, but they're more progressive.
We're looking to work with the keyboards more,
fill in some gaps while continuing to build on the established Soilwork
sound.
Well there you have it. If you haven't heard The Chainheart Machine
yet and you consider yourself a fan of
bands such as At the Gates and Arch Enemy, get it, I swear you won't
be disappointed. - Evan Howell, Remnants
of Reason (http://www.remnantsofreason.com)
