Trying to hunt down Swedish melodic death metal band, Soilwork for an interview is a job upon itself. My first attempt sees me get access to lead singer Bjorn ‘Speed’ Strid as he rides in the band’s tour bus through France right in the middle of their European tour. But after only a few seconds of chat the phone gremlins strike and we are cut off. Two days later I manage to get onto Ola Fink, Soilwork’s bass guitarist and one of their longest serving members. He to is on the tour bus but they are now in Switzerland.
To find Soilwork not on tour would have been more of a miracle, this is a band that has toured so heavily in the last few years that in 2005 it’s guitarist, Peter Wichers quit from pure exhaustion. At times just being a Soilwork band member can be stressful enough, the last few years have seen a lot of criticism pushed Soilwork’s way, mostly from people unfairly labeling them ‘sell outs’ due to their move from the traditional death metal vocals to what the band describes as ‘clean’ lyrics.
These ‘clean’ lyrics definitely feature on their new album ‘Sworn To A Great Divide’ and when I chatted to Ola it’s release date was just three days away. ‘We’re not doing much to celebrate its launch…we’ll still be on tour, in Vienna I think, but we won’t do anything special,’ he says. ‘I am a little nervous about its release. We’ve put in so much effort and you never know how the press and fans will take it.’ He quickly adds though, ‘I don’t take all that much notice of reviews though.’
Ola seems embarrassed when I tell him that their record label’s (Nuclear Blast) press release describes their new album ‘as one of the best pieces of Melodic Death Metal to be created by a Swedish band’. He laughs and then says, ‘Well it’s a great compliment but there’s so many great bands around…we just do what we do.’
So what do they do on this album? ‘I think this album has the typical Soilwork sound, it’s a little more treasure…a little dirty. I guess the sound might be a little different in the sense that we use more acoustic drums and we have brought up the guitars…they’re heavier. We were certainly inspired by the guitar solos on our previous albums.’
Guitar solos are something that have made previous Soilwork albums such as ‘Stabbing The Drama’ classic metal albums, but the other ingredient in that recipe was the great songwriting produced by Bjorn Strid and Peter Wichers, so how did Wichers’s departure from the band affect the songwriting for ‘Sworn To A Great Divide’, ‘Not that much,’ says Ola. ‘We did have to get the whole band involved this time though. Peter was such a fast songwriter; in the time it would take me to just write one or two songs, he would have six or seven and a demo done. So this time everyone has written songs…we worked a little harder and wrote it on our last tour.’
The most exciting thing for Soilwork fans about ‘Sworn To A Great Divide’ is Devin Townsend helps out on this album and we all know what a classic sound he brought to Soilwork’s ‘Natural Born Chaos’ album, however Ola is quick to point out that the rumor Townsend produced ‘Sworn To A Great Divide’ is actually incorrect. ‘He produced Bjorn’s vocals is perhaps the correct way to say it,’ says Ola. ‘While we recorded all the instruments in our home town (in Sweden) Bjorn went to Devin’s studio in Canada and did his vocals there…It was a lot more relaxing to record in our home town. Normally you have five weeks studio time to do the album, but we went in for a few weeks, took four weeks off for a break and then went back in.’
Of course being perfectionists means recording a Soilwork album can be an epic event. Ola explains how hard it can be to just lay down a guitar track for one song. ‘Some songs are harder and some are even harder, it can take from a couple of hours to a couple of days to get the guitar just right.’
The one thing Ola points out about ‘Sworn To A Great Divide’ is that Soilwork no longer have to defend themselves about their decision to record music with ‘clean’ lyrics. ‘If people think we sold out they are wrong,’ he says. ‘If we sold out we would be doing pop music. It (the move to clean lyrics) was a natural step. Bjorn is a good lead singer and to do good music Bjorn doesn’t have to scream. You don’t need to scream to be angry. We have melodic guitar, so why not melodic vocals?’
The good news for Australian metal fans is that Soilwork hope to head to Australia next year, sometime after their U.S. tour ‘We loved Australia both times we were there,’ says Ola. ‘The crowds are so loud which is fun.’
No doubt after picking up there copy of ‘Sworn To A Great Divide’ Aussie Soilwork fans will be counting down the day until these metal legends hit our shores…it’s gonna be great.