Soilwork Interview

Interview
Peter Wichers
Soilwork

Bjorn "Speed" Strid - vocals
Peter Wichers - guitar
Ola Frenning - guitar
Ola Flink - bass
Sven Karlsson - keyboards
Dirk Verbeuren - drums

Peter Wichers of Soilwork (Photo: Karma E. Omowale)

Soilwork
Dark Tranquillity
Hypocrisy
Mnemic
4/6/05
HOB
Interviewer: Karma E. Omowale

"Some of the Children of Bodom stuff I like very much, I like MNEMIC too, that’s a good band…"

Sweden's Soilwork is one of the Industry's most revered and respected bands around but I guess it goes to show they are fans of other bands as well. Speaking of their fans, they have range from every imaginable genre from hardcore to metal to punk. Seemingly, this band at some point has inspired everyone in time. Join me in my conversation with guitarist Peter Wichers as he discusses the band's freshly released album entitled, Stabbing The Drama and answers questions from their peers Bury Your Dead, Ralph Santolla…

Peter: It’s going well, we only did one show so far but this one is looking like a lot of fun. We’ve never played the House of Blues before so… It’s a great place.

Karma: Aside the fact that you are headlining this one, how would you compare this tour to previous ones?

Peter: Well, you do a longer set, the production is bigger and more space, that’s always a big plus! [Smiles] I thought it was about time we did that too, you know we are all skeptical about it at first but we also felt that it would be good for the fans if we came out and did a headlining tour.

Peter: Just see where we are, how much people would enjoy our shows and stuff like that. It's done well. So far, the show has done pretty well so far.

Karma: That is good to hear. Just out of idle curiosity, why did the band’s name change from Inferior Breed?

Peter: That was because it was a totally different lineup. I mean when Björn joined the band at that time we thought that the name was a little racist in a way, like it had that racist undertone to it. So that was one of the reasons that we wanted to change it. I don’t know, we wanted something that was a little bit different too.

Peter: Well I live here now, since December. But, other than that, it was always birthdays and Christmas and all of that stuff… I mean it still is but it’s not as often since I live over here now.

Peter: That’s kind of a high school thing like there were always the metal kids in school…

Peter: It was him and maybe four or five other guys. He was so into thrash and speed metal, so that’s the reason he got his nickname. He had it carved into his locker and everything so he just kept it! [Laughs]

Karma: Oh okay. Tell the fans something they would not have known previously about the making of Stabbing the Drama?

Peter: It was recorded not in Dug Out Productions like the drums were recorded there but we went to a different studio that’s in the middle of Sweden. It was a really nice studio, it was in the middle of the forest but at the same time this was probably the hardest one we ever recorded. It was not a lot of fun.

Peter: I don’t know, it was just the whole process of the album was kind of frustrating, I don’t know why but it was kind of a bad vibe. I really think that we worked so hard on this album and it shows on the album too that we put so much work into it.

Peter: Actually yesterday was the first time we got to play the new songs live, ever! [Smiles]

Peter: It changes from day-to-day. I don’t know, “Nerve” is one of my favorites. It’s one of the ones I wrote and always liked it. The opening track [“Stabbing The Drama”], there’s something to it. The first riff is kind of a cool riff and I used to think about riffs in a song but that’s a fun riff to play. It changes from day-to-day; maybe I’ll have a new one by the end of the tour.

Karma: How would you say you that your song writing has changed between the days of Figure Number 5 to Stabbing?

Peter: Well the new one was a lot more spontaneous, I think. Like we didn’t set any limits or rules or whatever like how it was supposed to sound like tempo wise, stuff like that. I think that that’s to our advantage in a way because that album sounds a lot more interesting. There’s a lot more different tempos and we experimented a lot more on this one in comparison to Figure Number 5 which is not a bad album, it’s more, like a very even flow throughout the entire album. There’s nothing that really goes up or down and like that. I think for this one, just that everybody could do whatever they wanted… Drum wise go crazy on it, guitar, just do what you want, keyboards and vocals too and I think that that shows on the album. You know people have more of an input than someone telling people what to do.

Karma: Understood. If you could collaborate with anyone, with whom would you choose?

Peter: [Without hesitation] Terry Date! That would definitely be the dream, a dream to collaborate with him.

Karma: Considering you were influenced by At The Gates, [Judas] Priest and Accept…

Peter: Some of the Children of Bodom stuff I like very much, I like MNEMIC too, that’s a good band. [Thinking] Strapping [Young Lad] was one of my absolute favorites like when they first came out. I was a little disappointed with the second one.

Peter: It was alright but then the new one is one of those albums that grows on me. I just got it a couple of weeks ago, and I only listened to it twice but it’s VERY interesting but it might wind up being my favorite album. I don’t know. [Smiles]

Karma: Speaking of fans, I have a couple of them from your fans in the Industry…

Karma: You’re going to be on tourmates with Bury Your Dead during Ozzfest…

Karma: Oh. They’re a hardcore band out of Connecticut but of course, they will be your tourmates during the summer. [Smile]

Peter: Well, we would love to take them on if we like the band enough and if they’re cool guys, that’s usually how it works. We like to help people out, that’s what we’re doing with MNEMIC because I know they had a tough time coming over here before. We really wanted them to be on the tour and we really believe in them. While we’re here in the States, we try to help people out.

Karma: Second question I have is from Ralph Santolla, he wanted to know what are the settings on your amps when you record?

Peter: I always use different amplifiers, this time… Oh god, I can’t even remember. We used a Mesa Boogie triple rectifier and a max on pedal. Its kinda like a True Screamer but the Mesa Boogie is so complex, I can’t even remember what they were on it. Let me think… I try not it use too much gain and I try to cut out all of the midrange because I want all of the tones to come out accurately. I think when you take too much mid it gets kind of blurry.

Karma: Okay, he also wanted to know if you improvise or do work your guitar solos in advance.

Peter: Sometimes they are and sometimes they’re not. I don’t know, I used to plan out like every single tone before I came into the studio but nowadays I have an idea of how I want it to sound like but otherwise I will just play around with it until I come up with something I really like. I really don’t like spending that much time in the studio doing solos.

Karma: And speaking more about your fans, what mark would you like to leave on them?

Peter: Uh, I don’t know, we just want to show them that we’re the best metal band from Sweden and that’s the impression we want to give to everybody.

Karma: Well I think you’ve already accomplished that! [We both laugh] Thank you very much Peter!

I'd like to thank Hannah Raymond from Nuclear Blast for setting the interview up.