[Interview conducted January 2005] 

Does it ever seem like everywhere you look people are enjoying knives?  Well, here is your chance to join in the fun as Swedish melodic metal masters have unleashed Stabbing the Drama, their most piercing and diverse collection of songs to date.  Soilwork has gradually moved away from their death metal roots over the years, incorporating elements of thrash, hardcore and heaps of modern melody along the way, culminating in a sound that is instantly recognizable.  As the band was about to embark on its first headlining tour of the States, it seemed like a good time to catch up with guitarist Peter Wichers on all things Soilwork.

With all of your studio experience, do you find that the finished songs are ending up sounding a lot closer to what you originally had in mind these days?
Maybe.  To be honest, when we were recording it, I wasn't too happy with the sound, but then once I heard the mix I was blown away.  There was so much that happened in the mix and it was a little different working with these producers because they worked a little differently when the mixed the stuff.  I myself am used to cranking the knobs a little bit differently, but we thought it would be cool to let somebody else come in here and stir around the pot, just to get a different input on it, and it worked out good.

Does it get more difficult after doing six albums now to write new material or not?
Well, this album was a lot more spontaneous, at least from my point of view and I wrote a lot of the stuff.  We were sitting there and didn't really know what kind of direction we wanted on the album, so we just started writing all kinds of stuff, even if it was softer or heavier, whatever.  We're just like, 'Whatever, we're just going to go with it and maybe it will be an album that is a little more dynamic in a way because you get more different tempos than you did on the previous one.'  You have to just write because if you think about it too much you just end up painting yourself into a corner where you can't really do much.  You get pinpointed in one direction and can't really write any more; you're not writing for yourself you're writing for someone else and that's a very dangerous thing to do.

I don't have a lyric sheet for this one but are there any songs that you relate to in particular?
To be honest, the lyrics are all Bjorn, that's all him, all his thoughts and emotions and what he went through.  I know he puts a lot of his own personal life into the lyrics, but if you want a detailed version of it, he never really even gives me a… it's very close to him so he never really talks about it.

Assuming that the artwork I have is the actual final art, it is very minimalist.  Was it difficult to decide what kind of art you wanted to go with this one?
We were in a big mess and I think involved way too many people in the process of making a front cover.  Obviously you end up with three million front covers to choose from.  But then we just said, 'We want something simple, something that will represent the title, that would look good on shirts,' so that's pretty much what the cover is all about.  There's no deeper meaning to it.  Very simple, something people will see when they walk into a store - very eye-catching.  More like a symbol than a typical front cover with millions of colors.

I know you guys are fans of a lot of the classic bands like Deep Purple and Iron Maiden.  Is it inspiring at all to see bands like that still out there on the road, still making albums after so many years?
Ahhh…. not really. (laughs)  Some of them don't know when to quit, that's what I think anyway.  Deep Purple, they should definitely call it quits.  I'm sure they are still a good live band, but I just think that he can't really hit the notes anymore and they've made enough millions of dollars in order to be set for life.  If they just popped up and did one show every once in a while, that would be a different story, but to just tour and tour, I don't think that that is really necessary anymore.  That's just how I feel about Deep Purple though, and they're not even the original line-up anymore so that's one of the reasons I think so and I don't think there is any way in hell that Ritchie Blackmore would get back together with those guys anyway.  But I don't know, I haven't seen Judas Priest though I but I hear they did Ozzfest last year   I know Halford is still kicking it, he's still pretty good.

Yeah, they didn't move around as much as they used to, but the playing and everything was still pretty awesome.
Well, they're becoming geezers too and it's kind of hard to do the splits when you're that age, but I give them credit, they're still pretty heavy.

What is the rest of the year looking like for Soilwork?
Touring, touring, touring, and more touring.  We're going to start out with the US in April, then do the summer festivals in Europe.  There might be a slight chance that we'll be doing Ozzfest this year.  I'm not really sure but it might be that we will, so that is something to watch out for.  After that, we'll probably do Australia and Japan in the Fall and then we'll do our headliner tour in Europe and we'll see where it takes us from there.  Maybe there will be another US tour after that, so it'll be a busy year.

[For more of this interview, check out issue #29 of Outburn magazine]

http://www.soilwork.org

SOILWORK is:
Bjorn Strid - Vocals
Peter Wichers -Guitars
Ola Frenning - Guitars
Ola Flink - Bass
Sven Karlsson - Keyboards