The popularity of Sweden's Soilwork has exploded in recent years, having gone from a little known Gothenburg metal band to one of the genre's best known acts. Having released their latest album Sworn To A Great Divide last year, the band are making their third trip to Australia this month. Spiritech caught up with drummer Dirk Verbeuren to discuss the Aussie shows, their latest album and what exactly fans can expect from Soilwork's set lists over here.
Spiritech: Hey Dirk, how you doing?
Dirk Verbeuren: Good man, how are you?
Spiritech: Not too bad at all. Where are you guys at the moment?Dirk Verbeuren: Well, scattered around the globe. I live in the US and I know Bjorn's on vacation in the US, Daniel's on vacation in Thailand I think and the rest of the guys are in Sweden! (laughs)
Spiritech: You certainly are scattered everywhere. You on a break between tours at the moment?
Dirk Verbeuren: Yeah, kind of yeah, just a short one, a few weeks.
Spiritech: Awesome. Let's get into it then- Sworn To A Great Divide has been out for a while now. How do you think the fans are reacting to this one?
Dirk Verbeuren: Well it's actually been very positive. It was kind of interesting to see how people were going to react to it given the lineup changes and stuff like that. It actually turned out really good, a lot of people have caught on to the band with that album or with Stabbing The Drama, which is great to get new fans. And even with the older fans of course there's always some people who prefer older or different albums, but overall it's been very good.
Spiritech: You mentioned the lineup changes, one of which was Daniel Antonsson replacing long-time guitarist and songwriter Peter Wichers, who you obviously still have a pretty good working relationship with.
Dirk Verbeuren: Yeah.
Spiritech: Are you still keeping in pretty regular contact with him?
Dirk Verbeuren: Yeah, absolutely. He and his wife are friends of mine and you know, same thing for the rest of the band. There was absolutely no bad blood between Peter and any of us. So I keep regular contact with him and whenever I get a chance to do something with him I do. He's a great guy and a great songwriter as well, so it's definitely a pleasure.
Spiritech: Interesting. Okay, we'll get on to your recent collaboration with him a little later on. Back to the latest album- can you tell me what your favourite three songs are from it and why?
Dirk Verbeuren: Let's see. I would say definitely 'As The Sleeper Awakes' is one of my favourites, because I think it's of a nice mix between the older and newer elements of Soilwork. It has a fast and technical side to it while at the same time it's pretty melodic as well. I think that's really a great song. I like '20 More Miles' a lot, kind of for the same reason- it's not a fast song but it's a pretty elaborate song with a lot of different parts to it. It also has a long instrumental middle bridge with a long solo and is just a very catchy song. And then probably 'The Pittsburgh Syndrome', 'cause it's such a kick ass, blasting little monster.
Spiritech: I would definitely agree with the last one. You seem to include one or two of those Thrashier songs one each album- a few songs that are really fast, heavy and intense. Do you tend to get older fans who hear those songs and come up to you and say, "Oh man, can you make a whole album like The Chainheart Machine again?"
Dirk Verbeuren: It happens, yeah. Like I was saying before some people are more into that stuff and we get it every now and then. Every so often someone will walk up or send an e-mail and say, "are you guys going to do something like that again?" And you know, it's a part of Soilwork so there will definitely always be some really fast and intricate stuff like that for sure, but at the same time we don't really sit down and decide how an album's going to be. Not to disappoint anybody but I don't think we're going to sit down and say, "Let's make another Chainheart Machine or let's make another Steelbath Suicide, because that's just not how we work. I don't think we could ever top those albums, they are what they are and they are that because of how the band was back then. If we did it now it would be different, people would probably be disappointed anyway or would be like, "Yeah, it's not quite the same thing", so you know, we just move on and make the music that we want to make and it comes out the way it comes out.
Spiritech: I guess you're in a kind of "damned if you, damned if you don't" situation, because different fans will always want different things. Also, if you make another Chainheart Machine some fans will claim that you're recycling your past.
Dirk Verbeuren: Yeah, exactly. I know that some major bands do that pretty well; AC/DC is an obvious example of a band that hasn't really had any style evolution and they're still huge. But then again, I think they play more old songs than they play new songs, maybe I'm wrong about that...
Spiritech: You are very much correct!Dirk Verbeuren: (Laughs) Yeah, so I think you know, it depends on how successful the band is. But with Soilwork, it's really like we want to stay entertained as well and we all have very different musical tastes in the band, we agree on some stuff but everyone listens to different things and I think an album has to be kind of a rollercoaster ride, it has to have a lot of different emotions in it. And back then, honestly like Steelbath and Chainheart Machine, those albums, as much as people find them cult records and that kind of thing, I think they have a lot of very obvious influence from like At The Gates and other bands from back in the day. Not to say that's a bad thing, it was just, I think Soilwork has developed more personality later on with A Predator's Portrait, Natural Born Chaos and so on, I think that's when Soilwork really started to have their own sound and that's definitely always going to be a part of the band from now on. We're never gonna go back to having an album without melodic vocals or something like that because Bjorn has just grown tremendously as a singer and he's all about great melodies and that's what he likes the most. So they will always be there, that's for sure.
Spiritech: You talked about writing- have you started writing any new material for the next Soilwork album yet?
Dirk Verbeuren: Not as far as I know, I don't think so. Since the album came out we've been touring pretty intensively, we've toured Europe, the US, we've done three US tours and a Finland tour and now obviously we're going to come to Australia, Japan and a bunch of other countries like Russia. It's definitely been pretty packed schedule-wise, but on the tour we did for the previous record we did have computers with us on tour and we started writing a little and at some point when things slow down a little bit, we'll do that again. I know Daniel just bought a laptop and he's installing some software on there to be able to record some riffs and stuff. So it's going to happen soon I think.
Spiritech: Great stuff. Moving on somewhat, I interviewed Peter from In Flames recently and we saying that, "we haven't sold out, we've just evolved." This is an accusation that some fans have leveled at Soilwork as well. What's your response to that kind of criticism?
Dirk Verbeuren: Well, you know people have their opinions and what can I say, if some people feel that way about our music then that's fine with me. For one, all I can say is we do what we like and I think that's pretty obvious as our music shows. It's a fact that there's more accessible songs now then their used to be once but I don't think that's because like anyone is telling us, "write more accessible songs." As a matter of fact, we don't even give any demos to the label or anything like that. We just make songs, record the album and they get the finished product. That's it. It's pretty much always been that way as far as I know. There's nobody telling us that we need to have a radio hit or a video track or whatever, it just turned out that the people in the band have just evolved with their musical tastes and their capacities. Peter for one was one of the people that was kind of sick of writing metal, that's one of the reasons why he left the band. He wanted to write more rock-oriented music, which he is doing now. For example, if you listen to the Warrel Dane album which has just come out, you'll see that it's pretty straightforward, rock-oriented music, with a metal edge to it more than being true heavy metal. Warrel's voice makes a difference too. But in general, that's just the direction Soilwork has taken and it's definitely not for selling out reasons. Our albums are selling more and more, but people still request old stuff and fast stuff and if you look at the stuff that we play live from the new album, the only quote-unquote commercial track we play is 'Exile', which was the first single. Other than that we play the title track, we play 'As The Sleeper Awakes' and we play 'The Pittsburgh Syndrome', which are like three of the heaviest songs on the album! (laughs) I think that shows that side is definitely a part of what we like and always will be. But as I said, people have their opinions and there's not much you can do about that. I don't mind if they don't like what we're doing now; if they don't they should just go listen to old stuff or other bands, you know? (laughs)
Spiritech: Interesting. May 2008 sees Soilwork making their third visit to Australia. What are your memories of the previous two tours?
Dirk Verbeuren: I wasn't on the first one because that was prior to me working with the band but I was on the second one, which was April 2004. That was absolutely amazing, that was my second tour with Soilwork, at the time I was still the session drummer for the band and had just become a full-time member. It was an overwhelming experience from pretty much every angle, just being in the country and playing in front of 1500-2500 fans at every show, opening for Anthrax, Killswitch was on the bill, I mean it was just really great, everything about it. Then on top of that we got to do some sightseeing in Sydney 'cause we had some days off there and do some typical tourist-y things, so that was the icing on the cake. We don't always get the time to do that. I'm very impatient to come back!
Spiritech: What else can Australian fans expect in terms of set length and overall set list from Soilwork on this tour?
Dirk Verbeuren: We're headlining, so that means that we'll definitely play a long set list; definitely longer than on the previous tour. We'll have a good mix of old and new stuff; like I said they'll be a few songs from the new album we're playing and we may do one extra one if we have the time to rehearse it together. Prior to coming to Australia we'll try to throw in another new song. Other than that, it's just a nice mix- there's a few tracks from pretty much every album except maybe the first one, I think it should be quite an eclectic little set list! (laughs)
Spiritech: Sounds great. You mentioned the Warrel Dane album before, and you've also worked with bands such as Scarve. What other projects have you got in the works at the moment?
Dirk Verbeuren: Well, there's one other project that's going to be released in the coming months called One Way Mirror, and that's a band that was basically formed by Guillaume Bideau, the ex-singer of Scarve who's now in Mnemic. There's two guys from Lyzanxia in the band, and also the bass player from Scarve and I played drums for it. I did those drums like two years ago already so it's been quite a while in the making to finish that album, but now it's done and that's supposed to come out in a few months. I don't know what's going to happen touring-wise, but it's turned out to be a pretty interesting album. Guillaume's always been a very creative guy and I think he has a good chemistry with David from Lyzanxia to write songs. It's pretty catchy, it has a lot of catchy choruses but at the same time very heavy and lots of big riffs. It turned out really well. (Author's note- you can check out the band online at http://www.myspace.com/onewaymirrorband )
Spiritech: With the Warrel Dane album, how was the experience of working with him and also working with Peter again?
Dirk Verbeuren: It was amazing. I had heard about that project happening a while ago and when I heard that Peter was going to be writing the music for it and producing it I begged him to let me do it, because I've been a Warrel Dane fan since the first Nevermore album pretty much. I've always had a great admiration for his voice, it's so unique and the stuff that he does is just really different and I just love it. I said to Peter, "Please, please tell Warrel that I want to do the drums for this record" and he was like, "okay, I'll try". It took a while, and then after while suddenly I got an e-mail saying I'd got the job. So I was super excited, and Peter sent me his songs and Matt the other guitar player sent me the track that he wrote and I just worked on stuff. Then last summer I flew to Baltimore and it was basically just me, Peter and Mike, an engineer I had worked with previously; it was just us in the studio experimenting. It was great- I didn't meet Warrel for the recording of the album or anything but I think it turned out really cool and it was a great thing to do. Drumming-wise it's very different from what I usually do; usually my stuff I have fills and cymbals and shit everywhere, and on this album it's much more straightforward and groovy and tripped out, 'cause that's what the music required. It was a challenge for me to not put shit everywhere! (laughs) For these songs it was a lot better to just keep it really simple and do things at the right moment. And working with Peter is always great, so that was really cool.
Spiritech: The finished product was very cool if I do say so myself. Okay, to finish things off, do you have any last words for PyroMusic.net readers?
Dirk Verbeuren: Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you guys again, it was amazing in 2004 and I'm really excited that this time we get to come back and also play in Perth, where I haven't played before. Also looking forward to playing a longer set list hopefully, we'll be putting in maybe 15 or 16 songs and play a really nice, long list. I'm definitely looking forward to it and it's going to be a great time!
- Spiritech
