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Don’t forget to check out the reports on Rockharz 2024: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4!
There is always a heightened sense of elation when you get the confirmation for an interview with a band that you have been a fan of for so long. Now imagine, your interview is 30min away and suddenly the whole festival is being evacuated. Shit! Luckily for me, we were still able to do the interview (more on that in the report on Day 4!). As always though, the interview went in a totally different direction than I anticipated, but guitarists Sylvain Coudret and Simon Johansson were amazing to talk to and also very lively! Read below what we discussed!
Huge thanks to lightinmirror.de for the awesome pictures!
Shieldmaiden’s Voice: If SOILWORK had an advertising slogan, what would it be?
Sylvain: Uhh.. What the fuck! I don’t know…It’s the first time I had a question like that…
Simon: Maybe… „We work in the dirt“…You know… in the soil…
Sylvain: That is pretty good!
SV: New merch coming soon! What would you say is the most distinctive thing about your music?
Sylvain: Björn’s voice, for sure! Whatever you do, once you put his voice into it, it sounds like SOILWORK! That is the sound of SOILWORK: his voice.
Simon: At least if it is harder Metal. But the dual guitars are also our thing and don’t forget the melodies! Björn, however, is what stands out.
SV: You released a B-Side of Mercury last year, what prompted you to do that?
Sylvain: We decided to do this song and that was really it and we did it together with Nuclear Blast. But you know what? More and more, you see bands just putting out song after song, just releasing singles over the year before they release an album. There are so many bands now that you need to find a way to not get lost among the masses. As a band, you really have to keep the focus on yourself. If you don’t release anything in two years, it’s crazy.
SV: Well, streaming has been a huge contributor to that, hasn’t it? You need to feed the algorithm. What kind of pressure does that put on you though?
Simon: My view on bands is that you release an album and people should listen to that full album! When all of us grew up, that was the way to enjoy music. Now, people listen to songs and not albums.
Sylvain: It’s more like people listen to one song and then move on to the next thing.
Simon: It’s a bit sad, in my eyes. I loved the album way of things
Sylvain: The positive thing about streaming platforms, like Spotify, is that if you release a song, it’s all over the world instantly. For newer bands though, it’s still hard to get a foot in and make it. There are so many bands, it’s insane! Every day there are so many releases. If you release it though, you can do so immediately after you made it. Most of the time, when you recorded and released an album, the songs were kind of old to you. Between recording and releasing is often a long time, up to a year, and by that point, you’re kind of over it as a band. So it’s good and bad!
SV: It’s changed times, really. Going back to something you broached earlier: As a band, you have to put out albums regularly, at least every two years. For you, this would be this year. Are there any plans yet to that and if you can’t say anything, can you spoil it without spoiling it?
Simon: We’re doing a tour in the Fall, so something might come, but maybe not an album… Maybe we’re going the modern way…
Sylvain: We’re talking about doing an album next year. A lot of stuff has happened in the band in the last year which is why we’re currently focussing on playing shows. We are going to start working on new stuff as soon as possible. But there might be something happening in the Fall and even after that!
SV: Speaking of the tour, you’re going on tour with ARCH ENEMY and IN FLAMES. What are your personal highlights in this?
Sylvain: We’re going to be in some amazing venues for sure! The shows are going to be packed every night.
Simon: The shows are going to be huge and I just hope that it will be smooth sailing between the bands. We’re all friends, but we’re the special guest, so we hope that we get fair treatment, but there is really no doubt about since we really are great friends. When you are supporting, which we are doing, you never know how the headliner’s crew will treat you, but we’re not really worried about that.
Sylvain: We did tours like that in the past and it was always fine. People have been waiting for a IN FLAMES and SOILWORK tour package for a long time, even though we did that once a long time ago, it never really happened again. And this time it’s finally happening!
Simon: It’s a lot about band politics and then you have to be on the same timeline and to synch this, is always really hard.
SV: Looking into the future, even beyond the thing we’re not saying is going to happen, what is something you wish for for the band?
Simon: I’m quite new in the band, so for me personally, I would like to go on a US-Tour, since I haven’t toured the US with SOILWORK yet. And we know that the US is starving since we haven’t been there since 2016. I really hope that for our future, at least touring-wise. I’m also hoping that we get to the album next year, sit down together, record it and really go for it as a unit!
SV: As a last question, so that you can punctually head out for your stage time, what is advice you would give young musicians that are just starting out in music?
Sylvain: Practice, practice, practice! In France, there are also a lot of musicians that don’t speak any English, but you need to learn English! Nowadays, everybody is speaking English. So that would be my advice: Practice your instruments when you’re young, when you have the time, learn English, learn songs!
Simon: Also, listen to other bands and listen to yourself! Good advice for guitarists is to record your stuff, listen to it and be critical.
Sylvain: For sure! Use your ears to learn music. This is going to safe your musical career, because when you join a (bigger) band, they’re are going to be like „Ok, are you good to tour with us in a month? You have 40 songs to learn!“ If you don’t have good ears, no is going to write you partitions or stuff like that. They are not going to write down the tabs for you! You need to be able to learn songs by ear.
What good and practical advice from two such accomplished musicians! In the future, I would however want my next SOILWORK interview to happen in less stressful circumstances! For the two last remaining Rockharz interviews, we’re going to remain in Sweden. Stay tuned for gloomy sounds and the result of what was a truly unfortunate situation.
Shieldmaiden's Voice 