Övergivenheten
Nuclear Blast
Soilwork’s musical legacy continues with their most recent album, titled Övergivenheten, translating somewhat poignantly to The Abandonment. Recorded at Nordic Sound Lab in Skara, Sweden, and again co-produced by Thomas ‘Plec’ Johansson and the band, it is a musical expression that delves into dark territory, yet with a sense of hope. It is lyrically confronting, partially reflective of the wrenching conditions that the pandemic created worldwide. The musicianship on this album is stunning and suitably reinforces the lyrical themes with musical energy and an atmosphere that is enhanced by some inspiring instrumentation.
Sadly, highly valued guitarist, song writer and medical practitioner, David Andersson, seemingly took his own life in mid-September. His contributions to both Soilwork and successful breakaway side project The Night Flight Orchestra cannot be understated. After careful consideration, Soilwork made the difficult decision to continue with their scheduled tour to Australia. Loud Online spoke to bassist Rasmus Ehrnborn. The interview provides some context of the album’s overall theme but also informs a means of celebrating a remarkable life that ultimately helped people, no doubt internationally. Soilwork will honour their touring commitments despite their difficult circumstances, and it should offer a collective way to grieve. Övergivenheten is an extremely strong album and also one that shines a light into some harsh realities.
Soilwork are returning to Australia which is quite amazing under the circumstances. The album really is quite dark, yet somehow has elements of being hopeful at the same time. It is a unique release.
Yeah, I think that when David wrote a lot of the lyrics, he was in a really dark place and you can tell that there is a big difference between Björn’s [Strid – vocals] lyrics and David’s lyrics. It is kind of like a conversation. Yeah, it is weird, and it is still so close to us, and I was close to David as well. When I read the lyrics now, it means something a little bit different to me now than when he just wrote them. I am not sure what it is but that depends on your perspective. I would more say that the lyrics are kind of an exploration into areas of almost everything. That is the kind of guy that David was, he really was curious of everything. It sounds like a cliche but that is the greatest mystery of all so, why not?
Musically, the results are stunning. How much of is was a fully collaborative approach?
A lot, actually, and especially with David’s songs. When he came with a demo, it would be quite basic. When Björn presented his songs, he has a more elaborate demo. We worked a lot on those songs as well, and did put our personal touches on it, but with David, there is a lot happening in the studio, both when Bastian [Thusgaard – drums] does the drums, or when I add the bass parts. Even when we’re working together, it takes the whole band, plus our producer,
Thomas ‘Plec’ Johansson, to make it what it is.
How far does the production team push Soilwork these days?
Not really much, basically they let us at it, a lot, ha-ha. But, Thomas really is like a seventh member of the band so he plays a really big part in our sound.
How did you cope with recording during the pandemic.
It was a bit of a hassle getting Bastian and Sylvain [Coudret – guitars] over [to Sweden] because, Sylvain is from France and Bastian is from Denmark. I think that they had some special permits, or whatever it takes to get over here. We locked ourselves in the studio [Nordic Sound Lab] and didn’t go outside. We did the album over a couple of sessions, really. In fact, I think we went there three or four times, staying for a couple of weeks at a time.
When do you decide that a song is finished on this album given that the songs are interlinked?
I don’t think you ever get to the point where you think you’ve finished a song. Sometimes you get to a decision point of options but you have to let it go at some point and just say ‘Alright, this is great,’ and then you leave it for a couple of weeks. You might then listen to again after that and then decide, ‘Okay, that works out.’ But, I mean, otherwise we could be there forever.
There’s also some musical interludes in between album segments. It can change the pace and mood in various ways.
Ah, I don’t think that the intention there was to change the moods it was just a matter of somebody got an idea such as, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to do this melody as say a classical piece?’ and I think that what happens is that when we are in the studio, everybody always says yes, all of the time. That is really awesome because if someone has an idea, everyone says, ‘Yes, let’s try it.’ There is, of course, a lot of stuff that doesn’t make the album but a lot of the interludes. The little instrumental piece, Morgongåva / Stormfågel, came out of an idea which we tried out.
Soilwork’s sound has evolved where you’ve got arrangements of say drumming blast beats against sustained vocal melody lines. It is a unique sound.
I think that happened because all the band members come from different musical worlds. I came from the classical and jazz style but then went on to rock and metal. Everyone brings their styles to the table and ideas are added on top of other ideas. In the end, it will either fail or be great. It is a matter of people bringing everything in and sometimes it just works out. I love that almost controversy of different styles. Bastian is a fantastic drummer who is skilled at blast beats. Putting melodies on top of that is amazing and works well.
It was also quite prevalent on the EP, A Whisp of the Atlantic.
Yeah, well, we had fun. Ha-ha.
How have you adjusted to being part of the rhythm section given the legacy of long serving bassist Ola Flink, and others that were in the band before you?
Well, I am not going to lie, it is a big responsibility and I am an old Soilwork fan myself, and I have to kind in mind the history of the band. The legacy of it includes all the albums that came before I joined the band. At the same time, I want to put my own stamp on it and doing that also helps the band go forward because Soilwork is a band that is moving and for every album, there is something happening. I also want to be a part of that but of course, when I play the old songs, I really enjoy playing Ola’s parts as they are supposed to be played. It is a double-edged sword there.
When you joined, to have to change your style or the type of bass?
No, not really, but I actually the strings I used to be lower so that I tune down to B instead of E. I play the same bass though; I still use a P-bass [Fender Precision] and then it happens to work out. They seem to be great basses for metal as well. Of course, I made some modifications to my sound to get it sounding a bit more like Soilwork but that’s the matter of pedals.
So did you get into the Rickenbacker basses at all?
Oh yeah, I love those and I would love to play a Rickenbacker but my back cannot take it, really. Those are heavy.
Metal today has the guitar sounds moving very much into the bass area’s sonic spectrum. The thing about Övergivenheten is that the sonic clarity is great so that the guitars and bass sounds don’t drown each other out. Do you have to spend a lot of time on the mix to get to that point?
That is an interesting question because I actually thought a lot about that when I started out and with the first singles that I had my bass on. My very good friend, Sharlee D’Angelo [Arch Enemy bassist]. He was my coach for that and kept telling me,’ Stop playing guitar and start playing bass.’ So I think that it is a matter of the mindset really and Sharlee is pretty much the expert on that. He just made sure that you play at the lowest end, you don’t interfere with the guitars and that you don’t act as a guitar that is lower down, really. You then hear your own instrument and I think that if you play like that, the mix is pretty much going to sort itself out and without doubling guitars all the time.
The bass can set the scale mode in a song with altering the tonic notes.
well, you do have a lot of power playing bass, that’s for sure. I mean, that is also something that goes hand in hand with what I said earlier. If you play bass like a second guitar then it doesn’t really matter, you can put that bottom elsewhere. But if you play bass like an instrument, it works. I see myself as one sixth of Soilwork and all six parts need to work out for it to sound like Soilwork. That is kind of what Ola did before me, and David played the bass on some albums and he was also an excellent bass player. He treated the bass as an instrument equal to all of them.
Your jazz background would include knowing about virtuosos like Charles Mingus and Jaco Pastorius; players that are just out there.
Yeah, but they also…well Mingus and Pastorius are more extreme examples because they are more solo players. I really don’t want to be that, but I do like to stick out like say John Entwistle from The Who, people who when you talk about bass lines’ if you remove those bass lines, you’ll destroy the song. If you look at Paul McCartney from the Beatles and one of my favourite songs is Something, and check out the bass playing in there. If you remove that, it becomes a really boring song.
Do you spend a lot of time on arranging and constructing backing vocals.
Yeah, quite a lot and both myself and Björn do talk a lot about it and put in lots of energy in how to do it. It is myself and Björn singing right now and it is not an easy job doing backing vocals for Björn, I can tell you. I try to my best though and I think that we have come to a good balance there as there’s a lot of backing vocals on the album so I try to sort out whatever works live. We want to be a good, live playing band and we generally have six guys who are loud on stage. That is what we like to do and the includes vocals as well, with singing the harmonies.
What can we expect in the setlist?
We’ve been working a lot on that and there’s going to be quite a few songs from the new album, but also a little bit of the old stuff. I know that a lot of people want to hear Stabbing the Drama and those tracks. We’ll also do some tracks from the previous album [Verkligheten] as well as some old stuff. It is a good mix, I think.
Can you elaborate on the guitarist filling David’s spot, who I believe has been filling in for a while already?
Yes, he was, and David, right before the pandemic and before he got sick, was actually working as a doctor. He couldn’t tour that heavily so we’ve had a lovely guy in guitarist Simon Johansson, who is from the bands Wolf and Memory Garden. He is an awesome plater, and an awesome person.
The album as a whole, has many shifts, but it almost goes into direct black metal territory with songs like Dreams Of Nowhere.
It does, yeah, but that is because some of the band members have their roots in black metal. It is natural for those influences to happen and I know that David was into black metal and Björn has listened to a lot of black metal. There are certain things that just work very well with the songs so why not put it in? We even put in some jazz parts into some songs, and it worked. I also put in a lot of fretless bass when I was recording the album as well. I put fretless bass in the intro to the Övergivenheten title track, and also in the outro, there is a lot of fretless. I think that if you want to hear some distinctive fretless bass, you need to go back to the EP, A Whisp of the Atlantic, especially the title track because there is a lot of fretless bass on there.
The last track on the album, On The Wings Of A Goddess Through Flaming Sheets Of Rain, has a lot of complexity.
We worked a lot on that track and it is kind of like the album’s epic track. As usual ,this was David’s song and he came up a really simple demo of it and we spent a whole night just trying different stuff on that one. Yeah, it is a tough one, but at the same time I didn’t want to tamper with it too much because the guitar parts are really amazing on that one. I tried to keep myself on a leash there because there was so much more I could have done but I chose not to – ha-ha.
I believe that you also played guitar in Paul Di’Anno’s [ex Iron Maiden vocalist] band.
That is right, yeah. That was quite an adventure and I toured with Paul, on and off from 2007 until 2014. Yeah, Paul is a friend of mine and he’s a really great guy but now he has some health problems. His legs don’t work at all but I heard that Iron Maiden were nice enough to pay for the whole operation for him. That was pretty awesome, but I have really fantastic memories of playing with Paul.
What was it like playing that early Maiden stuff with the original vocalist?
That was like taking me back to my hometown really because when I started out when I was seventeen years old, I started an Iron Maiden tribute band with my best friend. We played a lot of pubs and clubs, and then ten years later, he got the job was bass player with Paul, so he then brought me in as a guitar player. After that I continued playing with Paul for quite some time. It was like going back to my teens really, it was awesome. I was there playing Phantom of the Opera, hearing the original singer right next to you. It was crazy for an Iron Maiden fan like me.
I guess you could never have imagined that the band that created Killers would sound almost progressive metal today?
No man, if you’d told me that when I was fifteen years old, I would never have believed that. It happened.
Finally, is there a standout track for you on Övergivenheten?
Not really, I am really proud of the album. There are certain tracks that I do love more though, such as Övergivenheten, Is It In Your Darkness and Electric Again are a few favourites. But, I am really proud of the whole thing and I can actually listen to it without feeling that I should have done anything different because I am happy with it. All the guys are impressed with the performances on there.