Metal Anarchy

During an interview with Dales Rock Interviews, SOiL’s Tim King offered an update on the band’s new album. He says the effort is “completely done.”

King said the following:

“We wrote an entire new release last year. We didn’t do any touring last year. We were in the writing mode in the studio. We went back and forth into the studio into Nashville, and we’ve got a new release completely done. We’re gonna be announcing it very soon. [We] signed a new record deal. We have a new manager with Shelter Music Group over there. And we just revived everything SOIL. Brand new release, brand new record label, brand new management, and we’re gonna release the first single this year, and then the [full-length] release will come out probably January of 2027.”

He continued when asked about the lengthy wait:

“With a band like ours, we’ve got a lot of hits, we’ve got a lot of history, and for older bands like us that have had a legacy, it gets… I, at least, find it really monotonous and boring when bands just keep releasing material that sounds the same or subpar or they feel like they just need to release it to appease the fans or to go out on tour with. And with SOIL, we released an amazing record with the return of [SOIL singer] Ryan [McCombs] back in 2013, which was ‘Whole’. And it really brought the band back to form. It sounded like the old days of SOIL. It was a great record to reintroduce and reinvigorate the band. And since then we’ve done a ton of touring. But we said to ourselves, ‘If we’re gonna do a follow-up, we either have to write songs that are better than the ‘Scars’ [2001] record,’ which is our biggest record, ‘and we need at least one hit or more that are better than the song ‘Halo’, or at least as good.’ And we just kept writing and writing and just weren’t feeling it. And time went by and more touring went on, and things got pushed aside, and finally we said, ‘We’re taking an entire year off, and we’re going to buckle down and make this happen.’ And that’s what we did.”

He went on to discuss the musical direction:

“It’s amazing stuff. I mean, I say that with absolutely no ego. And it’s gonna appease the old SOIL fans, it’s gonna appease new SOIL fans. It’s got a great classic old SOIL sound, but with a lot of modern elements incorporated into it, and it’s just undeniable. We finally have a piece of material, a body of material that we feel is going to blow this band back into the the good graces with a new record. The fanbase has been eager to get some new material, and we’re gonna give it to them.”

He also discussed the production process:

“We went in with a great production team. We spent a lot of time in Nashville recording all this stuff. Like I said, we basically retooled the entire band — new label, new management, new producers, new music, new everything. So, 2027 is gonna be a very exciting time for the band.

I wish I could say more, but we’re still waiting for announcements to come out and having meetings on when to announce and when to launch and stuff like that. So, it will be all coming in due time, but it’s all completed, so there’s no, ‘Oh, SOIL’s going in the studio or anything like that.’ It’s completely finished, so it’s ready to go. So we’re just picking out the right time to launch and all that good stuff.”

He also added the following when asked if it easy to write new music nowadays:

“Back in the day, and all the way leading up to the ‘Whole’ record, we had always written in a rehearsal room together — bass, drums, guitars, throwing riffs at each other, putting things together, talking about it, drinking some beers, and then we’d send it off to Ryan. He’d come back with some vocal ideas, some changes. We’d make that, then Ryan would come to the rehearsal and sing it, and we’d hear what it was like, and we’d demo it out and stuff. So that was the way we always wrote things — old school. And we found that that really worked well because right in that moment of time, you could alter things, and you got that vibe, and you’re playing off of each other, and you’re going back and forth. And I think the reason it took us so long to get things together is in the age of computers, and when COVID hit and all that, everything started going by FaceTime or sending files back and forth, and it’s just so stale. It’s so… I don’t know how to put it. It’s just so — I guess you could say, yeah, ‘stale’ is the best word. There’s really no vibe there. If I send a riff to the guys, or Adam [Zadel, SOIL guitarist] sends some ideas put to a drum machine, or the drummer [T.J. Taylor] gets a drum beat and we put some stuff to it, and we’re just sending it around, you’re not really getting that interaction. So we were very uninspired for many years because there really wasn’t that outlet to all get together. Me and Adam live in Chicago, our drummer’s in Kentucky, Ryan’s in the U.K. Getting together to practice for a tour was hard enough, let alone to start writing sessions. So that’s why we decided to buckle down and take that year off and really hone in and make sure that we did it the way that we felt most comfortable with. So that’s the way we like to write in this band. Other people might be able to send each other computer files and stuff, but it’s just not the way we operate. We need to be in there with each other and vibing off of each other and having the producer sit there and help us with things and stuff. So that’s the way we did it this time.”

[via Blabbermouth]