CARCASS Guitarist: 'We're Drawing From The Same Pool Of Influences That We Always Drew From'

Chad Bowar of About.com Heavy Metal recently conducted an interview with guitarist Bill Steer of reactivated British extreme metal pioneers CARCASS. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

About.com Heavy Metal: After getting back together, at what point did you decide you wanted to write new material?

Bill Steer: In my head, the decision was made very early on, when we were still rehearsing for the reunion cycle of shows. But it quickly became apparent it wasn't going to happen with that lineup, because quite understandably, Michael [Amott, guitar] and Daniel [Erlandsson, drums] had priorities elsewhere. So the idea got killed very quickly. Then by about 2010 when they quit the group, Jeff [Walker, bass/vocals] and myself started to talk seriously about trying something, a situation where we just write some songs and see how it feels. If it sounded like CARCASS to us, we were going to proceed. We also said if it didn't feel right, we'd just drop it.

About.com Heavy Metal: You played all guitars on the new album, but you needed a drummer. How did you find Daniel Wilding?

Bill Steer: Dan Wilding was somebody I instantly identified as being the CARCASS drummer. I'd watched him play on one of the U.S. tours we did. At that time he was with ABORTED. It was one of those strange evenings where I happened to wander onto the stage while they were playing and I was very impressed with how he attacked the kit. Besides great technique there was a lot of swing and flow to how he played. Immediately I thought that would be the guy for CARCASS. So when the time came we got in touch with him.

About.com Heavy Metal: Was there any thought of bringing a second guitarist in to record the album?

Bill Steer: It was a trio during the writing process, and it was very focused that way. It didn't feel right to involve somebody else at that point. I knew if I recorded every note of the guitar, it was going to sound like CARCASS. You could bring in an outside guy, and no matter how accomplished he is as a player, he might not have that CARCASS feel. So it was very much a control thing. That was one aspect of the recording we didn't need to worry about, having another guy come in and diluting the vibe of the group.

About.com Heavy Metal: Your producer Colin Richardson (SLIPKNOT, NAPALM DEATH, CRADLE OF FILTH) ended up leaving during the mixing process. Was the recording process for the album a stressful one for you?

Bill Steer: I wouldn't use the word "stress." With regard to Colin and his engineer Carl, it seemed that their patience was wearing a little thin because we had done this the hard way. We recorded without a click track, and therefore you can't use the grid system that most people are using these days for recording. Initially that was kind of quirky to them, but after a little while I think it wore thin because they didn't have the luxury of just moving a chorus or copying and pasting a vocal or guitar line. Everything on the record had to be played, which sounds fine with me. It makes sense, but with some of the younger bands, that's not the way to approach it anymore. Let's face it, those guys have been working with that crop of groups over the past few years. So for them, the way we wanted to approach this was totally alien. They humored us, they went along with it, but I definitely felt as the session progressed, their attention was wandering. So it wasn't a huge shock when they bailed out of the mix.

About.com Heavy Metal: The new album takes different elements from your previous recordings along with some new stuff. Is that the sound you had planned going in, or just how things turned out?

Bill Steer: It's pretty much how it turned out. I don't think Jeff or I are narcissistic enough to be spinning our own records at home for fun. There have been occasions when I've listened back, just to refer to a certain part and how it felt and how it should be played. But I'm a firm believer that once the thing is done, it's done. I've never understood people who listen to their own stuff a lot. I guess we were quietly confident enough that it was going to be a CARCASS record. It's not really cool if you're influenced by yourself. I think the way we approached this record with how Jeff writes lyrics and how he does arrangements and how I play riffs on a guitar, that stuff hasn't really changed, and the combination of the two of us makes it sound like CARCASS. We're definitely drawing from the same pool of influences that we always drew from, so that's probably the main factor in why the album sounds like it does.

Read the entire interview at About.com Heavy Metal.