Next Release From SOIL Will Be New Music, Says TIM KING

In a new interview with Brutal Planet Magazine, SOIL bassist Tim King was asked about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the long-awaited follow-up to 2013's "Whole" album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "That's the million-dollar question about new music. It's something that we started to work on, then we opened up our mouths and said that we were working on it and everybody got excited. And then we put out those two specialty pieces and people are, like, 'Okay, this is great, but let's get some new material.'

"It's way more difficult as far as [working on] new material, because we all used to live in Chicago. So we'd practice three, four days a week in the jam spot and throw ideas at each other and be super productive. It was like going to work every day. I mean, it wasn't work — I don't ever consider what we do work — but we did that. And now, with [SOIL singer] Ryan [McCombs] living in the U.K., and me and [SOIL guitarist] Adam [Zadel] are the only ones here, and our drummer lives in Kentucky, it's just real hard to get together. And for a band like us that was based on jamming and vibing off of each other, sending stuff through the Internet has its disadvantages.

"So, we've got a lot of ideas," he continued. "We've got a couple of partial songs complete, but we figure we've waited this long. We really, really need to come out with something that's as good [as], if not better than 'Halo', or of the equivalent of that.

"Having a record label on my own, I'm in the thick of it constantly, and I just keep seeing bands of our genre and stuff like that are just putting out albums because they feel like they have to, or just putting out singles just to throw them through the pipeline, and they're okay, but they just don't have that 2001, 2002 'hit' factor, like some of those songs that we're going to be doing this tour all based around have. And it's disappointing because it satisfies a very small little base of fans, but you're not looking at the big picture of it. We never wanna release something subpar.

"Long story short is we have stuff," Tim added. "Eventually we'll get to it. We just wanna make sure it's the right stuff to release and that it's of a super-high quality because we've got so many albums under our belt and so much catalog, the new stuff is just gonna be usurped by the bigger stuff that we already have. So it's gotta be something that people are, like, 'Man, that's like the new 'Halo',' or 'That's like 'Breaking Me Down Part Two',' and stuff like that. So we're 99 percent there, but not a hundred."

When the interviewer noted that the fact that SOIL is touring on the strength of material that is 20 years old speaks volumes about the fact that they have the right approach about releasing music, Tim said: "Who knows what's right or what's wrong anymore in this day and age with the way music is? We just try to do the best we can and do what we feel is the best for us and, most importantly, for the fans 'cause the fans are the reason we're still here to this day. And those are the last group of people that we wanna let down. With that being said, to not let them down, our next move is definitely new music before we put out anything else. You're not gonna see any more live records or anything like that. I think we'll get crucified if we do that. But next thing recorded from SOIL has to be new music, but we've just gotta make sure it's right and give the fans what they deserve, 'cause they only deserve the best, 'cause they've treated us the best over all these years."

Last year, SOIL celebrated its long list of compositional accomplishments with "Restoration", a brand-new set of studio recordings of the band's biggest hits throughout their prolific history. "Restoration" highlighted the band's best musical moments, including smash hit singles "Halo" and "Breaking Down", from SOIL's 2001 award-winning album "Scars".

In August 2022, SOIL released the "Play It Forward" album, consisting of some of the songs that inspired the bandmembers throughout the years. Prior to that. SOIL issued "Scream: The Essentials" in September 2017 via Pavement Entertainment and AFM Records. That effort celebrated the band's 20-year career and featured early recordings as well as alternate versions and mixes.

In March 2023, it was announced that SOIL singer Ryan McCombs had rejoined DROWNING POOL.

McCombs originally hooked up with DROWNING POOL in 2005 and appeared on two of the band's studio albums, "Full Circle" (2007) and "Drowning Pool" (2010),as well as a live album, 2009's "Loudest Common Denominator". He rejoined SOIL after exiting DROWNING POOL in 2011.

McCombs is planning to continue to front SOIL and perform with both bands moving forward.

McCombs, who has lived in Swindon, England since 2018, played his first shows back with DROWNING POOL in March 2023 at Club L.A. in Destin, Florida and at the inaugural Throwdown At The Campground festival in Fruitland Park, Florida.