SOILWORK's DIRK VERBEUREN On Upcoming Album: It 'Has A Pretty Aggressive And Dark Undertone To It'

Kyle McGinn of Dead Rhetoric recently conducted an interview with SOILWORK drummer Dirk Verbeuren. A few excerpts from the conversation follow below.

Dead Rhetoric: I saw you are using two kicks for the first time. What sparked that idea?

Verbeuren: To be honest, that idea was sparked by Satyr of SATYRICON. I was talking with him about drums in general, while I was doing a few gigs with them back in early January, filling in for Frost. He just said to try two kicks, because, soundwise, it opens a lot of options to have slightly different tuned kicks and it sounds a lot better than just playing on the same kick. I had switched to the double pedal when I was a really young drummer for practical reasons, which are obvious, and had never really reconsidered my position on that. I just kept playing with my double pedal. When I went to the studio for this new SOILWORK record, they had two kicks and I remembered that conversation with Satyr and figured I'd give it a shot. That's how it happened. It sounded great, so I'm glad I did it.

Dead Rhetoric: In terms of what fans can expect, is there anything else about the new SOILWORK album that you can mention at this point?

Verbeuren: Well, to be honest, I haven't heard any finished songs. We usually demo mostly drums and guitar. Not necessarily all the final guitar parts either, and I haven't really heard any vocals at all. And no keys, since Sven [Karlsson] always brings in his keys once the basic frames of the songs are done. That's always a new discovery once the album is ready, for me at least. [Laughs] In general, I can say that it's going to be a little bit of a different twist on things this time. I think the album has a pretty aggressive and dark undertone to it. There's quite a bit of aggression in it, and some heavy crushing [sounds], and then some fast songs. I felt a bit more like a barbarian playing my drums on this one. I felt that some of the songs needed not so much frills and complicated and technical stuff but just straight-up hammering, and drums in your face. That was some of the vibe, but it's definitely going to sound like a SOILWORK record. I have no doubt about that. We are always trying to let our feelings of the moment speak, and it will be interesting to see how it comes out.

Dead Rhetoric: It was pretty cool that you tossed in some older tracks in the set [of the recently released SOILWORK DVD "Live In The Heart Of Helsinki"] alongside the newer material. How much time and consideration did you actually put into making that setlist?

Verbeuren: A whole lot, because it was a key thing for us when we discussed the DVD to make sure that it covered everything that SOILWORK has ever done. Some of our fans only like the old stuff, and we are cool with that. I understand that. I'm a music fan myself, and there are some bands where I'm only really a fan of a certain period they did, but I'll go see them live and enjoy them. But when those songs come on from that period, it's special to me. Knowing that, we wanted to offer people that can enjoy SOILWORK a similar experience. It was really important for us to cover every album and to make sure that there was at least one song from every album we've ever done. Then there's also the ebb and flow of the set, which needed to be good at the same time. We had a good template to work with from the last tour, with some good transitions. So we took that and expanded it to this massive one hour and forty-five-minute set.

Dead Rhetoric: Now that some time has passed since "The Living Infinite", due to the double album format, do you feel that some of the songs were overshadowed by the others just due to the volume of material that you released at once?

Verbeuren: I don't know if I feel that anything was overshadowed, really. I still think it works really well as a unit, or entity of its own. In retrospect, there's always stuff where we could have done something differently. But in general though, considering the short amount of time we had to write and record that album, I'm still kind of blown away by how good it actually turned out and how much passion you can hear throughout the album. The coolest thing for me is that it doesn't get boring or too repetitive. I know some people will disagree with that, because not everyone sees the same way, and, obviously, everyone is entitled to experience in the way they did. But, for me, it's a really strong double album that is not just a double album for the sake of, "let's put out a lot of songs at the same time." The songs are all really good in their own right. I'm still super stoked about it.

Read the entire interview at Dead Rhetoric.