A few days after the release of their new record, Picture Perfect, Planet Loud had a quick chat with Tim from US rockers SOiL.
Planet Loud – Hey Tim, how’s it going?
Soil – It’s going good thanks. I’m in Minneapolis at the moment, we’re on tour with Kittie and then we’ll be getting ready to come over to the UK with Shinedown.
Planet Loud – How’s the tour going?
Soil – It’s going great, we’re only the support act so we’ve only got a short set but we’ve made really good friends with Kittie and we’re all getting along great. We’re playing about four songs from the new record.
Planet Loud – Yes, the new record, it must be good to have it finished?
Soil – Yeah, it came out in America the other day and we were in a record shop and it’s nice to see your work finished and on the shelves. It took two years to write so to finally see it out gives you a really nice feeling.
Planet Loud – How come you spent two years writing it?
Soil – I think we wanted to take our time with this record. Looking back the last couple of records have been rushed, we’ve finished touring and then started writing straight away. I think this is the first record, since Scars, that we’ve been able to take our time and write a record with no pressure. We wanted to write a record this time that represented what Soil was about and so we took our time and locked ourselves away with no outside influences affecting the way the record sounded.
Planet Loud – Do you feel that rushing the previous albums has affected the way they turned out?
Soil – Possibly. Don’t get me wrong, we’re really proud of those records and each one represent a moment in time and is different in their own way but, for this record, we wanted to take our sound back to the original sound, the sound we had on the Scars album, that’s more what SOiL is about, we wanted to write more guitar-based rock songs again.
Planet Loud – Do you think Picture Perfect has captured that?
Soil – Absolutely. I think if you look back to the first record, we were a new band and, although we’d been around since 1997, we were quite naive as all wanted to do was play songs. We had a certain innocence about us and a certain rawness and I think that rawness is something we captured well on this record.
Planet Loud – What inspired the title?
Soil – Well, the original idea was to put out a double-CD called Two Sides To Every Story with two different covers – one heavy CD, one melodic rock CD. As we were working on it we looked at it and realised that, logistically, it wasn’t going to work and so we scrapped that idea and came up with Picture Perfect. The idea behind the cover is to have a young girl looking in a mirror and seeing a reflection of her older self and on the other side have the older woman seeing a reflection of the younger girl.
Planet Loud – What about AJ, this is his second CD with the band..
Soil – I love AJ and his lyrics as he doesn’t bullshit, he writes what he’s thinking and experiencing and, that’s pretty much what inspired him on the Picture Perfect CD.
Planet Loud – Do you think he was allowed to be himself on this record more than the last one?
Soil – You know, this November, he’ll have been in the band five years and, yeah, at first, it was difficult for him and us because, you gotta remember, the original line-up had been together a long time so we were adding this new element. We didn’t really know him and he didn’t really know what we were like. It took some time but now we’re like brothers, everyone is working together like a band and it’s great. I think on this record it shows that we have found ourselves as a band.
Planet Loud – And we haven’t seen you much in the UK recently but you’re coming over with Shinedown in a few weeks?
Soil – Yeah and I hear that the tour is pretty much sold-out which is incredible. The thing is that it’s such a great package, us and Shinedown. I hear those guys are doing big business in Europe?
Planet Loud – Yeah, there is a lot of interest in this tour..
Soil – That’s awesome. We’re good friends with the guys from Shinedown so we can’t wait to get back over to the UK and play these shows. Again we’ll only have 40 or so minutes but we’re going to play some songs off the new record and then something from each of the other records. It’s going to be a blast.
Planet Loud – You’ve been away from the UK for a while. Do you think this tour and Sonisphere was a way of you reintroducing yourself to the UK?
Soil – I wouldn’t say reintroducing as such, I’d say that it was a case of us saying to everyone in the UK, “hey, we’re back”. Especially in the case of Sonisphere, where we went out on stage and the place was packed and we had, wow, about 40 thousand kids singing our songs. It was an amazing day. The UK has always been so supportive of us right from day 1 so we can’t wait to get back and play over there.
Planet Loud – Okay, 2009 is ending on a high for you guys, can we expect to see you back in the UK next year?
Soil – Definitely, we’re already planning our return to the UK and hopefully we can do some shows and maybe tie it in with some festivals. Nothing is set in concrete yet but we plan to get back to the UK in 2010.
Planet Loud – Excellent Tim, thanks for your time. Anything else you want to add?
Soil – No problem, thanks for supporting our band and hopefully we’ll catch up when we’re back with Shinedown. Take care.
Interview by Graham Finney
