Soilwork guitarist discusses new album

Soilwork guitarist Peter Wichers recently discussed the production, recording and rehearsing process of the Swedish metal band’s new album, The Panic Broadcast, during an interview with the U.K's Guitarist magazine.

Below is an excerpt from that interview:

Guitarist: You came in with a lot more experience as a producer for this album, did you find you work a lot quicker as a band now when recording as a result?

Wichers: "Yes I've been focusing on that entirely since I've been away. I consider myself to have a high work ethic and coming into it we had a very strict time frame in which we needed to get everything done. I really didn't take one day off in eight weeks. It was pretty intense but we needed to get it done and I would say that everybody was pretty well prepared and it helped a lot that we'd done preproduction."

Guitarist: The band set up in a house to record this album, what effect did that have on the experience?

Wichers: "I did that as well when I produced the Nevermore record [The Obsidian Conspiracy]. It's right outside of Charlotte North Carolina and there's a big lake. There's massive houses there that you can rent and I did it for Nevermore and it worked out very well so I suggested to the guys that we did the same thing. And I think in a way it gives you a more relaxed atmosphere. Sven [Karlsson] set up his keyboard station in his room and then the whole basement was the recording base where I brought in my studio gear. We ran cables over to Isolation walls so we could record on the other wide of the house. It was just a very, very relaxed that helped people to perform better. Because I know a lot of times you can be in a studio and one person is sat outside watching TV or playing video games while one person is recording and everyone else is banging on the door trying to get in. This was a different way but I really think it worked very well."

Guitarist: You've mentioned how well prepared that band were with the songs going into the album, but what about your lead guitar parts?

Wichers: "I had practiced my parts like crazy but I'm so used to doing things this way so I guess that's one reason I was so prepared. I think everyone was pretty decently prepared but since we live all over the place, we don't rehearse before recording. We do it all over the internet and everybody needs to know their parts for when we get together. The first time we usually rehearse is when we do pre-production for a tour."

The band’s seventh album, The Panic Broadcast, is due July 2 via Nuclear Blast Records. The album is the first to feature original guitarist, songwriter & producer Peter Wichers since his return to the band in 2008.

Fans can read the entire interview here.