Unsung Melody - Whole. An interview with Tim King from Soil

SOiL is a band that has taken their hits with members leaving over the years. Original vocalist Ryan McCombs left the band to be with his family. Eventually landing the lead vocal duties of Drowning Pool. Enter A.J. Cavalier. He’d record two albums with Soil, before he too left the band. During this time, guitarist Shaun Glass left the band to focus on his band, Dirge Within and eventually original drummer Tom Schofield would also leave the band. That leads us to 2011 when Ryan McCombs re-entered the picture to do a reunion tour to commemorate the 10th anniversary of their original major label debut, Scars. That tour would once again solidify the Soil lineup and eventually lead to a new album and tour. That album is titled Whole and it will release here in the States on August 20th. Having heard the album, believe me when I say SOiL has a never die attitude and has proven that they can still kick ass with the best of them.

Today, I’m joined by Tim King. Tim is the bassist for the band SOiL. First off thanks for chatting with us and welcome to the Unsung Melody. I’ll start with the burning question. What made now the right time to bring Ryan back to the band?

We had been talking about it for awhile and everything just fell into place. It started with a UK tour in 2011 and blossomed from there.

Now that Ryan McCombs has rejoined the band, what was the writing process like for this album?

Very smooth. Very natural. The songs came together very fast.

Do you feel the dynamic has changed since he left and returned, or is it just business as usual?

It’s definitely different. Better than when he was in the band before and definitely better than it was without him. It’s much easier now that Adam, me and Ryan are calling all the shots.

For your new album, “Whole“, you guys used Kickstarter to help get the recording off the ground. How was that whole process for you guys? Would you recommend other bands attempt to use Kickstarter?

It was cool. We did it mostly to let the fans get deeper involved in the album process and get some cool stuff out of it you wouldn’t normally get from doing an album the standard way.

The owner of this site feels that Kickstarter is the future label for established bands. There will still be a need for hired guns like publicists and designers and such, but I’m curious what you’re thoughts are on that.

Being someone who works at a label (Pavement Entertainment) I can hands down tell you that you need a staff of people to properly release and work a record. Any band that thinks that by putting their album up digitally and throwing a few posts up on Facebook is the way to go us sadly mistaken. You need understanding of distribution, co-op, layout, sell sheets, publicity, video, video working, touring, management, radio, radio teams, print advertising, accounting, marketing, international sales, distribution, and marketing…..need I say more?

Having heard the album, it sounds like it is more of a return to your roots and sound as a band. Was that more with you knowing your lane and what works best with Ryan or was it just a natural process?

It just kind of happened. We shot from the hip and that is what came out. Very classic SOiL!

Your current tour kicked off in Bowling Green, KY back in June. How does it feel to be back on the road with the old familiar sound and how have the fans been reacting to the new stuff?

We’ve actually already done two European tours and two USA tours since Ryan has come back. Launching the tour for “Whole” has been really cool cause we have new material to play.

Have you been playing a lot of the new material during this tour?