Soilent Green – Ben Falgoust, Vocals
There was about 4 years between the release of your last CD, A Deleted Symphony For The Beaten Down, and the new one, Confrontation. How long did the actual writing and recording process for the CD take?
It was actually from right before the accidents, through the time of the accidents, all the way into when we actually went into the studio. There was a time period where everything kind of halted from the last accident to a year and a half after that where nothing was happening with Soilent Green what so ever. Things were kind of just in this halt mode, just psychically getting back together, and adding two new members and getting things in motion again. But the variation of songs goes from before the accidents, like three or four months before the first accident, in December of 2001 to now. So there’s a variation of different progressions, even within the album.
Well the CD is finally done and in stores, are you happy with how it turned out?
Yeah, we’re totally happy with everything. It was the best experience for us in the studio ever, for any album. We actually got to leave New Orleans and go somewhere else and just focus on the album, instead of doing it at home where you’re working during the day then going to the studio at night, where it would be a real stressful situation and you can’t really put your full focus into the recording. So it was a good thing to be able to put all our efforts into that one thing and just leave all the situations at home behind.
How was working with Erik Rutan as producer?
He’s great! He’s not only an awesome musician, but an incredible engineer. He has a great ear for extreme music in general. I know he’s got this stereotype as the “death metal guy,” because he was in Morbid Angel and now Hate Eternal. You have to separate his band related stuff from his engineering stuff. He’s very diverse as far as extreme music styles and can do other things besides death metal. He’s done the Soilent record, he’s done the Into the Moat record and Premonitions of War and he’s hoping that because of those records he’ll be able to expand more now.
Did you feel any pressure to follow up with a great CD, due to all the good press A Deleted Symphony had received?
Oh yeah, we always have inner pressure, despite what the media may say. We always pressure ourselves to do better than the last album. Not only did we have to overcome everything we had been through, but we had to overcome the last album. When we finally finished it, we were like, “yes! we did it!”
The CD leaked online over a month before it’s release date, how do you feel about that and downloading in general?
It’s something you really can’t do anything about. As a musician in a band, I really wish people wouldn’t do it. You can’t set restrictions on something that free though. Once it gets online, it’s there, free for everyone. There’s people with a little bit of integrity that go, “I’m not going to download it until it actually comes out” or they download it and they actually buy it when it comes out. It’s an element you can’t really stop, because if you go ahead and put all the copy protection on everything, that gets broken through. Or it ends up being a problem for people to play it on their own computer because the way the copy protection encryption is, it fucks up things in people’s drive. So it’s like, let it be like it is. I don’t really endorse the situation, but there’s nothing you can really do, just let it flow.
Yeah, it’s kind of pointless to spend a ton of money trying to stop something you really can’t control.
Yeah, I’m not going to sit here and blow my head off about it, like I’m Metallica making all this money and blowing my head off about it.
And alienating your fans while you’re at it…
Exactly. I have no control over it, so I’m not going to stress over it everyday like, “I got stop these people from fucking downloading our mp3s!” It’s just an irrelevant point that nobody can do anything about. All I have to say is that I wish people will buy the album, and most of them, if they really appreciate it, they do.
Soilent Green has always been a band with pretty bad luck, how are you able to get through all the tragic events that would end most bands?
Just internally with Soilent Green with me, Brian, and Tommy…we’ve been in the band together for so long. I’ve been in the band since about 93-94, and Brian and Tommy have been in the band together since like 88. So just the fact the three of us have been in the band together for so long, it just creates this sort of support group to deal with that stuff. Yeah, we bicker and argue with each other, but that’s with anyone whose been together for as long as we have. There’s just this connection between us, and we don’t let the situations stop us. So that and support from the fans. When you start to see how many people appreciate what you’ve done…what you’re bringing to them, you’re like, “wow, we actually have this many people who enjoy what we’re doing.” So we just have to keep bringing it to them.
Like you said, Soilent has been a band for a long time now, and with that you’ve seen extreme music go through many different trends. What’s your view on the current “metalcore” scene in music right now?
It’s not bad. It’s just another variation in extreme music. There’s gotta be evolution and growth in metal. That’s why the underground scene is still strong and will always remain strong. Even when they say “metal is dead.” It’s not dead, it’s underground. Restructuring itself. Inventing new ideas. Bringing in different extremities. So if anything, metalcore reminds me of back when DRI and COC were doing the crossover hardcore/thrash metal thing, and getting both crowds to come out to a show together and work as one. And metalcore is kind of like the same thing. It takes the sort of Swedish, At the Gates, metal thing and the traditional Pantera kind of stuff and meshing it with a hardcore singer. It’s meshing different genres together to create new audience as well as combine audiences. Which is great. You have to have expansion. But when it comes overpopulated, it ends up dissolving itself because then it gets watered down so much and something else will take it’s place. The ones that started it though, they’re great.
What bands are you into currently?
Um…Botch, We Are the Romans, Cave In, early Converge stuff all the way to like Demon Hunter, the new Machine Head…
Yeah, that new Machine Head CD is awesome.
It’s great! It’s the album that should’ve came out after The More Things Change.
Just pretend like the last two albums didn’t really happen.
Yeah, you just have to overlook them…not even have them in your collection.
They deserve props though for coming back and putting out such a good CD.
They’re great. There’s just so much feeling put into that album. The new Judas Priest is good too. There’s a bunch, I can just keep going on. I appreciate a lot of the new bands, I’m not one of these people that doesn’t like new stuff. There’s some bands I don’t like because they sound watered down…
Well that’s the next question, which bands do you not like?
Um, haha…there’s bands that I think are better than others, but who am I to say whose better? The masses will follow whoever they follow. I’m not going to say any names though! I’ll get myself in some chaotic Blabbermouth fucking rumor bin. I don’t want be involved in THAT, because then it just gets stupid and you have like Kerry King and fucking Rob Flynn arguing…let’s just say, in my opinion, some bands shouldn’t be where they’re at, where some other bands should be. I’m not saying Soilent Green should be, but to me, there’s some bands out there that are better than others and they’re not getting the spotlight for it because of “music politics.”
You’re currently doing a headlining tour with A Perfect Murder, Into the Moat, and Watch Them Die. How did you pick those bands and how is it going so far?
Everything’s going really well with the tour. It was picked because it was a diverse, kind of extreme package. A lot of different elements. Watch Them Die bring the kind of old school trash metal edge, Into the Moat bring the whole tech/crazed Dillinger style, and A Perfect Murder brings the slightly metalcore edge to the traditional metal stuff. So it’s very mixed up so it also brings out different crowds, so all the bands can grow from a new audience.
Your other band, Goatwhore, saw a lot of activity last year. Are there any future plans lined up?
Yeah, very much so. Right now the guys are at home working on material for the next record. When I get home from this I’ll jump in with them and work on some lyrics and vocal stuff, and then go back out with Soilent. We’re looking to put Goatwhore in the studio in December or early 2006, depending on Soilent’s schedule because it’s really important for us to push this CD.
Is there any reason why you decided, with Goatwhore, to sign to Metal Blade instead of Relapse?
Metal Blade just showed more interest. They approached us a lot and were really eager to do something with us. We haven’t even done an album with them, and they’re already pushing us. So it’s good. Plus it keeps both bands a little separate. But who knows, Soilent Green…this was our last record with Relapse, so maybe they’ll end up on Metal Blade or even Century Media. All of that is really just up in the air.
Would you ever do a Soilent Green / Goatwhore tour?
Yeah, I’d have no problem with that. There’s just a lot of elements that would need to be worked out, like we use the same van and trailer and we’d probably have the share equipment, and it’s a lot to sort out. I’d have no problem with that though, and all the other guys would be willing as well.
The current Soilent Green tour wraps up in September, what are your plans for after that?
Right now, things are kind of up in the air. We’re supposed to possibly do a European tour in October. Maybe a short run in Japan. There’s talks of us possibly going out in January/February on a Nile tour…the Art of Noise 3, like Nile/Hypocrisy/Soilent Green and a couple other bands, but that’s just in the talks right now. We want to kind of, after this tour, not to go out by ourselves. Maybe get on tours with like Lamb of God or Killswitch Enage, something big so we can build an audience and expand. We’re kind of limited if we just keep going out and headlining. We need to grow. As of now everything is just still in the works.
Well, that’s it, anything you want to add?
Just, come out to the shows and hang out with us, and check out the new album!
(+5 rating, 1 votes)
I disagree
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