© : Göran Markov
For the past 30 years, The Quill have been sharing their creativity and passion through energetic, psychedelic riffs. Their new, tenth album, Wheel of Illusion, keeps up this dynamic. Find out more about the release in the following interview:
Cult Of Metal : To begin with, your album ‘Wheel Of Illusion’ was released over a month ago. How have been the feedbacks ? Yes, we have received a lot of nice feedback. In fact several journalists have ranked this album as our best album ever. That’s great, I can’t come up with any band whose 10th album is considered their best. It’s mostly the first 2-3 albums that’s everyones favourite. So we are thankful!
Album after album, you've managed to keep that vintage sound that's so distinctive to you. How you managed it ? We know what kind of sounds we want and how to get it. Also, we have worked with the same producer, Erik Nilsson, for the last 3 albums and he knows what we want. It's important for us to have that organic, kind of live-feeling in our music. Its so easy nowadays to use all the modern technology and make everything sound perfect and clean. I personally don’t like that when it comes to rock and metal, that’s not what this music is about. The human and personal sounds and expressions disappears on the way.
For you, what are the most distinctive elements of this album? I think we have sharpened our writing-skills one more level and also the instrumental arrangements are more thought-out beforehand. A lot of the songs was written during Covid and we didn’t write that much in the reharsalroom as we use to.
How did you the writing and recording of this album? Did you prefer to record together or work from home ? We record everyone at the same time. If the drums are ok we go to the next song. after all songs are recorded we go through bass and rhythm guitars, either redo them or fix the mistakes. Then we go to guitar overdubs and vocals and finally some additional instruments, percussion etc.. Pretty standard procedure I think.
I really enjoyed the very progressive side of "Hawks & Hounds", can you tell me more about this ? We try to have one song that is more mellow/psychedelic on every album. They often turn out to be more progressive and orchestrated than the rest of the album. Building an atmosphere and different vibe. I think it’s a cool side of the band and it stands out.
My second favourite track is "Elephant Head" which is full of energy and lots of riffs. Can you tell me more about this as well? Well, That one was a kind of last minute song. We thought we needed one more uptempo song and Jolle had the basic ideas. We developed it in the rehearsal room on the last days before hitting the studio. It’s got a great live feeling and band-energy.
What's your favourite track on the album or the one you want to talk about for a special reason? The title track ("Wheels of Illusion") is my favourite at the moment. I love the shufflegroove and I think we got it really heavy and at the same very swinging. The “fast” guitar/bass riffs in the chorus are really cool and a bit unusual for us. Also the build in the intro is great.
Does 'Wheels of Illusion' refer to Black Sabbath? What does the title of this album mean? It’s a look at the world around us. So many “prophets” that tells us what is right and what is wrong. The world has become more “black and white” it’s frightening, especially with social medias, algorithms that only let us see the things we already agree on, and have clicked on before.
I really appreciate all the details you can see on the artwork ! Can you tell me more about this and who created it? I imagine is tells all the story of this album? Yes, Sebastian Jerke is the artist. He's done our last 3 albums. He paints illustrations of the lyrics and songtitles and merge it into a big picture. If you look at the details on the cover and read the lyrics you can find a lot!
In 30 years of career, do you have a funny story to tell? Or something you're most proud of in your journey?
What I'm most proud of is that we are still here as a band. The 4 guys that recorded our first album are still together making music and having more fun than ever. We never had a big break and made enough money to quit our day-jobs. We still do this only for the creativity and fun!
You come from Sweden, where the Metal and especially Hard/Heavy scene is strongly represented. What's our opinion on this subject? There is a lot of possibilities for young kids to explore music and culture and be creative themselves. Youthcentres and state financed organisations that supports young people to be creative in all forms. Free rehearsal rooms, studios, borrow instruments, getting them shows at the local youthcentres etc.. I think that’s the most important thing.
What are your plans after the release of ‘Wheel Of Illusion’? Do you have any gigs planned? I saw you will play at Bully Les Mines ! I'll try to be there! But enjoy the area and if you see black mountains, it's a slag heap ;) Yes, we just came back from a short tour to test the market with our new booking agent. It’s been 5 years since we last toured outside Sweden. It went down really well and we are planning to come back more intense in the next years. Hopefully already some shows later in 2024 but definitely in 2025!
With that, do you have memories about tour in France to share ? We did a show with Nebula at Petit Bain in Paris in 2019. That was a great one!
This is my last question, so I'll leave you the last word to conclude the interview : Thank you everyone for the support through the years even though we haven’t tour France enough, but that’s about to change!! See you on tour soon!!