Soul Exchange met up with MHBOX to discuss 'Life Eternal' and their powerful new album 'Bloodbound'

THE SOUL EXCHANGE – IN CONVERSATION WITH MUSIC HIT BOX

How would you describe your genre ?

Metal influenced guitar driven modern Hard Rock with a dark theme and with great attention to the vocal melodies and arrangements.

What is your new single about and what inspired it all ?

The albums’ lead track and 2^nd single “Life Eternal” is about a young kid who find himself in a church searching for answers about life and death, he is confronted with a dark hooded figure “Demon” who promises him eternal life in return for his soul which eventually leads to disaster. Lyrically the track is inspired by a classic horror movie theme and musically we have aimed at creating a modern sounding metal tune with a very melodic and pop oriented chorus. Typical metal meets pop/rock in a modern framework.

What other rock bands do you rate ?

Hans- For me it started with bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Rush and Pink Floyd to name a few. In recent years’ I have taken a lot influences from the Swedish contemporary metal scene e.g. Ghost, Katatonia, Evergrey, Graveyard and Opeth

Daniel – Almost impossible to answer. I draw inspiration from a high variety of artists. For instance, when writing this, I am listening to Dream Theater. Song wise I’m listening to other progressive metal like Circus maximus, Pagans minde, Kamelot and other great singers. But to name an all time winner isn’t really doable for me.

What’s your songwriting method ?

Hans – Usually, I and/or Thomas von Bell comes up with a riff or a chord progression to a song, sometimes it is more or less a ready song, and sometimes it is just an idea to a song. Then we continue to work on it together with Daniel John and our producer Magnus Ljungqvist until we have a song structure and a good idea of the vocal arrangements before we present it to the rest of the band. We are not the kind of band that sort of jam on something in the rehearsal room until we have a song, but we are three principal songwriters who comes up with the songs before getting the rest of the band involved.

Daniel – I usually just sit down with the guitar or at the piano and just start letting the fingers do what they need to do. The often, not always, some kind of melody emerges. After that the lyrics often pops into my head.

HISTORY

Mervilton Records recording artist The Soul Exchange is a band that has constructed a new alchemy from the rock solid foundation of the 70’s hard rock scene.

They have taken this influence into the new millennium and have created their own unique style of metal infused modern guitar driven hard rock with great attention to the melodies and grand vocal arrangements.

The Soul Exchange was founded in 2013 by guitarist Hans von Bell, drummer Benny White and guitarist Thomas von Bell.

In 2014 the trio was joined by vocalist Erik Olofsson and Tobias Chevalier (vocals keyboards etc). The band enjoyed success with their eponymous debut album “The Soul Exchange” produced by the seasoned rock producer and studio engineer Mats “Limpan” Lindfors released on January 20th 2015.

In 2016 the band underwent some personnel changes with Daniel John joining founding members Hans & Thomas von Bell as new vocalist and also bringing in Benny White on drums and Patrik “Patte” Ekel on bass making up the present line up of The Soul Exchange.

Behind the scenes

With the new line up the band has moved into a new direction both musically and image wise with a different modern sound and stage image. The Soul Exchange now releases their 2nd full length album ‘Bloodbound’ produced by the renowned Swedish producer Magnus “Tank” Ljungqvist on the Mervilton Records.

‘Bloodbound’ is a much darker and modern sounding effort than the debut. The band claims that “this is a new era of The Soul Exchange” and that “Soul Exchange have found its sound on the 2nd release and this will be the formula going forward.

Modern hard rock with a great portion of metal influences and most importantly the vocal arrangements and melodies are having a major focus in The Soul Exchanges otherwise riff oriented music”.

The phrase “It is the sound of a new world being born and the louder sound of an old world being destroyed” has never been more relevant than for the new album by The Soul Exchange !