It’s taken a while to get to this point, but Desert Fire, the superb new album from Soul Sign, is out today. Eleven great tracks full of depth, including another classic Bjorn Englen solo, Desert Fire is an album that deserves to be heard. Bjorn Englen and drummer Mike Cancino are excited to finally get the album out.
“It’s been a while and a lot of holdups,” bassist and songwriter Bjorn Englen told MetalTalk Editor Steve Ritchie. “I’m not gonna get into detail, but we’re all sought-after musicians playing in other bands. Finally, we’re getting this band in focus. We’ve had some holdups with labels, back and forth negotiations and stuff like that, so it’s great to finally get it out.
“We’ve been a little geographically spread out, living in different places, but also everybody’s touring all over the world and staying busy. It’s been a great journey and we’ve had this lineup for a while, more or less. Rob [Math, guitar] left the band briefly and came back. So it’s nice to finally have this lineup, the most amazing lineup of the band, finally have a record together. It’s gonna be really awesome to see all the reactions to the record, from the fans especially.”
Mike Cancino says he is stoked to have Desert Fire out. “Bjorn had the brilliant idea of moving to my house for as long as it took us. We did all the drum tracks in my house, right in my drum room. We kicked total ass. I’m very excited for this to be out. It’s a very special record.”
We spoke to Bjorn about the earlier Soul Sign singles, one of which was Out Of The Dark/White Room. For the video, Mike looked like he was having a total blast. How is it partnering Bjorn in the Soul Sign rhythm section?
“The very first time I set foot on stage with this badass gentleman,” Mike says, “was in Big Bear, California, thanks to my brother Chad. As soon as this badass fired up his gear, I knew I was in for the best weekend of my life. I’ve had the privilege and I’ve been blessed to play with some of the best bass players in the world. Bjorn is definitely one of the top bass players in the world. As soon as he plugs in, you feel that energy, that fire, and that growl that comes out of his crazy rig. We’ve got names for his rig. It’s pretty cool. It’s fun, especially at my house. It’s only been but the best to team up with Bjorn, both musically and as a friend, as a person, a musician that you aspire to be like and really admire.”
With vocalist Mark Boals and guitarist Rob Math, Soul Sign have a great four-piece. I really enjoyed listening to Mike’s drumming on this journey. I love the tone of Rob Math, and Mark Boals has such a great voice. Mike must be desperate to get out on stage and play some gigs with these guys.
“It is incredibly, incredibly fun to do because, as Bjorn said, it’s taken a while to get everything rolling and to get this lineup focused. We did a run a couple of months back where we played more than two nights in a row. It was like, wow. We’re doing things musically. We’re coming out live on stage with all the things that good music does to itself as it improves and gets better every night. It was awesome – the chemistry between the four of us. The energy is awesome.”
Desert Fire opens with the first single Clean Soil. For the video, Mike is, once again, having a blast. “Bjorn booked that date,” Mike says. “Once again, thanks to Bjorn. He says we’re gonna work our asses off. We’re gonna make three videos. It was awesome. It was the raddest three videos we filmed back to back. We did so much work in so little time. It was planned but not planned and it all came together thanks to the four of us and our video crew friend.
“It was awesome over there in Vegas. I think the minute this lineup does anything together, it’s awesome. It’s rad, and I do have a blast doing it. It could be video or even having dinner. When we were doing the video for White Room, we were in Tennessee. We went to this garage studio place and here’s what you have to work with. I stayed up all night and cleaned this old drum kit and I took all my cymbals as best I could.
“I felt like I was home. I had a bottle of Windex, some towels. We went down to the Ganja store and I had a good time. Then we came back. I sat up all night cleaning and getting ready for the video. We went through a couple of things getting ready for it, but once again, it seems like anytime we’re doing stuff together in this band, the energy and the feeling is awesome.”
I love Mark’s vocals on Lost Vague Ace. He really cracks a great chorus across the album, but here there is a great riff as well. I love the melodic solo and the twin guitar outro to the last chorus. Bjorn had explained in an earlier interview how he wrote lyrics to six songs sitting on a plane from New Jersey to Las Vegas. Was this one of Bjorn’s plane journey lyrics?
“The music came way before the lyrics, in this case,” Bjorn says. “A lot of times, I’ll have an idea, or Mike, and I work on a musical idea, and then the lyrics will come out parallel and subconsciously. The music to this was actually written in Las Vegas a while ago.
“The song is about Las Vegas for that reason. It was probably three in the morning and my girlfriend at the time wasn’t going to sleep. I went into the bathroom and just brought my bass. I sporadically came up with this and pretty much played it right through.
“A lot of times when I come up with an idea, I write it as I play it, naturally. So it was pretty simple. I played it for Mike and he said this is rad. Let’s record it. I’ve never been a resident of Las Vegas, but I’ve been there many, many, times. I can’t even tell you how many times. The vibe of the city, it’s a very unique place and now finally developing into more of a residential real city. But it’s still a new city, even now its developed.”
“Mark lives there,” Mike smiles.
With the earlier singles released, it was nice to finally get a feeling for how the album might sound. As we run into the next track, Desert Fire, you realise there is something awesome going on. This is a great song that jumps along wonderfully. There’s a kind of classic UFO feel to it?
“I think we kind of realised that,” Bjorn smiles. “I think Mike named it Dr Pepper?”
“Diet Dr. Pepper,” Mike laughs, “so we get a little different.”
“It does have a flavour sometimes when something reminds us of something, so we can’t use it,” Bjorn says. “The riff in Cean Soil sounded way too much like something else. I’m not gonna say what, but I know the guys in that band, and the last thing I want is them to think that we borrowed or stole the riff. Sometimes, it’s flattering, but it reminded me too much of it, whether it was a subconscious thing or not. So I just threw the notes around a little bit and I think the riff came up unique and better this way, really. But it was the same rhythm, the same amount of notes. I just swapped out the notes.”
That was not a criticism of any sort by me. Desert Fire is superb, and when it runs into that solo, Mark throws another fantastic chorus in there: “We see it so clear through smoke and fear.” Rob, again, is wonderfully busy with his layers. What was the thought behind making that the title track of the album?
“That’s a great question,” Bjorn smiles. “When we were laying drum tracks for the record, I had never been to Mike’s studio before. He’s got a lot of gear, so it’s the perfect place to track stuff. I walk in, and I see the wall’s black the ceiling’s black, and a big portion of the place. I’m like, Mike, what happened?”
Mike had a fire in the house. He had lit some incense and was in the yard. “Mike had the garden hose,” Bjorn smiles, “so he’s putting out the fire with the garden hose. Luckily, they called the fire department.
“We start tracking drums. It wasn’t too hot. So I opened the door and it’s the desert, right? I looked towards the mountain, and I saw flames in the mountain in the distance. There’s a fire in the desert? That’s what sparked the lyrics. The lyrics are about how everything came together, how we met and how we started working together. It was meant to be. The lyrics involve the whole idea of how Mike’s brother really was the connection for us to meet.”
Bjorn explains how a call to Chad Cancino found him recommending his brother Mike. “Everything just fell into place,” Bjorn says. “Mike comes running in and without even unloading his gear, and he said, I don’t know any of these songs. I said, don’t worry about it, let’s just have fun. So we played one song.
“I turned around in the middle of the song, we looked at each other, and it just clicked. I gave him a CD of the last album, and I said, Mike, pick any two songs on the record, and then we’ll do a jam in about a week or two. I called him up a few days later and asked, which two songs do you want to do? He said it didn’t matter; he knew the whole record.
“So we show up before the gig, and Mike’s there before everybody. We start playing the first song, and after the second verse, he stands up, and he stops. Then he goes, hey guys, hold on. It doesn’t go 2 times before the next pre-course. It goes 3 times. Let’s do it again.”
Mike Cancino was cracking the whip.
“It was so awesome to jam out,” Mike says. “I got invited to Hollywood to jam out from 12 to 2. That stayed for a year straight. I go every Tuesday or Wednesday to Hollywood to Van Nuys, California, from 12 to 2, and we just put the whole thing together. It was with Rob Math, myself and Bjorn. We finally got Mark.”
If you take the track Negative Thoughts, Mike has a great ride cymbal in the chorus, one example of a great performance. How does Mike describe his approach to drumming on Desert Fire?
“It’s a bit of everything,” Mike says, “but once again, I have to thank Bjorn. He gives me a lot of ideas of what he likes to hear in spots. I’ll try my best to simulate it and try to accomplish what he’s hearing and what’s best for the song. It’s a bit of freeform jam, and then we bring it down to these notes are cool, or I don’t know about those notes. A little bit of everything. Freeform, but also, we do work on it.”
Moving into the middle of the album, Brighter Day has got a great riff, while Bluelight In A Dream is a really nicely complex grower. There are a lot of tracks on this Soul Sign album that benefit from multiple listens. We get to like Can’t Wait, and Bjorn gets his intro. There is great bass all the way through that track, especially when he gets high in places. I really love that song. Is that Soul Sign’s political song?
“I think a little,” Bjorn says. “It’s a little bit of a worldwide. We have all these problems. I think Clean Soil is definitely a political one. More about our problems in the US that we’ve had for years, in my opinion. A lot of people feel the same, in one way or another.
“Shout is actually a political song about Sweden and their problems that they’ve been having for years. My discussions with people back there trying to help them with my point of view in not living there. It’s hard to see when you when you’re inside of a house or a country or a company. You may not see the problems. But somebody outside looking into a relationship or whatever it may be. ‘I’m your shout in the night. I’m not your enemy.’
“So, they would get mad at me when I would say something, but I’m like, I’m not your enemy. I’m here to help you. I’m here to wake you up and help you see that you guys are having problems. So that’s really what the song is about.”
I did pick up on the “I’m not your enemy” line in Shout, and again, Mark has a really great layered vocal in that in that track. “Phenomenal,” Bjorn says. “I like how his dynamics and his tone are different in each track. He didn’t track them all in the same week, so I think that helps a little bit, too. You back away from something, and you come back, and it can be a good thing, I think.
“When I personally write lyrics, I tend to steer away from writing about the typical love. There’s nothing wrong with that. For me, there’s so much else to write about when you think about it. Life on other planets. Even God or what’s the world situation like with all the things going on and the wars. There’s a lot of things to write about.”
In Can’t Wait, I love Rob’s solo. The layers he spreads throughout this Soul Sign song are great. Then we run from Can’t Wait into Alone (3A17 11338), which is Bjorn’s solo piece. This rolls back to the last Soul Sign album which had a solo piece with mysterious numbers in the name.
“I can give away the secret,” Bjorn smiles. “I stole it from one of my biggest heroes, Billy Sheehan. When I first saw that on the first Talas record, he had something similar. A friend of mine had figured it out. He took the LP, and he turned it upside down. He said, ‘Now read it’, and it read ‘Sheehan’. I thought that was pretty cool.
“So I stole that from him, with all due respect, more like paying tribute to someone who I’ve been looking up to as now as a friend. But this is as a mentor and his work ethic more than his playing. His work ethic is just phenomenal and he is such a great guy. So the first album had something like that and then this one is the same. If you turn it upside down, it reads uh BEE2, so Bjorn Eric Englen 2.”
Alone was recorded live at one of the Soul Sign shows a couple of years ago. “I could sit in the studio and do something,” Bjorn says. “I could have probably done something better. But it is live, and I like the raw, spontaneous feel. I don’t really plan my solos. I was kind of debating whether we put a bass solo on the record or not, but I like it. So, hey, why not?”
It is more than fine. The bass solo rolls into Shout and for me, that is good enough. Desert Fire finishes on Sole Sign. Is that a typo?
“I’m the one who suggested the name a long time ago,” Bjorn says. “The bandmates at the time were not too thrilled about the name. Years went by, and I got a lot of ‘Oh, you guys play soul music?’ There was a lot of confusion.
“Then it kind of sounded like Soul Asylum if I said it quickly. I’m thinking, this is not telling people that this is a rock or Metal band. I thought of seriously changing it to Sole Sign. I asked the guys, and Mark said no, a lot of people like the name.
“I thought we should have a song called Sole Sign. I wrote some lyrics initially, then Mark changed some of it. He took a different spin on it. He rewrote the vocal melody on the verses as well. It was fun and Mike had a big, big hand in the music in that song. He came up with the idea of the original intro riff. So that was a collaboration between Mike and myself coming up with the music and the arrangement.”
It’s a fantastic Soul Sign song. I really love the build into the verse and there is a great pace to Mark’s vocal compared to the riff. It is not a fast vocal, and it just fits him well. Rob is throwing Wah all over the place. It is a great finish to a great album.
“I’ve never worked with anybody who works better in the studio, any guitar player,” Bjorn says. “I’ve worked with a lot of great people. No disrespect to anyone, but Rob is on a different planet. The studio is where he’s very comfortable and he’s very precise. Ideas just flow out of him. The solo you mentioned, too, and Can’t Wait, is very, very short. I don’t think it’s even 20 seconds long.
“He doesn’t need a lot of time. He starts telling the story right away because if you have a 20-second solo, you gotta speak quickly. There’s no time to build. He’s just great like that. He doesn’t play the same stuff over and over. He kind of varies his licks and his vibratos and his ideas. It’s very much like an Eddie Van Halen, in a way, who was always playing different stuff all the time. It’s very cool.”
It is worth listening with headphones on to hear the three totally different but complementary guitar parts playing left both ears and the midel of your head. The last 30 seconds of Sole Sign made me smile, as well when you hear the hiss and fuzz of the end of a vinyl record. The only thing missing is the sound of the arm lifting off the vinyl. “Yes,” Bjorn laughs. “We’re gonna put it out on vinyl. But if you don’t play it on vinyl, you still get that scratch.”
Desert Fire is out today, and I think it is a triumph. It definitely deserves to be heard and cements the fact that Soul Sign are an awesome four-piece.
“We love to hear the feedback,” Bjorn says, “and see what people think. What’s your favourite track? That’s always a different answer from every person, and that’s just really fabulous to hear.”
The new Soul Sign album Desert Fire is out today worldwide. You can find shipping links for your country as well as tour news from the band at SoulSignBand.com/store.
For me, all I can say is that it was worth the wait.
