Chicago metalhead legends SOiL undoubtably sewed the seed for the nu-metal scene when they erupted into the rock scene in the late 90s, cementing some of the biggest alternative anthems with the likes of Halo, Unreal and Redefine. I spoke with co-founder and original member Tim King who talked me through how the band first started and what we can look forward to from their newly announced set at Hard Rock Hell 19 for 2026.
We started by taking it right back to 1997 when SOiL first formed and started their brotherhood of sound, Tim reminisced saying “it’s more of a back to your roots story. All of us, except for Ryan, our singer, were in death metal bands. Our original guitar player is in a band called Broken Hope, and the other three of us were in a band called Oppressor. We had been playing in the death metal scene for seven, eight years, and what happened was the whole Norwegian black metal scene started erupting and everybody started painting their face and stuff, and death metal had started to lose a little bit of its popularity back then. So we were like, we don’t want to jump on this bandwagon of black metal. We just kind of started jamming out in our practice space, getting back to our roots with things like Sabbath, Ozzy and Metallica. We were really into corrosion and conformity at the time as well. So we were just kind of moulding into that type of thing. It really started coming together well, and we needed a singer because naturally you can’t bark death metal vocals over an Ozzy Osbourne type song. So I actually got in the mail when people used to tape trade and send CDs and cassettes, and [I received] a CD that had Ryan’s old band, a band called
D.E.M. on it, and I heard his voice and I’m like, wow, this guy is the ultimate combination of Layne Staley meets Rob Zombie. He’d be perfect for our band, and it said on the band bio that he lived in Indiana, and there’s no phone number, there was no email address, nothing. So I wrote him a handwritten letter and mailed it, and about two weeks later, he called me on the phone and I told him what we were doing and what everything was about, and we started doing some demos together and it just kind of started popping off really well. Usually Indiana means you’re about 30 minutes away from where we were but it turned out he was about six hours away, so rehearsing was a little bit tough at first. But he was really sick of Indiana and actually moved out here to Chicago, and we just started putting demos together and playing out in the scene and it was right when the scene just kind of started.”
Tim continued “We were really at the forefront of it, and we had an early record deal, went in the studio and recorded with Steve Albini – he’s now passed away – but he did things like Nirvana and Bush Records, I mean, he worked with a bunch of great bands. He was very much so in the indie scene. So we recorded our first record called Throttle Junkies with him, and it was not the right decision for the time. We were a band that was very much trying to find our way and kind of hone in on our sound to kind of figure out who we were, and he was somebody that was perfect at capturing the identity of a band. If you already knew who you were, what you were about, what you wanted, didn’t want anybody really telling you how to craft your songs and do things, he was the perfect person. That’s why bands like Nirvana and Bush and stuff went to him. It wasn’t the right decision for us because we were all over the place, and if you listen to that record, it’s kind of a little bit all over the place. Sounds like Metallica one minute and Stoner Rock the next, but it was a good learning experience, and the scene really started to flourish right after that. That’s when Disturbed had put out The Sickness and that started to make some waves, and there were a bunch of other bands in the scene. Chicago started becoming like this new hotbed for rock or as they deemed it later on, nu-metal. So what we did is we really decided to kind of figure out who we were, started down tuning the guitars, started really honing in on our craft, and that’s when we started writing all the material that would became the Scars record. Halo was one of those songs, and a radio station down in Florida had gotten wind of our band and what we were about and asked if they could play Halo on their radio station. They put it out, played it, and it instantly just blew up in Florida, just gigantic. So we had a major label bidding war going on and we ultimately decided to sign with Clive Davis’ label J Records. Which was BMG Records in the rest of the world, and we went in with producer Johnny K, who really kind of helped us hone our sound. He was the person that we needed, probably from the get-go to really help us with finding what we should do and what we shouldn’t do and get everything properly sounding and arranged. He was really great at arranging songs and giving ideas. He put a lot into that record and really made that record a lot of what it was along with kind of us finding ourselves.“
“We put it out and kind of the rest is somewhat history, as they say, from that point. In the United States, we got offered the Ozzy Osbourne / Rob Zombie / Mudvayne tour right away. And that ultimately broke us in the United States, and just out of nowhere in the UK, we just showed up and our first show ever we did a press day, a photo shoot, and then we did a surprise show at the Camden Underworld, and they had to turn people away. People were around the block and they had to say, nope, there’s not enough room for you to come in – it just started going nuts. And every time we’ve come back to the UK, it’s been like that. It’s become like a second home for us. It really solidified everything we did. And then we started to get bigger in the body of Europe and the years went by, and we put out more records. One thing I can pride ourselves on as a band is we never stopped. We never broke up. We never took a hiatus. We just dug in. We said, you know what, let’s just ride this wave out, and now the early 2000s style of music and nu-metal and stuff is back in full force. It has been for a few years now, which has been great for us because we didn’t have to reform our band and figure out what we were going to do and get new members. We’ve been here all along.”
Looking at how they formed their sound, we discussed some of the bands key influences, with Tim stating “Mötley Crüe’s been my favourite band since I was 10 years old, and the rest of my band hate it when I’m always quoting Mötley Crüe or trying to operate SOiL in a Mötley Crüe-esque way! But they’ve always said that their album Too Fast for Love is like a glorified demo, and I consider Throttle Junkies like our glorified demo, and Scars is our Shout at the Devil. It’s the record that broke it for us and where we identified our sound and really came into our own. So, a lot of people consider Scars as our first record, even though there is Throttle Junkies, which is technically our first.”
As previously stated, Halo was a huge hit that took the rock scene by storm in 2001, and when asked about why he thinks it became such an anthem, Tim said “It’s one of those songs that just kind of, for whatever reason, a song like Halo or any song that you would deem, quote unquote, like a hit song generates with a mass amount of people, you don’t really realize it at the time. We never thought Halo was gonna be a hit. When we recorded it and it was part of a three-song demo, that was literally most people’s least favourite song on there. But I just think that it kind of just resonates with an audience on a large scale and just becomes something all of its own. You don’t necessarily write it as a hit or think about writing a hit when you’re doing it at the time because there’s been songs that we’ve written and been like, oh, this song could be a hit and it’s a complete dud. But it’s just one of those things that that song and that album in general [Scars] is just kind of some lightning in a bottle that we’re very lucky to be in a perfect time for the music scene. It was a perfect time for us as a band. It was a perfect blend of songs. Perfect producer that we had hired for it. Everything just aligned in a very perfect way to where other albums we’ve done.”
The last time we had new releases from SOiL was their 2023 Restoration album which held reimagined tracks of some of their older material, and prior to that was their 2022 covers album Play it Forward, Tim gave us an exclusive insight for next year where we can look forward to some brand new music just in time for their HRH appearance, saying “it’s been very long overdue. We actually just came back from Nashville, Tennessee, and finished a new body of material. It’s in the process of being mixed and mastered right now, so we’re looking at some point in 2026 to release it, hopefully maybe like in the first half of 2026 for sure. We’re just kind of figuring out when’s a good time in the music scene and who else is releasing stuff at the time and then we’ll just pick when to put it out in that part. But it turned out really, really well. We were really happy with it. It was one of those things where we did about everything you could do without putting out a new body of material after the whole record.”
Hard Rock Hell have recently released the line-up for its 19th run which includes SOiL who the team cannot wait to welcome back! After discussing new music in the pipeline for 2026, Tim expressed that “we would like to throw a new one in there. I think the fans are kind of really chomping at the bit for it. So by the time we reach Hard Rock Hell, the new release will be out. I’m super excited that LA Guns is on the bill, one of my favourite bands of all time, and I’m really looking forward to seeing them, and there’s a bunch of other great bands on there, too, like Finger Eleven, Adema, Danko Jones. It’s just gonna be a great lineup and I want to say it’s gonna be at least the third time we’ve played Hard Rock Hell maybe the fourth if I’m not mistaken but at least the third and we always just have a great time there. They treat you fantastic and all in all it’s just a good time, every time so when I heard that we got offered it this year I was like yes, let’s do that!”
It looks like 2026 is going to be an epic year for SOiL, and Hard Rock Hell is excited to add to the hype! Catch these metal icons at Hard Rock Hell 19 in Great Yarmouth for November 2026, tickets available now through www.darkwatch.net.
Grab Your Passes to Hard Rock Hell 19 Right Here!
Interview by Charlotte Hooper
Photo Credit: Press Provided
