INTERVIEW: Kaspar Boye Larsen – Volbeat

Over their now-eighteen-year-long career, Danish rock quartet VOLBEAT have gradually arisen from somewhat of a genre-melding curiosity taking cues from the worlds of both metal and country music, to a Grammy-nominated, full-blown arena and stadium-level band across the world. Now imminently about to release their seventh studio album Rewind, Replay, Rebound, and just days away from heading out on a massive US campaign supporting SLIPKNOT, we caught up with the band’s bassist Kaspar Boye Larsen to chat about his experience writing and recording with the band for the first time, the various special guests involved in their latest creation, and their extensive touring schedule to support its release.

At the time of speaking, we’re about a week and a half away from the release of your new album Rewind, Replay, Rebound – how much excitement is there in the VOLBEAT camp for getting this thing out to the fans?

Kaspar: We’ve been waiting; I mean, we started writing this thing almost two years ago now, then a year ago we really sped up the writing process and all that so we could go into the studio in December – and then we were done. So then we’ve just been waiting and waiting and waiting y’know, to get out and play, and play the new songs. There’s been a few songs out already, but I can’t wait to get out and play the new songs live – that’s gonna be great.

This is of course the first time you’ve actually been on one of the band’s studio albums since you officially joined in May 2016 – how did you find the whole writing & recording process, and general studio dynamic compared to any experience you had from your other projects?

Kaspar: Well, when I joined, I didn’t have any idea how it would turn out, how they would do it; every time you join a new band, you find it’s done differently – maybe one guy comes up with the song, maybe it’s the whole band, but most other bands I’ve been in have been aggressive, so I didn’t know at all what to expect y’know? But then I joined and we slowly started rehearsing, and Michael [Poulsen, vocals/guitar] came up with a few ideas; he might have chords or a verse or maybe both, and then just like a regular band we’d get it all done in the rehearsal room. And maybe Rob [Caggiano, lead guitar] would come up with a riff or an idea. I mean, it was just like a regular band that I’m used to; we’d get there and you could spend a whole rehearsing day just doing a break, I mean it’s so tiresome but the result is great and I was just very happy to find the process was very much like a normal band! [laughs] So yeah, um, for me it’s been great – I’ve been working a lot with Rob because we’ve been demoing almost half of the songs, like proper demos. I was working a lot with Rob on the basslines of course – I had tons of ideas and he was kind-of the one that picked [each one] out and we’d talk about it and discuss it. It was great for me in that process.

You mentioned there the rather extensive demoing process for the record – did you find that many of the songs changed and evolved much between those earlier recordings and the versions that actually ended up on Rewind, Replay, Rebound?

Kaspar: No – actually, all the songs that we were demoing turned out exactly like that, because they were refined so much that those were the final versions, the demos that we did with Rob. But the other half [of the record] kind of changed a little bit because maybe our producer Jacob Hansen, he’d have some idea like “Oh, why don’t you try that?”. So that changed some things a little bit, but the songs that we’d worked out as demos ended up pretty much exactly like the demos, only with better sound.

Across this album, as with any other VOLBEAT release you’ve got a real mix of everything from really pacey rock & roll songs like Pelvis on Fire and Die To Live and Sorry Sack Of Bones, to the slower more ballad-like songs like 7-24 and When We Were Kids. How difficult is it to find the right balance between a set of such distinct-sounding songs when you’re putting together a record?

Kaspar: Well, actually, when we were done with the initial recording we kinda thought that something was maybe missing because there was perhaps a bit of an overload of that mid-paced, kinda maybe even slow, rock songs, and so we sat around and thought that we needed to come up with some more of those fast-tempo songs – some of that typical VOLBEAT stuff. So Michael ended up writing like three songs or something during a weekend, like totally from start to finish – I don’t know what he was on! [laughs] But those came out as very quick, very typical VOLBEAT songs, except for Sorry Sack Of Bones – that’s not at all what you’d call typical. We were listening a lot to THE CRAMPS in the studio; it’s a favourite of all of ours, and kinda rubbed off I think – it’s a little CRAMPS song and I love it too.

This time around, as tends to be the case on VOLBEAT records, there’s a couple more special guests on the album again, including the Harlem Gospel Choir, Mia Maja and members of JD McPherson’s band – but most notably SLAYER and EXODUS’s Gary Holt on Cheapside Sloggers and CLUTCH’s Neil Fallon on Die to Live. How did those guys come to be involved in the record?

Kaspar: The gospel choir I think was planned a month ahead, we had a few songs that had that sort of vibe to them and thought it was a good fit. Me and Michael, we were talking about Gary Holt one day for some reason and just sort of decided to ask him if he could do a solo on one of the songs. And he was just like “Yeah, of course”. The band of course know him from way back, and I’d been a fan for a long time, and I think it turned out well.

Now that the record’s obviously properly done and about to be released to the world, are there any particular tracks or moments on the record that you consider personal favourites or highlights?

Kaspar: The whole album means a lot really, and there’s certain spots on every song; some more than others, but there’s so many moments where I can hear my touch in there, and I was almost allowed to do anything and everything. So, the whole process of writing, demoing, recording, it really was this big eye-opener for me. I think it turned out really well though. I was a little bit, not worried, but excited about doing this record and finding out can I add something to the music a lot, or will it matter, or…I don’t know. It means a lot to me.

What’s coming up next in the immediate future for yourself and VOLBEAT as far as promoting the record then? Obviously you’ve already kicked off the year doing some US shows with GODSMACK back in May and played a couple of shows in Norway and Denmark last month; you’re just about to head back out to the States on the Knotfest Roadshow with SLIPKNOT, GOJIRA and BEHEMOTH this Friday, and we’ve recently had the UK/EU tour dates with BARONESS and DANKO JONES in terms of plans over here – that kind-of ties up most of the rest of this year, right?

Kaspar: Yeah, we’ve got I think seven weeks in the US with SLIPKNOT and Knotfest, and then we’re back for just a couple of weeks before we start in the UK in mid-September, something like that, going straight into some European dates, and then we’re back for not even two weeks before we start the second leg of Europe and eventually finish up somewhere around December. So now it really starts. I mean, I’m kinda looking forward to all of that because we haven’t really been trying things; we stopped last year in early August, and then we just did the recordings and and writing of the album and all that; and then we had the GODSMACK tour in April, then a few odd shows. But now it starts really in a big way and it’ll be great just to be out, and to sound good; it’s a lot better the more you get to play the new songs. The only bad thing about being on tour is that the family is back home, and that’s a lot of time to be missing with them. And my kids are too small to be bringing on tour right now, so I can’t really do that.

Perhaps in a few more tours’ time?

Kaspar: Exactly! I think in a few more years I could for maybe a week or something – that’d be nice.

With regards to the Knotfest US dates, you’re essentially playing main support on a mill that’s packed with a lot of, well, very heavy bands…

Kaspar: [laughs] Yeah! I’m excited to see how that turns out, because that is a heavy bill – GOJIRA and BEHEMOTH, come on! Then us, and then SLIPKNOT.

Does being the least ‘conventionally heavy’ band on a bill like that really affect how you approach things at all, compared to say when the UK/EU show bill come around?

Kaspar: Well, when we toured with METALLICA for example, a couple of years ago, we just played mostly the harder stuff that we’ve got; just to kind-of keep up, because we thought like, this is METALLICA and we need to keep up. And so we played most of the heavier stuff there and we felt it, and there were some VOLBEAT shirts in the crowds. But we know now we can kind-of keep up with the heavier bands like SLIPKNOT and GOJIRA, so we’re probably just gonna go out there and do what we do best – melodic hard-rock? [laughs] I dunno! If what we’re doing doesn’t work, I guess we just go to the bar for a beer or something! [laughs] To be honest though, I’m very excited about that bill because I know in Europe it’d never work, I don’t think so anyway. But things are a little bit different out there, and I think it’ll go well. At least I hope! [laughs]

Rewind, Replay, Rebound is out now via Vertigo Records.

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