Ryan McCombs Of SOIL

Ryan McCombs Of SOIL -by Nikki Neil

Soil is living proof that you just can’t keep a good band down. Just a few months after releasing their first full-length Throttle Junkies (1999) on MIA records (the band also released an EP, el chupacabra, (1998) on MIA) the owner of the label closed up shop and called it a day. Most bands would have said, “Oh well, it was fun,” but not Soil. Ryan McCombs (Vocals), Shaun Glass (guitar), Adam Zadel (guitar), Tim King (bass), and Tom Schofield (drums) weren’t about to give up that easily.

With a solid fan base already established and their demo single “Halo” receiving frequent spins on major rock stations across the U.S., Soil soon found themselves in the middle of a major label bidding war. In the end, J Records won and Soil became the label’s first hard rock act. The result of that fruitful union was Scars—an album that relies less upon gimmickry and more on musical prowess and aggression.

Soil got its start on MIA records. What happened with MIA?

About two months after we completed the Throttle Junkies album, the label went out of business. The owner decided to fold up shop and call it a day. So, we were left without a label and were ready to start all over again.

Was the band a bit discouraged after MIA closed up shop?

There was a feeling of discouragement. There was a moment when I think we had to look inside and look at one another and decide whether or not we were going to strap the guitar a little tighter and keep going. We’d all put so much into it already that the decision was very easy. It was just a matter of getting our focus back and getting a game plan and some goals put back in line and keep going for it.

Did the support you received from fans help the band’s decision to continue on?

Definitely. The friends that we kept close to us, back home in Chicago, and our road crew never let us get down too much. It’s a good family atmosphere. They always make sure we are on the right page and right direction.

MIA is in the past, and now Soil has a new home at J records. Were you and your bandmates a little nervous about signing with J Records being that it is a new label and Soil is their first hard rock act?

When the labels first showed interest in us, we had a lot to choose from. So it was just a matter of trying to shorten down the list. We were on a time schedule. We wanted the album out that year because “Halo” was already receiving airplay, so it was just a matter of trying to get a deal done. The right deal done, but at the same time get the deal done. We wanted to get into the studio and get the album out so we wouldn’t lose the radio buzz on “Halo”. So it was just a matter of trying to figure out what label to go with, and when J Records first came in the fact that they were a new label was definitely a discouragement. It probably, to be honest with you, landed them last on the list of record labels in our eyes. We wanted to go with something that was proven, but after meeting with all the different labels and meeting the people at J Records we found out that all these bands we used to listen to growing up, that were signed to these other labels that were courting us, a lot of those people that helped make these labels and bands what they were when we were growing are now sitting at J Records. Clive really put together a dream team at J Records. So, after meeting them it really made the decision easy when we realize we were going to have this amazing staff of people that Clive put together at our disposal. 110% of their focus was going to be on Soil as far as the rock department goes because we were going to be the only thing that the rock department had to mess with for the next year - year and a half.

You have their full attention.

Exactly. Any band out there will attest to the fact that so much of it has to do with having the entire team behind you. We are lucky enough to be in the situation where that is what we have.

Did you have the opportunity to meet Clive Davis?

When we narrowed down the list of labels we went to New York City and met with all the different labels. At that time we met with J Records. Clive had us and his staff at the rock department come in to his office. He gave us his own presentation and his own sales pitch and let us know that he was behind us 100%. He answered a lot of questions that we had. Knowing Clive and his work with solo artists, we were really concerned. We wanted to make sure that we had control of our music because the rock realm is different than the solo artist realm. We wanted control over what we were doing and he made us feel absolute in the fact that we would have control over what we were doing and that he wouldn’t interfere in that way. He wanted nothing more than to do everything he could to see that Soil succeeded and J Records along with us.

So are the members of Soil still happy with the decision to sign with J Records?

It is a great feeling. About 2 a.m. on the last night of the Merry Mayhem Tour, which we did with Ozzy and Rob Zombie, we were waiting for bus call so we could leave. I was sitting out there looking at the arena…arena tours aren’t like they were when I was growing up. They’re not as abundant as they used to be, so you’re never really sure how long it is going to be until you get the opportunity to do a tour like that again. So, while I was standing out there looking at the arena, I called up our A&R guy at J Records and commented to him how good it felt to realize that after spending years and years trying to do the music thing we made a decision with J records that we still stand behind and that we were very proud of making. It was definitely the right decision then and it still is.

Did you have a chance to meet Ozzy while on the Merry Mayhem tour?

Yeah. He came into our dressing room about the third show of the tour. We had a chance to sit down and talk to him. He is just an amazing human being. We’ve heard all the stories about the evilness and the biting off the bat’s heads and the birds and all that other stuff and all of a sudden we meet the man himself and find that he is truly one of the most real human beings we’ve ever met. It was a real honor.

Scars came out on September 11^th. Where were you guys when the Twin Towers were hit?

We were actually in the air when everything went down on the 11^th. We were flying from Orlando, FL. to Chicago. We had a record release show in Orlando on the 10^th, and we were flying home to do the record release show in Chicago on the 11^th. We didn’t know anything until we actually landed at O’Hare. We got held on the airplane for about three hours. Shortly after we landed the pilot came on the intercom and, at the time he didn’t know what was going on either, but he told us that we weren’t able to get to the terminal. He came back on about five minutes later and informed us of what was going on. He told us the first tower had fallen and asked us to turn on our cell phones so we could let friends and loved ones know that we were okay. We turned on our cell phones and there were at least twenty to thirty messages on each one of our phones from people freaking out hoping that we were okay. My family isn’t from Chicago but they were driving into Chicago and I had messages from them stopping at gas stations calling and wondering if our plane was one of them because at that point and time no one knew flight numbers. There was no confirmation as to which planes had actually been hijacked, so everyone was real concerned and worried.

Did you notice a drop in attendance at shows in the weeks that followed the events of September 11^th?

Oh definitely. We canceled the record release show in Chicago, which was supposed to be on September 11^th. We met that night in our crew’s hotel room and basically had a meeting on what we were going to do and the consensus was, “This is our job. Our job is to do everything we can to make this album work and to go out there and promote it.” We just had that one day off and the next day we were in Toledo, Ohio doing what we needed to do, which was to get right back on the road. We did notice a drop in attendance. The Toledo show was at a very small club that probably held about 200 – 250 people. A little over one hundred presale tickets were sold and about five or six people showed up. Each day got a little better and by that Friday or Saturday, I forgot which day it was, you could tell things were getting back to normal attendance wise. The crowds were showing back up and everything was getting back to normal.

I had a hard time going out right afterwards. I went to a show about two weeks after September 11^th, but I still felt uncomfortable leaving home.

It was something we’ll never forget.

Johnny K is pretty well known in Chicago. How did Soil hook up with him?

He is close friends with the Disturbed guys and Shaun, Tim, Adam, and Tom grew up in the Chicago area and were in the same music scene with Fuzz, Dan (Donegan), and David (Draiman) and were friends with them. Dan and David were friends with Johnny K. They talked us up to Johnny and he got a hold of us because he was interested in hearing some new music. He had been to a few early shows of ours and wanted to hear some new music and he talked about doing some demos and shopping them. So it was really thanks to Dan and David that Johnny looked our direction.

Did you expect “Halo” to be as big of a hit as it turned out to be?

No. I think the only person in this band that thought “Halo” had any spark to it was Shaun.

Shaun is very opinionated and he kept telling us ”’Halo’ is the song. ‘Halo’ is the song.” We told him, “Naw, ‘Need to Feel’ might be a little more accessible.” Then when Pat Lynch, the program director over at WJRR in Orlando, Florida, got a hold of the demo he threw “Halo” on the radio and it just grew from there. For the most part, we were just surprised that "Halo” was the song that got us at least to this point.

Is there one song off of Scars that you feel best sums up Soil as a whole?

That’s a hard question. I think…I hate to avoid the direct answer, but I think the album represents the band as a whole. I don’t think there really is just one song that I single out because one of the neatest things I’ve had told to me is that the album sounds like it’s coming from the same band. There are some albums out there that if you’ve heard a couple of tracks you’ve heard pretty much the entire album. However, I’ve heard that [Scars] is diverse within itself. So I have to say that the album as a whole is probably the collective of the band. It’s the best representation of the band.

I noticed that your lyrics are very personal. Do you ever feel disconnected from your songs after they’ve been recorded or while singing them live?

Live more so for me because the songs are very personal and meaningful to me lyrically. The live show can be a bit of a therapy session and that’s never really gone away. The songs are very close to me because they are about stuff that I lived and have gone through. So live shows can be quite the therapy session for me because I’m working through things that either I’m still dealing with or had a hard time getting through them when I was dealing with them.

How did you feel the first time you heard one of your songs on the radio?

Proud. It has been a long time coming. It was a really neat feeling to me to think, first of all, that the radio people that first got involved with us early on thought enough of [the song] to put it on the radio in the first place. These people have music burning their ears every day. I’m sure they have people from local areas throwing CDs/demos at them trying to get them to run airplay and not realizing that it’s just not the way the business works. The fact that they came across what we were doing and thought it had enough merit and quality to put it on the radio is a real honor. To be accepted by people in the radio industry is a real honor.

Do you do anything special to get into the mood for recording?

Not really. [Recording] is by far my favorite part of being in a band. I love creating, and I love writing music with the guys. For me the most exciting part of it is just hearing Tim, Adam, Shaun, and Tom laying down their tracks and just watching the songs come to life. So, when it comes time for me to go in there’s really no preparation. I’m chomping at the bit when it comes my time to go in there and start laying down the vocal tracks.

When you write your lyrics do you come up with them beforehand or do you come up with them while the band is in the process of creating a new tune?

I have binders and folders full of lyrics. I’ll be sitting on the bus or at home and lyrics or lines just come into my head and I’ll jot them down, but I so rarely get the opportunity to use them because when I’m in the rehearsal spot listening to the guys working on a song, lyrics just come to me. I’ll pretty much write them on the spot as the song is being written. So, all these lyrics that I write on any given day pretty much never really get used. When I hear a song coming together whatever is in my mind at the time just comes out lyrically.

So you’re very spontaneous?

Yeah, it seems to be that way. It is probably the one thing in life that I’m spontaneous about.

Can you recall your most memorable live show?

I couldn’t really say where…it was probably Tucson, Arizona because it was the first show of the Merry Mayhem Tour and it was on Halloween, which was exactly four years from the day when Soil played its first show. On Halloween in 1997 we played our first show together and then, exactly four years later, we are in an arena with Ozzy, Rob Zombie, and Mudvayne. And, to top it all off, the set goes by and we break into “Halo” and…the first couple of months of touring the clubs whenever we’d play “Halo” I would never have to sing the chorus. The crowd would always sing the chorus. It was such a great feeling. But the Merry Mayhem Tour was in big arenas, so we didn’t know how things were gonna go. So we start playing “Halo” and there’s the crowd, just like in the small clubs, screaming the lyrics to “Halo”. It was a great feeling. It topped off the high of getting on stage with the likes of the bands that we were with.

Who are some of your favorite bands?

Black Label Society, Black Label Society, Black Label Society. I’m the biggest, sicko fan of Zakk Wylde and all his work. My favorite album of all time is probably a double album that he did back in ‘96 called Book of Shadows. Aside from Zakk, I’m a Natalie Merchant fan. I also listen to a lot of unsigned bands. There’s a band out of Iowa called Alone that I think are phenomenal. There’s another band out of Connecticut called Gargantuia Soul that is really good and another band from Chicago called Rebels Without a Plause that I really like.

How did you find out about those bands?

We’ve played shows with Rebels Without a Plause and Alone in and around Chicago for several years. We met Gargantuia Soil when we were doing some shows with Union Underground and pete. and we’ve stayed in contact with them ever since.

What bands did you grow up listening to?

My dad was always listening to music in the house, and my brother, who is five years older than me, did too. My brother was either listening to Led Zeppelin or 80’s rock, and my dad was listening to Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, or Aerosmith. So I grew up on all those bands.

At what point in your life did you know you wanted to sing?

I still don’t. I tried every instrument. I started out on guitar, went to drums, and then ended up playing bass in bands for five or six years. I always consider myself a bassist at heart because I’m the last guy that should ever be up on stage as a frontman. I just don’t have the…it’s just like my wife says, the person that is up there on stage is not the person she knows. It’s not necessarily something that if you knew me you would picture me being able to do. It’s kind of a personality clash. I really fought singing for a long time because of my personality. I loved playing bass and hanging out in the back. But it came down to the guys I was playing with back home in Indiana. It was basically, “Alright, you’ve got a voice and we can’t find a singer but we can find another bass player so this is what you need to do.” I fought it for a while and finally gave in.

Are you originally from Indiana?

Yes.

And when did you move to Chicago?

The first year that I was in Soil I was still in two other bands back home in Indiana, which is about five and a half hours from Chicago. So on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I practiced with D.E.M. and on Tuesday and Thursday I practiced with Maji. Then, on Friday night I would drive up to Chicago and practice two times on Saturday and once on Sunday with Soil and then I’d head back to Indiana to start the week all over again. I did that for about a year and then my second year in Soil I moved up to Chicago and lived in our practice space for the next couple of years.

So what do you like most about being in Soil?

There are so many things. I’d have to say a lot of it, being someone that likes writing music and being somebody that it is their favorite thing to do, is being in this band. I’m with guys that just write very easily together. There are no struggles. I always joke about “Halo” being a fifteen-minute mistake. We were sitting in a practice space and “Halo” was written in all of about ten or fifteen minutes. These guys have played music together for a long time. Tom, Tim, and Adam played together for seven years before Soil came about, and Shaun was best friends with these guys for most of those years. So, they all got along very well and they write so easily together and just being in that atmosphere is a great thing. I was in a band back home that was together for three years, and we wrote twelve songs in those three years. But, with these guys we were home for a week about a month ago and “boom” we had two more songs. The writing process is fun. It just keeps everything fresh. Other than that, the great thing about being in this band is being in the situation where we are able to produce and perform good music that we all enjoy and that we’re getting recognition for. We’re grateful that the fact that the fans out there are actually taking time out of their lives to come and see us live and go out and buy the CD. That is probably the greatest thing of all - just being in a situation where we are able to do what we want to do musically and being put in a situation with J records where the people are able to get a hold of our music and able to decide whether or not we are worthy. And, luckily for us they are taking time out of their day and giving it to us for what we are doing.

What would you say has been the biggest compliment you have received so far?

Probably the biggest compliment we get is just about every live show. The biggest compliment I think any musician can get is showing up at a show and having people come out to it. Having Ozzy come up to us and tell us that he likes our music was great. But, the people out there like you and me who are just normal people that give up time out of their lives to come out and see us every night at shows that is the biggest reward you can get.

I agree. A friend of mine wanted me to find out if Tim was really obsessed with Nikki Sixx?

(laughs). In a bad way. It’s funny. Whenever the questions are pointed towards the band about who is our favorite band Tim will say, “Okay, I’m not embarrassed to say it, it’s Motley Crüe.” He is a huge Motley Crüe fan, and we all razz him about it. But honestly, hell, when I was a bass player, especially when I first started out, Nikki Sixx was a big influence of mine too. I never went out with a big sign like Tim does. He’s very much a proud fan of Nikki Sixx and Motley Crüe.

Has he ever met Nikki Sixx?

I believe he did at a convention about three or four years ago out in L.A.

Was that at Foundations Forum?

It might have been. That sounds familiar.

What are some of Soil’s goals for 2002?

We’re hoping to get back with our friends that we made on the Ozzy Tour and do Ozzfest. Our main goal is to have the opportunity to keep doing what we are doing now—to make this a career and as long as people love what we are doing we’re going to have the opportunity to make it a career. So, our goal right now is to keep on the path that we are at. We’ve accomplished a lot. We’ve accomplished a lot of stuff that I’ve questioned as to whether we would ever have the chance to do and, at the same time, in the grand scheme of things, we’ve accomplished so little. There is so much stuff yet to try and do.

For more on Soil visit www.soilmusic.com