Servant of the Mind (opens in new tab) is out now via Republic.I’ve been doing a lot of interviews, but no-one ever talks about my bass playing because no-one cares. I feel like we should compensate for that this year.” We’ve been doing nothing for two years, apart from recording the album, of course: it’s the first time since I started playing bass that I haven’t played a show in two years. “We go out in mid-May for a lot of festival shows, and then we go out again in late August, September, for a full-scale European tour. I’ve seen 18 shows by The Cure and I’ve never heard him make even one tiny mistake. Simon Gallup has always been a favorite of mine. And then, of course, there was the first Black Sabbath album with the bass solos by Geezer Butler.” The bass is such a big part of their sound.

I play faster and better, I think, with my fingers.” For many years, I was just playing riffs with a pick, but then I joined Volbeat and I really got the feeling of being a bass player back, because suddenly there was room for interesting basslines. “I scaled down all my licks and all of the ideas I had. I was very young and I played with my fingers at the time, but after a couple of albums, I found out that the thing I wanted to do just didn’t fit in with a death metal band, so I started to play with a pick. “When I started playing bass, I was in a melodic death metal band called Withering Surface. I joined Volbeat and I really got the feeling of being a bass player back, because suddenly there was room for interesting basslines We go from pop-punk to rockabilly to Black Sabbath-inspired riff-based songs on this album, and the bass is a big part of the sound.” “And then, on a totally different song like The Sacred Stones, I wanted a different feeling – more of a Geezer Butler kind of vibe. It has this kind of rockabilly beat, so I mimicked an upright bass on the bass guitar. When we have chord progressions, instead of just playing the root note, I really like to play an almost walking bassline. “Well, maybe there was a lick that was a little bit too much, so I scaled it down.

Pic of volbeat album