Conductor of the WSOU radio station conducted an interview with guitarist Bill Steer of British extreme metal pioneers CARCASS at the the second annual Decibel Metal & Beer Fest, which was held March 31 and April 1 at The Fillmore in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You can now listen to the chat using the SoundCloud widget below. Asked if CARCASS has been working on the follow-up to 2013's comeback album, "Surgical Steel", Steer said: "I've sort of lost count of how many years have gone by since that last record, but I think it's around five. And yeah, it feels long overdue that we tackle a new record. We did demo a bunch of stuff at Christmas — it was probably close to 50 minutes' worth of music — but we're not gonna stop; we're gonna keep on writing so that we've got quite a lot of material and we can pick the best stuff for the album. So quite when it will be recorded definitively, I don't know, but it will have to be this year. I mean, me and Dan [drummer Daniel Wilding] are going stir crazy, really — we're so keen to do it." Steer also talked about the recent departure of second guitarist Ben Ash and addition of Tom Draper (POUNDER, ex-ANGEL WITCH, PRIMITAI). He said: "Well, I guess going back to what I was saying about five years of touring off one album, I think it's taken a toll on every one of us in one way or another. Ben was brought into the band as a live guitar player. We'd finished the album, we were booking shows and we needed to get out there with a second guitar player. This feels like an eternity ago, but we did have a Swedish friend of Jeff's [Walker, bass/vocals] who was in the frame, and then very near… it was quite near the knuckle for us, he kind of pulled out and said, 'Look, I can't do this for various reasons.' So then this frantic search began, and Ben came into the picture. And then we were off. And a lot of touring and a lot of travel [followed]. But, yeah, I gather he's quite keen to get back to some of the stuff he was doing beforehand, which is a lot of teaching, pretty much. And [Tom], our [new] second guitarist, he's a guy I've known for years. He would have been in the frame immediately [after 'Surgical Steel' was recorded], but as time would have it, it didn't work out, 'cause he'd moved with his wife to the U.S.A. And this is only his second show with us, so it's early days, but he's been fantastic. He's taking it very seriously. He's been so methodical with how he's learned everything, and he's very self-critical. So, yeah, he's a cool guy to have around." Draper, who is from the United Kingdom but currently resides in California, made his live debut with CARCASS in early March at the Netherlands Deathfest at 013 in Tilburg. "Surgical Steel" sold around 8,500 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 41 on The Billboard 200 chart.
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