What was originally intended to be a few demos of Hans von Bells’ own music turned into a full blown CD-album production for commercial release in the fall of 2014. Back in 2009, Hans first played some instrumental demos that he had recorded in 2006 and 2007, for his drummer friend Benny White. When the pair hooked up again in the early summer of 2013, discussing the prospect to do something together, Benny asked Hans whether he had any other songs in store. Encouraged by Benny, Hans recorded a couple of new songs for the purpose of their initial rehearsals. As it turned out, these songs became full production backing tracks rather than simple demo recordings. With the decision to seriously start writing new material and do professional recordings, Hans installed the equipment for his own home studio during the summer of 2013. With the availability of a fully equipped recording studio in his own home, Hans soon had a handful of completed backing tracks and the idea of making a full length CD-album was taking shape.
However, one problem remained, Hans needed some good lyrics to go with the songs that he had. After some fruitless attempts of his own, Hans realized that he needed to find a real lyricist, as he did not want to destroy some perfectly good songs with bad lyrics. After looking at several options, Hans finally found his present song writing partner Jens Joel Evaldsson through an advertisement on the “Vi Musiker” website. Jens immediately began delivering quality lyrics to the songs that Hans had already recorded. Inspired by this new found partnership the creativity blossomed and by December of 2013 they had nine completed tracks with lyrics and all.
Remained to find a suitable singer who could do the vocal tracks to the songs. Around Christmas time 2013, Hans asked his friend Tobias Chevalier to record some of the songs. Even though Tobias did a stellar job recording the lead and backing vocals to some five songs, Hans was looking for a rawer rock oriented voice to the final production. Again Hans’s friend Benny White came up with the solution when he played Hans some live recordings with a guy named Erik Olofsson, an unknown singer from Skellefteå, Sweden. Erik had a very powerful rock voice, reminiscent of a young Joe Cocker, which Hans thought would be really cool and different from any standard hard rock voice. By March 2014, Hans von Bell and Jens Evaldsson had co-written some 12 good songs and Hans had completed the recording of all backing tracks. Hans by then was happy enough that they had good material to fill a full length CD-album! In May, Erik Olofsson, laid down all the lead vocal tracks for the entire album and a week later Tobias Chevalier came in and did some additional backing vocal overdubs. As can be heard in the end result, Erik’s powerful rock voice blends perfectly with Tobias crystal clear pop voice. Hans even ended up using some of Jens Evaldssons’ guiding backing vocal tracks in a couple of songs, as Jens’s high pitch voice contributed to the overall effect.
Teaming up once again with his old friend and band mate Mats “Limpan” Lindfors, Mats agreed to perform the final production work and to do the mastering of the record. “Limpan” performed the final mixing of the album in his own studio in the fall of 2014. The debut album by The Soul Exchange was released in January 2015.
While writing new material for a follow up to the debut album, Hans realized that the new songs and new direction of the band required a somewhat different sound and image. Thus, Daniel John joined founding members Hans and Thomas von Bell as new vocalist, and also bringing in Benny White on drums and Patrik “Patte” Ekelöf on bass, makes up the present line up of The Soul Exchange. Hans von Bell states that “this is a new era of The Soul Exchange” and that “the band has found its sound on the 2nd album and this will be the formula going forward. Doom rock with a great portion of classic rock, and most importantly the melodies will always be a major focus in the music of The Soul Exchanges’ riff oriented rock”. The 2nd Soul Exchange album titled BLOODBOUND was released on November 29th, 2016 and Hans plans to take the band out on tour.
The Soul Exchange Official Website: http://www.soulexchangeofficial.com/