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.

We volbeat album