Band der Woche: Saille (Dark Easter Metal Meeting 2016)

Saille, eine belgische Metal Band, werden am 27. März beim Dark Easter Metal Meeting im Backstage zusammen mit Rotting Christ, Dornenreich, My Dying Bride und einigen anderen an den Start gehen. Der Sänger von Saille, Dennie Grondelaers, hat unsere Fragen beantwortet und gibt euch im Vorlauf zum Festival einen kleinen Einblick:

Who is behind Saille?
Saille is Belgian band consisting of six individuals with a wide array of musical and personal interests. We vary in age, location and family composition, but all agree on the fact that there are too much dumb people on this planet. Our other/previous bands are Mortifer, Battalion, Gorath, Fleshmould, Natan, Suhrim and a shitload of other projects, and that list will probably double within the next 20 years.

If you had to put your music into a drawer and print a label on it, what would it say?
People have been asking me this since I joined Saille and I’m still quite unable to really answer this question. We’ve been called Symphonic Black Metal, but I don’t consider us symphonic enough for that (which is good, since I personally don’t like that connotation); we’ve been called Melodic Black Metal, but I consider that an incomplete description; we’ve even been called Emotional Black Metal, whatever the hell that might be. These days a lot of people like to label us ‘Epic Black Metal’, which is fine by me. It steers away from endlessly defining the musical sub-sub-sub-…-genre, which is pretty much a drag and nit-picking, and focuses more on what we try to achieve: an atmosphere of grandeur and hopeful misery.

Forget about genres for a second – Saille’s music sounds like …?
Saille is the soundtrack to a comet smashing into Earth, the Black Plague killing off millions in Europe and R’lyeh rising from the seas. It’s the tune the Devil and his disciples dance to on Walpurgis night atop Brocken mountain and it’s the insane droning that guides the Elder Gods when they come to reclaim their rightful dominion on earth. It is depression and cheerfulness, misery and hope, darkness and light.

Which sort of mood produces the best songs?
I write my best (and worst) lyrics when I’m completely pissed off about something. I get completely absorbed by this emotion and inspiration just flows out for one reason or another. I also get a lot of ideas when I’m in a reading mood. For instance: after I finished H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘Haunter of the Dark’ I wrote the lyrics to the eponymous song in about 30 minutes. The fact that I keep notes on everything I read does help, though.

Which instrument will surely NEVER be heard on a Saille-album?
We try not to limit ourselves on what we want to include in the future, but I guess it’s safe to say turntables will not be a part of Saille any day soon. The urban vibe doesn’t really suit us.

Which record would you want to listen to when you leave the bathroom in the morning, while the beautiful girl from last night is still in your bed?
Something from Mötley Crüe or Steel Panther would be the cliché answer to that, but I’d select Burzum (Hvis Lyset Tar Oss) or Darkthrone (A Blaze in the Northern Sky) over glamrock any day. A girl that wakes up with those sounds and doesn’t leave all of a sudden might be considered a keeper.

The Fairy-Godmother pops up in front of you and grants you a wish. What do you wish for?
The ultimate wish, the one that renders all other wishes useless, is the ability to control all matter in this and any other universe. But if you consider that cheating, I’d go for a long life that’s worth living and influences generations to come. As the Hávamál says: “Cattle die, kinsmen die, you yourself die; I know one thing which never dies: the judgment of a dead man’s life.”. A decent legacy is the only way true immortality is granted.

No alcohol is no solution either. What booze combination will definitely dissolve all your troubles and issues?
Alcohol is fucked up and people shouldn’t do this. And I realize this makes me sound like a fucking hypocrite, because I’m a straight edge dropout that occasionally likes to get wasted so I can cope with living in this society.

What shows you that someone is a true friend?
I can be a total disaster when it comes to keeping in touch with people and it’s possible you won’t hear from me for weeks or even months. I realize some people take this personal and that saddens me, because it has nothing to do with me not liking them or something like that. It’s just me, I’ve always had this solitary streak and I don’t think it will ever completely fade away. This being said: if you consider me a friend now and still consider me one after weeks or months of complete silence I will probably set myself on fire out of gratitude for your loyalty. That’s true friendship for me and in the last 15 years Kurt Vanoppen from Disinterred has proven on several occasions that this is not just wishful thinking.

Who was the hero of your childhood?
I never really gave this much thought, but if I had to pick anyone I’d say Paul van Loon. He’s a Dutch writer who is famous for his horror tales for kids and he’s solely responsible for getting me into horror literature and movies, the paranormal and the occult. His stories even have Lovecraftian influences and characters. I just now realize that our previous album ‘Eldritch’ should have been dedicated to Paul, because without him it simply wouldn’t exist in it’s current form. Anyway, recently I started buying his works again, so when I have children of my own I can ‘gently’ push them into reading the same books I did when I was a child.

What is the most embarrassing/surprising record in your CD-shelf?
I’m not easily embarrassed by things I really like, so I had to search my collection for something mentionable. The only things I believe that fall into the category “I can explain somehow, really! Okay, I can’t.” are Lady Gaga and Tiësto. What most people find surprising is that I love country and I really adore the one Hank Williams Sr. vinyl record I have.

What’s next? Tour? Studio? Vacation? Something completely different?
We’re currently writing working on our 4th album, which will be recorded around September and which we hope to release early in 2017. We also have a great selection of shows coming up, several of them in Germany, and hope to do some touring next year. Nothing different, only bigger, better and harder.
2017 will be ours.
Fuck the world.

Links :

http://www.saille.be​

http://www.facebook.com/saillemetal​

https://www.youtube.com/user/saillemetal​

Saille bei SchwarzesBayern http://schwarzesbayern.info/cd-saille-eldritch/​

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