Interview: Saille (BE)

Black Metal band from Belgium, Saille, have always been one of Lachryma Christi's favorite bands. They were number one of one of the yearly tops, and it is always a pleasure to review their releases. On the 13th of march, Saille released a new album called Gnosis. You can find the review here: http://lachrymachristizine.blogspot.pt/2017/02/review-sailles-upcoming-album-gnosis.html 
Gnosis is a lot different from the other albums, much heavier than the previous ones.
However, this time, Lachryma Christi had the opportunity of interviewing Saille, so keep reading to see what's going on, and to see what Dennie has to tell us. 

Saille is a very interesting name. From what we could find, it comes from the old Irish alphabet, Ogham, and it means willow. What does this word mean to you, as a band name?

You’re completely right about the meaning and old Irish alphabet! But to be honest, the name was originally chosen because it sounded pretty. It doesn’t have a real deeper meaning and is in no way connected to the band’s core message. In a way it’s a shame, I like it when the band name reflects the band, it adds to the whole. But, yeah, it is how it is and we’ve grown attached to the name, so it’s not like we’re going to change it to fit a certain concept.

How does your new album “Gnosis” differ from the previous ones, and where did you get the inspiration for it?

For starters, it’s a harder album. We’ve been aiming towards a more guitar oriented sound for a couple of albums now, but always had this thing or that thing holding us back. The departure of Dries (keys) and replacement of Jonathan (guitar) created an opportunity to finally push through several big changes (and we’re not done yet). The songs are more dissonant and harder, there’s less keyboard and the overall idea is more, ehm, holistic?
Concerning lyrics, for ‘Ritu’ and ‘Eldritch’ album I continued the line Dries (together with Filip from Gorath/Hemelbestormer) started with ‘Irreversable Decay’, one concept per album with a general ‘Beauty of Destruction’ band concept. Real nice and all, but for a band concept it’s quite weak imo, especially since I expect other black metal bands to have a strong core idea. For ‘Gnosis’ we updated the band concept, while trying to stay in line with everything we did so far: handing out ideas to the listener. The album concept and its Promethean/Luciferian theme is completely in line with this, without trying to make a pseudo religious/satanic band out of Saille. Most of us are atheist/agnostics, so that would be quite fake anyway.

How does the composing process work for Saille? Has it changed along the time?

It hasn’t. We’ve always created songs at home and use the internet to communicate and pass feedback to each other. The most practical way, I guess, since we live all over Belgium (which isn’t that impressive since it’s only 300 km wide, but still) and we barely see each other. And when we do we don’t jam, so no new songs there. Recording also happens this way, since all of us have some basic studio experience and the necessary computer software and hardware.

Do you get influenced by reviews you read about your albums? Does it change anything in the way you write or compose next time?

We try to read as much reviews as possible and try to get as much as possible out of it, without letting it guide us too much. In the end, we do what we want, but we’re not deaf to a healthy dose of critique. When someone says the guitar sound isn’t great or the songs are too long, we’ll review it and try to improve it, IF we agree. When someone else says we suck because we sound like festival black metal the guy can go fuck himself. We have no time for subjective shitposting.

Currently, are there any bands influencing what you’re doing?

Hundreds of bands, haha. I’m convinced that every band is the sum of the bands the individual members are influenced by. For Saille, this is extremely diverse, since each of us has a pretty different background (although black and death metal are a constant for each of us, but even that creates room for internal discussion about sub-sub-genres). Early Saille was apparently influenced by bands like Keep of Kalessin, Limbonic Art and Tartaros (or so every interview before 2014 says), but I guess bands like Behemoth, Shining (the Swedish one, not that shitty Norwegian band), Watain, Emperor and even Carcass are more important than those first three now.

Is there any band or artist you would like to share a stage?

Once again, this differs for every member, but everyone, except for me, would get an instant hard-on if Saille would share a bill with Meshuggah, haha. I wouldn’t mind sharing a stage with Attila Csihar. Best voice EVER in the entire history of black metal. Or a solo played by Selim Lemouchi from The Devil’s Blood, even though that’s never going to happen.

Which country do you enjoy more playing live?

*Cliché alert* We enjoy playing everywhere. But seriously, the 2 greatest countries for playing live are probably Germany and The Netherlands, great crowds and great venues! Especially the Backstage in München blew our minds! But we welcome every country to try and disprove that by doing better, haha!

Are there any words you would like to say to your fans reading this interview?

Thank you so much if you’re still reading at this point! Our new album ‘Gnosis’ is out now and is available on Spotify or iTunes and can be ordered at our web shop or that of our wonderful label Code666/Aural Music! Please talk to your local organiser about getting us there, we’re not stopping until we’ve been all over the world and we need your help for that!

Line up:

Reinier Schenk - guitars
Collin Boone- guitars
Dennie Grondelaers - vocals
Kristof Van Iseghem - bass
Kevin De Leener - drums


You can find more information about Saille here:

https://www.facebook.com/saillemetal/