Interview with:Ellen Schutyser
Bruno Goedhuys
Sengir has been well known for their solid play for a couple of years. They’ve had a real breakthrough when they did a couple of shows together with Trisomy and Epica at smaller venues. The album ‘Guilty Water’ is well received and the band is working hard on new material. All in all enough reasons to have a chat with front lady Ellen and drummer Bruno in the dressing room at Tivoli where they are, again, opening for Epica. The band just recently performed at the Metal Female Voices Festival and could use some rest. They are welcoming and the mood for the interview is promising.
The New Album
Ellen: “At this moment we are composing our new album and tonight we will showcase some of the new songs. We will try to hit the studios in April and try out a few new songs tonight to see how they will be received.”
Isn’t it rather soon after the release of your debut album in 2003? Ellen: “Yes for the audience it might have gone quickly, but we recorded our debut album already back in 2001. That’s how we got ourselves a record deal. It most definitely is time for something new.”
What I noticed during the Metal Female Voices festival is that the new songs appear to be rough on the edges. Ellen: “Indeed we are changing our style. We have a new drummer, Bruno, and a new keyboard player, Wim and they both bring new influences.
It seems that, because of the many changes in line-up since 1995, it was difficult to create your own sound. Ellen: “Yes that is true, because every new member brings his own style and sound. We’ve had some difficulties with our previous keyboard player, because his style was very different from ours, but we’ve managed. We are still developing our own style and sound, we want more vocals and other sounds. But we do match together well as a group and I do believe that we are inspired enough.”
Ellen speaks softly but very articulated. The rest of the band sits around the table and now and then they speak up. Wearing a red turtleneck jumper she appears very regular and it is weird to think of her on stage full of energy. She is an interesting speaker and the interview is very relaxed. She is filled with new ideas and very willing to talk about them. Still she believes it is hard to maintain originality in an overcrowded Goth Metal Scene: “You’re supposed to create a style of your own in this scene, there are already so many bands who sound alike. In Belgium we are the only answer to the Dutch bands.” According to Ellen, Flanders is more focused on the Black Metal Scene and not as much on the Gothic Scene. “We actually were the only band, but nowadays more bands arise like Gracefallen, but there are only a few with a record deal.”
Guilty Water
Ellen still is pleased with the results of their debut album, although she’s very modest about it: “It hasn’t been too bad for us”. Bruno, the new drummer, on the other hand dares to thicken it. “All 1600 copies have been sold! That’s very nice.” While he smiles he adds that he will never stick numbers to it. Ellen starts to smile as well and apologizes immediately for the fact that it just is incredible fun to be able to make music as intense as they do. She remains very modest. “You can’t compare it to Epica, because our label is a lot smaller than theirs. In Belgium there are no labels that contract music like ours and who are able to put in money for it. The labels are either very large or very small.”
The New Album
Ellen: “At this moment we are composing our new album and tonight we will showcase some of the new songs. We will try to hit the studios in April and try out a few new songs tonight to see how they will be received.”
Isn’t it rather soon after the release of your debut album in 2003? Ellen: “Yes for the audience it might have gone quickly, but we recorded our debut album already back in 2001. That’s how we got ourselves a record deal. It most definitely is time for something new.”
What I noticed during the Metal Female Voices festival is that the new songs appear to be rough on the edges. Ellen: “Indeed we are changing our style. We have a new drummer, Bruno, and a new keyboard player, Wim and they both bring new influences.
It seems that, because of the many changes in line-up since 1995, it was difficult to create your own sound. Ellen: “Yes that is true, because every new member brings his own style and sound. We’ve had some difficulties with our previous keyboard player, because his style was very different from ours, but we’ve managed. We are still developing our own style and sound, we want more vocals and other sounds. But we do match together well as a group and I do believe that we are inspired enough.”
Ellen speaks softly but very articulated. The rest of the band sits around the table and now and then they speak up. Wearing a red turtleneck jumper she appears very regular and it is weird to think of her on stage full of energy. She is an interesting speaker and the interview is very relaxed. She is filled with new ideas and very willing to talk about them. Still she believes it is hard to maintain originality in an overcrowded Goth Metal Scene: “You’re supposed to create a style of your own in this scene, there are already so many bands who sound alike. In Belgium we are the only answer to the Dutch bands.” According to Ellen, Flanders is more focused on the Black Metal Scene and not as much on the Gothic Scene. “We actually were the only band, but nowadays more bands arise like Gracefallen, but there are only a few with a record deal.”
Guilty Water
Ellen still is pleased with the results of their debut album, although she’s very modest about it: “It hasn’t been too bad for us”. Bruno, the new drummer, on the other hand dares to thicken it. “All 1600 copies have been sold! That’s very nice.” While he smiles he adds that he will never stick numbers to it. Ellen starts to smile as well and apologizes immediately for the fact that it just is incredible fun to be able to make music as intense as they do. She remains very modest. “You can’t compare it to Epica, because our label is a lot smaller than theirs. In Belgium there are no labels that contract music like ours and who are able to put in money for it. The labels are either very large or very small.”
Touring
Ellen: “During the fall last year we played a lot together with Epica and it went very well. There is a difference but it still is the same genre. And I do believe that it is okay to be slightly different from the main act.” The whole band agrees that the shows have brought them more success. Ellen states: “People now seem to think we are a Dutch band.” The main focus of the band is in the direction of the Benelux and France. They are satisfied with the promotion but they do have a thing to add. Bruno emphasizes that: “Sengir has to gain from people who really want to see them going abroad more and make sure they do. As the money comes so do the promotion and your range will grow, at this moment all we have is word-to-mouth advertising.” Ellen: “The label wants us to do more live shows en we are happy that they want us to. We’re up and running and there is more interaction, which we have accomplished just by playing more.” Bruno interrupts her: “We are more focused.” Ellen: “Right now we rehearse twice a week approximately 3 hours per rehearsal continuously raising the bar.” Bruno: “We need to learn to ‘read’ each other more to exceed our level. It must grow and if you can motivate each other in a playful way and you gain results by it then it all works out.” Ellen: “I do believe we have progressed, because we are motivated and we gained good musicians.”
Sengir Factory
Ellen: “Our debut album actually was a compilation of songs over the past five years. I was 15 when I joined Sengir and from the start we wrote many songs which weren’t published ‘till later. Some weren’t for publication but there will always be a few which will last. Of course we did write some songs especially for the album.”
With the new album Ellen expects more cooperation: “With our previous album it was mainly the keyboard player who thought up the most, he came with ideas and we all joined in, but now every member has his own input. We even write songs online and at the rehearsal we put everything together. At the moment things are going very fast, except of course when you have no inspiration, you can’t force it. Yes, the ‘Sengir factory’ is running well.”
Ellen started early with the band and they have evolved. They used to play a lot in the Belgian regions, later on more abroad. Soon they had a concert in the Netherlands en became more professional. It has been something she always wanted. Highlights of the shows that have been done are the ones abroad. Ellen has enjoyed it a lot to have been able to play with Nightwish a couple of weeks earlier at the Metal Female Voices Festival in Brussels. Same goes for their gig with Epica in London. She would love to do that again in the near future. “Taking the tour bus through the Canal Tunnel and still we had a good weekend” the front lady smiles.
With the new album, Sengir hopes to have their own tour, but it’s more likely they will do a few ‘package gigs’ with a couple of Dutch bands. According to Ellen and Bruno it all depends on how well the album will be received. First they have set their priorities to head back into the studio en take their time for the new album. All in all the band is bubbling with enthusiasm en we can expect a lot from them in the future.
We would like to Thanks to the band, crew and Tivoli
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