Interview with Nino Sable
Nino Sable is known as singer of his band AEON SABLE and from his former solo project MELANCULIA. He grew up between Portugal and Germany and played in a lot of bands in both countries. Now he started his own solo project. Nino released his songs monthly, starting in January 2021, so until now there is enough material for an album. After listening to his beautiful, dark and melancholic songs I was curious to know more about him. Now I had the chance to talk to Nino about his personal history, his musical influences, his plans with the solo project and his ideas about an album.
Reflections of Darkness [RoD]: Why did you decide to focus on your solo project now?
Nino: With my band AEON SABLE everything is stuck at the moment somehow. It has its own structures and I wanted to be totally free. If I feel like releasing a song on a Tuesday at 1:12 pm I want to do it because it works exactly at this moment. I don’t want to be dependent on others. And I always did other projects besides, like MELANCULIA for example. But now I stopped everything except AEON SABLE and I started focussing on my solo project. On top of that, the times of the pandemic began und nothing was possible anymore. But I was really inspired at that time. In that way it was a great time for me actually! There were no events anymore and I had a lot of time. As we had problems with our studio as well I thought: Okay, I will do it all on my own. I learned how to produce songs and did a kind of an auditive training. I have studied the relevant computer programmes a lot and I had really much fun!
RoD: How did the idea of releasing one song per month on the platform BandCamp come about?
Nino: About one year ago I was in Portugal and on my way back I had an idea. I always have an idea when I go back from there! This time my idea was releasing an album with twelve songs and to release one song every month. This is how it came about. And after that the listeners should have the opportunity to decide what they would like to have on a medium and on what kind of medium. I want to do surveys which tracks people want to hear and then produce a haptic collection of the songs. But I am not absolutely sure about it yet. Maybe I have to release everything I did, I don’t know. I would like to do a vinyl record, but that’s a question of money. In any case there will be an album!
RoD: Do you go on with AEON SABLE despite your solo project?
Nino: Yes, I go on with the band, there are quite a few plans. But I cannot talk about it specifically yet. There are big things to come!
RoD: How did you as an artist experience the times of the pandemic? How difficult was it to go on without live gigs and without other people around you?
Nino: For me it was totally relaxed. Even in my normal life I had problems being everywhere all the time. Of course you want to go out with your friends and all that but due to Corona I sat on the computer all the time and worked on my solo project.
RoD: Your songs sound quite dark, very melancholic. Can you tell me something about the lyrics?
Nino: I think every artist has a kind of fundus in which he moves. In my past I listened a lot of Black Metal. This music has shaped me very much. And then the mystic side came - I was very much into that, and that shapes you a lot of course and influences your view of the world. I took all that in my tracks, of course they are also stories of my life. But normally it’s not that I have a special idea when I do the dishes or something (laughs), I never get a cool idea suddenly. What I do is starting my computer and I start from the scratch. I am in exchange with the software, with the music program. I programme a beat, a bass, and then I see where the feeling goes to. That’s where I add the synths and vocals at the end. So basically my songs are created in front of the computer. And after that at some point the track talks to me and says “that’s what I am called, that’s the message“. That‘s how the lyrics come. When I work on a song I go through with it very strict. In a good phase I create a song in two or three hours.
RoD: Where are your musical roots, when and how did you start making music?
Nino: I started making music in the 90ies, when I was a teenager, about 16 or 17 years old. It was a great time for Black Metal. And suddenly I wanted to do it, too. I tried to do something with my guitar. I still have a cassette with all my crazy tracks from that time, but I still haven’t found it yet (laughs). But actually my instrument has always been my voice. I tried to learn instruments and I tried to play guitar a bit, but I wouldn’t say I really can play it.
RoD: Did you grow up with music? How important was music in your family?
Nino: Yes, I grew up with music. My parents were music maniacs, they loved it and listened to music every day. They also liked metal very much, I think my dad is the biggest METALLICA fan of the world. I guess if he only had twelve Euro to buy a record and had to decide between Nino Sable and METALLICA I would be the loser (laughs).
RoD: What kind of music did you listen to when you were a teenager? Who inspired you?
Nino: I liked Metal and Grunge, Bands like NIRVANA, GUNS N’ROSES, PANTERA, SEPULTURA and all that.
RoD: What does music mean to you?
Nino: Music is the blood of my soul.
RoD: Which concert have you seen as a fan that you will never forget?
Nino: I attend very few concerts. When I was young I said I will not go to a concert before I will be on stage myself. That was a good and a bad decision. So I have hardly seen any concerts and nowadays I don’t like attending live gigs very much. I never want to be in the situation that somebody says “look, he copies all that from someone”. But I did have a magic moment while attending a concert. It was in Portugal, where I lived. There was a circus tent at Easter where several bands played over three days. It was awesome, so ecstatic! One day there was a Portuguese band called PRIMITIVE REASON. They played a kind of Ska-Metal-Doom mix and it was so crazy - I had never heard anything like that before! That was a concert I will never forget.
RoD: You grew up between Portugal and Germany. How did that come? Where do you feel more at home?
Nino: When I was five years old I moved with my parents to Portugal. I really had a beautiful childhood there, we lived in different areas and cities and moved several times. In 1999 I came back to Germany, but always when I come to Portugal I feel at home there. Unfortunately I experienced some negative things in Germany when I came back. Things like mobbing or racism for example. I hadn’t known that before. And the friendliness, this open-mindedness I knew from Portugal, was missing in Germany. And that makes me really sad.
RoD: Is there a place where you have never performed, but where you really want to play?
Nino: I absolutely want to go to America. I sell a lot of my own songs there, but I have never been there in my life. That would be the fulfilment of my dreams.
RoD: What makes the USA so fascinating for you?
Nino: It’s the way people think there. I guess it could work out very well for me and I could work there more easily. I am sure I would get in touch with other artists very fast. We speak the same language. I experienced that when I met many people from there online.
RoD: Apart from your music you do other things - you are very creative in graphic design, you have your own monthly radio show on Terra Relicta Radio where you introduce other artists who inspire you - and the music you play there is new, one or two months old at most. How do you combine all that?
Nino: I don’t know where I find the time (laughs). Graphic design is what I learned but I only use it for my projects. My live radio show, the Nino Sable Show, is very much work but it is almost finished now. I only do two more shows, on the last Sundays of November and December. By the way, here we come back to my own monthly releases. My idea was to release a new song of my own at the end of every show. That’s what I did. This song was released at that moment on all platforms and I started the promotion work for it in parallel. That was really exhausting!
RoD: On November 27th 2021 you will play the festival Dark Skies over Witten with STAR INDUSTRY, RASKOLNIKOV, ISLA OLA and ANOTHER_TALE. Are there any other live shows planned?
Nino: For this year it’s the only show - unless a miracle happens. But then our band and our crew is ready, we put together a really great team. Diane from LA SCALTRA will join us for example, Lars from SWEET ERMENGARDE and Axel from HOUSE OF USHER. We have the lighting and sound engineers from AEON SABLE with us and I think it will be great!
RoD: Thank you very much for the interview!
https://ninosable.bandcamp.com
All pictures by Zerosusi Klak
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