After the release of their amazing third full-length album, the Portuguese band GAEREA went on a tour around Europe together with GAAHL’S WYRD and WINTERFYLLETH. Given the chance of the recent album release and the upcoming shows in Athens and Thessaloniki, we had the chance to discuss with the singer and frontman of GAEREA Guillerme Henriques, about “Mirage” and his thoughts about the band in general...
-First of all hello and welcom to THEGALLERY.GR! I would like you to introduce your band to our readers…
Guilherme Henriques: We are GAEREA, we come from Portugal and we play Black Metal. Now, we are here in Stockholm on the last show of this amazing tour with GAAHL’S WYRD and WINTERFYLLETH.
-I was curious about what GAEREA means so I did a little research and turns out it means “the night” in the Bask language. Is this correct?
Guilherme Henriques: I don’t know! It’s a name we invented in 2016 and I don’t know if it means anything in Bask, but is it “night”, you said? Well, at least it’s not a silly word! For is the same thing as with sigil, we wanted something that means “us” in the long term and people will just say the name or see the sigil and know exactly what it is.
-This brings us to the next question about what does the sigil on stage and on the masks mean?
Guilherme Henriques: It means “us”. It means GAEREA. The first sigil we had which is the same as the one on the masks is basically a redrawing of the Asmoday sigil from Goetia which is something that made sense in the beginning of the band, on the first EP, but it is something we have never changed because it brings us to the roots of the beginning even though the band is not a ritualistic band at this point. Not that it ever was, but it is something that was connected to the concept of the first EP. Regardless, I will never change it because I like to have some points in the things we still do that bring me to the beginning of the band. It’s important to hold on to the roots.
-Let’s talk about Mirage now. I personally found it amazing, also wrote a review on our portal but I want to hear from you what was the inspiration for this record and especially the lyrical theme of it.
Guilherme Henriques: Oh that’s a vast answer! It’s basically a continuation of what we started in 2018 with the “Unsettling Whispers” album, continued on the “Limbo” album and again it’s just an evolution of the same concept from a different perspective. In a more grown-up, more visual way of the whole vortex society, a world we created for us, which is vastly inspired by the world we live in, by people we see, people we meet on the road, on the studio, on our daily lives and just place them exactly in our world. It’s a very utopian take of today’s society, a fictional world for us but it’s something that certainly has truthful moment in today’s world and “Mirage” is exactly this. It takes 8-9 characters of people we know or have met before and places them in these different scenarios in the same city where they struggle with loneliness, well solitude not just loneliness, suicide depression and the will to get something out of their condition which in the end could be liberation or death.
-To me, we live in such times that everyone fights their own demons so within these 9 characters we can certainly find things like “damn this speaks for me”.
Guilherme Henriques: Yeah could be. This is something amazing because often people come to us and say that this music or certain song helped me through this moment, I relate to it. Of course, it happens however it’s not something I’m thinking of because, for me, it’s a kind of a selfish thing to create music. I’m creating for myself, for my own struggles and my own demons, as you said, and if when the music is released it reaches other people and they take it on their own terms and they just make it their own, that’s part of releasing music. Because, once you release something it’s not yours anymore, it’s for the world to enjoy and interpret at their own image and experiences. So yea, if people relate to that, one it’s amazing, two it’s not music made for other people in that specific way, but again I am very happy that people read the lyrics and find ways to relate to them because in the end it’s everything you want. Every artist wants to be understood, even if people don’t get exactly 100% what was going on in your mind when you created it, which never happens, but it’s still amazing for people to let themselves go with the music and discover something else about their own.
-Do you agree then to my comment that “Mirage” is not the album you will listen in the gym, but you rather need to be focused and pay attention to what this album has to say?
Guilherme Henriques: I would say so, yeah. It is quite a deep album which will not listen in casual occasions with friends or at the gym or whatever. I don’t see bands like us that way. Of course, there are other bands that you would, but I think it’s a very intimate take on a person’s soul and a person’s thoughts and it should be something that you need to be careful about when you listen to it. Take the time to understand it, to find the small details because it is music with a lot of layers and it is something that in the first hearing you don’t get the whole thing. More like in the 4th or 5th that you start to hear other elements and that’s the beauty of the music we do cause we layer it a lot with small details here and there because I want people to take their time to discover them. So yea again, I agree it’s not music to the gym but still if you feel like doing it is pretty much ok because it is a very aggressive and intense music with blastbeats every now and then so yes..
-This is actually a very common theme in the album going from very melodic parts to extreme outbursts with blastbeats.
Guilherme Henriques: Yes, it’s supposed to have the dynamics that “Limbo” didn’t have, “Limbo” didn’t need to have those dynamics and we have grown up as musicians, as people and as artists and we discovered that you don’t need to be the fastest all the time but sometimes you need to be minimalistic with your music and just have this blistering sound that just develops into something very beautiful, eery, very minimalistic which is one or two notes and just let the atmosphere settle by itself. It is something we’ve learnt to master a bit in our sound and I am very happy that the album has this sorts of dynamics because it’s really helps us to portrait this vibe, this script, this idea of the song in a more conceptualized way.
-Then I would like to discuss a little about your performance on stage both personally and as band. This is the second time I see you live and I can tell that you don’t only sing on stage, you do way more than that.
Guilherme Henriques: Well, we are all doing way more than just performing the songs. For us, and me personally this is only moments in my life that I can exactly be myself and portrait exactly what’s going on in my mind because it’s feel like a more liberated way of just be myself, so it’s 40 minutes in this case of pure emotional performance. Very aggressive, very intense, not safe at all for us but at the same time is exactly how it should be with extreme music. Some of our favourite artists are like that, and that’s what I love with extreme music. Not just acting the performance but feeling it to the bone. That’s exactly what we do in this band and that’s what touches people’s hearts sometimes the way we do it, because for us it’s a very natural thing to feel music that way.
-To conclude our talk maybe there is something you want to say to the Greek fans. You have a couple of live shows in Greece soon.
Guilherme Henriques: Yes! We are finally going to Greece which is something we always wanted to do. I know we have a good amount of people that follows us there but it’s something that we always struggle, to find a good moment to go there so we are just happy to be able to play in Thessaloniki and Athens in February. It’s going to be fucking amazing because it’s one of those countries that you don’t often go much because it is a hard country to tour. European tours rarely go to Greece because it’s so far, so we are very happy to do it, it will be amazing for sure.
-I can imagine that since you are going to be headlining people can expect at least a longer show than what we saw here today.
Guilherme Henriques: Definitely a longer show, a few more surprises, during the show, some new songs that we’ve never played and for the rest we need to see what unfolds after what we need to do this year. It’s a bit early to say exactly what is going to happen next year but it will surely be something special because we want to level up all the game for next year. I can only tell it will be amazing!
-With that I would like to thank you for your time and wish all the best to you and the band!
Guilherme Henriques: Thank you, it’s been a pleasure! Just go back in and enjoy GAAHL’S WYRD, I’ll see you there.
Interview: Dimitris Georgouvelas
Translation/Rendering in English: Dimitris Georgouvelas
Cover Artwork: Giorgos Tsilingaridis
Design & Editing: Kostas Boudoukos
Photos: Catarina Rocha, Joao Fitas
Date: January 30th, 2022
External Link: GAEREA – Official Page
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