Guitarist Mark O’Reilly of Irish metal merchants Sectile threw some words at us. We caught them and, amazingly, they landed in this order…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are from the humble town of Dublin, Ireland! Although, two of the band members are originally from Brazil, and one is from London, but we all live here now.
How did you meet?
Myself and the bass player Cormac are actually long time friends, we’ve known each other since school. We’ve always shared similar musical tastes and timing became right to start a band, so we hunted online and found our singer Gabriel and eventually our drummer Zachary. We’ve had a few people fill the other guitar position since then but our current partner-in-crime is Marcelo!
How long have you been playing as a band?
Since November 2016. When we met Gabriel our collaboration actually remained online for the first couple of months as we tracked down a drummer. We were just sharing demos and ideas, getting a feel for what we were going for. Once we found Zachary we started to head into the rehearsal studio.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
We actually like this question! The name comes from the term ‘Opus Sectile’ which is an ancient technique of arranging cut pieces of wood or stone into walls and floors to make an image. The “sectility” of something is its ability to be cut into pieces. We liked this artistic description, there is a cool contrast between creating art via the somewhat destructive act of cutting, felt perfect for a prog metal band.
What are your influences?
Depends what mood we’re in! But really, when discussing musical ideals we so often come back to bands like Leprous, Pain of Salvation, The Ocean, Porcupine Tree, Black Peaks, Opeth, Mastodon, Hacride, Ihsahn, and Symphony X.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Progressive metal, or even metal in general nowadays, has taught us how important it is to have balance in music. We always wanted our music to be equal parts challenging and alluring, and we try to achieve that through combining the elements of more technical metal with the more emotive characteristics of music in general. We never wanted to go overboard with the flashy prog stuff, we wanted it to act as a contrast to a catchy chorus, or an emotional soundscape, or a straight groove, and so on. We think we’ve struck this balance fairly well, and it’s really what we’ve always wanted from the genre.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
I wouldn’t say there is any central theme to our lyrics, but our singer Gabriel is the band’s lyricist and I know he is heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft’, the Hyperion books, and others like Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. Our lyrics do not necessarily make those references obvious, but they sometimes serve as metaphors for some of the darker and complex aspects of the human psyche that we want to approach on the songs.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
We’ve played many shows since we started, the vast majority of them being here in Ireland. We believe our live show compliments our music well, we do what we can to let the music speak for itself but when things are energetic, we are too. We may not bounce off the walls like some metalcore bands, but again, we feel it’s something that needs to be balanced. Gabriel is our frontman and his number one influence is Bruce Dickinson, with that in mind you can imagine he keeps the energy high throughout the set.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
I went to go see Sunn O))) when they came to Dublin. Volume of the music made my teeth clatter together and I couldn’t see two feet in front of me from all the smoke. Not sure how we would top that.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
At the moment, for both recording and live shows, I am using a Caparison Dellinger II FX-AM into an Atomic Amplifire 12. A very versatile and portable rig. Sound great too! There is a model of the Friedman HBE on the Atomic that sounds phenomenal. I also have a Peavey 6505+ that I use occasionally at gigs and rehearsals, but lately I’ve felt like I needed to give my clean tone more attention. At home I also have some Ibanez guitars, and a PRS Custom 24 which is a wonderful guitar.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
Our album! Our first full-length record, Falls Apart, is out on February 25th. It is an amalgamation of an enormous amount of songwriting over the past year and we couldn’t be happier with the results. We really feel like it a solid representation of what we’re trying to achieve as a band and we’re very proud. We really want to share it with as many people as we can!
What are your plans for 2020, into 2021?
I think our album is going to be our main focus. We are always writing when we get together but we really want to push as hard as we can with this album and get as much feedback on it as we possibly can. So, we’re going to promote it and play as many gigs with it as we are physically able to!
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
Our dream band to play with would be Leprous, purely for the fact we could ask them how they come up with all of their ideas! In terms of our neighbourhood there is a phenomenal Irish metal band called God Alone, amazing live performers and I highly recommend people check them out.
From previous Band of the Day Muscular Child: Dave Grohl, Mick Jagger, Prince – Who would you kiss, who would you marry and who would you kill?
Kill Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl, kiss and marry Prince. Haha!
From another BotD, Vanity: If you could go back in time and tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?
I wish I learnt guitar in tandem with being in a band, there is so much I’ve learnt about the instrument from playing with other people that one simply cannot get out of playing in their bedroom
And from Charly&Faust: What’s your underwear colour?
Who said I’m wearing underwear?
