Interview with Saskia

November 13th 2006

Morning is a Dutch band with her roots in Limburg, which can be found in the lower part of the country, close to the German border. Up to now the band has released a couple of demos and one full-length album, filled with a mixture of slightly tainted progressive gothmetal and to Soilwork related metalcore. Even before the album ‘Hour Of Joy’ saw the light in 2004 the band was already touring extensively throughout the whole country and could be found on a regularly basis at local festivals. At the same time the stage was shared with relatively well-known names such as Epica and After Forever.
A sunny future seemed to lay ahead, but then fate struck merciless when shortly after the release of the debut album the Greek label that had taken the band under her wings in a rather unfortunate way simply ceased to be. But the six members refused to give in and stuck together as a team. They kept working hard on their new material and just recently they figured as the opening act for Delain, a new Dutch band with a rapidly rising star.

Pivot of the band is without a doubt Saskia van Heugten, a driven, social, somewhat insecure, young woman as she says herself, who draws immediate attention with her powerful, almost enchanting vocals. She was the one who decided to start a band in the summer of 2000.
“I was still in highschool at the time and sang for two hours a week in the schoolchoir. That’s how I met our drummer Mauro and I asked him if he felt like playing in a band. That was the actual beginning of Morning. At a certain moment Stijn and Pol joined in, a while later followed by Martijn and Bas; and that’s the way it stayed.”

The love and passion for music came to Saskia at a very young age. Together with her dad she could sit for hours and hours beside a small taperecorder, holding a microphone, recording all sorts of stuff. In the meantime she would listen to bands such as Roxette and surprisingly enough Michael Jackson.
“That’s indeed where it all started with. Later on I started listening to rockacts with female singers in it and then I got to know The Gathering through my cousin, and that completely blew me off my feet. I went to the local musicstore right away to look for their albums and that way I got to know a lot of bands that made music that appealed to me. A couple of years ago, for instance, I came in touch with the music of Beth Hart. In my opinion she’s a great artist who makes an extremely pure form of rockmusic. Just love it. Would really like to work with her some time because of the purity within her music. It’s something I would like to achieve within a band myself.”

From the first moment that she stood upon a stage in a small cafe in her hometown Susteren, Saskia got a tremendous kick out of performing live. Not only because of the interaction with the audience, but surely also because you never can tell how the people will react to the show.
“It really is fantastic to stand in front of a big crowd and get carried away by an overwhelming applause. It’s also great if you succeed in enrapturing each and everyone.”

Reading all of this, one could easily come to the conclusion that working in the studio is not something that’s looked upon with a lot of enthusiasm. But such is not the case.
“I love that as well. It is an amazing feeling when after recording a track you can hear the whole thing back, worked up into a complete song with all the instruments tuned into balance. Basically everything’s already preset when we go into the studio, but the moment we’ve recorded the basis of the song, there’s usually room to try out different things, and then at times it’s a big surprise to listen to the final result.”

If possible, the band likes to stay in control of her own affairs. So far nobody has been brought in from the outside. Keybordplayer Stijn takes care of finding them new gigs and the music and lyrics are selfwritten. Most of these lyrics come from Saskia. Inspiration she finds in stuff that’s on her mind at certain times in her life.
“Lyrics are often a reflection of my thoughts and emotions and therefore very intimate. I usually take into account what I’m going to write about but only to see if it runs smooth enough to sing. Basically there are no subjects I avoid. But I can choose to put the words in such a way that they can mean a lot of things. That way a song doesn’t necessarily have to be about one specific subject, its meaning can change as times goes by, to me anyway. And for those who listen to my music, they will also be able to give their own meaning to a particular song. But having said all that, I do think it’s important to pay attention to how you put things. If you can hurt people with the things you say, it’s better to think twice before you do so.”

Looking back to the beginning of the band in comparison with now, it’s all too clear things have changed. Musically as well as technically progress has been made, which is of great importance to Saskia.
“Absolutely. Once you stop growing as a musician, you should consider quitting the business. At least for me there would be no challenge left anymore, don’t fancy becoming a slave to the grind. Together with the rest of Morning I want to keep growing as a band. I’m therefore really looking forward to recording the new songs we have written and performing them live on stage. As far as that’s concerned, there’s still a big challenge ahead of us.”

The answer is now up to the record labels to pick up the band for a chance to record the follow up to the debut.

www.morning.nl

Interview by Bas Kanij