“It wasn’t fading away like we all thought it would. “I started to think maybe Saetia would never play." “But time kept on passing and people still wanted to see us,” Werner says. “Then Covid happened,” Adam Marino, the positive guitar charge to Behar’s negative polarity, adds. I thought, ‘Another middle aged white guy doesn’t need to be up there screaming about shit.’” "Another middle aged white guy doesn’t need to be up there screaming about shiT" And then, when it was clear that people really wanted Saetia to come back, I felt that my time had passed and I wanted to make room for this generation, who are so aware of the importance of elevating unheard voices. “At first it was like, I just want to continue to grow and try new things. Also, am I supposed to be the hot-shot surgeon? Because I’m an OB/GYN.” “For 21 years, I was a hard no,” Werner says. “I was in two bands while I was in medical school. “Oh god no, I never stopped playing music,” Behar says. Doing this has gotten me through.” This begs the question, if things are so goddamn good, then why haven’t Saetia played, even once, in the 23 years since they broke up? Word is-around the CREEM offices at least-that one of the members is some kind of hot-shot surgeon and doesn’t have any time to play guitar. In the 20-something years I’ve known him, I’ve heard Behar exasperated, sarcastic, dismissive, delighted, and thankful, sometimes in the span of a single sentence. So when he speaks, it’s clear he knows exactly what the fuck he’s talking about. He is the only member aside from Werner that was in every lineup of the band from beginning to end. Everything that happens in Saetia happens within the bounds of our two polarized sides.” Behar speaks like he plays guitar, stringing together forceful sentiments and slicing insightful asides in a barrage of sound until the thought is complete and he falls silent, having said everything he needed to say. Adam is the opposite end of the magnet from me. Colin, who’s playing bass, is a better musician now than he ever was. All the little musical cues we developed over the years are still there.
Played for 10 years with him in Off Minor.
“I love playing with our drummer, Steve Roche. We’re talking every day again.” “We just did six hours in the studio in late May and it was fucking fantastic,” Jamie Behar, one of Saetia’s two guitarists, cuts in. “It happened so fast,” Werner tells CREEM about the reunion over Zoom. The band ruled, and they didn’t stick around long enough to start sucking How is this all possible for a little DIY band from twenty years ago? It really boils down to one simple reason: the band ruled, and they didn’t stick around long enough to start sucking. Critics have claimed that the band “accidentally defined a subgenre.” A generation of younger bands have grown up, wanting to be the next Saetia. Subreddits have popped up to debate whether it was the musical dynamism of the band or vocal expressionism of Werner that made Saetia the best band of the pre-skramz underground.
Closed hands saetia full#
Despite producing only one full length record and a pair of 7” singles in their two-and-a-half year lifespan as a band (1997-1999), Saetia’s stature has only grown in the 23 intervening years. Twenty Three years after their last show, at the collectivist artspace ABC No Rio, Saetia is back.Īnd people are losing their shit. Then three shows at Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus, which will benefit the Global Action for Trans Equality, sold out in less than a minute. You probably didn’t even know Saetia was back together. This is his nightly ritual, his test to see if he can still keep up with his bandmates after a double-decade break. You don’t know that it’s Billy Werner-the singer of the short-lived but hugely-influential screamo band Saetia-in the driver’s seat, screaming at the top of his lungs. It arrives in a war of rubber and metal hurdling past you.
Suddenly, a scream comes across the night. The road is dark and quiet, but there’s a glimmer of light at the horizon and a distant voice gaining in pitch and volume, growing more intense as twinned headlights get brighter and closer. You’re standing on the shoulder of I-76, just outside of Philadelphia.
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