Questions were answered by both Bart Piette (founder of Clophill) and Nick Van Dijck who later joined the band, this is their story...

When and how did you found Clophill? Is this a one-man project or are more individuals involved? 
P: Clophill began in 1998 as a soloproject. At the end of 1998 Pieter Gillard joined the band. Because of several problems with him Clophill became a soloproject again. In June 1999 Nick Van Dijck joined Clophill.
 
There seems to be a lot of confusion if it comes to the pronunciation of the bandname, which is to be pronounced as "Clop-hill". Whereof did you derive this name anyway? Is there a more profound meaning related with it? 
P: Clophill is the name of a village in England, near Bedfordshire. 20 years there was an extreme example of necromancy with the bones of a 200 year old corpse that had been exhumed.
 
BART PIETTE & NICK VAN DIJCK
 
You weren’t born walking I presume, so how exactly did you came in contact with similar styles of music or just with the dark-neo-classic-folk-… genre? 
P: It all started when I was listening to the radioprogram "Kagan". They played bands like The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, In Slaughter Natives and Raison d’être. A few months later The Black Cave organised the "Nights of the Abyss-festival I" and they invited In Slaughter Natives, TMLHBAC, Brighter Death Now, … and then I started to buy cd’s in that style.
N: When I joined Clophill, I only recently discovered the dark ambient/folk genre. I knew bands like Der Blutharsch, Death In June, Ordo Equilibrio from a friend who I chatted with over the internet.
 
What motivated you most to start making music yourself? How did this develop? 
P: In the beginning I made music just for fun. But a few years later I did it to express all my feelings, nightmares and experiences.
 
To which bands do people compare your music most, what would you compare it with? Could you give a proper description of your music? 
P: Most of all they compare us with Ordo Equilibrio. Sometimes they tell us we seem to be inspired by In Slaughter Natives, Mortiis or The Protagonist. The best description I can give to our music is cold industrial with many neoclassical and dark-ambient influences.
 
 
Do you also listen to other, maybe unrelated genres of music, what about favourite bands?  
P: Most of all I listen to bands like Hagalaz’ Runedance, TMLHBAC, Der Blutharsch, Institut, Puissance, … In fact I don’t like other styles of music.
N: I listen to electro, industrial, idm and a few other electronic and atmospheric styles.
 
Are personal feelings and experiences reflected within your music? Can you tell us about the sort of emotions you try to express? 
N: I think that music can sometimes be a good way to release negative emotions but many other personal feelings can be expressed too in Clophill.
 
How do you want the listeners to interpret it, is there a certain message that you like them to understand? 
N: Statements and opinions can be found in our music, but that doesn’t mean that the words of in our songs have to be taken literally. You won’t find very clear messages in our music.
 
So far you have just released one "demo"-tape, what isn’t clear to me is if it’s released by yourself or by a label, cause there’s no logo on it? Tell us something more about this first release? 
N: At first we sold our demo "Salve Vio" ourselves. Then Jonathan Kan from LSDO discovered our website and wanted to release that tape in a limited serie of boxed sets. It can be ordered at http://www.lsdo.com . There are also plans to put "Salve Vio" on LP and CD.
 
 
Is there an overall concept related to this first album? 
N: Not really.
 
I heard there are plans to do a release on LSDOrganisation in the future, what can you tell us about the progress in finding a label and so? 
P: LSDOrganistation released our first demo Salve-Vio in 37 copies on tape.


Some side-projects arose from Clophill, could you name all of them, tell what they specifically are and who is involved and so on, any planned releases as well, just everything you want to mention? 
P: AEGRIMONIA, Dead Man’s Hill and Shaitan Heals… are the projects of Bart Piette. AEGRIMONIA is a black-metalproject with influences of Limbonic Art, Tartarus and Marduk. Aegrimonia consists of 5 other members from Leuven. We already played with bands like Occult, Avulsed, Ancient Rites, Rule of Thumb, In-Quest, Excess of Cruelty, … We released 1 demotape in 1998 (Caede Humus Tepebat). Because of several problems with the line-up we didn’t had the chance to record something new. But I guess we’ll soon record something new. Dead Man’s Hill is a dark-ambient-neoclassical soloproject with influences like Aghast, Penitent, Elijah’s Mantle and X-Rossive. Dead Man’s Hill released already 5 demotapes (also a split-tape with Shaitan Heals …) but none of them are distributed very well. Most of the tapes are distributed between my friends. I’m also planning to send a tape to LSDOrganisations. Shaitan Heals… is a disturbed simplistic techno-samba-industrialproject without influences of bands. The music is dedicated to the power of LSD. Shaitan Heals … released 1 demotape (and 1 split-tape with DMH) Soon we’ll start with a neo-folkproject too with 2 other members from Leuven….
N: I have one solo project called ‘Ingress’. It’s more industrial/idm-oriented. It exists since early spring ’00, but I didn’t release anything yet. I would like to do concerts as soon as possible.
 
Well, this pretty much covers it for now I think, is there anything you’d like to add to this interview?
Please check out our website (which will be updated asap) http://go.to/clophill